A Gentleness Revolution — Kendra Patterson

This blog post is now a podcast episode!

Until I was nine years old, I went to a Montessori school where we weren’t allowed to use the word “hate.” We weren’t allowed to play any kind of game involving toy guns, or even pretend our hand was a gun. At home, I was allowed one hour of TV a week, Saturday morning cartoons (and probably only so my parents could sleep in haha). Violent non-cartoon shows were not allowed, even ones with staged sword fights. Sound extreme? Maybe.

At nine years old, I boarded the yellow bus for the very first time to go to public school. I instinctively walked down the aisle to the back – that’s where most of the kids were. And I learned that very first day that I did not belong there. It didn’t take long for those kids to realize I was different: soft, overly friendly, eager to please, naïve, open. I was like an alien among them. As for me, I came away with one overriding impression from that first bus ride and its twin later that day, when I sat at the front of the bus.

Kids are mean.

I can still feel my visceral shock at how mean those kids were. Not necessarily to me – for whatever reason I escaped any really bad bullying that first day (I suppose they simply didn’t know what to do with me) – but to each other. Riding the school bus became a daily exercise in inuring myself to extreme anxiety. And to some extent, that has followed me throughout my life. When I look out at the world, I see a very mean place. And it is mean. We live in an ungentle world, and for us gentle souls, it’s a painful place to be. And doubly so because the personality traits of gentle souls, and in particular our tender hearts, are viewed as weak and undesirable.

We live in a society where toughness, grit, determination, and aggressiveness are admired. I learned fast to hide those parts of myself that were kind, gentle, and sweet because they were met with derision and bullying. That kind of wound festers. To my shame, I occasionally turned that pain outward, even participating in a few instances of bullying myself. Like I said, kids are mean, and I wasn’t immune.

And grown-ups are mean, too. Gosh, they can be so mean. The only difference is that as a grown-up I now know that often the meanest ones are the most damaged.

You know what? I don’t want to be one of the mean ones. Even if all the cool kids are doing it. Not only that, I want to be the gentle, openhearted person I used to be. I don’t want to hide her away anymore, or try to convince myself that I need to toughen up even more to survive in the big girl world, or pretend I’m one of the cool kids who doesn’t give a shit, or coerce myself into believing that I’m supposed to be mean because after all I’m just speaking my truth and that’s how it’s done.

It’s not. That’s just one way it’s done. And it’s not my way. You do you. I’ll do me.

This is me: I want my world to be gentle. I want it to be a place where other gentle souls don’t have to brace themselves every moment against the inevitable meanness coming their way. I want to live in a kind world, and I think it’s possible. Does that sound eye-rollingly naïve? If it does, maybe take a look at your own wounds. We all start out as openhearted kids, looking out at the world with sweet and hopeful expectation. Most of us have that crushed in us. All of us have that school bus moment, when our eyes are opened to the truth. That people can be so mean. That we must protect ourselves, or join them in lashing out, or run away to hide, or… Or we can decide we’re going to keep on being our gentle selves in the face of humanity’s wounded soul.

I think people are exhausted by all the meanness out there. It’s always going to be there, because humans are human, but maybe us gentle souls have a greater role to play in all this. Maybe by refusing to hide our true gentle selves we can help neutralize some of that meanness. I know that there will never be a larger revolution of gentleness in the wider world – even I have limits to my naiveté. But by committing to a gentleness revolution in our own private lives, maybe we can make some small contribution to creating a kinder world. Who’s with me?