Being gentle with myself means accepting myself as I am and not waiting to be gentle with myself when and if I reach my impossible dream.
I am learning to be gentle with the crushed and severely wounded little boy that is within me. I call the little boy within me Georgie because I was called Georgie by the giants around me when I was very young.
Georgie has already received far too many angry responses from those around him. When I react to the person I am today in an angry way Georgie experiences my anger at George as anger toward him.
When I was physically a little boy I did not receive much training in the art of being gentle with myself. That is because gentle handling was not given to me by my parents.
I need to deal with myself gently so Georgie has the opportunity to learn to be healthy and serene.
I used to have jobs where I was often treated harshly by my superiors. The employers and associates that only wanted to use me are out of my life now. I am retired for decades now.
I also had many people in my life that acted like they loved me so they could keep me in their orbit so they could use my gifts any old way they chose.
I seldom had to remove unhealthy people from my life. I did not need to remove those people who just wanted to just use me because I did not need to. With rare exceptions, those people left me when my emotional and spiritual growth meant I was not willing to live in their orbit.
Some people who removed themselves from my life when I left their orbit had an attitude summed up by what one person once said to me. That person said “George, you used to be such a nice man”.
George Caywood 