Could gentle strength be the answer?

From the beginning, this business was the medicine I craved. Where is a place that feels soft, inviting and accepting within healthcare? In an industry committed to healing people, why do so many patients feel unheard? Why do so many practitioners feel burnt out, depleted and unsupported? The pressures of the system felt like no one was winning, and it was no ones fault. So, how do we change it? 

It felt like there was a severe lack of reenforcement, of time and of human-ness. Have you ever felt like no one believed your suffering? Have you ever stifled your feelings for fear of being perceived as weak or incompetent? Have you only ever known tough love and surviving?

Over the last five years, my community and I seemed to cultivate an alternative. Life doesn't seem short on challenges, so tough resilience feels inevitable. Something 'shitty' happens and we have no choice but to keep going. Pay the bills, put food on the table and survive.  But how sustainable can that be when it's our only option?

Could the concept of resilience be broader? Could we add gentle resilience? Lead with vulnerability,  ask for help, rest and learn to choose our words more wisely? Could smaller amounts of the gentle kind of strength give us sustained effort over time rather than the boom and bust?

They say burnout occurs when we use rest as a reward rather than a necessity. Both tough and gentle resilience are important, it just seemed the gentle stuff was harder to find. Does anyone in your life show up with gentle strength? What can we learn from them to restore a little more softness in the world?

With gentleness,

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