Try being gentle.
These words floated into my head in the spring of 2020, just as the entire world was facing a disease that upended life as we knew it. And I asked, “Why not?”
Every major religion and wisdom tradition extolls the virtue of gentleness, but today almost nobody talks about it. Scholarship on the subject is thin. Even so, we all have an innate sense of what it means to be gentle. Remember cradling that tiny purring kitten as a kid and wanting to hold it as gently you could? We may even recognize that we value gentleness. When is the last time you wished someone spoke to you more harshly? But still, most of us give this extraordinary virtue little thought.
I’m a skeptic by nature and a social scientist and lawyer by training, so I decided to test whether cultivating this old-fashioned virtue could really change how I lived my life. In my year of living gently, I applied gentleness to just about everything: having a conversation with a difficult family member, establishing a fitness routine I can sustain (and enjoy at least most of the time), let go of harsh inner self-talk, giving up habits that hadn’t served me in years, and achieving goals both big and small.
In August of 2023, I started writing a weekly newsletter dedicated to the subject because I wanted to know if the transformation I experienced was universal: Can cultivating the forgotten virtue of gentleness really transform how you live and relate to life?
Yes.
And if you’ve made it this far reading the pinned post, please consider reading some of the newsletters I share on this website or, even better, subscribe at Substack to have them delivered directly to your in-box at https://alisonvonr.substack.com/ I try to keep each letter short enough that you can finish reading before you finish your cup of coffee/tea/beverage of choice.
I hope you find something here that will bring a little sunshine into your life. I’m delighted you’re here on the path with me. Thank you for being here!
with love, always,
alison
