Self Tenderness Quotes

Last night I undressed for bed. But instead of crawling between the sheets I decided to stand, naked, in front of the large full-length mirror that is propped against the wall next to my bed. ⠀
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I turned off the bright lights, and found a song that spoke to the energy I could feel under my skin. For a while I just stood there. And I looked at myself. Bare skin. Open Heart. Clear truth. ⠀
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It's a wonder, after 42 years on earth, to allow it to fully land, this knowing that I can stop, and look at myself and think things other than unkind words. ⠀
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Don't get me wrong. I don't want to paint you a pretty social media picture that doesn't play out in real life. I'm not suddenly completely fine with all that is. I'm human and I'm a woman in the midst of this particular culture, and so of course I'd love to be tighter and firmer and lifted. I'd love to have the skin and metabolism I did in my twenties. I wish, often, that my stomach were flatter. I wear makeup and I dye away my gray hair. I worry about these things too, of course I do. ⠀
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But finally, and fully - I can stand and look at myself and be filled, completely, with love. I can look at myself entirely bare and think, yes, I like myself now. Just as I am. Even if nothing changes. This me. She is good. And she is beautiful. ⠀
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And even in the space of allowing myself to be human, and annoyed with those things I view as imperfections, I honor and celebrate this shift. ⠀
Jeanette LeBlanc

Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness. Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone ...
Scripture suggests that the essence of the divine nature is compassion and that the heart of God is defined by tenderness. ~ Brennan Manning

...but of all the women who've come to me with an unwanted pregnacy, Leila is the first who has ever asked me to save her child. I stand looking down at her. (...) It is as if I were looking at the archetypal image of the woman who surrenders to the craft of the seducer, who opens her heart and releases the bounty of her love in a most ill-advised way. Seduced and abandoned - it's an old, old story, and Leila, in her tenderness and beauty, summarises millennia of suffering, millennia of heartbreak and despair. ~ Kooshyar Karimi

The psychological attitudes which are indispensable in the American market place are disastrous to family life. Family life ... requires yieldingness, generosity, sympathy, altruism, tenderness-all the qualities, in fact, which lead straight to bankruptcy ... the American family is tragically out of gear with the profit structure which has mushroomed up around it. ~ Margaret Halsey

Lust was no surprise. Present a man who'd not known a woman in a while with the sight of a naked one, and there was no power on earth that could restrain his cock from rising.
But the tenderness in his chest nearly knocked him down. He longed to hold her, to whisper endearments, to kiss away her fears and offer her the protection of his body as well as its need.
"Elspeth," he said reverently, as if her name were a prayer.
That broke the spell. She covered herself, one arm across her breasts, the other hand protectively splayed between her legs.
He continued to look at her, drinking in her exposed skin, all rosy and fresh. It would be like silk under his touch. His hands would know every inch of her.
She snatched up the remains of the velvet skirt and held it before her, but her neat calves and ankles were still bare to his gaze.
"How long have you been there?" she demanded.
"Long enough. ~ Connie Mason

Her's what I tell myself now. That it's vital to learn how to make the best of things. That there is no tenderness without bravery. That if things hadn't been so bad they could never have gotten so good. And that it's always better to have what you have than to get what you wanted. Except for this: Every now and then, when you are impossibly lucky you rise above yourself-and get both. ~ Katherine Center

Wanting his mind on other matters, she deliiberately challenged his statement. "You don't know so much about me. There was a man once. He was crazy about me." She tried to look wordly. "Absolutely crazy for me."
His answering laughter was warm against her neck, her throat. His lips touched the skin over her pulse and skimmed lightly up to her ear. "Are you, by any chance, referring to that foppish boy with the orange hair and spiked collar? Dragon something?"
Savannah gasped and pulled away to glare at im. "How could you possibly know about him? I dated him last year."
Gregori nuzzled her neck, inhaling her fragrance, his hand sliding over her shoulder, moving gently over her satin skin to take possession of her breast. "He wore boots and rode a Harley." His breath came out in a rush as his palm cupped the soft weight, his thumb brushing her nipple into a hard peak.
The feel of his large hand-so strong, so warm and possessive on her-sent heat curling through her body. Desire rose sharply. He was seducing her with tenderness. Savannah didn't want it to happen. Her body felt better, but the soreness was there to remind her where this could all lead. Her hand caught at his wrist. "How did you find out about Dragon?" she asked, desperate to distract him, to distract herself. How could he make her body burn for his when she was so afraid of him, of having sex with him?
"Making love," he corrected, his voice husky, caressing, betraying the ease with which h ~ Christine Feehan

I cried then, holding nothing back. For empty years, yearning for the touch of a hand. Hollow years, lying beside a man I had betrayed, for whom I had no tenderness. For the terrors and doubts and griefs of the day. Cried for him and me and for Mary MacNab, who knew what loneliness was - and what love was, as well. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later,
oftener sooner than late,
is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

For as we would wish that a painter who is to draw a beautiful face, in which there is yet some imperfection, should neither wholly leave out, nor yet too pointedly express what is defective, because this would deform it, and that spoil the resemblance; so since it is hard, or indeed perhaps impossible, to show the life of a man wholly free from blemish, in all that is excellent we must follow truth exactly, and give it fully; any lapses or faults that occur, through human passions or political necessities, we may regard rather as the shortcomings of some particular virtue, than as the natural effects of vice; and may be content without introducing them, curiously and officiously, into our narrative, if it be but out of tenderness to the weakness of nature, which has never succeeded in producing any human character so perfect in virtue as to be pure from all admixture and open to no criticism. ~ Plutarch

Long dormant feelings poured through my dried-up limbs and wound through me, slowly filling the emptiness. Like an irrigated field, I felt myself blossom and grow with new vigor. He was the sun, and the tenderness he showed me was life-giving water. ~ Colleen Houck

Melancholy had crept inside me. Small children made me cry, I got depressed eating meat, old book bindings awakened tenderness in me. Everything was disintegrating. Nothing stood the test of time, including me. Somewhere on the other shore were madness and God, sometimes both wearing a beard. Neither instilled much confidence. ~ Mati Unt

Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord's wounds at arm's length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people's lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people. ~ Pope Francis

There is no such thing as tough love. Love is kind, love is compassionate, love is tender. ~ Heather Wolf

The Gospel teaches us what Jesus' kingdom requires of us ... Reminds us that closeness and tenderness are the rules of life. ~ Pope Francis

An increase of tenderness always ended by boiling over and turning to indignation. He was at the point where we seek to adopt a course, and to accept what tears us apart. ~ Victor Hugo

Standing there, in his father's shed, he knew that there had been, between them, affection and even tenderness. That his father had never been unkind. That in their silences there had been a form of love. But he had never known him, had never been close to him in the way he witnessed other sons and their fathers. ~ Paul Yoon

In the eight months he had been away, he had almost forgotten the gaze he found there, the gaze which came in moments like this, for it was not one of the looks that New Englanders use or have ever used to express a turn of mind or heart; it was a gaze more cold, more mean, more cruel even than the gaze a Vermont farmer gives a stranger asking directions; more cold, more mean, more cruel because it was completely blank, that very blankness a sign of the renunciation of alternatives, of tenderness or brutality, of pleasure or pain, of understanding or ignorance, of belief or disbelief, of compassion or intolerance, of reason or unswerving fanaticism; it was a gaze which signals the flicking off of the switch which controls the mechanism making man a human being; it said: Now we must fight. There is no time or need for talking; violence is already with us, part of us. ~ William Melvin Kelley

In the case of Michel Angelo we have an artist who with brush and chisel portrayed literally thousands of human forms; but with this peculiarity, that while scores and scores of his male figures are obviously suffused and inspired by a romantic sentiment, there is hardly one of his female figures that is so, - the latter being mostly representative of woman in her part as mother, or sufferer, or prophetess or poetess, or in old age, or in any aspect of strength or tenderness, except that which associates itself especially with romantic love. Yet the cleanliness and dignity of Michel Angelo's male figures are incontestable, and bear striking witness to that nobility of the sentiment in him, which we have already seen illustrated in his sonnets. ~ Edward Carpenter

In 'We Were the Mulvaneys,' animals are almost as important as people. I wanted to show the tenderness in our relationships with cats, dogs, and horses. Especially cats. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

As the Japanese will tell you, one can train a rose to grow through anything, to grow through a nautilus even, but it must be done with tenderness. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

The Word says that we ought to commit our plans to the Lord and He will cause them to succeed. So I pray on every single thing in my life. Nothing is too small or too big for God. He cares about our quick conversations, just like He cares about life-altering endeavors. He'll even care about my finding a parking space in Harlem late at night if I ask Him to." Paulo smiled with the tenderness of a man admiring his Dad. "I can go to my God about anything and He'll answer if it pleases Him. ~ Vacirca Vaughn

As I read the Qur'an and prayed the Islamic prayers, a door to my heart was unsealed and I was immersed in an overwhelming tenderness. ~ Jeffrey Lang

suddenly i pin you to the wall and the tenderness is gone my kisses change as do my eyes and my voice and my urgency ~ P.D. Bates

Negativity poisons my mind, and positivity restores it. I have a choice whether to join in the darkness of the world, its petty judgments, and constant blame. When I do so I inject my psyche with poison, and today I choose a healthy mind. I replace all negativity with a positive attitude, in which I seek to find, and to articulate, the good in every heart. If I disagree, I will disagree with honor. If I debate a point, I will debate with respect. If I need to draw a line for the sake of justice, I will do so with an honor for the dignity of all. I will no longer be careless with the working of my mind. Rather, I will use it as it was created by God to be used, as a conduit for love and a gateway to peace. May everyone, including myself, feel the tenderness of my approval and not the harshness of my unkindness. ~ Marianne Williamson

In a moment, when I throw myself down among the absinthe plants to bring their scent into my body, I shall know, appearances to the contrary, that I am fulfilling a truth which is the sun's and which will also be my death's. In a sense, it is indeed my life that I am staking here, a life that tastes of warm stone, that is full of the signs of the sea and the rising song of the crickets. The breeze is cool and the sky blue. I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly: it makes me proud of my human condition. Yet people have often told me: there's nothing to be proud of. Yes, there is: this sun, this sea, my heart leaping with youth, the salt taste of my body and this vast landscape in which tenderness and glory merge in blue and yellow. It is to conquer this that I need my strength and my resources. Everything here leaves me intact, I surrender nothing of myself, and don no mask: learning patiently and arduously how to live is enough for me, well worth all their arts of living. ~ Albert Camus

Suffering predisposes the mind to devoutness; and most young girls, prompted by instinctive tenderness, lean towards mysticism, the obscurer side of religion. ~ Honore De Balzac

E. B. White had a romantic tenderness toward nature in a capital R, 19th-century way. He was knowledgeable, a part-time farmer, and a hardheaded realistic person. ~ Michael Sims

It's you, Tessa." He crawled up her body and levered her onto her side, his fingers a warm link he tunneled in under her hair. "Don't you see? For the first time, I know what's real. My life isn't about doing what everyone else thinks is right in order to be happy. Not anymore. Because I found my own happiness." The ball of his thumb swept her lips. "I found it with you." How could she not believe him, when his words were so filled with love? "Tell me what you're thinking," he said.

"I'd forgotten what it's like, you know? It's been so long…I'd just forgotten how incredible it all feels." When tears rushed her eyes, she blinked them away. So she could stay right in the moment, within the tenderness of his gaze. She placed a hand on his chest, over his heart. "I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you did for me, Dibs. You've become everything that's good and right in my life. And I'm sorry if I made things difficult for you." His eyes glistened, two sparkling bits of heaven over a thin crescent of tears.

"Rex, you're breaking my heart over here."

"I'm just so grateful, and its important to me you understand. You gave me a second chance at happiness. You know that, right? ~ A.J. Nuest

To reach out to you when I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you need me back. And to feel such tenderness when I look at you that I want to stand between you and all the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you above the strong currents of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to stand always like this, at a distance, watching you, the beauty of you. ~ Orson Scott Card

A kiss is a secret told to the mouth instead of the ear; kisses are the messengers of love and tenderness. ~ Ingrid Bergman

She sometimes felt a sort of passion of tenderness for memories which had led no other merit than that they belonged to her unmarried life. ~ Henry James

The function of mindfulness is, first, to recognize the suffering and then to take care of the suffering. The work of mindfulness is first to recognize the suffering and second to embrace it. A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the child into her arms without suppressing, judging it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgement.
So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child. Even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her acto f taking the child into her arms with tenderness can alreadby bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

We win by tenderness. We conquer by forgiveness. ~ Frederick William Robertson

One of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us. The disappointments of life, the injustices, the battering events that are beyond our control, and the betrayals we endure, from those we befriended and loved, can make us cynical and turn our hearts into flint – on which only the matches of anger and bitterness can be struck into flame. By their delight in being with us, the reliable sunniness of their disposition, the joy they bring to playtime, the curiosity with which they embrace each new experience, dogs can melt cynicism,and sweeten the bitter heart. ~ Dean Koontz

It's go time.' He takes my elbow and gentles me down the planks with such tenderness that I am suddenly very afraid. But there's no sense making the plunge slow and unbearable. I take a running leap down the pier- ... -and launch over the water. It's my favorite moment: when I'm one toe away from flight and my body takes over. The choice is made, but the consequence is still just an inky shimmer beneath me. And I'm flying, I'm rushing to meet my own reflection- ~ Karen Russell