Strength in Tenderness
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about tenderness and connection. We live in a world that often equates strength with distance. We’re taught that self-reliance is the highest virtue, that invulnerability is protection, and that needing others makes us weak. So, we build walls. Quiet, invisible ones. We keep others at arm's length, believing that if no one gets too close, no one can really hurt us. We call it maturity. Independence. Boundaries.
We say, “I’m fine. I can handle it myself.”
Because if no one ever holds us, we can’t be dropped. If we’re never seen, we can’t be exposed. If we stay guarded, maybe we’ll stay safe. Right? Somewhere along the way, we confused hardness with strength. But what if strength also looks like softness? Softness that bends, absorbs, adapts. Softness that allows the world to pass through without shattering. Softness that still feels, still connects, still trusts. There’s a quiet kind of power in that. In allowing others to support us. In admitting we’re not meant to carry everything alone. This isn’t weakness, it’s a different kind of protection. Not the brittle, glass-like armor of isolation. But the steady shelter of connection.
And yet, the moment we begin to lower those walls, when we allow ourselves to be truly seen, something else happens.
Like an x-ray revealing a fracture beneath the surface, real connection uncovers the places where we’ve grown tired, where we've been hurt, where something inside us has quietly splintered. These fractures often aren’t just personal. They’re collective. They’re cultural.
The pressure to appear unshakable
The fear of being seen as “too much”
The discomfort we feel around vulnerability
Being seen in this light can feel uncomfortable and exposing. Like standing beneath a harsh spotlight that illuminates every hidden fault. Yet, there’s a strange relief in that moment. Because once the cracks are visible, we can tend to them. We can name where it hurts. We can begin to heal. What’s rebuilt after a break is rarely the same as what came before. But it can be something stronger. Something more honest. Something beautiful in a way we never expected.
Some things I’ve been slowly learning:
Healing is not about returning to perfection. It’s about reshaping. Realigning. It’s about recognizing that fragility doesn’t negate worth. There is real resilience in this kind of restoration. Not the resilience of suppression, but of integration. Of honoring what we’ve survived, together.
Maybe we need to stop treating pain as failure. Then we can begin to see pain for what it truly is: evidence of life. To ache. To long. To bruise. These are not signs that something is broken beyond repair, they are signs that something still matters. That we are still human.
We live in a culture that resents tenderness. But more and more, we’re rediscovering its value. Because tenderness is what keeps us connected. It’s what makes empathy possible. It’s what reminds us that we’re not alone. So maybe it’s time to let go of the idea that wholeness means being untouched.
Maybe true strength lies not in never breaking, but in what we do afterward. In how we heal. In how we let ourselves be seen. Maybe the challenge isn’t to stay impenetrable, but to stay open. To stop sealing ourselves off. To let in the light, through the very cracks we tried so hard to hide. Because what spills through those cracks isn’t shame. It isn’t weakness. It’s the quiet glow of a life still alive,
Still reaching, still loving, still growing.
And maybe that’s the most human thing of all.