Quote 1

The Kiss (Le Baiser)1880-1887. Auguste Rodin

“Tenderness emerges from the fact that the two persons, longing, as all individuals do, to overcome the separateness and isolation to which we are all heir because we are individuals, can participate in a relationship that, for the moment, is not of two isolated selves but a union.”

Rollo May

This esteemed psychotherapist is reminding us that tenderness is vital in helping us make satisfying relationships, preventing us from feeling painfully alone and providing a way in to becoming part of a couple.

We are all prone to feeling lonely and isolated, often desperately longing for connection to another person. Tenderness can provide a way though, building bridges between people, revealing an empathic and caring part of ourselves that the other person may be attracted to and needy of. Thus two separate people can experience the joys of real connection and love.

It is important to bear in mind that both parties in this ‘union’ need to be able to express tenderness. Sometimes, this is seen as a quality that is more typical of women, although this is changing as men become more aware of the need to express this part of themselves, and women encourage them to do so.

First Steps (after Millet) by Vincent van Gogh (1890)

“I don’t see what women see in other women,” I told Doctor Nolan in my interview that noon. “What does a woman see in a woman that she can’t see in a man?”
Doctor Nolan paused. Then she said, “Tenderness.” That shut me up.”

 Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Quote 2

• What is tenderness?

A Tender Embrace – Émile Munier

“In art, as in love, tenderness is what gives strength.”

 Oscar Wilde

Tenderness is many things, and it especially requires strength of character and courage. It is about being caring and patient enough to listen to others, to understand that people are better than those times when they reveal their worst selves, that we all have aspects of ourselves that may not be likeable, and that, underneath, we share many similarities with others. This kind of tenderness will help us, therefore, not to judge, to encourage others to feel safe in our presence.

This approach also includes showing tenderness and forgiveness towards ourselves. A tender way of being will mean that our relationships improve, that we will come over as more empathic, softer, more open.

Hunger (Hungar). 1925. Käthe Kollwitz

“There is tenderness only in the coarsest demand: that no-one shall go hungry any more.”

Theodor W. Adorno

The philosopher Adorno’s definition of tenderness very much reflected the period of history in which he lived. (1903-69) His personal ethics were influenced by the Holocaust, as well as the first world war.

Tenderness, for Adorno, demands not just gentle-sounding gestures, but an acute awareness of people who are going hungry. This is not remedied by gentle, civil, refined words and speeches, by cultured attitudes or politeness, which he perceived all around him, but by a ‘coarse,’ blunt kind of tenderness, which fights to change the conditions in which people are going hungry.

This is, paradoxically, a tough, uncompromising form of tenderness, one which reveals a good deal of courage, strength of will and determination, whilst still maintaining gentle and empathic feelings towards those who are suffering.

The wonderfully insightful writer Mitch Albom made a similar point, highlighting the importance of focussing on tenderness, rather than money and power…

“You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.”

Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson

Quote 3

‘Death Struggle’ by Edvard Munch

“When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.”

George Eliot

“I am proud only of those days that pass in
undivided tenderness.”

Robert Bly, (A Little Book on the Human Shadow: A Poetic Journey into the Dark Side of the Human Personality, Shadow Work, and the Importance of Confronting Our Hidden Self.)

These two quotations remind us of the importance of maintaining tenderness in our everyday lives, especially in order that we will not die regretting the way we have treated others.

The most important and precious times in our lives are those when we have been able to show ‘undivided tenderness’ and kindness, to be totally focussed on being open, caring and available to others.

The value of our life rests in this, on relational achievements, rather than the purely transactional or the wholly ambitious. This is what we will value as we approach death, the first quotation emphasizes, not our ‘severity’ or the times when we may have been harsh or unyielding. 

Death is described as ‘the great reconciler,’ meaning that we often gain new insights and perspectives at this time. Past conflicts may have new meanings; the approach of death can afford us a different attitude, a feeling of resolution, helping us to see what was really important beneath the inevitable grudges, conflicts and disagreements of life.

Such changes do not always occur to people as they die, and there are many variations and exceptions to this hopeful way of regarding our endings. Not everyone can take such lessons on board. Such compassionate and tender approaches to others through life and as death nears, are, needless to say, not easily achievable, but they are certainly something we might all aim for.

Life is tough for us all and we will be tested at every turn. It is, indeed, hard to maintain our equilibrium and to stay ‘tender hearted…’

Edvard Munch, Under the Stars, 1900-1905

 “..let me stay tender-hearted, despite despite despite”
 

Chen Chen

Quote 4

The Wounded Foot by Joaquin Sorolla

“Tender,” she said again. “Tender is kind and gentle. It’s also sore, like the skin around an injury.”

Brenna Yovanoff, The Space Between

The word tender has another meaning, as this quotation indicates, for it can describe the soreness of an injury, or a painful area that may be a symptom of disease. This is a vulnerable part of the body that needs to be treated gently and with care, and we might say that we need to treat it ‘tenderly.’

The soreness of a ‘tender’ spot shows us something that is unhealed, sensitive, needing the utmost consideration and attention.

We can also experience having tender areas psychologically, and this is often seen by the therapist when dealing with difficult memories and experiences. Sometimes, touching a ‘tender’ spot can trigger painful and distressing feelings, requiring a good deal of sensitivity and tenderness on the part of the therapist.

“Be healing with your words, be tender with your words, be gentle with your words and watch your words bring gentle, tender healing in the hearts of others.”

Heather Wolf, Kipnuk Visits Sea Isle

People erect psychological defences in order to protect their tender emotional spots; often the strength of the defense indicates the degree of pain associated with feelings about a certain memory or event. Putting up emotional walls and fences is a powerful way of keeping others away from one’s painful spots, from unresolved psychological material that feels too hard to face or work through.

William Sidney Mount (1807-68) – The Fence on the Hill. Wikimedia Commons

Quote 5

Frank Bernard Dicksee – Romeo and Juliet 1884. Wikimedia Commons

“Literature is built on tenderness toward any being other than ourselves. It is the basic psychological mechanism of the novel. Thanks to this miraculous tool, the most sophisticated means of human communication, our experience can travel through time, reaching those who have not yet been born, but who will one day turn to what we have written, the stories we told about ourselves and our world.”

Olga Tokarczuk

• Olga Tokarczuk and the ‘tender narrator’

This perceptive quotation draws our attention to the power of the arts, in this case, literature, in demonstrating the importance of tenderness.

Olga Tokarczuk is a Polish writer, a 2018 Nobel Prizewinner. These words encapsulate her view of literature as being a medium that requires the writer to be utterly empathic and tender towards others, attending to their ways of being and ways of thinking in an intense and deeply sensitive manner.

In her Nobel Prize lecture, she underlined the importance of the ‘tender narrator,’ a person who does not judge, but who can regard others and the world with compassion and love. Here is an important extract from that lecture:

“Tenderness is the art of personifying, of sharing feelings, and thus endlessly discovering similarities. Creating stories means constantly bringing things to life, giving an existence to all the tiny pieces of the world that are represented by human experiences, the situations people have endured and their memories. Tenderness personalises everything to which it relates, making it possible to give it a voice, to give it the space and the time to come into existence, and to be expressed. It is thanks to tenderness that the teapot starts to talk. Tenderness is the most modest form of love.”

Olga Tokarczuk

• Music and tenderness

Like literature, music can encourage the emergence of tenderness, softening the hard edges of some people’s hearts. Hearing music can enable some inner feelings to emerge, triggered by beautiful, melodious sounds and, perhaps, by the memories associated with the piece being played. It can help us reach the very centre of ourselves, for music can penetrate the very depths of our being.

Angelica Kauffman Self-portrait Hesitating Between the Arts of Music and Painting. Wikimedia Commons

“Music speaks the language of the soul, penetrating into the past and resonating into the future, unearthing pain and tenderness and sorrow and joy, reminding us of our infinite fragility and extraordinary strength, reigniting our dreams and passions once again to remind us of who we are meant to be.”

L.R. Knost

© Linda Berman