It’s hard to be both powerful and tender when you’ve only ever been rewarded for your power.
So many of us learned early that strength is what gets you love—or at least what keeps you from being hurt. We were praised for being “resilient,” admired for being “strong,” and depended on because we always handled things. We held families together. We worked when we were tired. We stayed calm even when everything inside us was falling apart.
And maybe that strength kept us alive. But it also taught us to hide our tenderness. To treat softness like a weakness. To think that crying meant failure. That needing help meant you were too much.
But there’s a quiet ache that comes when your power is always on display, but your tenderness never feels safe to come out. Because no matter how strong we are, we still want to be held. To feel chosen, not because we’re useful, but because we’re us.
Healing, for me, has been about learning that I don’t have to pick between power and tenderness. I can be both. I can lead and still need. I can be capable and still long for comfort. I can stand tall and still want to curl into someone’s arms.
My power is real. But my tenderness is not a threat to it.
In fact, my power is fuller when it flows from a place that doesn’t need to constantly prove itself. That’s what healing is teaching me. That being both—being whole—isn’t a contradiction.
It’s a return.