There is a need for people to develop as equally as possible these qualities. Personally, I found for myself that in my personal life I was too tender and let people walk all over me and in my training and client work I could sometimes be overly fierce. I soon realised that I needed to create a balance in both these areas. It's incongruent to teach people how to stand up for themselves when you are letting people walk over you. So I began to make certain adjustments in this area.

The secret is that you have to be prepared to live paradoxically with both fierceness and tenderness. These polar qualities have their own purposes and serve their own functions. Some signs that these qualities are out of balance are that you are unable to express your affection for others or that others feel hurt by you (lack of tenderness expression) and that nobody listens to you or you are always the butt of others jokes (lack of fierceness expression).

Living in paradox is, to me, a skill which is developed by understanding how you are more than your behaviour and past experience. Instead, you hold the ability to be fierce and tender inside of you. It is simply about you allowing yourself to express them equally in the most effective way. People get it wrong sometimes thinking you 'are' one way or another. You are not. You are able to be both at the same time if you can accept that. For example, if you were defending a hurt loved one from an aggressor you would manage them simultaneously. Tenderness towards the loved one and fierceness towards the aggressor. Now let's look at how fierceness and tenderness can be balanced.

Both fierceness and tenderness can come from fear or love. If fierceness comes from fear it can be described as aggression. If tenderness comes from fear it can be described as weakness. If fierceness comes from love we can call it strength. If tenderness comes from love we can call it gentleness. What is essential is that you ensure these qualities come from love and not fear.

The 'Love' I am referring to is a state that you feel about yourself in the universe. It is about being comfortable with who you are and deciding that whatever happens that you are very worthwhile. When you stop and remember that you are the only person you have spent every day of your life with and are truly your own best friend and you begin treating yourself like that, you will access this state. It's about appreciating all you have in your life and all the qualities you have and every time you do something feeling a great sense of accomplishment in yourself. Your fierceness does not represent itself as an attack at others who attack you or defensiveness against their attacks but quite simply a strong, non engaging disregard for their efforts to affect you. So regardless of who says something hurtful instead of being hurt or sensitive you let them take ownership of it and accept with strength that it's a sign of their own misplaced aggression.

In this state of 'Love' the tenderness is not representing the giving in to others or being false towards others. It is about gentle appreciating the feelings of others and remembering the good qualities that lie in everyone. It's about changing how you relate to others from a state of needing to control to a desire to make others feel good. In this state your focus is on being compassionnate by acknowledging their human side.

I often will engage in fierceness and strength in order to provoke my clients and trainees into changing. This proves enormously successful because I am doing it from the right place. When I am questioned on what I do I have the strength which comes from KNOWING my subject well and BELIEVING in it. When I recognised that I decided that to ensure I engage in Strength from the right place in my personal life more I needed to have strength which somes from KNOWING and BELIEVING in myself. The best way to do that is to start treating myself well and getting into the best states possible. The funny part was that when I did this I began to get so much better results in my personal life and the mistakes I had made in personal relationships and with my friends and family no longer cropped up.

When I look back at those who hurt me and bullied me to the present day, including those who have been closest to me, from this new perspective I realised that most people are just harmless souls suffering and they learn to attack and hurt as a means for deflecting away the hurt from themselves. I also remembered I was probably one of those people too. A thought also crossed my mind. 'Wouldn't the world be so much better if we stopped hurting because we are hurt and instead turned to appreciate the goodness that exists and the strength and gentleness that exists in everything.'. It's just a thought.