Quietly Strong

We are all familiar with the concept of strength. 

When we think about strength, however, the examples most immediate to us are often examples of strength that are externally expressed and visible to all.  For example, physical feats such as running a marathon or holding a challenging yoga pose for several eternal minutes come to mind.  Examples of courage which range from moving to a new country, or standing up against injustice, even just standing against the consensus of a group, also qualify as requiring strength.  Artists, public figures, or any human being who puts their work out into the world risking criticism and potential ridicule which is so prevalent a part of troll culture today, are also what I consider examples of strength. 

There is a kind of strength that is quieter and often overlooked that I want to highlight today because I don’t believe the people who live quietly strong are celebrated enough. 

This is what quiet strength looks like:

Kindness, especially kindness to those who are unkind to you.

Forgiving those who hurt you.

Apologizing and meaning it wholeheartedly.

Allowing space for someone else’s needs even when yours are unmet.

Accepting & appreciating people for who they are especially if they are not who you need them to be.

Accepting responsibility for your own life, not placing blame externally.

Admitting fault, especially to yourself.

Loving wholeheartedly & unconditionally.

Pausing before reacting.

Being aware of your own triggers and biases in a situation.

Being the one to stop the transmission of intergenerational trauma.

Being still.

Focusing on joy even through challenge.

Gratitude, especially in difficult times.

Patience.

Consistency & reliability.

Staying open to learning & growing.

Persisting through obstacles.

Being able to have difficult conversations without defensiveness.

Letting go.

Aging gracefully.

Allowing others to take up room and attention.

Celebrating others; Being happy for someone else’s happiness (Freudenfreude).

Risking failure.

Getting back up and trying again after failure.

Being 100% present; staying in mentally, emotionally, & physically, particularly when you are depleted or tired or otherwise want to withdraw.

Living authentically.

Feeling difficult emotions and staying with them.

Expressing your needs.

Listening without judgement or bias.

All the instances above require deep internal strength.  There are many more examples I have not covered here, but I hope this list allows you to recognize strength in ways you may not have recognized before, both within yourself and others. 

How Do We Develop Quiet Strength:

Coming back to external versus internal, I also see two paths to developing quiet strength. One method is starting externally by becoming aware of possible responses to situations life throws at you, and in each situation opting to practice forms of quiet strength.  The more we practice, the more we will develop those muscles and capacity; The old “fake it till you make it” model. 

The other method is to start internally. 

In my own life, I realized some forms of quiet strength such as accepting my own faults, apologizing, being kind to those who have not been kind, difficult conversations, and true gratitude, were all hard for me until I started to approach myself with self-acceptance.  It seems ironic, but I’ve come to understand the key to unlocking our own growth and becoming the best version of ourselves is not through self-criticism, and certainly not through self-contempt, but instead requires a core of self-appreciation, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. 

We cannot hate ourselves into being who we want to be.  Anger and frustration can motivate action in important ways, for example, we can do incredible things when we are angered by injustices, but anger directed against ourselves in the form of self-hatred is experienced as a threat against ourselves.  The response to that self-directed threat is physiologically similar to any other external threat, i.e., our bodies go into a flight, fight, or freeze response.  This means anger directed at ourselves either leads us to shut down, disconnect or dissociate, or attack ourselves.  None of these responses allow the openness and room required to grow and change. 

Apologizing was hard for me when I was younger, ok maybe even just a few years ago, because apologizing meant seeing what I had done wrong, and seeing what I had done wrong used to send me into a shame spiral where I would absolutely hate and attack myself and end up shut down.  To avoid shame, I would avoid seeing my fault in things, and to avoid seeing my own faults I would blame everyone and everything else.  As a pre-emptive measure to try to make sure I never had to face shame, I would try to be “perfect”, but perfectionism is a hell of its own making; I am not going to delve into it any further here, but if you are plagued with it, you already know. 

Learning to appreciate and accept myself more is the internal shift I needed to make to begin to open to my own faults, focus on my own responsibility, show up more authentically, express my needs, accept my needs, see beyond my own needs, apologize, listen less defensively, celebrate others without feeling bad about myself, and experience more gratitude among other things. 

While I am working on developing these strengths within myself, I am also learning to value all those people I have around me that have been strong in ways I never saw before. It has filled me with deep appreciation for those who live quietly strong.  They are not often the ones who are recognized or celebrated, but they are the ones who create space around us that feels warm, positive, validating, loving, and safe; That is the power of quiet strength.

This blog is to say I see you, and I thank you.

I hope you see you too.