Before I came to COR, I had a little knowledge of Gentle Teaching from the research I did prior to my interview. To my understanding then, Gentle Teaching was to be a kind person and to accept people for who they are. In the beginning of my journey at COR, I tried hard to be a kind person when I was supporting to both the people I supported and my team and to my surprise, it was really easy for me. In the first six months of my time at COR, I had never experienced a challenging moment – most things had been smooth sailing.

With the first ladies I supported, building a relationship with them was easy – I joked around with them, did crafts, helped with baking, went for walks, and brought my dogs for visits. I was able to feel great deals of empathy for the ladies I supported when they were feeling sad, and I could support them through tougher moments just by talking to them and leaning into my relationship that was built with them. It wasn’t until I started supporting a different young lady that I truly started to understand Gentle Teaching.

Upon starting to support this other young lady, I could tell right away that I was going to have to work a lot harder to be kind and build my relationship with her. Even though it was a lot harder to build a relationship with her, building that very relationship is what taught me and helped me more deeply understand more about Gentle Teaching than I had ever known before. Through building our relationship I learned the importance of patience, self-awareness, being creative in tough moments, and most importantly creating a safe space both physically and psychologically. I really began to understand the idea of meeting someone where they are at and being able to look behind the way they responded to certain situations to understand where that reaction was coming from. I found myself not only becoming more patient and understanding with the people I was supporting, but also in my outside life as well.

I started to reflect more on the relationships I had in my life and evaluate what I was doing to create a sense of safety and understanding in those relationships. I became more aware of my actions and reactions and tried to find ways to better understand myself so that I could heal my inner wounds to become a stronger person so then in turn I could better support other people in my life.

Gentle Teaching helped me understand that we cannot be so quick to judge someone’s reaction or behaviour because without knowing them and having a relationship with them, we can never know where that reaction stemmed from. Most importantly, Gentle Teaching has transformed me into a person that on top of being kind and patient with other, I have become much kinder and more patient with myself. I have learned that without taking care of myself and understanding that my emotions and feelings are valid, I cannot successfully take care of others and model that feeling of emotional validity to them. This has greatly affected my relationships as a whole and overall; I believe that Gentle Teaching has truly changed my life in the best way possible.

Darby,

COR family member