It’s been almost 4 years since my therapist told me “ You’re a kind person, yes. But, you’re not warm.”

I have been sitting with that for so long.

What i consider: What does this mean about the performativity of kindness? How did this show up in my conflicts?

What i pushback against: Can i as a black women ever really be perceived as warm?

And she wasn’t wrong. She hurt my feelings but she gave me a deeper understanding of myself. I am usually very nice. I believe in kindness. But, i don’t think I’m warm. I am too armoured to really be perceived as warm.

Like my sis @thinglygrammar said “performativity doesn’t exactly mean inauthenticity.”

But what’s most notable about someone like me is that when i am warm with someone it is very noticeable to the people around me. They feel the difference and it leads them to believing that i don’t really* like them instead of just seeing that my heart responds differently.

They begin to question my “kindness” because they witnessed small moments of me being “warm” to someone else.

What they miss is that the person I’m being warm with probably has a quality or does things that make me put that amour down around them. Other people want access to the warm me but don’t want to do whatever work or set up whatever conditions that made that possible for me.

I can honor how it must feel to see me give warmth to someone else and only give them kindness. But, i can’t make myself feel something i just feel around someone.

I’m still learning what this means in my life. But, i know it impacted majority of my old friendships.

I long for the day that i master putting the armour around my heart down. And i take responsibility for how this impacts the isolation and loneliness that i battle often.

Emotional courage and tenderness are the only pathways forward. :)

I still don’t really know what it means to be warm and i still struggle with the gender implications of this demand of me. All i know is that i can not betray my heart. If i am not in harmony with my heart, i need to look at the environment im in and ask why?