The Iron Hand, The Velvet Glove
When Softness Covers Rigorous Expectations
Une main de fer dans un gant de velours.
This French saying translates to “an iron hand in a velvet glove,” and it describes someone who exercises authority gently on the outside, but with power and determination at their core.
Funnily enough, I remember doing a project in art class when I was about 12 and using a foil hand covered with clippings from my favourite velvet trousers…
Personally, I’ve never respected bullyish authority. I have far more reverence for the smart, subtle forces that don’t need to shout or intimidate to be heard. The kind of presence you find in someone who’s read How to Win Friends and Influence People, a book I discovered in my mid-twenties and still reference often.
Imagine if world leaders were softer. Imagine if empathy were the most valued quality.
What if our worth was measured by the difference between how someone felt before crossing our path and how they felt after?
Lately, I’ve been observing my own inner conflict: outer softness, inner harshness. I even wrote a poem about it, which you can read and listen to here. And I can’t help but feel that what’s happening in the world is a reflection of my own inner world.
Maybe the solution isn’t choosing one side over the other, or one “winning” over the other. Maybe it’s about allowing both to exist, until something new emerges, a synthesis, a shift, a moment of clarity… maybe rest, maybe action.
According to the principles of yin and yang, we need both polarities to coexist, to ebb and flow. For yang to include yin, and yin to include yang. Any extreme naturally gives rise to its opposite.
Think of the times when we operate at full speed, extreme activity followed by enforced stillness, sometimes imposed by the body itself.
Even the terms positive and negative are social markers. I’ve stopped using “negative” to mean “bad”, because in polarity, negative denotes the feminine. Masculine is outward, feminine is inward. Masculine is light, feminine is dense. Masculine is white, feminine is black.
And when we look at a battery, there is no hierarchy between + and –. Both are needed for current to flow. Two negatives won’t let it pass. Neither will two positives. It’s not one or the other: it’s together.
So with all that said… as I observe the dynamic between my inner tormentor and outer gentle carer, I begin to imagine a world where heart-centred beings could find enough safety in themselves to embrace the bully.
I know this may sound counterintuitive. But perhaps the act of bullying is, at its core, a trauma response, a symptom of someone who, somewhere along the way, lacked love and safety.
This is not an invitation to tolerate toxicity. But I do wonder:
Can the soft one see the tormentor as a carer, too?
A necessary counterbalance, darkness to their light?
With love,
Camille
