Kind, Not Weak: The Power of Compassion with Boundaries

Why staying soft in a cruel world is my rebellion, my healing, and my strength.

Wendi Kehn/Hellbloom Haven (Also featured on Substack & Medium)

Jan 01, 2026

Trigger Warning:

This piece contains references to childhood abuse, domestic violence, trauma, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and other forms of harm. Please take care while reading and pause if you need to. Your well-being matters.

Section 1: The Misunderstanding of Kindness

From the outside looking in, most people wouldn’t be able to fathom all I’ve lived through, the pain I’ve survived, the trauma I’ve healed, or the storms I’ve quietly weathered. I’m mostly happy. Grounded. I laugh often, dance when the music hits right, and will stop anything I’m doing to comfort someone in pain. I’m funny, deeply kind, and still full of light, and that confuses people.

We are often taught to believe that those who have suffered should become hardened. They think that pain makes a person sharp, guarded, and cynical. Therefore, when someone appears soft, warm, or steady, especially on a consistent basis, people begin to assume it must be insincere. They suspect that the person must want something or that there is some hidden agenda.

I’ve seen the disbelief in people’s eyes, that quiet skepticism that asks, What’s the catch? And I’ll admit, it stung sometimes. Not because they truly saw me, but because they couldn’t. They were reacting not to who I am, but to how unfamiliar real kindness can feel when you’ve been hurt too many times.

I no longer take it personally. I eventually started to realize how many people have been let down, manipulated, or left carrying wounds they never asked for. After enough of that, something shifts within, not just in how you see yourself, but in how you see the world.

I think that’s one of the quietest, saddest things I’ve come to understand: that pain will blur your ability to recognize real goodness. You stop seeing it in others. You stop seeing it in yourself. Even when it’s right in front of you, honest, unguarded, offering nothing but presence, it feels like a trick. Something too good to trust.

Section 2: Why Kindness Is Who I Am

The truth is, my kindness isn’t the absence of hardship, it’s what endured it. It’s the part of me that’s always been there, even when the world tried to silence it. I believe I was born this way, soft-hearted, unconditionally loving, wanting the best for people. Life didn’t hand me that trait, it tested it. Trauma warped it. Survival hardened it. But it never erased it.

For a while, I lost sight of that version of myself. I did what I had to do to make it through. But now, standing on the other side of things, I see just how powerful it is to still want to love. To still want to care. To choose softness not because I’ve been spared pain, but because I’ve known it too intimately to ever wish it on someone else.

I’m not perfect. None of us are. Even with the best intentions, I’ve missed the mark. I’ve hurt people I cared about. I’ve had to learn how to own that, to repair, to grow. Because real kindness isn’t about appearing good, it’s about being good, even when no one’s watching. Especially then.

Kindness isn’t just something I practice. It’s who I am, who I’ve always been, underneath it all. And now, I finally see it for what it is: not weakness, not naivety… but strength. Sacred, hard-won strength.

I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I’ve survived domestic violence, a relationship that nearly cost me my life. I’ve lived through homelessness and serious illness. I’ve endured years of depression, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and addiction, both my own and those I was surrounded by. I’ve been stalked, threatened, choked in public places by strangers. I’ve taken beatings from patients in crisis. I’ve heard words from adults, especially parents, that no child should ever have to hear or carry.

I don’t share this for shock value. I share it because context matters. Because people assume kindness comes from ease, when in my life it came from endurance. From surviving. From getting back up after the fight, again and again, and deciding that I would not let what hurt me decide who I became.

Staying kind was never about being passive. It was an act of defiance for me. A refusal and a line in the sand that said: You don’t get to turn me into someone I don’t recognize. You don’t get to win. You can take everything I have away from me, but you can’t take who I am inside, it’s mine and I earned it.

My kindness is resilient; it carries the weight of scars and the lessons of discernment. It is neither blind nor self-sacrificing. I have established strong boundaries, hard-earned boundaries. I know when to walk away, when to say “enough,” and that protecting myself is not a betrayal of compassion; it is essential for it.

I am still here. I still laugh, dance, and choose to care, not because I am unaware of the worst in humanity, but because I have witnessed it. I know for certain that becoming cruel would not lead to my survival. Instead, staying kind, wisely, fiercely, and intentionally, is how I reclaimed my power.

One of the greatest lessons I learned, particularly from my most abusive relationship, is that your power lies in how, if, and when you respond. People who crave control dislike it when they can’t dictate your emotions. So, I stopped reacting on their terms. I learned to navigate the situation without losing myself in it.

In some ways, this survival skill kept me safe. When you don’t react, they believe they’ve won. They let their guard down. You learn to read moods, tame storms, and sit silently with your own pain to prevent things from exploding. While I don’t believe this behavior is healthy in the context of abuse, and I would never romanticize it, I can’t ignore the reality that emotional control once kept me alive.

The gift is what this skill became afterward. Once I stepped out of those power dynamics, I began to reclaim it in a new way, not as a survival strategy, but as a strength. Now, it helps me co-regulate others, hold space, and respond without losing myself. It now serves a purpose rooted in strength, not fear and survival.

I’m proud of the person I’ve become. I’m proud that through it all, through everything that tried to distort or destroy me, I stayed true to my core because it was damn hard.

I believe now that kindness is my superpower. It’s not a weakness. It’s not naivety. It’s the result of everything I’ve lived through, and the conscious choice to still show up with love in a world that often shows up with harm. Kindness is the part of me I’ve fought hardest to protect, and I carry it now with more wisdom, more boundaries, and more strength than ever.

Section 3: Kindness as a Force That Changes Lives

After everything I’ve lived through, I could’ve easily chosen a path of protection and disconnection. I’ve seen it play out in many I have known in life. After I survived the dv, and had my oldest 2 kids, I was 19 and I found myself drawn to care work. I spent 18 years in healthcare, six of those on an Alzheimer’s unit, learning, day by day, how to hold space for people in their most disoriented, agitated, and vulnerable moments.

Between the dementia, the behaviors, and the dying, I learned something that changed me: that offering peace, real, grounded peace, can disarm even the most guarded people. Not by force or control. But through presence and staying soft, calm, and kind when someone else feels like their world is falling apart.

People who are hurting often come in loud, shut down, defensive, or controlling, not because they want to be difficult, but because they’re terrified, grieving, or overwhelmed. When you meet them with patience instead of reactivity, or with warmth instead of authority, something beautiful happens. You get to watch them slowly let go. You see their shoulders drop. Their voice change. Their body relax. That’s not magic, that’s co-regulation. That’s nervous system to nervous system safety. And I’ve watched kindness do what no argument or intervention could.

There isn’t always a way to fix things. In fact, I would go as far as to say that most of the traumatic experiences we go through in life cannot simply be fixed, especially in end-of-life care. Sometimes, things just suck, and life is hard. When that happens, people don’t need someone to fix their problems; they need someone to sit beside them and remain steady. They need someone who will let them cry, express their rage, go silent, and still be present.

That’s what I learned to do: to sit beside someone on their deathbed or next to a family member grappling with anticipatory grief, and just be there. If they lashed out, I didn’t respond with more chaos. Instead, I offered space and might say something like, “I know you’re hurting. I’m going to give you a moment. I’m human too.” That kind of honesty and connection is what people remember. That’s what helps them exhale.

I don’t practice kindness for validation. I don’t do it to be seen as good. I do it because it’s who I am. It makes me feel strong to stay soft and grounded, especially when someone else is unraveling. And truly, how humbling and truly what an honor it is, to be the one holding the boat steady while someone else weathers the storm.

To be someone’s calm when the world feels too loud, that’s what kindness means to me.

To me, kindness is not about performance; it is about power, quiet, regulated power. It doesn’t seek to overpower anyone; instead, it creates space for someone to breathe. In a world that seldom slows down for anyone, that kind of presence can mean everything.

One of the deepest things I learned in healthcare and in life in general is that people want to feel like they matter. That they’re not just a burden or a problem to manage. They want to be seen, heard, and respected, especially when they’re vulnerable. And sometimes the most healing thing you can do is see someone in their most raw, unfiltered moment, and choose not to look away.

Section 4: Kindness with Boundaries Isn’t Weakness, It’s Emotional Mastery

There’s a common misconception that if you’re kind, it means you don’t know how to protect yourself. People often think that being soft makes you fragile, or that leading with empathy will get you taken advantage of. However, I’ve found the opposite to be true.

Kindness is more meaningful when you understand your own strength. It’s about recognizing your own darker side and choosing not to let it define you, even when circumstances might justify becoming cold, closed off, or guarded.

As Jordan Peterson once said, a harmless person isn’t necessarily virtuous. True virtue lies in someone who is capable of causing harm, and consciously chooses not to. Strength without kindness can easily become domination. But kindness combined with strength? That’s power with purpose. It’s knowing you have the capacity to hurt someone… and deciding, instead, to protect them.

What I’ve learned is that true softness isn’t weakness, it’s self-control and awareness. It’s the ongoing choice to remain grounded in your core values, even when the world tries to pull you away from them.

And I want to be deeply honest here, I haven’t always made the right choice. In fact I have very often made the wrong ones in life, not because I wanted to but in the face of choosing between the lesser of two evils, sometimes we do what we have to to survive. That’s why you wont find me out here casting stones or judgement on anyone.

I’ve caused harm and pain to people I truly and deeply love. I’m not innocent. I’ve said things I wish I could take back. I’ve done things I still carry regret for. There were times in my life when I didn’t know how to regulate my own pain, so I passed it on. Not because I wanted to hurt anyone, but because I was still surviving, still flinching, still reacting from old wounds.

When you grow up inside survival, you adopt whatever tools are available. You learn to lie if lying keeps you safe. You learn to manipulate if it keeps someone close. You get loud, you get sharp, you learn how to scare people off before they can hurt you first. I’ve been angry enough to black out and physically hurt people. I’ve watched myself become someone I didn’t recognize, and someone I never wanted to be again.

That’s why I made the choice: to stop running, to stop blaming, and to stop letting my pain decide who I was.

I’ve sat with my shadows. I’ve looked them in the eye and asked what they needed from me. I’ve fought them, I’ve softened toward them, and I’ve worked to transform them, not just for others, but for myself.

I choose not to become the darkness that shaped me.
I choose not to be the pain that was passed down to me.

Kindness, for me, isn’t the easy path.
It is the most radical form of healing I know though.

My kindness didn’t come from comfort, it came from chaos. From being hurt, abandoned, used, and manipulated, and deciding I would not let those things shape me into someone I’m not. And part of that decision meant learning how to hold both compassion and clarity at the same time. How to be kind without betraying myself.

And let me be real, that didn’t happen overnight. It took years. Years of heartbreak, boundary violations, self-doubt, and learning the hard way. For a long time, I thought being kind meant tolerating anything. That love meant sacrificing everything. That if someone was hurting, it was my job to fix them, even at my own expense.

I confused guilt with loyalty. I was co-dependent, calling people “family” who did not treat me with care. I stayed too long. I explained too much. I silenced myself just to keep the peace. And every time I abandoned myself in the name of kindness, I lost a little more of who I was.

Eventually, the pain of over giving became louder than the fear of setting boundaries.

It didn’t happen all at once. It happened after everything I thought I could hold began to fall apart. When life as I knew it collapsed, and I had nothing left to give, no strength left to pretend. I started to see more clearly. I saw who stood by me and who only stayed when I was useful. I saw how much of myself I’d been pouring into people and situations that couldn’t or wouldn’t pour back.

And with that clarity came grief… but also freedom.

I learned to say “no”, first with shaky hands, then with a little more steadiness. I learned to walk away even when I still loved someone. And I learned that sometimes, that’s one of the most loving things you can do: to let them go. To give them the space to be exactly who they are, even if who they are isn’t safe or healthy for you. To stop trying to fix, to stop trying to earn or prove your worth, and to stop carrying what was never yours in the first place.

I stopped confusing love with sacrifice. I started learning what it meant to love without abandoning myself in the process.

Because love without boundaries isn’t love, it’s survival. And when I stopped confusing closeness with connection, I started to see that letting go can be just as sacred as holding on.

It was really lonely sometimes, terrifying, even. Because when you start protecting your peace, people who benefited from your self-neglect often don’t clap for you. You lose some relationships. You grieve versions of yourself. You question whether you’re being “too much” or “not enough.” But slowly, you realize: this is what integrity feels like. This is what healing feels like.

Today, my boundaries are an extension of my kindness, not a contradiction to it. When I protect my energy, I can keep showing up for the people and causes that matter to me. When I say no to what drains me, I have more space for what fills me. And when I walk away from disrespect, I model for others that kindness has self-respect behind it, not fear.

Now I know that kindness without boundaries is self-erasure. But kindness with boundaries? That’s emotional mastery. That’s the kind of kindness that heals people, because it doesn’t come from desperation or identity. It comes from choice. From alignment. From knowing who I am and who I’m no longer willing to be.

I’m still soft, loving, and open-hearted. But I’m no longer available for anything that costs me myself.

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Section 5: A Call to Kindness, Choosing Softness in a Hardened World

The world will give you a hundred reasons to harden. To shut down, and become cold, guarded, or cruel. And I understand why some people choose that path, truly, I do. When you’ve been hurt enough times, it can feel safer to armor up. To stop caring. To meet pain with distance or destruction. But that’s not the life I want to live or the legacy I want to leave behind.

After everything I’ve endured, I still believe that kindness is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Not because it fixes everything. Not because it guarantees a good outcome. But because it keeps us human, It keeps us connected, and it keeps us from becoming the very thing we swore we’d never be.

Growing up, I found myself drawn to stories of survivors, people who endured unspeakable things and still somehow held onto hope, dignity, and their sense of self. I remember reading about people who lived through atrocities like the Holocaust. And one thing that always stayed with me, sometimes more than the horrors, were the small acts of kindness people remembered. A piece of bread quietly passed. A tiny piece of chocolate given to a pregnant woman. A look of comfort. A shared prayer. A guard who looked the other way so someone could grieve in peace. A woman who helped hide people in an attic, or a man who hid babies in a suitcase to smuggle them away from danger. In the darkest, most dehumanizing places, it was the kind ones who stood out. Their compassion didn’t stop the violence, but it gave someone one more reason to live.

I remember hearing something as a child that has always stuck with me, something Mister Rogers shared from his mother: “When things feel scary, look for the helpers. You’ll always find people who are helping.”

Now, as an adult, I realize how true this is. When life becomes chaotic, it’s often the kind-hearted individuals who guide us back to our humanity. They don’t seek attention and they don’t make a lot of noise; they simply show up and in doing so, they remind us of who we are deep down.

That’s what I’ve always aspired to be: someone who helps others find their way back, not through perfection or having all the answers, but by being a steady, calming presence in a world that can be overwhelmingly loud, difficult, and cruel. This year, I have witnessed a rise in peaceful protests, with people coming together in grief, love, and anger, yet choosing to express those feelings with dignity and unity, embodying a fierce compassion.

It has reminded me that peace is not passive, that love is not weak, and that kindness, when embraced collectively, can achieve great things. I saw strangers locking arms, communities singing in the face of injustice, and individuals crying, praying, hugging, and holding space for one another across lines that once divided them. This exemplifies the power of peace and the impact of kindness, not just within individual lives, but across generations.

I think that’s what happens when you’ve been on the receiving end of cruelty, manipulation, or abuse, you remember. You remember the sting of being dismissed. The weight of feeling like nothing you did was ever enough. The quiet devastation of being mistreated by someone who was supposed to love you. And if you survive it, if you really sit with it, you begin to realize: I never want to be the reason someone else feels this way.

That’s what shaped my kindness. Not just a desire to be good, but a refusal to become what hurt me. I know what it’s like to feel invisible. To question your worth or to need just one person to be gentle with you when your world is falling apart. If I can be that one person, even for a moment, maybe I help someone hold on a little longer. Maybe I ignite something soft inside them they thought was lost. Maybe I can give them one more reason to believe that people can still be good.

So if you’re reading this and you’re tired, tired of being hurt, tired of being strong, tired of not being seen, I want you to know: you don’t have to become hard to survive. You can heal and still keep your softness. You can set boundaries and still stay open. You can be kind without losing yourself in the process.

The world doesn’t need more cruelty. It needs more people who are willing to stay tender while also staying grounded. People who can walk through fire and come out the other side still offering water. That’s what I strive to be. That’s what I believe kindness can do, not just for others, but for us.

We get to choose who we become.
And I choose this.
Every day.

Thank you so much for reading.

Happy New Year.
May 2026 be a year of healing, courage, and deep, grounded peace, for you and for all of us.

If you’d like to stay connected or explore more of my work,

You’ll find:

• Intuitive services
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• Tees, poetry, workbooks, and more

Wishing you strength, softness, and everything in between.

Wendi Kehn