Melissa Saulnier

BEE BEAUTIFUL — FROM THE INSIDE OUT Being kind when people are kind to us is easy. The greater challenge is deciding who we will be when they aren’t. When someone else’s cruelty changes us into someone cruel, we have given them power over our character. Kindness takes that power back. Kindness doesn’t mean accepting mistreatment. You can forgive and still have boundaries. You can wish someone well and no longer give them access to your life. You can walk away from disrespect without becoming...

The farmer kneels down. He only wants to help. But the second his hand comes near, the rabbit explodes, clawing, biting, throwing everything it has left at the one person trying to save it. It isn't cruelty. It's terror. The rabbit can't tell a rescuing hand from the thing that hurt it. Every reach looks like one more attack.

So we grow up. And we carry that blueprint into every room we enter without ever knowing it is in our hands. We call intensity passion. We call possessiveness devotion. We call the familiar ache of never quite being enough home. We are not foolish. We are faithful to a pattern that was pressed into us before we could consent to it.