When Kindness Breaks You Open

On being seen, disarmed, and undone by grace

📖 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” — Psalm 147:3 (NKJV)

🕯️ Yesterday morning, I arrived at the coaching session with a knot in my stomach that I recognised long before I could name it. Not the surface-level flutter of meeting a familiar face, but something deeper — the kind of tightening that visits me in the wings of a stage and takes my breath away in the moment just before I step into the light. After all, Craig is one of the co-owners of Speakers Institute. He received it warmly. “This isn’t Britain’s Got Talent,” he said. “I’m not Simon Cowell. I’m not here to judge you.” I exhaled, just a little.

I’d come wanting to understand the fear — the particular fear that had crept in mid-presentation at the Tribe gathering the week before. I’d felt it in my stomach and in my breath, or rather, in the sudden absence of breath. Craig described it as a defensiveness that follows giving yourself permission to be seen; the body simply encountering the unknown. Something in me nodded quietly at that. Yes. That’s the shape of it.

✍️ He affirmed that the presentation was genuinely good. Real progress. He could see it. Then, gently, he named the gap: I was retelling rather than reliving, and the audience, he said, can feel the difference. The words landed softly but with weight, the way truth tends to when it arrives without condemnation. I wrote it down. I wanted to hold it carefully.

I panicked, because my battery was running low. Dang, why didn’t I check that it was on the charger before I went to bed? 🤔 I had my power bank and thought I’d be okay but then that didn’t work. Halfway through the session, my laptop battery died. The screen went dark mid-sentence. Craig was gracious — he gave me time to get home so we could finish. I raced home. By the time we resumed, the knot in my stomach had eased, and the conversation moved somewhere deeper than technique.

🕊️ Born in Germany. Raised across South Africa. Thirty-four homes over nineteen years. Craig gave a name to what I carry: generational armour. German and South African, layered and long-held. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that before — as armour, rather than wound. There’s a difference, and the distinction matters.

He identified that the fear — that place where everything kicks in — has something to do with encouragement, or the lack of it. It revealed itself right after I asked the audience, “What happened, why did you stop?” I’d been in really good flow, and that’s where I got caught off guard.

📖 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” — 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

🪨 When I told him my core fear — that I’m not good enough, that shame and judgement and criticism had shaped so much of my life — Craig didn’t rush past it. He didn’t offer a quick reframe or a tidy principle. He sat with it for a moment. Then he reframed it entirely.

He told me that the key isn’t to coach the insecurity away. It’s fuel. It’s what makes people fight for something beyond themselves. Remove it entirely, and you remove the fire. The key is to learn to leverage the insecurity — not push past it. Even the things that hold us back in some ways, he said, likely accelerate us in ways we haven’t yet realised.

✍️ I’m still sitting with that. Fuel. Not failure. Fuel.

🕯️ Then he said it. Simply, warmly, without fanfare:

“Trixi, I’m inspired by you. Very good. It’s very good. Very good.”

The tears started welling up.

I didn’t know what to do with it. That’s the honest truth. I’m not sure I’ve ever quite known what to do when someone is simply, unreservedly kind to me. The tears weren’t dramatic. They were quiet. The kind that come when something long-held finally finds permission to move.

He closed with encouragement: I was starting from a really good place. The presentation was very good and could become world class. He was excited about where this would end up — really excited. He believed I’d nail it.

I left with a clear list of things to work on and with a slightly looser grip on the fear of being seen.

🌱 Afterwards, I sat with a whole lot of tears and unravelling. Misha walked in and found me in the middle of it. He didn’t say a word — he just held me. Then he went off, and a few minutes later I heard the kettle switch on. He came back moments later with a cup of tea in his hands, and the tears I’d managed to hold at bay started rolling again.

I just don’t know what to do with people being so kind to me.

🕊️ In the thick of the tears, I messaged Peter — not wanting to disturb him at work, just checking if he had a moment. He replied that he’d call during his next break. By the time he rang two hours later, I was much more composed. I shared briefly and asked for prayer ministry. He was warm and steady, and he said he believes God is doing a big thing in me. Again, so much kindness. So much quiet confidence in what God has placed in me. He’ll set up an appointment and bring a team member to intercede. I received that too.

In the interim, I’ll work through Craig’s resources and submit the final video.

🌱 Today I’m grateful that I’ve learned to let the tears flow and ask for help. Today I’m also — unexpectedly — grateful for a laptop that died halfway through a session because the unravelling didn’t happen at The Crate. That would have been so embarrassing 😳. God’s timing, even in a flat battery.

🕊️ I think that might be part of what the Lord is asking me to learn. Not just to receive a compliment. Not just to accept encouragement from a coach. But to let kindness in — all the way in — without flinching, without deflecting, without immediately offering something back in return. To simply open my hands and receive what God sends, whether it comes through a cup of tea or a tearful session on a Thursday afternoon.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, and the crack — the break — doesn’t make the piece weaker. It makes it more beautiful. More honest. More unique. Perhaps that’s what’s happening in this tender, unravelling season. God is not filling in my cracks to make me look unbroken. He’s filling them with something luminous, and what’s being repaired isn’t just a presentation — it’s the part of me that learned, a long time ago, not to trust kindness.

🌱 So now I sit here — weight on my chest, heart full, eyes red, nose blocked from all the crying, exhausted in the best and worst of ways — and I’m due to make

💡 Reflection:

• Where in your life have you found it difficult to receive kindness — from people or from God? What do you think that difficulty is protecting? 🤔
• Have you ever noticed a particular fear that surfaces when you step into your calling? What does it feel like in your body, and what has it been telling you? 🤔
• Craig said insecurity can be fuel rather than failure. How might the very things you’ve been most ashamed of actually be the things that drive you towards something greater? 🤔
• Is there someone in your life — a Misha, a Craig, a gentle presence — through whom God has recently offered you kindness? Have you been able to receive it fully? 🤔
• What might it mean for you to loosen your grip on the fear of being seen — just a little — this week? 🤔

🎺 Affirmation:

I am seen, and I am not afraid of being known. God has given me a story worth telling, and the fear that rises does not disqualify me — it is fuel for the fire. I am being mended with gold, and the cracks in me are not marks of failure but evidence of a God who restores. I am enough — not because I have arrived, but because He is with me in the becoming.

🙌 Prayer:

Lord, You know the knot that forms in my stomach and the tears that catch me off guard. You see the part of me that learned, long ago, to hold kindness at arm’s length rather than let it land. Tonight I come to You undone — not polished, not prepared — just as I am. Teach me to receive what You give, whether through the voice of a coach or the hands of a son bringing tea. Let me learn that being seen is not dangerous. Let me learn that kindness is safe. Mend what has been broken in me with Your gold, Lord, and let the cracks catch the light. Let the fear become fuel and let the tears be the beginning of something new. I trust You with the video, the presentation, the stage, and every trembling version of me that steps towards it. I trust You with all of it.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.