Humanity, for Me, Starts With Eye Contact
I wanted to connect with you one more time before the holidays are upon us with a reminder that the “holidays” are not one thing and that they are not always “happy.” I shared my update in my last post, and I’m doing…better. But even this Jewish woman gets some bizarre sense of FOMO over Christmas. It makes zero sense. There is a story that EVERYONE has SOMEONE, that each person is encozied in their place with their loved ones, and that I, even with lots of lovely plans, am on the outside. And, of course, there are many of you who are grieving someone or something meaningful, battling addiction, figuring out how to afford your new health care premium, wondering if there will be a next job. I see you. My heart is aching a lot this year. You are not alone.
Last week, I attended the Hoffman Process retreat. I am not going to share anything detailed about the deep, immersive, device-free seven days I spent in the California hills. I will share the link to the Oprah pod episode that discusses it.
I will share generally that the retreat invites you to dive all the way into your personality patterns, to source them to their origins (usually parents), to separate your true spiritual self from those patterns, and to liberate your spiritual self to be your less fettered guide in life. This was all incredibly emotional, powerful, perfectly timed for me.
I wanted to share one key learning with you that feels apropos to this time of year. Months ago, I revealed a dominant persona of mine, Airport Sue. She is/was efficient, undistractable, on purpose, fast as heck.
Somewhere in this last week, I realized how broad Airport Sue has played in my life. She’s got range. She has been around for phone calls with customer service, with gym workouts in public settings, with almost anything that sniffs of required bureaucracy that I cannot control. So much of this device-free week was slow, connected. Three longish meals a day with a 40-person cohort, breaks, walks outside made for a chance to realize how fast I’d been going, even after having a similar realization during COVID.
In seeing all of that, I realized that my very humanity had been on the line. I was seeing life in part as a series of processes I needed to “overcome.” I was scoring wins and losses almost constantly on a perpetual, unconscious scoreboard. These were patterns I could see were interfering with really LIVING.
And among the vows I made at Hoffman was this: I will slow down and make eye contact. Sounds tiny. I know. But the eye contact represented something bigger. It meant I would be treating people as people and not just obstacles.
So. I tried it. And I’ve been trying it. The results have been shocking to me. I keep seeing again and again how often people give me something “extra.” A nod, a kindness in a check-in process for a guest pass at an out-of-town gym, and smiles…so…many…smiles. I bet I’ve been getting those all along, but missing them. What a costly price to pay for “efficiency.” I am also finding that at this pace, I get more opportunities to be generous in small ways. I have the extra 1.5 seconds to reach down and pick up a stuffed animal a stroller toddler dropped on the DIA train. I get to ask—really ask—how someone I don’t know is doing that day, and then listen to the response. My community, social fabric, sense of well-being are expanding.
One domain where Airport Sue never showed up is behind the wheel of my car. My driving is more like Boca Grandma. I’ve often cast aspersions at people tailgating in situations where there’s little to be gained. I would say something like “glad you’ll get there 5 seconds faster than the rest of us.” And all the while, I was doing the same thing. Not saving insignificant snips of time at the potential risk of causing others harm, but saving minuscule snips of time at the cost of being a part of the whole and exchanging affection in places I was so unconsciously overlooking.
Happy year-end, folks. If I see you soon, I hope I really see you.
Any thoughts, feelings, or blurts? Share them here.