My newest obsession: Human libraries

On my very first day offering free listening this spring, someone told me about a library he'd heard about, where instead of checking out books, you could check out people. People with unique life experiences who are willing to talk about what it's like to be them.

Then last week I learned that there's a whole organization dedicated to helping people create these "human libraries" all across the world, with a huge variety of human books: People with unusual bodies and minds. People with nontraditional jobs and lifestyles. People of different ages, races, and sexual orientations. People who have had uncommon experiences of all sorts -- or common experiences that don't get talked about much.

The idea began in Denmark in response to an act of violence, with the explicit intention of breaking down stereotypes and building more cohesive communities. When I heard about it, I had the same response as I did when I learned about the Urban Confessional's free listening project: I have to do this. 

I love it because it solves the problem of wanting to get to know different kinds of people, but not having an obvious or socially acceptable way to do it. It solves the problem, too, of wanting to share one's own story, but not knowing who would be interested. And it seems way more efficient and immediately gratifying than writing or reading a traditional book.

What do you think?

If you were a human book, what parts of your life might people benefit from knowing about?

If you were to check out a human book, what kinds of experiences would interest you most? 

Would you be interested in helping organize a human library event in your area? If so, please get in touch with me. I would love to talk to you!

Intentions, impact, and expertise

I am so sick of experts.

No, scratch that. What's more accurate is that I am frustrated with how I sometimes relate to experts -- especially experts who specialize in fields similar to mine.

I dislike how quickly I can discount my own wisdom, experience and insights around people I deem to be more experienced and successful than I am. It's like I'm back in school, the eager-to-please student looking to the older, wiser teacher for the answers. 

Earlier this week, I attended a meeting of some really powerful women: two bestselling authors, an international speaker, founders of nonprofits, and others who have earned top accolades in their fields.

One of them, a motivational speaker, gave a short talk about how it's important to prioritize our own happiness and well-being. Yes! I was thinking. That's exactly right. But the truth is, even as I was nodding at the content, I was actually doing the opposite.

Rather than loving and appreciating myself, I was anxiously comparing myself to her -- and of course, falling short. Which I'm sure is the opposite of what she intended.

As I write and teach more, I sometimes worry about being put into that "expert" category myself. Will some people look at me and think their lives should be more like mine? Or assume I have better answers for them than they do? Or feel bad about themselves because they aren't as [fill-in-the-blank] as I appear to be?

I hope not. I want people to feel wonderful around me, and to come away feeling confident, peaceful, inspired, and blessed. But that isn't always going to be the case.

That's the risk, I suppose, of putting ourselves "out there" in any capacity, expert or otherwise. We can give our very best, and not get the outcome that we want. And the impact we have on others can be very different than we intend. It is simply not under our control.

How do you deal with all of this in your own life? Do you compare yourself to people that you envy or admire? If so, who do those people tend to be? What kind of impact do you want to have on the people around you, and what is it like when it doesn't work out that way? What else does all of this make you think about?

As always, I would love to hear. 

How do you inspire gratitude?

This past week, I submitted a proposal in response to this OpenIDEO challenge question: How might we inspire experiences and expressions of gratitude in the workplace? (If you want to read it and like or comment, you can do so here.)

My particular idea centered around connection cards, and their usefulness not only in helping express gratitude, but also helping express care for people in general, which then leads to gratitude.

But really, there are so many ways.

One of my favorites lately is from a friend of mine who has been posting to Facebook something she enjoys each day, and inviting other people to share what they're enjoying, too. A beautiful object, a pleasing smell, recalling a fond memory, watching people play: It's all such simple stuff, and yet visualizing these sweet moments from people's lives makes me smile every time.

I also love adding my own appreciations to the list. To me there is something very freeing and empowering about it, because I am the only one who can say what and who I actually enjoy. Other people may disagree, but they can't tell me I'm wrong. :)

Some of the proposals I saw for inspiring gratitude at work were quite complicated, with special "thank you" apps, and tracking methods, and incentives for who can appreciate the most. But to me, that misses something fundamental, which is that gratitude is inherently rewarding. If you're truly grateful for something, it feels good! No external motivators necessary.

The only kind of gratitude that doesn't feel good is the fake kind, where you pretend to be grateful because you think you should be, or because you don't want someone else to feel bad -- or because you're trying to meet your workplace quota. Who wants to be the recipient of that?

This week I enjoyed leaving cards for neighbors with awesome Halloween decorations. I enjoyed how easy it was to get an appointment to get my car repaired. I enjoyed making a favorite dinner recipe that I hadn't made in a while. And I have been enjoying my warm, comfortable bed.

What about you? What have you been enjoying? What have you been enjoying at work? I would love to hear.

The payoff of being with discomfort

I just read this short newsletter piece from Dan Leven, who teaches expressive movement at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Western MA.

The skill he describes, this ability to be with uncomfortable experiences without being overwhelmed by them, is such an important one. It's something we get to practice each time we gather to listen and share with one another during an Alive & Connected conversation.

It can be uncomfortable to hear viewpoints that are different than ours. It can be uncomfortable to share our own experiences when we're not sure others will appreciate them. It can be uncomfortable not to offer help and advice to people who are trying to find their own answers. But the payoff for being willing to sit with that discomfort is huge. It opens up new insights, deeper connections, and a sense of vitality that is often missing in day-to-day life. 

I know I'm not the only one who craves those things. If you do, too, perhaps you'd like to join me at an upcoming Meetup event. Or if you live outside the Metrowest Boston area, how might you bring more conversations like this into your own part of the world?

I guarantee you have something valuable to offer in one of these groups, and something important to receive as well.

What is love, anyway?

Last week I led a conversation around the question, "What does it mean to love someone?"

It is such an interesting question to me, with many possible answers. Here are some of my thoughts:

I think to love someone is to experience a desire for them to be happy.

I think wanting happiness for someone and seeing them not happy -- or fearing that they won't be happy in the future -- is one of the hardest things there is to experience.

And I think the discomfort of that experience leads us to try to "fix" things for other people: We give them unsolicited advice. We tell them how we would handle things. We offer subtle rewards and punishments to get them to behave differently. We do things "for their own good."

In short, we overstep our boundaries and act in ways that don't feel very loving at all.

I think a willingness to sit with the gap between our desire for people's happiness and the uncertain and often painful realities of life is one of the most important skills we can develop if we want to love well.

This is something we practice in our Alive & Connected conversations each month, where the most fundamental ground rule is that participants aren't allowed to offer each other suggestions or advice about anything that gets shared. We aren't there to "fix" each other's lives (which aren't broken in the first place!), but to honor each other, listen to each other, share with each other, and wish each other well.

To me, that is what love feels like: the freedom to be fully me, knowing that I will be supported and included, even when my life doesn't match up to other people's desires for me.

What about you? What does it mean to you to love someone? What else does this question make you think about? I would love to hear.

Who are those strangers, really?

I used to think that if I had a negative judgment about someone I didn't know, it meant I was a rotten person.

This felt especially true if my judgment was toward a person of color, or a non-English speaker, or someone with a disability, or anyone else who tends to get discriminated against in our society.

I was scared of people finding out about all these judgments for fear of being labeled a racist, or a xenophobe, or simply a jerk.

But the truth is, I have a lot of judgments, about all sorts of people I don't know, on a regular basis. People at the grocery store. People walking around town. People with their kids on the playground. People in the news. Sometimes I do link the judgments to race or class, but it might also be the expression on their face, or the way they talk, or the kind of shirt they're wearing, or something even pettier than that.

What's striking to me is how automatic the process is:

1. I encounter someone unknown
2. I feel some fear (because unknown = potentially scary!)
3. I justify my fear with a negative judgment

Those negative judgments can be enticing when I feel afraid, because they offer a sort of safety through certainty. (If I know there's a potential enemy out there, then I can protect myself, right?)  But the problem is, they're usually wrong! Or at the very least, based on very incomplete information. And they can easily magnify and globalize my original fear, so it's not just this particular person I have to protect myself against, but a whole category of people.

Holding on to negative judgments like that creates a scary world in which I feel vulnerable to people who are unknown and different from me. 

I don't know about you, but I really dislike feeling that way about the people around me. And so lately I've been trying to add step 4: reminding myself that the fear and judgment simply mean I don't know the person yet (or don't know enough).

I love that 4th step because it helps me let go of the false certainty of my judgment, and find some peace and humility in remembering how much I don't know. Who is that person, anyway? What is their life like? What might they be experiencing right now? Curiosity helps me expand my perspective and maybe even learn something new about a person.

As a human being, I'm not sure there's much I can do to avoid steps 1-3. I will always be encountering new people who are different from me, fear is a natural adaptive response to that novelty, and there are practically unlimited judgments and stereotypes I can draw on to turn someone unknown into a scary "other." But that's not where it has to end, for any of us.

I'm curious how you relate to the experience of judging and stereotyping strangers. What happens when you catch yourself doing it?  

And what about those people you struggle with whom you have known a long time? In what ways could you get curious about them?

It's never too late to say thank you

This week I received a text message from someone thanking me for a card I sent him over a year ago when a good friend of his had died. I'd mailed him a short note with three connection cards inside: You are loved. You are appreciated. You are not alone.

I know it was those three cards because he sent me a photo of them. They have been taped to his front door for months.

How cool is that?!

I don't think I will ever get tired of the way it feels to reach out to people with small gestures like that, not just because it feels good to do, but because there is always a chance that it will have a much larger impact than I imagine.

If you feel a tug to write to someone today, I highly recommend giving in to the urge. 

And by all means, if you have been avoiding telling someone "thank you" because you think too much time has passed, just go do it!  Sometimes "late" thank you's are the most powerful ones of all.

How to connect in an instant

I used to be scared to connect with strangers.

I know this because for a college psychology class one week I had an assignment to smile at people I didn't know. I remember trying it exactly one time, and it feeling so awkward and embarrassing that I couldn't bring myself to do it again.

What cured me of my fear was an activity during a personal growth seminar that got repeated several times over the course of a long weekend. We would break up into pairs, sit knee-to-knee, look into the other person's eyes, and take turns listening to each other's experiences, fears, and desires.

As far as I could tell, it was awkward for everybody. But it was the assignment, and we did it, and it actually ended up feeling really good.

I learned that weekend that it is possible to experience a sense of deep connection with a perfect stranger in a matter of minutes. And it doesn't take much longer to experience that same level of connection with a whole room full of them.

We know this, of course. It happens after natural disasters, for instance, when diverse communities naturally come together to support one another.

But it doesn't require a tragedy.

At the end of my personal growth weekend, it was clear to me that anyone could have been in that seminar with me, and I would have left feeling love and compassion toward them. Since then, I've realized it doesn't even take sharing a seminar to feel that way about someone. All it takes is a positive intention and a few moments of eye contact.

Last weekend, I had the joy of participating in the World's Biggest Eye Contact Experiment on Boston Common (see the news story here and more event details here), and got to witness that same magical connection happen over and over. In a time when there is so much fear and blame in the air, it was a great reminder of how powerful, and possible, it is to create something different.

I don't need to know the specifics of your joys and struggles to know that you have them, just like I do. And the ability to remember that connects me not only to you, but to everyone else on the planet.

If you've never taken a minute to just look into someone's eyes -- and allow them to look into yours -- I highly recommend it. I would love to hear what it's like for you.

How hard does work need to be?

Have you ever made something harder for yourself than it needed to be?

I caught myself doing it recently.

Last week, I set an explicit goal to arrange six separate conversations with people on a particular topic, and within an hour of doing that, an opportunity for the first of those conversations practically fell into my lap.

"What luck!" I might have said. "I'm off to a great start already, and I hardly had to do a thing!"

That would have been a great happiness-inducing response.

But instead, I found myself automatically thinking, "That didn't count."

It wasn't fair! It was too easy! Shouldn't I have to muster up courage and overcome obstacles to reach my goals? Shouldn't I have to work hard, and experience struggle and sacrifice?

It made me wonder what I was actually committed to. Was I just committed to achieving my goal, or was I also committed to doing it in a particular way (namely, the hard way)?

Apparently, I was committed to both. I did end up reaching my goal, but the process didn't feel good. All week, I was anxious about it, wondering what "counted" and what didn't, whether I was working hard enough. I created extra work and struggle for myself, despite the grace that was there right from the beginning.

The more I reflect on it, the more sad and ridiculous that mindset seems. Why would I want to make things harder than they need to be? How does that serve anyone? It just means spending more time stuck in my head, and less time out actually connecting to and caring for other people.

What if, instead, I were simply grateful for those things that come easily? Not only would I be happier, but I think I'd get a lot more meaningful and useful work done, too.

I wonder, of course: Can you relate to any of this in your own life? Do you ever feel guilty for receiving things that feel unearned? How do you respond to life's unfairness in general? How do your thoughts about all of this affect your happiness?

The gift of asking for help

Today was jam-packed with back-to-back meetings and activities, including an important evening event at my son's school. It is now late, past 9 p.m., and the kitchen is still a mess from dinner. And I have a blog post and newsletter to prepare for tomorrow morning.

I turn on some calming music and start emptying the dishwasher, preparing myself for potentially a very long night. In this particular moment, I'm not resentful, but I am feeling kind of sad, and a little afraid for what tomorrow will look like on just a few hours of sleep.

Then I remember I can ask for help -- even for this job that I have voluntarily claimed as my responsibility.

I go upstairs and ask my husband if he can do the dishes tonight. He is happy to. And so here I am, writing, as the kitchen magically gets cleaned up around me.

It is a gift I wouldn't have received unless I'd asked. My husband wouldn't have even known I needed it. 

This is such a tiny example, but still it makes me wonder: How many gifts do we rob ourselves of, simply by not asking for them?

How many times to do we rob other people of the joy of making us happy because we don't let them know what we would actually like?

How often do we assume we have to suffer and sacrifice, when it's really not true? Does that suffering and sacrificing serve anyone?

What if we didn't feel like we had to be totally overwhelmed before asking for help? What if we remembered how much people want to contribute to each other? What if we helped make it easy for them?

I also wonder, as always: How does this resonate with you?

What is your relationship like with asking for help? Is it easier in some circumstances than others? Is there help could you use right now? Who might be delighted to give it to you, if you gave them the chance?