People Behaving Beautifully

I was eager to catch my flight home but the security line snaked through the rope barriers and bulged out of the entry points. The summer sun flooded through the windows and brought the temperature up. As I took my place in line, a woman with a baby stroller raced to get in front of me, her face pursed into a frown. I was mildly annoyed but let her through. She sighed audibly as she resigned herself to the wait.

Moments later, her partner approached from the opposite direction. “What’s up?” he asked when he saw her face. 

“Don’t talk to me right now!” she yelled.

He didn’t say a word. He just took a step back and waited. The woman continued inching along with the stroller. 

A minute later, he moved in to give her a hug. 

She pushed him away and said something indistinguishable. Again, he backed off. 

As we continued inching along, her internal dam burst. I couldn’t understand her stream of words through her sobs, but I could hear his words. 

“I hear you,” he said. “I hear you.” This time she didn’t resist when he moved toward her and wrapped his arms around her. “I hear you,” he repeated.

Her body softened visibly. 

He said only three words: “I hear you.” But those words created a shift in the dynamic between the two of them and in the dynamic between the woman and the rest of us. 

When I stepped out of that line, I patted the man on the back. 

“You were amazing.” I said. “A guy who just hugs you when you are mad and says, ‘I hear you?’ That’s amazing!” 

I hastened to add: “Do you by chance have a much older brother who is single?” 

The woman and the man both laughed. He had changed the tide.

As I waited to board my flight, I decided to perform a social experiment: 

1. Holding Space and Listening: Checking my own reactions (airport pun intended) and taking the time to hear others. Now is the perfect time. While taking my son to his first day of Pre-K, I fell and now have a bruised coccyx. I’m OK as long as I stand perfectly still. And standing perfectly still provides an ideal way to practice my listening skills. (I just hope no one sticks around for the awkward moment when I have to get in or out of a seated position.) If you want to practice your listening skills, try standing perfectly still. You could even do it without first injuring yourself. In fact, I highly recommend that…

• Complimenting Aloud: I often form compliments in my head and not on my lips. It feels awkward to compliment others. “That’s a gorgeous dress,” I told a woman. What I meant was, “You look gorgeous in your dress.” The subtle shift makes the compliment about the person, not the object. Have you ever noticed that strangers accept our compliments more readily than loved ones do? We are socialized to reject compliments (“Oh, this old thing?”). My theory is that we catch strangers off-guard. So, please, catch more people off-guard: both strangers AND your loved ones. Even if people have a hard time hearing the compliments, eventually they will sink in. People will realize that we are not going to back down on this. 

We are an Army of Complimenters and we are not going to back down.

Call to action: 

1. Behave Beautifully and report your action in the comments below this post. #peoplebehavingbeautifully 
2. Notice others Behaving Beautifully and compliment them. #armyofcomplimenters

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