CROC?
A few weeks ago, I went to a retreat for women who are in the helping professions. It was an amazing day of meditation, forest bathing, great conversations, and recharging. One of the activities involved decorating a wood shape with a word that would be gifted to someone else in the group. I picked out an egg-shaped piece to do my word. As I looked at it, turning it around and around, I decided to stand it on its end, thinking it reminded me of a flower bud about to open. I selected some hot pink and purple pens and wrote out my word – Joy – with the “j” at the top and the “y” curving along the bottom. I decorated it with pink and purple flowers. When the basket came around, I tossed mine in. Our leader, Kristy, explained that now we would each randomly select one of the items from the basket, intending to get the gift the word offered. I picked mine out, smiling at the word excitement.
Then Kristy had us go around the circle and share our words and what they meant for us. The sharing was what you might expect until we got to Sarah. Now Sarah is one of those people who makes you feel at ease the minute you start talking to her. She has a big smile and a big heart, which is why she is one of my favorite people. So, for that reason, I was surprised when she did not immediately jump into her word. Instead, she kept staring at the wood piece, looking perplexed. Then reaching a decision she spoke (and this is from memory so probably not exactly what she said).
“I’m going to guess there are a couple of meanings. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what the word is, but I am going to share what it means for me.” She took a breath and held up her wood piece. “My word is CROC and while I’m not sure I understand what it meant for the person who wrote it, for me it is all about one of my favorite animals – the crocodile.” She went on from there explaining how crocodiles had a lot of qualities she admired and how the “CROC” message fit with her life. When she finished, she held the wood piece out. “So, maybe the person who wrote it can explain the other meaning?” She looked around the circle hopefully.
I looked around too, wondering if the person who wrote it was embarrassed and that was why she wasn’t stepping forward. We all laughed nervously, and then the woman next to me, whispered, “Isn’t that yours?”
Startled, I looked at the piece again, seeing my tiny pink and purple flowers. And then it hit me, she was holding the piece horizontally and I’d written it vertically!
Well, we all had a good laugh about it, and I realized my penchant for seeing things differently had struck again, though it did get the reaction I wanted. Laughter got all our joy circuits buzzing!
I thought about that experience again this last week. It reminded me of how there are many different ways to look at things. For me, I saw a flower bud bursting with joy. For Sarah, she saw CROC and thought of a crocodile. Someone else could have turned it over and just saw a blank. It was all in how we looked at it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how Sarah responded to that experience, especially as the election results came in on Tuesday. As the person who had written the word, I so appreciated how she found a way to handle her confusion. Instead of embarrassing the creator (me), she found a way to work with what she perceived. I’m sure it took some effort for her to figure out how to respond, considering she had no idea what the word was supposed to be. I also so appreciated that she assumed my heart was in the right place, even if what I’d written made no sense to her. She chose to be kind.
No matter where you stand on the election results or what you believe about what they mean for our country, I hope you will join me in emulating Sarah. If we remember that while we may not understand how someone else is seeing things, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have a perspective that might make more sense if we gave them a chance to explain it. And even if we still don’t agree, I hope we choose to remember the wisdom of CROC/JOY and be kind to each other. We are all in this together.
