The Gift of Friends

So I REALLY LOVE doing this adopt-a-grandparent project. It is definitely my fav! So quick story...the first time we went it was a Thursday afternoon, right around the time I start getting tired every day. I was pretty sleep-deprived and not in the best of moods as a result. So there I was, walking into the care center in zombie-like fashion, just had kind of surface politeness to my group members. By the time we left an hour later, I was smiling and chatting and laughing myself out the door, and I was actually really truly happy. I loved visiting with the people there, it totally made my day and changed my entire mood, and somehow I wasn't tired anymore. I wasn't conscious of this sudden mood change until we left and I realized how much energy I had. With every visit we make it never ceases to put me in an awesomely good mood that lasts for the rest of the day. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and it reminded me of something I read in a book by Pres. Hinckley's daughter. So here's an excerpt from this book that I think illustrates my thoughts, and also pertains to what we've been talking about with relationships and listening.

Excerpt from Virginia H. Pearce's book A Heart Like His:

"Several years ago I took my mother shopping for a winter coat. Shopping is not my favorite activity, and it was getting close to dinnertime before we finally found the right coat. It was a soft grey wool with raglan sleeves that hung way below her fingertips and a hem that brushed the tops of her shoes. The saleswoman sent for the alterations lady, who helped Mother onto the raised platform and went to work. I sank into a chair in the corner of the fitting room, lost in my own little world, wondering if I had time on the way home to shop at the grocery store to pick up something for dinner.

"Gradually, on the edges of my consciousness, I began to hear a conversation. Mother would ask a question, and the alterations lady would answer. At first the answers were rather brief, but as the questions and interest from Mother continued, the answers became longer. The woman's voice became more animated. By the time we left, the two of them were laughing together like old friends. And I was left out--a shriveled, self-asorbed, tired little soul in the corner. And withholding myself, I exited just as I had entered. I looked at Mother. She had come in just as weary as I but was leaving with an extra spring in her step.

"Aha. Here was a discovery that I didn't recognize then, but when I began to experiment years later, I thought back on that afternoon and identified a process that is repeatable: Opening one's heart creates energy. Closing one's heart depletes energy. As I sat in the corner of the dressing room with my little closed heart and thought about the list of things I had to do my fatigue increased. Mother looked down at the laterations lady and opened her heart by expressing an interest, and Mother's energy increased. "Do you like your job? how long have you worked here? What about your family? Where are you from?" An open heart looks outward. A closed heart looks inward.

"I learned something else about opening hearts from the coat-buying encounter. An open heart very often coaxes open someone else's closed heart. It's almost magical. An open heart presents a safe place that others sense, and they respond, sometimes immediately and sometimes much more slowly. No matter, however, whether they respond or not, because in the meantime, we feel so much better living this way. Go ahead, experiment for yourself."

Isn't this so true? It seems when I'm open-hearted and willing to take the time to really listen to someone (using my new-found master listening skills), they open up, and I know we talked about how listening makes you tired because it's an active process and is hard, but I think that it does also create energy. I think it's the looking outward, beyond yourself, beyond your own needs and wants and having someone else's happiness in mind besides your own, that's when you become happy in the process of making them happy. Making friends or just being a friend in the moment isn't hard when you're willing to listen and be sincerely interested in the other person. It's interesting how other people's happiness can so greatly affect our own.

"We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say--and to feel-- "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." ~John Steinbeck