.....first impressions

Yogis,
My niece was dropped off at college this week. Being a freshman in a new room, a new state with new people is one of life’s big leaps. No one knows her. No one knows her past or her story. What she likes or what she doesn’t. Where she ‘fits’. College presents us with a clean slate.

I remember so clearly being dropped off myself. My parents waving goodbye while we were welcomed by a beer truck at the entrance to the dorm. I was seventeen and believed that I could choose to be whoever I wanted to be in college. I finetuned the first impression that I wanted to present as this new Sarah. Not that there was anything necessarily wrong with the old me, but I felt I could be cooler.

I knew already that first impressions are hard to get past. We humans, with our forever judging minds, make a determination about another in moments of our first introduction. How they look, move, speak. We walk away from the encounter sure we can sum them up in a couple sentences. We don’t even have to meet them but can simply watch them from afar. We know ‘their kind.’ We have created an image and we carry it into our next meeting. As if human beings were that simple…….

But aren’t we all wearing masks? Is what another sees when they meet you the true you? Or maybe you are you presenting what you think they want to see.

It’s a practice to not allow the outer to distract you from what is inside the other. I decided several years ago that I wanted to take on that challenge. To look beyond the persona and see the person. I’ve made it a habit (as best I can).

To others it sometimes appears that I am naïve. Don’t you see how that other person is? Don’t you realize they are taking advantage of you? I’m often told I am ‘too nice.’

I can clearly see what others are seeing but am learning that with time I will also be able to see the deeper layers. The ones that matter. Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they are going through a challenging time. Maybe they were always praised for being the loud jokester. Or they weren’t ever given permission to speak up for themselves. We don’t know what molded the mask, but we can choose to get to know who is inside of it.

There are those times you meet someone and there is an instant connection. You look in their eyes and see them. Often though you must dive beneath the hard crust of the first impression and see what lies below. Think about friends you have now and what you thought of them the first time you met. Or even your spouse. A teacher you dreaded but by the end of the year became a lifelong mentor.

At our center we are all the same. That is where I want to get to know you……

Never quite pulled off that ‘cool’ impression,
SARAH