Smiling helps.
That’s it.
I have nothing more profound than that. I have been reminded lately how important it is to give and receive smiles, so I thought I would remind everyone else.
We have one community member at Peace House Community who I mentally associate with smiling. He and I rarely speak to each other, but any day that he comes in, he gives me a smile and a nod. Several times, when I have been dealing with a stressful situation or a combative individual, I will see him looking at me. When he knows he’s caught my eye, he will give me a smile of understanding. He still doesn’t say anything, but the smile lets me know that someone else sees what I’m dealing with and appreciates what I’m going through.
That sort of interaction has affected how I do my job. When Peace House Community opens in the morning, I try to greet our community members with a smile to make them feel welcome and at home. Many of our members have told me about how unwelcome they feel walking into most other buildings. They believe the people letting them in have already decided that they are potential troublemakers, which makes them defensive and guarded. Having someone be genuinely glad that they have shown up is an unusual experience for them, and it often makes it easier for them to relax and cooperate with us.
Of course, I’m not always good at smiling. I have deadlines to meet, tasks that I don’t enjoy, meetings that waste time, and any number of other experiences that sap my own joy. So sometimes I forget to smile. I start treating community members and their needs as interruptions and inconveniences, rather than the reason I am here. At times like that, I need the smiles. I want to be the smilee instead of the smiler.
No, smiling isn’t always easy. Sometimes we just don’t have the emotional energy to be cheerful, at times like that, we need others to do the smiling. We need them to pump us up. And then later, after we’ve gotten our energy back, we can use it to lift them up when they need it.
That’s all for this month. Smile, and have a good day
by Marti Maltby, Director Peace House Community – A Place to Belong
This article originally appeared in “The Alley,” the newspaper for the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.