“Let others see their own greatness when looking in your eyes.”
― Mollie Marti
There are those among us who encourage our growth solely through their presence in our lives. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to know the type of person I’m talking about…
They are the sort of people who walk around with their hearts wide-open regardless of who they find themselves in proximity to, have the amazing capacity to make anyone feel completely at ease and are genuinely interested in understanding how other people experience the world.
I came across one of these wonderful human beings in college when I became friends with a woman who introduced me, in large-part, to myself.
When Mary Lynn entered my life, I was carrying around a great deal of emotional pain that I had for years numbed-out and masked behind a tough-girl facade. We met my first year of college in a psychology class in which I was continually struggling to stay afloat academically. ML (as she is called by friends) readily tutored me and helped me make it through the class with a passing grade.
What initially struck me about ML was, unlike me, she carried herself with a calm bearing. Her feathers rarely ruffled and there was a grounded-ness about her that drew me in like a magnet. From all accounts, you could say ML was “all in” for the journey life was handing her—and that was something I deeply longed to feel about my own life.
From the very beginning, we were fast friends. We studied together, partied together, and talked a lot about life. Our relationship nurtured my burgeoning interests in wellness, spirituality, and the love of nature. It was as if she held up a mirror for me to see myself, not with a reflection of limitation as I was accompanied to seeing, but a reflection of possibility. She saw all of me, the good and the not-so-good, and she loved me just as I was.
What I remember most about the time we spent together was how easy it was to just be myself in her presence. She was a great listener, with a proclivity to challenge my thinking without being intimidating. She was more inclined to ask a lot of questions, allowing me space to ponder my own perceptions rather than point out any error in my thinking.
Ultimately, she showed me the transformative power of “bearing witness” for another—to lovingly attend to the entirety of another person’s experience. Her willingness to be present with my messiness, gave me the courage to continue my exploration of the uncomfortable things I pushed away. I reasoned, if she could see all of me and not be put off, then maybe my pain wasn’t something to be afraid of after all.
Gentle souls like my dear friend are a testament to the power of a loving presence. It reminds me that it is our willingness to be attentive to one another—to deeply listen without judgment—that holds the capacity to profoundly open the hearts of those we interact with.
Whether our loving presence creates a small fissure or a large chasm in the hardened places of the heart…it is the stuff of miracles…and LOVE is its substrate.