Leaning In Series: Exploring the Hearts and Stories of Southeast Idaho Women

Imagine standing in a grocery store line and as you look a few lanes over you observe an interaction. You see a woman standing with a crying infant trying to buy lunch meat and cheese with an EBT card but it doesn’t work. You see a cashier hesitate to know what to do but then try to call a manager to void the groceries from the order. If you look closely enough you may see the woman holding back tears. Before the manager arrives, you witness an act of human kindness – a gentleman steps up and pays for the purchase. The young mom is relieved and grateful.

This is a beautiful story, right? It is a privilege to be able to witness when a person comes to the rescue and helps make someone’s burden lighter.

Today I invited my family on an outing to the local art museum. I found it intriguing as I looked around at how varied the paintings look from different perspectives. From far away you can see the whole and everything works together to create beauty. As you approach the paintings and go closer and closer the details of color and brush strokes become clearer. In some ways, it looks messier. Yet those details are what make the painting stunning from far away.

For example, this is one of the paintings I saw today from three different distances.

Back to the grocery store

What if after you bought your groceries you were walking out and happened to pass by the young grateful mother who had just been shown such kindness. You stopped her and you said – Tell me your story. Then she took a few minutes and told you about the details of how she ended up standing in the line without a way to pay for all her groceries.

She told you that first of all she feels embarrassment from the stigma of having to rely on EBT.  She and her husband are having trouble adjusting to a new job. The stress has made them fight a lot. She tells you that her dad has been sick and although is doing better it was hard for a long time. She expresses how tired she is being a mom and keeping up with the demands of always being needed by children.  The meat and cheese she was buying was a gift, a peace offering to add just a little sense of relief to her and her husband’s world.

Does the story change for you when you know the details? It was a beautiful story observed from far away. As you lean in and learn the details it becomes even more remarkable. Why? The details teach us the depth of the struggle which makes the kindness greater. It allows us to feel compassion to a Mom and wife simply giving all she can to provide little pockets of happiness to her family. It shows this woman’s strength and her heart to want to bring peace to a strained relationship. It may seem like a small interaction that people just moved on from but in the words of this lady in expressing gratitude to this stranger she wrote, “It may not seem like a big thing to you, but to me and my family, it was a huge blessing that I won’t soon forget.”

Isn’t the whole picture enhanced by knowing the details?

In a world where everyone wears a mask, it is a privilege to see a soul.                                                      

We observe people from far away and we create a picture in our minds of who they are and the life they live. As we get closer and closer we become more knowledgeable of the details of their lives.  We begin to understand how the picture we see from far away is created. We learn their stories about what has brought them joy and what has brought them sorrow. It is my belief that as we become closer to the details our capacity to love and connect with them becomes greater.

The Beauty in the Details

What we all want most in life is to know in our hearts we are worthy of love and belonging. This happens by what is most terrifying to us – being real. Our world is full of people that we see from far away and we all wear masks to present our best selves and our best stories to the world. As people move in and become familiar with the intimate details of our lives we are more and more vulnerable. We are afraid if people see our stories, our hearts, our souls – the messy details will scare them away.

Paradoxically the opposite happens. When we see the details we develop greater connection and empathy. Why? The answer lies in the idea that as we move closer we develop a greater understanding of that person as an individual. We are not just looking at a picture, but we are looking at their truth and how their experiences have shaped them. We will develop a greater understanding of how their struggles and triumphs created them and the way they live life. We will understand how their belief and value system developed.

When we interact with the hearts and souls of individuals then we can exercise greater compassion because we actually see them and comprehend them. Interacting this way helps us develop empathy. If we only look at the whole, then our lives are probably vastly different from theirs. If you lean into the details then we learn the situations in their lives that elicited happiness, sadness, anger, disappointment, failure, and triumph. Emotions we all have experienced. The details are where we relate to each other. Vulnerability and realness create a space where we find connection, belonging, and love.

Leaning In

I would like to introduce you to a series I will write for Idaho Falls Moms Blog. It is based on the idea of “leaning in” so we can understand ourselves and others deeper thus creating greater connection and belonging. It will be called Leaning In: Exploring the hearts and stories of Southeast Idaho Women.

I vaguely told you the story of a woman at the beginning of this post. I hope by sharing you could see her strength. I hope you found a piece of yourself somewhere in her story. Have you felt financial strain? Have you felt stress in jobs, sickness, or relationships? Have you ever given of yourself to lighten someone’s load?  I hope as you learn the details the walls of masks and judgment would fall away and what would be left is understanding, compassion, and connection.

That will be the purpose of this series. I will interview and write about a variety of women living in our area. I want to help bring them closer and closer to help understand their stories from a firsthand perspective.

My goals for this series::

1. Build inspiration, awakening, and motivation.

I want to highlight lives of fairly unknown “ordinary women” (if there is such a thing) accomplishing extraordinary achievements to show you that what is in your heart is attainable. I want to provide stories where people went after their dreams and though challenging ended up fulfilling them.

      2. Build empathy.

I want to show you women willing to take off their masks. I want them to feel as they are honest and real that they are worthy of love and belonging. That by reading stories we might be willing to be less judgmental of the whole picture and gentler in interpreting the details of others’ lives.

     3. Build connection.

I want to show that as we look at the details of others lives that we are really all fighting the same fight. The stories will show that we are worthy of love and belonging as we all experience struggle and accomplishment, heartache and joy. We are united in our common humanity.

This series is meant to create a safe place for the interviewees and readers to take masks off and allow souls to be seen. That although we feel like we are constantly fighting against our weaknesses- who we are is enough. The details of our stories create the contrast and depth.  The whole picture displays the beauty. As we read other women’s stories my wish is that we realize the light we shine benefits us, our families, our community, and our world.