Ripples

Do you remember the first time someone told you that there are times when something you do has a “ripple effect”? What comes to mind for me is when a youth advisor at church threw a rock into a lake and had us all look at the circles that emanated out from where the rock sunk into the water. “You see? The first impact made a circle, then that one made a circle—and on and on. This is what can happen when you share a kindness with someone.” I’ll never forget that. These days there are concepts like something “going viral,” and “paying it forward,” and these concepts are in the same neighborhood. As much as I wish that all things rippling would be about kindness, I know that is not the real world. What tickles me about being involved in this project is that I’m setting an intention to ripple out the notion that we all have some amazing stories inside of our hearts and souls and this is a place to safely share them. You never know. And speaking of ripple effects, I had one of my first ripples from this project last week before I even launched this website! A friend of mine who works with cancer patients said that when she gets a new patient, she asks them to share a little about their lives, work, etc. One patient apparently had not been asked the question so sincerely and as a result, she poured her heart out. My friend noticed that this woman had an immense amount of angst around unfinished conversations and some very real dead ends with some of the relationships in her family. My friend recommended her patient write a letter to any of the people she wanted to “say” things to. The patient actually did this (wrote but did not send letters) for ALL of them and at her next visit she said, out loud, how much freedom she felt from this experience.  My friend told her about me and about my project and the patient said they weren’t quite ready for sending them here AND…. I was thrilled! I don’t expect everyone who visits here or hears about this project to send a letter in. I’m interested in the ripples, and yes indeed I am positively thrilled to have one ripple, one person at a time have this experience of freedom. It’s not about the masses, this is not about extreme ripples, it’s about One. Ripple. At. A. Time. ( I am so excited to see what you each have to share!!!!) So where is a letter living in you???