A lot of people we know are dealing with VERY real things right now. Impostor Syndrome. Depression. Self-Discovery. Trauma. Job Loss. Financial Insecurity. Family Issues. The list goes on. Through all of that – we can’t forget the simple, but deep, power of just saying “Hello” to someone and checking in on them.
Call your friend and check on them. Write a letter or an email to someone in your family. Text someone and just ask them how they’re doing. DM them on Social Media. Send a smoke signal if you have to! (Kidding) I hear the cool kids are using this thing called Zoom these days.
A Few Thoughtful Minutes of Good Vibes Can Change a Life
“More than 60 percent of Americans report feeling lonely, left out, poorly understood, and lacking companionship…”
ohsonline.com (Jan 28, 2020)
That is a terrifying stat, and maybe something we could easily fix in a lot of cases by taking a little time to care for each other enough to communicate.
If you do a search on Google right now for “the impact of checking in on someone” – you get 474,000,000 results. Sure. All of that isn’t relevant results – but a lot of it is. Clicking through a few of those, you see trends about people hearing from significant others less. There are articles about checking in on friends. And even more on “just checking-in in general“.
Consciously pause for a moment and reach out to check-in on a friend you haven’t seen in forever because you never know what they may be going through silently.
A Contextual Check-in Can Work Wonders!
Asking a friend, or even an acquaintance you know, a bit about “how their family is doing”… “-a job is going”… or “how a medical issue worked out”… (and so on) can be uplifting for someone who may feel alone with their issue.
And I think anyone who has been through anything in life can tell you getting a reminder that you’re not alone can go a long way. I am not a saint at this myself – I personally suck at it with A LOT of people, so I’m in part writing this one for my own benefit.
I don’t have much for this one aside from trying to remind people to “mind people” (I felt like a bit of wordplay there would make that statement click a little better… did it work?). Saying “Hello” to someone literally takes one second.
Now call your friend or family member.
Peace, and thanks for reading.
The soundtrack for this post provided by…
Image Credits:
– Cover Image © GaudiLab (Shutterstock)
– Body Image 1 © Robert Kneschke (Shutterstock)
– Body Image 2 © MAD.vertise (Shutterstock)
– Body Image 3 © Ginnyyj (Shutterstock)