New People

August marked the month I became a grandmother for the first time. It's a big deal. I knew that, I was prepared. But it is bigger than I expected.

You find yourself staring into the eyes of a brand new human being, thinking about the magic and mystery of it all. The new parents are bright-eyed and awed, and full of intentions and ideas of how they will provide safety, joy and good values for this child.

And that extends to what they expect and want from their new child’s grandparents, collectively and each of us individually. And here is where the fun really begins.

We begin to ask ourselves who we want to be to this new individual, who will now be part of our lives forever. How will he or she see us, what will we stand for, what will we teach them?

It is like being given a new chance at being you. Who are you? What values do you bring to the table? What will the new child see and observe and take note of from your behavior or words, when you don’t even know it?

It is actually a rather sobering scenario.

It begs the question, late in life, who do I want to be?

Imagine if we thought of or treated everyone we come into contact with as someone who is s seeing us for the first time. It would be like looking at everyone as newborns with uncontaminated minds, open to first impressions clear of pre-judgment or quick associations before they have even interacted with us.

But even better, it is like seeing ourselves as brand new, instantly creating the ability to be someone new, but don’t think we can because of all our baggage and history adding up to “this is who and what I am.”

Only 2 months old, this new child has already changed my mind. Without doing anything but exist, he has shown me a simple way, an opportunity open to each of us, to master any or some of the social-emotional life skills better.

Communicate, focus, forgive, be tolerant and in charge of your emotions as if the person across from you is learning everything from you for the first time by observation. Be resilient, empathetic and mindful because it is the only way when someone is new.

Bring an attitude of beginnings raw with lessons through connectedness to every interaction with others.

If a baby can encourage a desire to develop an ability to move beyond automatic reactions and perceptions, where new patterns of self-regulation become automatic, we owe it to the web of us all to try.