ARE YOU CONTAGIOUS?
Talk given at Unitarian Universalist Church, Pittsfield MA
By Rich Hayes 6/13/2010
Have you ever been in a situation where one person yawns, then the person next to them yawns, and it spreads from person to person?
Or found yourself laughing over something and others around you pick up on it and start to laugh too?
Both yawning and laughter are contagious.
So is fear and anger...
as well as joy and optimism. And this is true for all the emotions.
When we’re around someone who is full of joy an optimism, we feel better. We may even find ourselves starting to share in those feelings. You could say that they’ve infected us.
The same is true when we’re with someone who’s full of doom and gloom- someone who always finds every reason to tell you why something won’t work out. Or if you think it’s bad now just wait ...
And we feel our spirits sink and our smile fade... even if we have a lot to smile about.
What we are “being” at any given moment can infect the people around us.
So, in truth, we’re all contagious, but rarely realize it.
We’re Just living our lives, trying to make sense of what we can, and doing our best to get by.
And most of the time we don’t realize the powerful effect our attitudes and the way we are affects...or infects... those around us.
Let me tell you about Stan: 94 years old, legally blind and in a nursing home. I remember the first time I saw him. He was in his wheelchair, and sitting by the nurses station.
And I noticed something right away-I could “feel” it.
And apparently so could the nurses, aides and staff at the nursing home.
What I saw during those months that I visited Stan was how much everyone there cared for him-they fussed over him. I cannot tell you how many times I overheard someone saying what a nice man he was- a great guy-a gentleman-a sweetheart.
These words coming from people who are usually overworked and underpaid and often hardened-as a form of self-defense - to the suffering that goes on around them.
Stan reached them! The way “he was” as a person caused others to feel good by being around him.
He had this profound sense of peace about him. He showed appreciation for what others did for him, seemed to be always kind and patient.
As I got to know him I learned that
he’d suffered some great loses.
So many of the things he loved to do, he no longer could.
According to what his son told me, Stan had been a master craftsman- the ability to work with is hands was a natural gift of his-he could pick up anything-make it work-repair it, design it, create it!
He was a musician and loved playing music-played French horn and mandolin with an orchestra until his hands began to fail him.
He’d taken up painting in his 70’s, and found another outlet for this creativity that he had. Then in his 80’s, macular degeneration
and with that, no more painting.
But by the time I met him these things were behind him.
I remember asking him if he was angry or sad because he no longer was able to do these things. His answer to me was beautiful, and I always want to remember it just in case I happen to find myself in a similar situation some day.
He said:I’m just so very thankful that I got to do them in the first place.
When Stan died, each of those busy, underpaid, overworked people that had come to know him during his stay with them, cried.
Now Stan didn’t just happen, through luck and good genes, to have a good attitude and pleasant personality.
He chose to cultivate the attitudes we all witnessed.
I know this because he told me so.
He said that earlier in his life he realized there were a lot of things he had no control over: what people did, or said; lots of things that happened in the world. And sometimes the things that happened in his life.
But what he did have control over was how he could act or react. His response...How he could chose to be with a situation. And when he realized he had this amazing power -the power to chose his attitude, he began to practice doing it whenever he needed to.
He told me that ultimately it came down to this: Do I want to be ok or miserable? Most times I chose to be “OK” because being miserable didn’t seem to fix anything.
Stan was contagious and I was able to catch some of his contagion, gratitude, whenever I visited him.
We humans are designed for empathy. Wired for it as a matter of fact. In our brains are what’s called “Mirroring Neurons”.
If we see somebody smack their thumb with a hammer, we can feel what that’s like for them. In that persons brain an area has registered this pain, and for we who are watching, thanks to these neurons, the same area in our brain registers the pain just as if we had hit our own thumb.
We see someone expressing love and comforting another person, and our circuits light up just as well. The same beneficial physiological responses that are occurring in the 2 people who we see being this way also begin to occur in us. Think about that for a moment! Makes you want to be a bit more selective about the things you look at doesn’t it?
If I smile at you, you will feel like smiling back, and chances are you will.
If I scowl and look angry, then what happens?
Or if I look frightened or anxious? Any of these will illicit a response in you, and the area of your brain that’s connected to these will respond and mirror what I am doing.
That’s why fear can be so powerful...why mobs can spin out of control as if infected a virus-because they are!
But just as the negatives are contagious, so are the positives.
That’s why so many people want to be in the presence of someone like the Dalai Lama: He emits compassion and forgiveness-major attributes of love, and when we witness this, we FEEL it.
And now science tells us why.
I’m sure that’s why Jesus touched so many people. It was the love and kindness, great compassion and non judgment that attracted people to him. It wasn’t just what he said, it was what he was-his
way of being - that brought the people: Same with the Buddha.
We all know people who have “brought us down” by their way of being. Most times these people don’t see that they too have a choice. They’ve gotten stuck in the “Problem” or being negative has become the natural way they respond to events.
And they are contagious.
Now I’m not saying to avoid them. But you do need to remind yourself that they can be contagious, and if you don’t want what they have you must be aware of this fact.
And lets remember that they too have mirroring neurons. In other words, your mood and way of being can infect them.
Sometimes the beginning of great changes start with the smallest things. By staying kind and positive, not feeding into anger or negativity, you may help that person. And one thing you can be certain of: you’ll help yourself. And that allows you to pass it on to others you come in to contact with.
Now please don’t get me wrong. There are times we will become angry-times we should become angry-like when children are victimized by a religion or person in authority. Or when people are discriminated against or when there’s injustices. But we must not get stuck in the anger -or in any of the other negative, fearful ways of being.
For our own sake we must commit to letting go of the negative and move in to the positive, and then, from that place, we begin to work for the change we wish to see. Because if it is justice and love and kindness and compassion and peace we are championing, we must embody them first before we can expect to see them in the world around us. It is exactly as Gandhi said. And it often seems a slow process. But change happens when we change.
So what would you like to spread? What would you like others to catch from you?
Be deliberate-set your intention as to the qualities you wish to cultivate, and bring them forward in your daily life and in all your encounters. At first it may be a struggle and seem unnatural. But with practice and time amazing things will happen:
The kinder you act, the kinder you will become
The more generous you try to be, the more giving you will become The more you say thank you, the more you will have to be grateful for.
And these qualities, these ways of being, will go out from you - because others are watching-and their neurons are too!
As the story of Stan reminds us, people don’t remember what you did or what you said as much as they remember “how you were with them”.