Ripple Effect

 The other morning as I was out for a run, a man rode past on his bicycle wearing Bermuda shorts, a spring jacket and a huge smile.  He gave me a big hello and wished me a wonderful day.  I returned the greeting and the rest of my way home was running with a big smile on my face.  It is not the first time that our paths have crossed and both times had the same effect - a lightness in my steps and a real feeling of happiness.  As I reached my home and came inside I was struck by just how much of an impact that short interaction had on me.  It then made me think about the ripple effect that we each have in the world and how important it is to acknowledge and to be aware of our impact on others and the world as a whole.

Just like dropping a pebble into a bucket of water, each interaction we have creates ripples that spread from us outwards.  These can carry positive or negative energy and vibrations and carry much father away from us than we may realize.  I really noticed this at the start of the pandemic as we first started to wear masks and suddenly the ability to convey full facial expressions was taken away.  We lost the ability to smile at each other, or at least to see that we were smiling at each other.  There was such a disconnect when we crossed (distant) paths with each other on the street as it was hard to determine just what the other person might be feeling or trying to convey.  I hadn't really given it a lot of thought until I found myself in a couple of situations where the other person's mood was hard to read and I felt like I carried that unsettled feeling away with me.  And although the other person may not have done anything to directly impact how I ended up feeling, I am sure that I in turn was projecting a different energy towards the next person I interacted with.  This may seem like minutia and not worth spending time on, but think about how this can play out...you have an unsettling interaction with someone that leaves you feeling off-balance and then you go into a new interaction with someone else and carry that energy forward...and then they do the same and so on, and so on (if you are a child of the 70's then you will remember that iconic shampoo commercial that portrayed this phenomenon so well).  

So what can we do about this and why does it matter?  I feel like we are living in a place and time where there are so many people walking around and living with so many hard things in their lives.  I feel it when I am out and hear car horns honking, people yelling or just conveying really low energy.  What would happen if instead of just blankly walking past people on the street, we smiled more often?  What would happen if we said "hello" or "good morning" here and there?  What would happen if we tried to introduce some higher vibration energy into the world?  Yes this is 100% woo-woo and I am 1000% here for it, because we need this so very badly.  These small actions are the pebbles in the bucket that create those ripples that can be felt far and wide.  And the best part is that by becoming the epicenter of the ripple, you will feel the uplift as well and what you send out in the world will come back to you in time. 


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