One True Compliment

Yesterday, I had an experience that has been coming back and touching me all day today – and so I decided I'd like to blog about it.

I was sitting in a busy cafe, surrounded by people, most of whom I am not personally connected to. At the same time, I was engaged in an IM conversation online, with a person who I am very connected to – one of my dearest friends.

I'm not even sure how it came about, but at one point he said to me "choose a person in the room. Any old one." So I looked around, chose someone, and said okay. "Now write me one true compliment about this person," he wrote.

I paused. And then I watched this man for a few moments.

My initial reaction was resistance. I didn't know this guy from Adam, and my snap judgment of him told me that he was a bit annoying. Between those two things, how was I to come up with a true compliment?

But I've been noticing a subtle breakdown lately in my perception of other people as "separate" from me – that's the best I can describe it – and so I just sat there, and softened, and did my best to "feel" him. To be present with this stranger, and to wait for a feeling about who he was and what made him beautiful. And sure enough, it came.

All day I have been considering this. It reminds me of an exercise I once did in a workshop, where you go around and stand in front of a different person every minute, and for a full minute, you look them in the eye and say nice things about them. Doesn't matter whether they are a close friend or a total stranger, you just keep talking. When you run out of things you "know" about them, then the challenge is to tune in, and to feel what else there is to offer.

It was fascinating. I found that the things being said to me by people who didn't know me at all were just about as true as the things being said by people who knew me well. Obviously there are some statements that don't resonate, but that's to be expected.

I guess my point is that we all have access to a lot more information about people than we think – when we turn off our brains and just stay present, and let our whole selves sense and feel. And what's beautiful about that is that it tends to cut through all the bullshit stories we make up about each other, mostly without even realizing it.

So try it. Can you find one true compliment to say about the next stranger you pass on the street? Bonus points if your initial impulse about that person is negative. :)