Shelly discusses the surge of people reaching out after long silences. She encourages it as a gift, even without a response, and advises those who receive outreach to reply briefly with warmth rather than ignore it. Caring contact often helps the sender more than the receiver.
Chapters
Hey friends, once again in 3, 2, 1. Hey friends, Shelley here. This is the first video recording that we're doing in our new office space on Selfridge Air National Guard Base. Things are messy, things are sloppy. I've restarted this video a million times already, so we're just gonna plow through and hope for the best. Okay, today's message is the phrase reaching out. Reaching out. I have had 4 emails within the last week with that phrase in the subject line, all from different people. There's something in the air right now where some of us are really feeling inspired to start reaching back out to people that we haven't talked to in a month, a couple months, a year, maybe even longer than that, and that is okay. I'm also witnessing two sides of the fence here. Some of us are really excited and starting to reach back out again, and some of us, well, maybe not yet. We're loving our time alone, our solitude, our introvert time, and I just want to tell you that today is not about swaying you to be one way or the other. It's just to encourage the fact that we are reaching out. If you are somebody who feels this need to reach out, I want to encourage you to go ahead and make that touch out. Even if you don't hear back, I want you to know that what you give out to the world is holy and it's unique to you, and that is a special gift that you have to be able to lay on another person. Whether or not that gift is received is a different matter. So for those of us that are on the receiving end, and maybe we're feeling uncomfortable when someone's reaching out to us, hey, Hey, that is perfectly okay. Honestly, it is. There is no requirement to socialize right now with anybody. Keep in mind that that caring contact is very important. Oftentimes the person reaching out to us is the one that really needs that caring contact, maybe even more so than we need it ourselves. So keep that in mind if somebody does reach out to you and you're not ready to really engage with them. Just give a brief touchback and tell them exactly that. "Hey, so good to hear from you, warms my heart. I would like to catch up in another month or so. Thanks for your patience." That is perfectly acceptable when it comes to today's methods of communication. Okay, so reaching out going one way or the other, either we're feeling really comfortable reaching out to people right now or we're not feeling that way, and that's okay too. What's most important is that the way that we are bringing our messages to the world is consistently embodying the message that the needs of others will always be greater than our own. Keep that in mind as we move through these next few months, and hopefully we will start to transition into a better social space. I'm Shelly, and I will talk to you soon.
