Your Impact On Others – are you Helpful OR Harmful?

Your Impact On Others – are you Helpful OR Harmful?

?I have never shared my other job with anyone on LinkedIn because I don’t consider it a job, I consider it a service to my community.?I have been teaching the incarcerated population for 7 years and it is my passion! I do this through a Non-Profit called Carry The Vision (www.carrythevision.org) This week we were talking about “Grace” and “Forgiveness” during one of my classes. During the class we started talking about how other people impact our lives, good and bad. The conversation was very deep and thoughtful. At one point we talked about how often we really don’t know what our impact is or was.?It could have been a short conversation with someone, or a happen-chance conversation with someone we do not know. The IMPACT we pass along without realizing that we have. A minute can change someone’s life, either in a good way or a bad way.

I reflected on that class for a week and realized the messages I have received either immediately or later that gives me a glimpse into MY impact on another. As a teacher I teach Life Skills with an invitation to consider a different path to live your life. What’s amazing to me is the number of people that don’t realize they have a choice.?“Choice” is a word I use a lot. We make hundreds if not thousands of choices in our daily life. That choice informs us and sends us in the direction of that choice.

I was able to glimpse my impact a few weeks ago when an inmate who had been released reached out to me and asked if we could meet. We arranged a time and place to meet a week later. I did this by “choice” to give him an opportunity to show up or not a week after we made the commitment to meet. I arrived about 10 minutes early and he walked in right on time. Loaded down with a backpack that looked like it weighed 50 pounds, a 5-gallon jug of water, and a shopping bag.?Dressed in construction coveralls, with a huge smile on his face. I got up to greet him and we hugged. He held on to me and we both savored the moment. That hug spoke a thousand words and feelings. He pulled me away and just looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “I don’t know what it is about you, but you’ve always made me smile and I feel safe with you.?I had no idea I had that IMPACT on him, and I was willing to receive it from him.

He caught me up on his last 6 weeks of being “on the outs”. He immediately went back to his old neighborhood, got high for 2 days and on day 3 he told himself he needed to make different choices for himself.?He left, found a Faith-Based Men’s Safe House, and was welcomed in. He sat up meetings to attend, got a full-time job at Goodwill and keeps himself busy 6 days a week. The only day he allows himself a break are Sunday’s when he spends his time with his 6-year-old daughter.

What is his backstory? He lost his mother to COVID and 4 months later lost his girlfriend right after she had given birth to their son. He has not (because he doesn’t know how to) gone through the grief of his loses.?The loses drove him to use, and his use put him in jail.

As we talked for well over an hour, he was either on the brink of crying or tears were falling down his face the entire time we were together. His smile was bright, and his eyes were very sad. He had begun taking the steps to come home to himself and he knew that to do that he needed to start dealing with his grief. I am not a grief counselor, but I know someone in our organization that is a master at this, so I set him up to meet with her. For a moment he looked scared and asked me if that meant we could not see each other anymore. I told him we all need a village in our life, and I will always be a part of his village and collecting people to join his village that will have a positive IMPACT on his life is critical.

We know within ourselves when we are being helpful or harmful. Those who choose to live within their Ego and Pride are most likely harmful because all they care about are themselves, they are unteachable and unwilling to listen. People who are helpful live in their heart and are open to others and to listening and learning.

So, my question to you is:?are you HELPFUL or HARMFUL? What matters is you are able to answer this question for yourselves and know it’s the truth of who you are in your true authentic self.?I feel at peace with who I am because I know I’m helpful, which means I am not afraid to show up in all parts of my life as my true authentic self.?What about you?