It always surprises me in the best way to see someone go through a low point and come back to being the positive person they once were. It is as if the light that once shone within them has returned as they are no longer confused by fear and are free to be happy and more importantly free to be themselves.

To illustrate, there’s a guy I know, Andy, who apparently went through one of these dark periods a year ago. Catching up with him in the elevator at work one day, he was suddenly a different person; antagonistic, negative about the company, and worse yet, negative about our people: it wasn’t like him to be like that. I couldn’t understand it. Later, weeks later, he was at a meeting attended by normal Andy, but he wasn’t there. He growled about a couple of things and you could feel the tension: there was an elephant in the room! I asked a couple of people who knew Andy well what was wrong and found out that he had lost one of his parents. He was grieving. That explained everything.

Andy’s world had been turned upside down, and emotions that had never seemed to be a problem before had randomly surfaced and caught him off guard. What was he going to do? Well, in this situation I didn’t do anything other than give him a lot of what I call “grace space,” which is just being gentle and kind and not someone who would cause him even more injury. Most of the people I saw interact with Andy also treated him this way.

It also made me think about these moments from my past. There was a time or two in my past when grief washed over me and feelings of depression washed over me; my demeanor was gaunt and not much fun to be around. The people I liked the most didn’t say much. They just listened. I find it ironic that I’m not really a natural listener in this regard; I prefer to talk and cheer. It’s a reminder that words are often not enough.

These days, Andy is a different man: not only has he regained his own enthusiasm, but he is filled with another level of enthusiasm that is simply contagious to others. He is a leader in the workplace, very knowledgeable and one of the most courteous guys he has ever met. He has such a high value of respect. It is great to see the miracle of the Light work in this man.

When people are hard to get along with, it’s hard to understand or be able to help, but we can…

We need to encourage it and not push the person back by drawing attention to the road they behaved during the dark time; if we did this, we should expect them to only be “dark” with us: the person who remembers them that road. If we see that the person falls back into dark attitudes, we must be able to give him time and space (“space of grace”) and tacitly encourage that the world is not so bad, in a way that exudes respect and generates trust.

© Steve J. Wickham, 2008. All rights reserved worldwide.