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By Carmen Sutherland, Coffee Club Facilitator
*This article was originally published in the Family Pulse Newsletter October 2019*
I don’t care about Halloween. I much prefer the coziness of Thanksgiving or the holidays. While I love candy as much as the next woman, I’ll take a turkey dinner over treats any day. I have friends, however, who are wild about Halloween; they wait all summer for it to come and while it is here they celebrate with all their might. This upcoming holiday has got me thinking about how much I enjoy that everyone’s preferences are different. One of my favourite things about all people is figuring out the things they love, what makes them happy. If you know what makes a person happy, you can build on that to build a relationship. Sometimes this can mean learning to love something that you didn't care about previously like football or the theatre, or that can just mean you use something you don't have a passion for in order to connect to someone who has trouble connecting.
At Coffee Club, this happens naturally. Coffee Clubbers know that I love food, so they will sometimes tell me what they had for supper before they came, or tease me if I don't remember what I brought for the last potluck (YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER FOOD, Carmen!) We have someone else who loves history, and it genuinely makes my heart dance to listen to this person and my friend Lyn who is always at Coffee Club with me discuss history and different parts of the world. So, if you like Halloween, feel free to tell me about it. It would be a great vehicle for us to get to know one another. :) If you have a person with an exceptionality in your life, find out what they love and build on that! It will be fun, and could lead to a richer relationship.
