Julia Baird
Appearances
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Thank you for having me.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Well, that's part of it. Part of it is it's great mystery and people do say exactly that. Like, I'm not quite sure exactly how to define it, but the moment I see it, I know it. And really, I think it's acts of great generosity, courage, decency and so on. But To me, at the heart of grace is something that is undeserved. You will be loving the unlovable, forgiving the unforgivable.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
You'll be showing mercy instead of measuring merit. You'll be giving people the benefit of the doubt, not holding them to or judging them by their worst possible moment. It's something that's expansive and in one sense actually doesn't make sense, but it can change lives. It really is the very best of humanity, I think.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. My mother was a great woman of grace. And you do meet people like that sometimes who have a kind of light about them, who are open to people, who see the best in people, who leave you feeling better about yourself and the world in general, who just are fundamentally deeply kind. But I think in a way that lets us off the hook because sometimes
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Grace is not something that's just inherited or just easy. It's not Kleenex and puppies and like a simple path. To me, there is a really powerfully difficult thing about grace. I see it as requiring a lot of grit. You can decide to be that way. You can decide to live that way. If you decide to forgive someone, it's not the easiest thing to do necessarily.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
And often you can decide you're going to, and you still wake up the next morning with all the pain and the grief and the annoyance and the irritation with that person. And you might have to decide to forgive again. You might have to decide that's how you really want to be. and you're going to work towards it and you've got to train yourself towards it.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
I mean, I think it's, I just don't think it's necessarily easy or simple. I think it can really change you to live that way. And I think it can change you to receive those kinds of acts, to be allowed a possibility of redemption. But fundamentally, it's about opening yourself up to recognise the humanity in another person.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
So the difference, say, between I see the difference between grace and compassion, there'll be maybe you have a neighbor down the road who's got cancer and you've always got on well with this neighbor. You're worried about them. You drop them off food, meals, you know, mow their lawn, whatever it is they need to have done. That's compassion and empathy and kindness.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Now, what if that neighbour had always actually been a real jerk, who had been rude to neighbours, you know, just hostile to the kids in the area, whatever, just not pleasant to be around, and they had cancer and you still did the same thing for them? that's when someone fundamentally isn't deserving it, but you're doing it because there's a need and there's a human there.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
And then if you sat long enough with that person, you might work out like, oh, he... I don't know. That's a man who lost his parents when it was orphan when he was two years old and has had chronic illness his whole life and has just suffered a lot and which has calcified around him and made him a really angry person. I don't know.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
So do you see that the difference there is it's not about ease necessarily or just being that way. I think you can definitely meditate on it, train your mind on it and be more like that.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Going back to your original point, people know it when they see it, right? So if I could talk briefly about this study, which really excited me, and that's the reason I wrote this whole book. I've done a lot of work in the area of awe.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
in what it means to be struck by something, be stopped in your tracks, be amazed by something that you might not understand, that you might marvel at, that makes you feel small. And yet a lot of research around all showing that it makes you feel more connected to each other, to the world. Like it's psychologically really good for us to feel small sometimes and it makes people more altruistic.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
There was a study done of 2,600 people in 26 countries, and it asked them to write their accounts of awe. What were your personal experiences of awe? What is the most common way in which you experienced it? And they found...
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
across all these countries with all the different histories dialects you know demographic groups and cultures the number one i would have said the natural world but that was not it the number one thing was seeing it in each other was seeing great decency great courage great generosity and also people overcoming obstacles with with great abilities um
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
I think that one of the things that the research shows is that when we see people acting in this way, we are much more likely to do it ourselves. We're much more likely to react in the same way.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
There was one study which showed a group of college students a series of videos and they showed some videos which were really funny and then another group which showed people in distress but people trying to do something about it. um trying to help out now the funny videos did absolutely nothing to their brains which is interesting because i watch a lot of funny videos but the second group
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
had that fight or flight, that kind of, oh, someone's in trouble, we need to do something about it. And then watching that suffering be eased in some way by someone else was incredibly soothing for them. And after the study, they were much more likely to carry out an act, which was looking after other people. So I guess that's a different way of answering your question.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
We might not be repeating the word grace to ourselves, but when we witness it, we do it more.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Think of the impact of the children of the person who's doing that dropping off for the jerk. Like you'd be like, wow, why would you do that? Like that person's such a horrible person. And then if you begin to understand it, that there is a need there and that you're meeting it. And actually it also might crack the jerk open a little bit.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
You never know how he might be after being treated that way or after being shown some kind of love or care. So I think that's, A different way to look at it. So your question again was... Was really, how often do you have to do this?
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
I think... any acts is just fine. But the example, some of the examples which I find really inspiring here, to me there is so much grace in the medical system.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
and I've spent quite a bit of time, I've had serious health issues, so I've been in and out of the medical system for years and I've spent months in hospital and I've watched the doctors and the nurses care for people and they don't say to them when they're coming in, so who do you vote for? Are you nice to your neighbours? Do you keep a tidy house?
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Whatever your metric is of whatever a good person is, that person will come into a hospital and will need help. and they will give it and when you see them doing that day in day out there's something actually very profoundly moving about that it's the same with paramedics and it's the same with blood donors
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
So blood donors who once every two weeks usually go off to a medical centre, ask a series of very invasive questions, have a needle stuck in their arm and have their actual stuff of their life drained out of them to give to someone, not because that other person's done them a favour in the past or because they're impressed with them in some way. They don't even know who it's going to be.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
And, again, could be the jerk down the road, but... Again, it's a human that has a need and you're affirming your own humanity by doing that and by offering that up. And I find those quiet, often unrecognised acts really quite moving. There's a certain devotion, not just to your fellow neighbour, to like a bigger idea of who we can be in that.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Well, that study that I mentioned before, the most common way people report seeing it is in each other. And I had spent years looking at it because I'm a big ocean swimmer. I just went this morning. And... I have spent a lot of time talking to people that chase storms or run safaris in Africa or like pursue awe in different ways.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Although I'm very conscious that it's also in art and architecture and big sporting events they call collective effervescence and music. There's very many different ways to experience it. And I think it's so psychologically healthy and wonderful for us to do. Like it is the most wonderful thing. And it's also wonderful to share in other people's forms of awe.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
So when I read that, actually the most common way in which people experience it is by seeing this moral beauty in each other, which I began to call grace. And I wondered why we didn't talk about that more.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
That's exactly right. It's like, it's almost a holy thing, paying attention to the world and being open to it and just sitting with it. And it really will change you. Like since I decided to deliberately hunt or, cause I think that we often think, oh, we'll just, we'll be serendipitous. We'll stumble across it. Like when we go on holidays, we'll go somewhere pretty.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
And I might catch a sunrise or a sunset on my way to or from work, or I've just seen a tree burst into bloom or whatever.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
we can think you know that that that's the way it occurs in our lives instead of no i recognize this has got this really intrinsic value of its own and i'm going to hunt it down there was a study of all walks and they got a group of people who went on a 15-minute or walk each day for six weeks and people who went on just a normal walk the difference being the all walkers we're being told to pay attention to the world
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
and what really intensely and what was happening around them. They were and they were asked to take photos and write a journal. At the beginning, those who went on the oar walks, the photos of themselves was mainly their faces. Here I am, first day of my oar walk, blah, blah, blah.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
By the end of it, their faces had actually shrunk in the frame as they were trying to point to something behind them. Look at this tree over here. Look at this mountain. Oh, look, you can catch a bird. They themselves become less important in the story, and it struck me as a really fantastic example
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
antidote to narcissism actually and to getting out of ourselves and that's what happens when we pay better attention i still want to try to understand why like why you become the person what motivates
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
You've either seen it or you've experienced it yourself. Or you fundamentally have a way of looking people in which you appreciate that everyone is just dealing with their own crap, that everyone, like we can have, if we sit in other people's shoes,
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
we're much more likely to be generous minded to those around us like okay that guy as i said like who knows what's going on in his own life like but he's someone who's sad and alone and this is something that might
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
might kind of crack him open this is someone who maybe hasn't been shown a lot of love by people around him i think it's i think it's that kind of thing i mean what do you think like if you've ever been motivated to do something like that and where do you think that's come from yeah it's usually i think because you've seen it somewhere else or maybe you've done it before maybe not deliberately but when you did it it felt so good you want to do it again
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Yeah. Yeah, I was really interested when I spoke to a lot of super donors for my book, super blood donors, and that's people who, you know, have been doing it their whole lives, sometimes for like, you know, 50 years. Some people plan their holidays around blood donation.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Some Australians who go over to America because they've got family there, they'll be hopping around all the major sites and they'll be like, oh, this is what it was like when I gave blood in Phoenix and Miami and New York and Australia. They're so committed to it. I was talking to researchers and they're like, we don't really know why people do this. Like on one level it doesn't really make sense.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Why would you go and give blood? And they talk about an impure altruism, which is when you get something from it, that warm and that fuzzy feeling that you get from thinking, oh, you know, I'm helping another human being. Someone might walk. because of this. Someone might live longer because of this. There could be some kid who could go on to have a life because of this.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
And the idea of it being impure because you get something for it really kind of amused me because there is a purity to that. Like if they are the warm, fuzzy feelings and they're impure, then I say, you know, we need a lot more of them. I think that feeling is... is a good one.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Also, I mean, the converse, to be constantly in combat and angry with people and not giving them the benefit of the doubt, it just kind of eats away at your own self in a way. If you can let go of hostilities and grudges and problems you have with the jerk down the road we keep talking about, then maybe your life is better off for it.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
I know. He's going to be inundated with soup now.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
See how you feel.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
See if he gets some warm fuzzies. And hey, yeah, I know it could be at the start of a whole thing.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
I've been growing up being taught and really believing that forgiveness is a very important and powerful thing. You give someone another chance. You allow them to be better the next time. And you free yourself from any of the tight and horrible feeling of resenting someone or holding on to something they did bad, some way in which they harmed you.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
And I wanted to write about this book because I did find occasions in which forgiveness just was absolutely eye-wateringly present. I talked to a man who was almost murdered when he was 10 years old by someone who put like a pick through his head, who he later, decades down the road,
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
That man confessed and the little boy, then a man, chose to forgive him and was the only person visiting him in the final days of his life. I find stories like that incredible. And he says to me, well, I had to show my kids that there was another way, that we have to break this cycle.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
If we don't break this cycle, then we're always hating and we've always got grudges and we will never get out beyond it. And there was something quite beautiful in him personally, actually. His name was Chris Carrier and he's one of these gentle souls, but forgiveness is hard won, hard fought for for him.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
Thanks so much, Mike.
Something You Should Know
A Serious Look at UFOs & The Power of Grace in Today’s World
To me, at the heart of grace is something that is undeserved. You will be loving the unlovable, forgiving the unforgivable. You'll be showing mercy instead of measuring merit. You'll be giving people the benefit of the doubt, not judging them by their worst possible moment.