By james art 
This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, the hidden brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.
One day in March 2014, Caitlin Shaterley went home to home from the west coast to Maine. As everyone settled in their seats and prepared for take -off, Shetterly began talking to the man next to her.
She was recently pregnant and felt vulnerable, and he seemed to notice that she was anxious. So she shared what was in mind: since the terrorist attacks on September 11, she told him that flying had upset her.
“I’m always scared a little as we take down something to happen,” Sheterley said. “I mean I said something like, ‘Do you ever upset? ”
The man said he did not. Then he leaned, his face full of compassion and told her something that she still tells her children today.
“He … looked straight into my eyes and said,” Most people are good, “she recalled.
For Shetterly, it was like a reset button. She felt her body relax.
“This tranquility was just washed over me and I felt that I was completely giving up the anxiety I was experiencing to fly,” she said. “I was so powerful.”
When she came home, she told her husband Dan about the words of the stranger. In the years thereafter, the phrase has become a family stone – a mantra of power in difficult times.
“We used this line to completely reshape how we teach our sons to think about the world and to think of strangers and to think of courage,” she said.
In 2023, when a gunman killed 18 people just 30 minutes from their home in Maine, she eavesdrop on her husband in the bedroom of her younger son, trying to comfort him. “Most people are good,” heard it say.
“This line, these four words, have completely transformed us and how we react to the tragedy,” Sheterley said.
Today, she shares these words with people who seem overworked – to remind them that there is kindness everywhere, even when we are afraid.
“I told him on car vehicles to the children of friends. I told him to other friends. I just say it as a casual thing with no, you know, Stephen Spielberg a kind of musical overlay,” Shetherley said.
“I just hope that someday people will remember, saying that. And I feel like I am trying to pay it forward. And I hope it goes on.”
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast – New episodes come out every Tuesday. To share the history of your Unsung Hero with the hidden brain team, record a voice note on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.orgS
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