Take a moment right here to reflect. Close your eyes for just a few deep breaths and allow yourself to think about what community means to you. Visualize the people that you feel most unified with. Do you think about friends? Family? Or do you think of a specific population of people in your life that you feel connected and called to? What does that look like? What does that feel like?

Community

/ke?myoonede/
noun
a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals

Community. It’s becoming an overused word with little context. I’m on a lot of different social media pages that make it seem like they are a community. The term itself is supposed to represent like-minded people that are there for support, encouragement, and belonging. And then I read the comment threads filled with judgment, hate, apathy, and negativity. It makes me question the intention of the page. Community isn’t supposed to make you feel alienated. It’s not a term to throw around to improve engagement and numbers, “community” should be used when people feel truly unified.

You Can’t Just “Join” a Community

Unpopular opinion here: you can’t just join a community. They may be available to you but just because it’s there, doesn’t mean you’re automatically connected. I say this because I’ve been there…

If you’re anything like me, you live in a state of control. Yeah, yeah, I’m a yogi and a spiritual person. I am constantly preaching about being present, letting go of control, and letting things just be. I preach it while also constantly practicing it. It’s far from a perfect practice over here. I’m naturally an anxious control freak. It’s probably one of my best and worst qualities. When I say I’m going to do something, you best believe it will be done over the top and beautifully. And, I will be overwhelmed and stressed the entire time while striving and thriving. That’s the paradox of being a control freak. I own it, I’ve accepted it.

With that, it’s really difficult for me to trust others. Throughout my childhood, I experienced much trauma, making it difficult to put my trust in other people. I know I’m not alone on that, right? Because of this, I’ve never really allowed myself to be open to true community. I’ve always had friends, but I’ve never had that core group that felt like…home. For so long I questioned what was wrong with me. Why didn’t I have that? Why couldn’t I have that? I was “putting myself out there” by being an open book. I’m extroverted. I love conversation. What was preventing me from having a community that I felt comfortable and confident in?

After a lot of “putting myself out there”, I started realizing that community doesn’t just start because you’re there. it starts when you begin cultivating self-compassion and connection within. Just because you show up, doesn’t mean you give and receive trust.

Self-Compassion and Connection

During my personal work in my undergrad (read more about that here), I really struggled with connection. I thought I put in the work by showing up to get-togethers and posting online. It was all surface level though because I had no innate trust in myself and my power. As time went on and my journey continued, I began finding trust in myself. I found a love from within, that stemmed from my own practices of gratitude, intuitive living, and authentic decisions that served me. I no longer needed to be valued by others to recognize my own worth. I began trusting my worth for what it was, as it was.

I started feeling and receiving that from others. It wasn’t a quick shift or a monumental breakthrough, it just slowly started forming around me. After some time of this evolution in my life, I slowly started feeling a passion for my people. And yes, I mean my people. I started feeling a real sense of community surrounding me in different areas of my life. It wasn’t just having people, it was about feeling people, feeling connection. I slowly realized that just because I was once an open book, it didn’t mean people were reading. Why? Because they didn’t trust me. Why? Because for so long, I didn’t trust myself.

Here’s the thing, when you don’t trust yourself, others aren’t going to trust you. And, that’s a tough pill to swallow. We are in a day and age where we want to put our worth and trust in others. We want to feel validated by others to validate ourselves. And you cannot, and will not, be able to lean into others and build community when you are putting your worth into anything but yourself. Why? Because people don’t want to feel the pressure of being your validation. Our subconscious minds and bodies take in everything and when we feel the pressure of others’ need for validation, we disconnect. We feel pressured and overwhelmed. You cannot create authentic connections when you aren’t showing up in authentic trust and compassion. Compassion for yourself. Compassion for others. You aren’t compassionate for yourself when your sense of self-worth is in others. You aren’t compassionate for others when you are identifying your worth within them, because your worth is contingent on all that they do.

Leaning into Yourself to Lean into Others

You have to lean into yourself before you lean into others. You have to give yourself permission to connect within first. Community will flow into your life when you allow yourself to be in communion with your mind, your body, and your soul. We cannot trust others until we trust ourselves. This is what I am constantly working on with my 1:1 coaching girls. We break down so we can break through. We knock down the barriers standing in the way of authentic trust and self-compassion so we can come together with others to build healthy communities. We learn together, we thrive together, and we amplify our voices together.

Social Wellness is one of the eight dimensions of wellness for a reason. This dimension focuses on building healthy relationships to help you thrive. Human connection is the most natural desire that we feel. From birth, we crave human connection from those who can keep us safe. As we grow, we nurture the relationships that allow us to feel confident and secure, emotionally and physically. Building community is important because it nurtures your social wellness, which in turn, impacts emotional and spiritual wellness. Our deepest desire is to feel purposeful in our lives. We need meaningful work and conversation to feel that.

Success cannot come from one person. Even if you build something incredible, you need others to believe in it. The most successful entrepreneurs may create something brilliant but they become successful from those who buy their product or service. The most successful families aren’t the ones with a single parent doing everything on their own, it’s the ones that are asking for help from others. The gym goers aren’t getting stronger on their own, they have a trainer to spot them and a coach to guide them. Success is nurtured between two or more people and we simply cannot do it all on our own.

Connection Cultivates Compassion

I was scared of building community and connection for so long. I was afraid of getting hurt and having my trust broken like I did so many times when I was young. But, that fear wasn’t about other people. It was about me. It was internal work that I needed to do in order to trust myself. Once you trust yourself and your intuition, you have the resources needed to guide you in the right direction. Other people will hurt you, it’s a part of life. When you give yourself permission to lean into your own compassion and communion, you are recognizing that even when you get hurt, your worth isn’t on the line.

After beginning my own personal growth journey, there has been a dramatic shift in the way I live and work. It’s not all on me, all of the time. There is no pressure to please and perfect. The communities that I’ve invested time and energy into nurturing have helped me flourish in every aspect of my life. From networking and business, yoga and fitness, and life in general; allowing myself to trust that I’m safe with myself, has given me permission to feel safe with others. And that’s when true living begins. That’s where the joy is hidden. Joy is not found in solidarity, it’s found in community.

So, take another moment. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Connect to yourself and what community means to you. What do you need right now to cultivate that in your life? How can you bring yourself into a reality where you let go of fear and step into trust? Trust of yourself. Trust of others. How can you begin to flourish while feeling communion with those that you love?