Community Love as your Superpower

A reminder that I have a sale right now to celebrate my half birthday. From November 3rd to the 9th, everything is 44% off. You can use the code HBD2024 at checkout. You can schedule here. This is the last time I will offer the sale on all of my offerings. Next year I will choose only one type of reading to use for the sale. I do have some availability beyond what is listed in my schedule, so please reach out if you are not finding something that works for you.

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I have had client sessions the past couple weeks where the client said she felt drawn to be in community in a stronger and more visible way. In one session that idea felt like melted chocolate oozing out of her energy field. It’s a great idea. Many people are feeling the need to connect with and create community in a new way. It’s not a secret that we are more divided and isolated than we have ever been. I don’t blame social media for the problem. I felt isolated and left out long before social media. In fact, social media has allowed me to expand my world in ways that never would have been available to me before. That being said, the algorithm is whack and it causes more division and incentivizes hate. But as with anything else, it isn’t the feature that is the problem, but how humans who are in control of it are using it.

I read books constantly on community and friendship building because people say all the time they wish they had more friends or better friendships or community, and I don’t think its a skill we are taught in school or anywhere else. I see in social media comments where people say over and over - at each other, that they wish they could find people to be in close relationship with. Completely ignoring the fact that there are several hundreds or thousands of comments saying the same thing. Talk to each other!

But community and friendships take a lot of time and energy to cultivate, don’t they? So, why are we all of a sudden out of time in which to do that? I think it is due in part to being busier - I am noticing that people with kids feel this bizarre need to sign their kids up for every single extra curricular activity under the sun and moon, leaving no time to cultivate the friendships of their own that they say they want. We also work more hours than other generations before us.

I think the bigger reason, though, is that we aren’t stacking activities like we used to. The free and open community spaces are no longer free or open. We used to gather for church and that was also a time to socialize. We used to gather to visit and do our hobbies or chores together. I remember my mother had a friend for awhile that in the summer when the husbands went fishing, they would get together and hang out and clean together. Now, churches expect you to join and drink all the Kool-Aid and donate all your money to everything they peddle. The crafting groups are no longer free and some of them are downright judgy and not at all open to outsiders (I have a whole story about a certain yarn store in Portland). When we want to get together with a friend we choose dinner or drinks or lunch somewhere and those costs stack up!

Online spaces are easy to facilitate a group gathering. I have offered many, many free opportunities to meet and talk to other like-minded people through Zoom. Not only are those events already free, but I cannot even pay people to attend them. Even the people who tell me all they want is to make new friends. I have a tough time getting them to attend in person functions as well.

So, what exactly is it that we are looking for? I am opening up a thread in connection with this post and I invite you to share with me your thoughts. Or, you can share in the comments. What I do want to discourage, though, are any comments or justifications for not attending my events. That is not the point of this post. What I am looking for is what is it that you or you think people are looking for in community and why we resist the options available. Let’s talk about our needs and what holds us back.

The women I was working with who brought up a need to create community are older women - over 60 years old. And, this is an underserved population of people, for sure. I don’t share this information to categorize people but older women are the right people, I think, to help create communities. Many of them have the time and the interest. They have the knowledge and wisdom to share and the compassion to teach. They remember a time before social media and cell phones, so I would argue they have stronger social skills - at least some of them! :)

Going back to the title of this post: Community Love is your Superpower. It really is where you can make a difference. Whether that is in a larger community group in your hometown or within your smaller family or friends circle. It’s become so super trendy for “introverts” to be anti spending time with people and in the US being independent is a badge of honor. But even introverts like being around people - the right people, and being so independent is what’s causing the loneliness crisis we have right now. And that crisis is responsible for all the division and hatred, in my opinion.

I don’t have a zippy list of things you can do to help and I don’t have the answer to how we go about fixing the bigger problem. I am hoping someone in one of the books I read will someday have that answer. What I am asking though, is that if you feel called to host a group event - even just starting a book club or having your yoga friends over for a gentle meditation or chit chat - then please do it. Every single person can have an impact on others with only the resources they have, no matter how tiny those resources may seem. Energy is contagious and when we focus our energy on doing things we can, with what we have available to us in the moment, we activate the community love superpower. And that superpower is what is going to heal us.