How do you cultivate community?
I’m excited to share this episode of the To Your Health podcast titled, “Combatting Stress and Anxiety with Time in Nature.” I’m still thinking about the excellent questions from the co-hosts, especially this one from Jenn.
I think community is something people really yearn for these days, and it seems like many of us don’t know how to find it or cultivate it. Where do you start?
I see people often (1) not knowing they yearn for it until they experience it almost by happenstance - like when someone joins one of my workshops for the content only to leave feeling the community or (2) if they know they crave it, but aren’t sure how to create or find it.
Aligned, regenerative social engagement is a salve to our individual discomfort and loneliness. And I’m convinced this type of community building is the way forward into dreaming new futures and ways of living and working.
Let me explain a little more.
In my climate-forward leadership work or workshops on climate resilience, we talk about how the process of designing hopeful climate action requires us to deal with our own discomfort and stressors while also preventing burnout or avoiding numbing. To build community, we need to do our inner work so that we can hold space for others, too. [Cue the visual of how to stay in your window of tolerance so that you stay out of hypo or hyper arousal.]
One of the main ways we grow our window of tolerance is by cultivating social rest through regenerative engagement. (Remember that there are seven types of rest we need to stay out of burnout and rust out).
When I’ve talked about social rest before and how we often talk about it as intentional down time from social activities or people who drain us. That’s usually because a lot of us are Overers [Hi, my name is Tamara and I'm a recovering Overer] - folks who overcommit, try to people please, or are high achievers without value-aligned boundaries and parameters.
But social rest can also look like finding the people and activities that refuel you. This is beyond if you’re an introvert or extrovert or whatever. This is about knowing with whom and where you engage that you walk away feeling a little more pep in your step.
Do you know? Sometimes we have to start with whom and where we feel more of a drag than a pep.
Let’s do an inventory. Pull out your calendar or planner for the last week. Grab some paper. Let’s run through our four steps:
Access. Put a little marking next to each activity, meeting, or engagement
+ if your energy increased during or after
- if there was a decrease
= for neutral or unsure. If you’re not sure right away, access your body’s response when you think about or put yourself back in that meeting. What happens in your body?
Assess. What do you make of your social engagements when you look at that assessment? What patterns do you notice? What stories or emotions come up for you?
Align. Where do you want to turn up the engagement? And where do you need to limit - maybe add some boundaries, decline a committee or meeting, delegate a task, put some space between you and another person?
Action. What’s one thing you can do to add a social engagement into your next week that would feel like a ++? Do that thing. Go ahead, schedule it now or send that text.
As always, if you’re looking to join a community of like minded growth oriented people, join us for our regular office hours and monthly content workshops.
Office Hours
For September - December the regular open office hours are scheduled for:
1st Wednesday of the month at 10am MST
3rd Monday of the month at 1pm MST
Office hours are group coaching and Q&A times where we check in with whoever shows up that day and work through whatever feels most pressing or timely for people.
These are always smaller groups with people you get to know so that everyone has time to share and connect. You leave feeling refreshed and reset.
Workshops
You also get access to topic-focused workshop sessions that are deep dives with strategies, guided reflection, embodied and mindful practices, open discussion, and forward momentum.
These are places that offer validation, support, and strategies like Laura said about the community:
I like knowing others who are in a similar spot in my life and that are looking for space/creativity/embodiment as how to overcome burnout.
Our Fall workshops are scheduled on Fridays:
September 27 - Gathering the Seeds of Critical Hope in Uncertain Times
October 11 - From Q3 (Fall) to Q4 (Transition season)
November 14 - At the Crossroads of Rage Quitting: Other Paths in your Career
December 13 - Celebration of 2024 and Surviving the Holidays
Community matters and is transformative. It might feel like adding more to your calendar but these are the social engagements that add that pep in your step.
Reach out or take a look here to learn more!