community isn't possible without self-love

/kəˈmjuː.nə.t̬i/ a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals

From my journal | on wanting so much, all the time

I am insatiable. In so many ways. The more I dig into my healing journey (*rolls eyes* ugh I know those words are overused these days, so, just an expressed awareness of how that sounds but it is what’s happening), the more I come up against places in my life when I come to see that it seems I’m not yet clear on what would be enough. Love, money, friendships, attention, affection, opportunity, etc…

I took a course a couple of years ago put on by adrienne maree brown and Sonya Renee Taylor called The Institute of Radical Permission, which is where I first heard the question, “Am I satisfiable?” [DRAG ME.] Like, are there limits to my wanting? My yearning? My sense of ‘enough’. The short answer, unfortunately, is still no. Or at least not in enough (lol, yikes, she’s doomed) areas of my life.

I just WANT so much, all the time. It’s exhausting at best. And honestly, these days it also feels selfish as f*ck. Like WANTING, right now(?!) is borderline violent on an individual and collective level — when will enough, be ENOUGH?

But what does feel… redeeming about this line of self-inquiry, is that my ‘highest self’ (or as Rachel Cargle calls it, my ‘chosen self’ which I also really like) is louder these days. Louder than the little girl who is so lonely, louder than the teenager who feels so weird and different, louder even than the adult woman who still doubts what is possible despite having created so much. Slowly but surely, I think I’m becoming this iteration of who I claim myself to be. It’s scary AF.

Striving without expectation to get? That might be one short-term goal. Chasing the right needs might be another…

What is your relationship to wanting? How do you experience our culture of excess?

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In conversation about building community

Some Many people don’t really ‘get’ what I do. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I know (kidding, mostly). ‘Soft skills’ aren’t particularly valued and, unfortunately, patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, etc. have most of us (myself included) in a chokehold much of the time. Who can be ‘soft’ when so much is so hard all around us?

But I think I’m understanding more clearly the ways I support community building. I don’t call myself a ‘community-builder’ but I’m exploring the big and small ways our interpersonal functions do and don’t build community with a heavy focus on the latter.

But more than that, I’m learning and teaching in real-time which can be… complicated. But, in failing and falling in public, and sometimes in community with others, there are potent lessons that otherwise may not have been learned. It’s a process of unlearning and relearning what’s possible when we get in alignment internally and externally.

That is much of what Nic Roc, CEO and Program Director of You Belong Here and I get into in the following recording; the challenges of remaining in community with ourselves and each other. We also talk about the four stages of community building, challenges to keeping boundaries within the context of community, and, a biggie in terms of community development, what it can look like when self-love has left the conversation. Take a listen below:

Until the next time we’re in community,

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