A few weeks ago I read (on instagram I will admit) something that I’ve been thinking about ever since.
The post talked about how one of the most significant aspects of community is that it allows us to witness other people when they are not at their best. When life is hard, when they are tired, hungry, sad, overwhelmed, or unemployed.
The thing that really stuck with me, was the idea that in this witnessing we begin to feel like it’s okay to be messy ourselves. We begin to feel safe. It’s where we are able to shift the pattern in our nervous systems that tells us to pretend like everything is perfect.
What an incredible gift.
To witness someone in their rawness, and instead of judging or trying to fix, we are able to learn grace for ourselves. I think it must be tied to the way we come to love the people in our lives. Or, in the case of community, sometimes just in the way we come to know them because it is in the knowing where deeper compassion emerges. Compassion for others transforming to compassion and understanding for ourselves.
Community under this perspective becomes something more than just shared lives, it becomes a resource to help us live with more openness. More in touch with our body responses, more connected to our emotions and more aware of our reactions. It enables us to live more fully as we actually experience the world, rather than as we believe we are expected to.
This thread has made me think about how filled we are with inputs of perfection, which leads to so much harm and self doubt. Community, specifically seeing our community in times of challenge, helps reverse this damage.
I see a version of this in the community clinic. I think just walking into a room filled with people whom you know are also there for help is reassuring. Makes you feel less lonely in your journey.
And certainly, as a practitioner, I am often left speechless at the courage you show. Everyone who comes in. This courageous and wildly beautiful commitment to living what IS. Not what you want it to be, or what you think your neighbour thinks it should be. But what is happening, what you are being asked to navigate NOW.
You show up with the courage to be with the big, the messy, the ugly, the hard, the spectacular. Together, we are teaching each other how to live within challenge. Not how to be poised or perfect within it, but how to be human within it. What an incredible gift. |
