Day 27: Community

Trying to create change alone is incredibly daunting, and may actually be impossible. While my personal transformation is largely undertaken internally, having a community of people with whom to go through this process of transformation is invaluable for me. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, some of the personal transformations I am working on involve communication, intimacy, and vulnerability. While these are internal challenges to some extent, they are largely about how I interface with the rest of the world. Therefore, having supportive, open, curious people around helps me to grow in these areas. Additionally, watching others engaged in their own processes of transformation is incredibly inspiring, enlightening, and encouraging. I gain new ideas from observing how other people approach their own transformations, and also get helpful reflections on what they are observing in me.

Marking the winter solstice in the community where I live today, I felt so grounded, so held, so appreciated. These powerfully affirming emotions allow me the space to explore, to challenge myself, and to take risks that lead to growth. I don't know how this brain rewiring would be altered if I did not have this community around me, but I do feel grateful for it in these dark days of soul searching. There are people willing to help, to keep me on track, to keep me well rested and fed and seen. It has been challenging to accept this help in some ways, but I know that what goes around comes around, and I hope to be able to help support them in many ways as well. Feeling interdependent makes me feel vulnerable, even though it is actually a source of strength. I am working to transform this capitalist distortion inside myself, and am grateful to see the value of interdependence enacted by living in an intentional community.