One thing I’ve noticed recently is how people seem to be crawling out the woodwork. After a long period of post-COVID isolation, I’m noticing more efforts to unite together.
Perhaps this is just my view in Brussels. Perhaps it’s because people are feeling driven to be more active due to the politics. Or perhaps it’s because the weather is getting better.
For my part, I’ve been more actively looking to find a community home for over a year now. Whilst I would love to say it’s been a roaring success, it’s instead been a pretty tough endeavour.
One thing I’ve learnt about creating community is that there needs to be some level of commonality. Without some level of connection, there’s little reason for people to continue investing in that space. Things are created, but no sooner do they end up falling.
One of my first forays into building connection post-burnout was finding people who, on the surface, had similar identities and beliefs as me. I thought that if people looked, sounded, or at the very least had some level of personal identity that was like mine, that it would be a good place to connect.
The hard lesson here was that people with my minority backgrounds can often have pretty negative views of the world. Years of oppression have taken their toll. Such a space therefore becomes a refuge, more about sharing misery with one another. When people bond over shared trauma, it becomes impossible to connect at a deeper level. I realised that such spaces are not healthy for me. The work I have done on myself to be more grateful, happier and positive was treated with suspicion.
I’ve recently realised too that connecting over political causes can also be a risky endeavour. I’ve spent a good number of years working on climate, and so I had a natural gravitation towards these groups. But again, I found that the connection was often based upon a shared anxiety around the world. I’m often at odds with the people around me due to my background, so bringing a different perspective can be seen as threatening. For example, looking to be happy and enjoy life is an unpopular take.
And so, I’ve now looked to focus my energy in spaces where I feel more welcomed. Where identity and politics matter less, and the priority is on genuine connection. Toastmasters has been great for this. The connection is around improving public speaking, and I feel it is so much easier to connect with other people who are also in an open, learning mindset.
I’m on a coaching year long programme, and I once asked a guest speaker around creating community. He replied that the best way to see this is to create the community that you most need yourself.
And so, I felt prompted to do a few things. I first created a social in Brussels, entitled Lifting Spirits hosted at the Full Circle. The aim is to build a community which reinjects a much-needed sense of inclusion and positivity in the Brussels landscape. The first one got good feedback, and we’ll host another one at the end of April (details here). If you’re free and in Brussels, it would be great to have you.
I also decided to create a separate space to connect around this need for greater positivity. And so, I created a Mighty Networks group specifically for this. The aim of the group is to support one another much better than we can necessarily do on the traditional social media platforms.
Might Networks is a separate, closed social media which allows for greater control of what one puts out there and creates (without ads and dodgy algorithms). I realise that many people will be hesitant on the idea of downloading yet another app. But I also think that a separate space is necessary. We’re growing increasingly disillusioned with the Metas and TikToks of the world, whilst the last thing people want is another WhatsApp or Telegram group.
This space instead is like a curated internal space to actually go deeper than a traditional social media space would. And from a personal level, it becomes so tough to post on so many different social media platforms, particularly when the algorithm might decide to not show anyone the content anyway.
So, if you’re looking for a space where you can build a greater connection with the sorts of themes that I write about here, you’d be most welcome. My hope is that we can create a space where people can talk more openly about our challenges, and actually actively support one another. It is where I’ll be dedicating my time and energy for the foreesable future to get it off the ground.
If this sounds like something that might be interesting to you (or you’re sympathetic enough to join just to support me!), follow this link to join (for free). I’ll be regularly posting videos and insights that will help you with your day to day life.
I hope to see you there!