Unlock the Power of Community to Blossom

Community! It's such a powerful tool in each of our self-worth journeys.

The truth is, self-worth thrives in community. It helps us remember other people have been (or currently are) right where we've been. Struggling with similar things and experimenting with different ways to move past those struggles. 

And let’s be honest, while self-worth is discovered inside of us, sometimes a reminder from fellow journeyers that we are worthy helps us to trust that voice inside saying the same thing.

This is what we're discussing today. The importance of community, how to define community, and maybe most important, how to start creating that community of your dream no matter how brave you're feeling.

Throughout our conversation we'll explore:

• The significance of community in shaping your self-worth journey and personal growth.
• The power of heart-centered connections for emotional healing and fostering deeper relationships.
• Online platforms as alternative spaces to find and engage with supportive communities.
• The art of navigating relationships with self-compassion and understanding individual journeys.
• Our newest coaching program, Blossom, a transformative experience designed to enhance self-worth through community and connection.

✨ You are meant to shine. ✨

Stay in touch! Sign up for our weekly emails or follow us on social on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Transcript

00:00:00

So today we're going to talk about the impact that community can have on the journey of self worth. Talking about self worth, the word self comes up repeatedly. Self care, self love, self worth, self confidence, like self, self. And we don't want to blur that with it's all selfish because so much of this is done through community care. Of course you can do self care by yourself.

00:00:30

Of course you can work on any of those things on your own. But it's when we're brave enough to be a little bit vulnerable and create connection with each other that we're able to elevate our healing or journey or whatever you decide to call it. Like community helps you to take a couple of jump starts and try things with more of a breadth of input. There's this relaxation that happens of I'm not alone. Like, oh, I'm not the only one that sometimes hates myself or that talks really negatively.

00:01:07

Whatever those things are over time, to know someone else has had a similar thought is freeing. I look at it a lot as just feeling really supported. So a lot of times I feel like community, we love community in person. But community can also be found online, right? You're listening to this podcast right now and hopefully you feel like you're a part of our community like you are to us.

00:01:36

But on top of that, there really can be that community aspect to social media. Like, for instance, one of the things that I've loved exploring lately is TikTok's ADHD channels or algorithm. I love it because as somebody that is still trying to figure out how to manage my ADHD tendencies going on to the TikTok of folks that have been navigating this longer than me has been, first of all, I feel like I understand myself so much more. People will be like, oh, neurotypical people don't hear background music in their brain. 24/7.

00:02:18

That blew my mind. Like, what do you hear? You hear background music? Twenty four seven. I mean, I always have things going on in my head and I thought that was normal.

00:02:28

I always have at least like, there's always stuff going on in my head. Why I love meditating, because it's like the time when everything is quiet in my mind. But yeah, I know there's like always a jam going on. Why sometimes I sing and dance to nothing. You do sing and dance randomly a lot and it's one of the things I love about you.

00:02:49

I didn't know that it was connected to something already going on, which makes perfect sense. Obviously there's always that love hate relationship with social media that I at least have where there's been some really negative consequences of social media. But one of the positives is the relating in privacy first. The relating and understanding and hearing stories of oh, this is going on. So maybe I could seek other people who are experiencing this because it can be really scary to go in person, to find the people to get vulnerable with.

00:03:34

Yeah. And this was something I was reminded of last night. Sometimes there's not that community to tap into in your personal life. Depending on where you live, if you live in a place where people think differently than you or a rural community, just in general, you might not be able to find that person that has the same situation as you. And that's, I think, a really amazing aspect of online connection.

00:04:00

It's enabled me to nerd out with people that feel the same way about really specific things. And I think without social media, I would feel a lot more. For instance, what I nerd about most is gardening. I would still be able to find a local gardening community because I do live in a rural area. But if I live somewhere else, I might not be able to get that breadth of knowledge.

00:04:26

And when we think about community, I think the next step that we've already alluded to and talked about but is the connection the connection? And what does that do, both internally for us, but externally, I would say as well, why as humans do we thrive on connection? Would be a question I would pose. I'm sure it's the one with an answer. What do you think?

00:04:54

When I think about that really deep connection, the first word that comes is joy, right? It's like that joy and peace and ease. It's that like I'm not alone yet. It's joy. Has it been like a time that you've experienced that in your life?

00:05:12

I think a lot of my connections in group community aspects have actually come from pain that has been transcended into joy. So like grief groups or when I got into recovery. I think that's the first, most obvious thing I can think of, of a community that was outside of school or outside of certain things that feel like just what happens in our lives. That I sought community for tended to be really low points in my life that helped me to not feel alone, to heal, and then to see how I could go beyond how I could feel the joy which encouraged, I think, the flip side of finding the communities once knowing my true self that I thrived in. It's almost like that negative bias that we talked about a couple of episodes ago.

00:06:07

Sometimes we look for the support when when we need it. I mean, that's when we look for support, it's because what's currently working for us isn't working. And so, of course, that's when you get introduced to these new communities because it's when you need it the most. And we always say this in our retreat work. We truly believe that the people that are meant to come together, come together.

00:06:28

I believe that for all this work. So all these people are coming together at the same time. And then as a community, you're able to create those mutual bonds and transcend. To me, it makes perfect sense. It would be amazing.

00:06:43

And I think that that is what we're trying to do with the retreats and with the other work. Like, connection could come from joy and just get even more joyful, but it doesn't always. When you think of connection, if you were to name a feeling that went with it, what would you say? I would say love. Yeah.

00:07:06

Just like it even brings tears to my eyes when I feel into it. Connection. It's so heart centered to me when you're able to truly do it. And we just talked about I just said people come together for a reason. But I think part of the magic is people's hearts bring them together.

00:07:30

It's like a palpable feeling when you have a group of people that are all brought together for a reason, whether it's online, because I've had online experiences like this as well. But I keep thinking of our welcome circle in Costa Rica, and it was our first night together. Some people knew one other person besides Sarah and I, but strangers, right? And even the first night, just that palpable heart connection that was felt in the space to me, is the magic of connection. And then once you have a community and you have that connection, you can kind of establish group guidelines and create a safe space.

00:08:11

Of course, when you're on retreat, we actually do that very consciously. But think about your own group circles. We all have these unconscious agreements of what we're going to bring up in each community, how we're going to bring it up, how we're going to treat each other. I'm thinking of this survey we just filled out for Amy Porterfield. It was like, how do you want to receive your feedback?

00:08:33

I thought that was such a great question, because we all have ways that we hear and receive feedback the best. And again, think about the different groups you're in. I bet you share feedback in different ways. I know I do. One of the things I love that you said is that heart connection, heart opening.

00:08:52

Right? Because I think that is the root of it. I think joy and love, to me, are so, like, almost synonyms in some ways. But what I thought of is when you're connected to someone that feels really comfortable, your heart opens. Right.

00:09:08

Like, you can physically feel this connection. And I thought about when we shared a couple weeks ago, how we met. There was this moment of even though our lives were shit show, it was like our hearts recognized each other. And I think that's a really good indicator for the people in your life. Like, where are you feeling easeful and comfortable in yourself?

00:09:34

Yeah, that open heart, that's exactly what it because when you said joy, I was like, yeah, of course, joy. And when you asked me, I was like, oh, I got to go. I can't just say joy. I could say joy, but I had, like, another truth in there. I was like, okay, what is it?

00:09:50

And that heart, expansive love. Yeah. And listeners, we'd love to hear your words too. Like, comment what your words are and take a second to really get into that heart filled space. And what's that feeling?

00:10:03

What's the feeling that comes with I don't know. Picture your best friend or someone that you really feel safe with and what feeling comes with them. Yeah, and get into that nuance. Right? Like, find the nuance of you're listening to this podcast.

00:10:20

You're probably going to feel joy and love. Okay, go a little deeper, see what else is in there and let it surprise you. I think you had a really good point of defining a little bit of what a community is, because a community doesn't have to be big. It truly can be. First of all, it might be the community of the beings that share your house.

00:10:43

So I live with myself, my cat, and then my broader community includes all the birds and squirrels that visit me on a daily basis. I know that sounds absurd, but we have a little ecosystem if I don't feed the birds at a certain time. I mean, they give me leeway, but they get a little aggressive if I haven't fed them by 09:00. A.m., me too. Me too.

00:11:10

It's a community that we've created, but it goes broader than that. Like, Sarah and I have a community, but then we have a broader community as well, with our other friends, with our students, with our families. I would say even our families create a different community aspect. I think it can be easy to suddenly feel like, oh, well, I don't have all that. I don't have a support group.

00:11:36

I don't have a place where I feel comfortable or people I feel safe with to dial that down smaller, like, what do you have? Because everyone has something. So maybe it's your house, plants, maybe it is your TV friends for right now, what the people that you feel or beings and energies that you feel comfortable around and then start tiptoeing out of exploring where else communities exist. And if you don't have in person communities, there's things that you can do to explore it. So, first of all, I don't think there's Sarah just said it with TV Friends.

00:12:22

I think reddit, if you find the right reddit groups, subreddit groups, can be really ways to be private still, but start to kind of dip your toes into the types of people you want to translate into your real life. So you can take some risks on, like, doesn't have to be reddit. It can be Discord or Facebook and Instagram. They're more public. Like, you kind of have to use a real name.

00:12:48

So that's kind of why I'm using these other ones. Where you can be a little bit more hidden if you feel uncomfortable. But all of social media now, we're not saying be a troll. We're actually saying try connecting with people and start identifying the type of people. Like, start noticing what interactions make you feel good and what interactions make you feel not good.

00:13:11

And you can start making notes of that for then when you go out to the LinkedIn Social or the coffee shop down the street, you can start noticing really quickly the types of communities you want to go into. Like, if you go into there's this one business group who looked great on paper and went in, and I just didn't like the energy, right? No real reason for it. It's just that community wasn't for me. I had a great meeting and left and never went to another one.

00:13:41

It wasn't dramatic, but because I had done the work prior, I was like, oh, I feel icky. My body feels icky. And I knew I didn't want to go back. So you can do that work prior to exploring in person. And I love the experimenting.

00:13:57

Like, have fun with experimenting. And rather than going into something and okay, let's say you're really wild and you're like, I'm going to do a meet up group of hiking. I don't know anyone. I'm just going to just put myself out there. And you go and you're like, this does not feel good.

00:14:14

You don't ever have to go back. This is just like, information that you store of like, I like hiking on my own or not my type of hiking people. I'm going to find some other hiking groups. There's so many ways to go with it. And when we can take from last episode compassion with it, self compassion of like, you're not going to click with everyone, you're not going to feel great in every circumstance.

00:14:41

There's going to be these pieces. And then just how do you navigate it in a way that is loving to yourself and others? Again, anybody listening to this knows this, but just a reminder that all relationships go both ways. So whatever you're dealing with, know that the people that you're trying to interact with also have their own lives. They also have their own stories that they're telling themselves.

00:15:06

They might not have listened to our self compassion episode. So sometimes it's up to us as the people that are doing the work not to make excuses for the people that aren't doing the work, but just to know that they're coming from a different place than us and doesn't mean you need to spend time with them, but just that understanding of people are unique beings in a community. The reason I really brought this up is in a community, if it's bigger than two people, the relationship webs get more complicated. So just being aware of that, you might connect really well with a couple of people in the community. And there might be some people in the community that you don't want to talk to, and that's also okay.

00:15:44

You can have boundaries within the community, which gets tricky, but that's a whole nother episode of the web. It's worth it to navigate and just start observing even there. Like, who are the people you don't like to interact with? It's a good one. What's your advice to people that are looking to connect more?

00:16:07

My advice for anyone looking to connect more is to start small. Start really small. Reach out via text to someone that you enjoy talking to or from your past that you miss. Start with something that feels doable, that feels safe, that feels like it will be a success. I'm always for starting your first thing with something that's going to be successful because it helps build the self esteem.

00:16:41

So if you text someone that you already know you love and they love you as just kind of a bandaid rip off of like, okay, I've got to start getting better at communicating with people. It's that one tiny step forward and then it's the experiment. Have fun. Start trying things that you've always wanted to do. Go to that yoga class.

00:17:02

Go sit in a coffee shop and work for an hour and see. Go to a local library reading. Do the things and see what happens. And you always get the out. You always get to say, like, I didn't actually like that.

00:17:19

And there's going to be most likely many of those things that you try and don't like. If you're experimenting, truly experimenting, sometimes you're going to get negative feedback back. Your hypothesis will be wrong, and that's okay. It's part of the process. Hopefully it'll make a funny story that you'll be able to tell your next community when you go there.

00:17:43

I joined a polling league and it went poorly, very poorly. But now I have the story to share to my new friends, and I enjoy sharing it. Another great Wayne, though, is bring a friend. Yeah. If you're looking to try a community that's like an established community somewhere, grab a friend and go.

00:18:04

That can be a great way to have a safety partner. Okay, we're both going to try this thing that feels really uncomfortable. Let's do it. And if you are being brave enough to do it on your own, here's one of my tricks. Like, let's say I'm doing an event at a coffee shop, right?

00:18:24

I'll go, I'll get in line for a coffee, and I'll scope out the event as I'm in line for my coffee. If I think I'm not going to like it, I don't go to the event. I just grab my coffee and leave. Same thing with the hike, right? If you went on the hike and you get there and you're like, I don't like this group of people.

00:18:42

Go on a hike by yourself, usually there's a couple of trails at the head or don't wait for them to go. They're not going to catch up to you.

00:18:53

When I have to do networking events, my only goal is I have to talk to one person I've never talked to before and then I get to leave because I really don't like networking events. I feel really uncomfortable most of the time. I end up staying and talking to more than one person, but that's the only goal. It used to be give one business card, but I don't carry business cards anymore. So give yourself that goal.

00:19:17

That's another way of like, what's my one small doable obtainable goal. Let's do this and then pass or say half the time, more than half the time. Remember the stat we always share. 85% of people have self esteem issues. When you're at an event like this again, look around the room.

00:19:41

There's at least eight people feeling exactly the same way that you feel. There's probably more.

00:19:49

Almost always when you go up to somebody, they're going to be so relieved that somebody went up to them so that they're not just standing there and just ask a question, how are you? Or what do you do? Or what's your favorite color? I don't know. Can I do a story time?

00:20:06

Yeah, do a story time. When I first got sober, people always were outside smoking cigarettes and I didn't smoke cigarettes. I contemplated starting smoking cigarettes so that I would have something to do around people. I did not, thankfully. I think you remember that short lived combo.

00:20:24

I think I tried it once and I got like an immediate migraine and was like, Pamela, I can't become a cigarette smoker. Like, thank God, body. Thank you. Thank you for looking out for me. But there was this woman standing there with a guilt group box.

00:20:38

Which guilt group is like when it first came out, especially, it was like incredible way to get designer clothes super cheap. And it was amazing. And I was like, that's an in. I can talk to her. So I went up and I said, hey, I'm like, oh, you ordered from guilt group.

00:20:53

What'd you get? And she started to answer and I got so freaked out that I wasn't going to know how to respond. This is me, very newly sober, functional, master's degree human being with job and friends. I wasn't like a hermit. Like, I had plenty of friends.

00:21:12

Had no idea what I was going to say to her next. Freaked out and walked away while she was talking. Walked away mid talking because I got so scared of what was next. So here is my story time resolution for you all is that it doesn't matter. And I told her that later once I had more time, I was like, I don't know if you remember this, but I was so freaked out about what to say next that I just ran away.

00:21:36

And she was like, that's really weird and amazing and I don't remember it. She had no recollection at all. But, yeah, you can mess up and you can do really weird things. And I think that's such a great reminder. Almost always, people aren't going to remember the weird things that you think are embarrassing.

00:21:58

We're usually the people that care the most. Don't let it stop you from going back to that girl in the future, but reaching out again.

00:22:10

Kind of to conclude this conversation, I think what I'd love to share and express is that if even after all of this you're still nervous, then reach out to us. We're a community here and we're here for you. And we absolutely welcome your existence, your weirdness, your loveness, all your things we're here for. And actually, this is a good segue if you want a little bit more support. We actually have a new program.

00:22:41

It's going to be launching May 5, and it's called Blossom. So you can probably imagine what it's all about. It's about helping each and every one of you blossom. Blue, go a little bit further on your self worth journey. So it's six weeks of diving together, of creating a community.

00:23:00

If you are like, I really want a community of kick ass women, take a look at this program. It's going to be magic from the people that have signed up already. I know we say that all the time, but take a look. It's just art of selfworth blossom. And remember, whatever you choose to do next, you are worthy.