Which parts of you need community?

In this blog I am unpacking the idea of community - what is it in this being together that matters?

It's word we use and hear all the time - so surely we understand what it's all about? Surely, if we know about it (and how important it is) we've all got this part of our lives down....right??

AND YET...so many of us are lonely, feel misunderstood, unheard and without true connection. I am wondering if we can understand this a bit more and move towards experiences of connection and community.

I want to begin thinking about community from another angle. The angle of alone and unseen.

Which part of you, feels the most hidden?

What part of you do you hold in and keep from view? What part is the hardest to share? What do you struggle to sit with in yourself?

When people come to therapy, they are searching for change. They know they need difference. And what helps them to find that?

A relationship of emotional safety - where they can talk freely, without judgement and with someone who is holding compassion and empathy.

In this safe space, people open up. It is an incredible privilege when a client says, "I have never told anyone about this before" and to witness what this means to the person sat in front of me. To watch the relief. How they seem lighter. How fears fade as they receive acceptance from me rather than rejection or judgement.

What once held so much power over them starts to feel smaller.

Often they can make sense of themselves in the space of the session - talking things out, not holding back anymore. Things can click into place, connections can be made, options seen. Suddenly someone who felt alone, distressed, wrong, bad, a failure, confused, lost becomes a person who is heard and understood.

Often it is the part of us that we are the most fearful of sharing, that is the key to the change we desire and need. And the vital step in finding that change, is sharing it.

I also know that it can feel hard to find that emotional safety. It can take time to build the trust, even in therapy where it is paid for and safeguarded by the professional. And out there, in the world, a whole host of reasons can get in our way.

Do you recognise any of these?

• They wouldn't understand it.

• They've got enough on their plate. I don't want to be a burden.

• No one wants to have a negative person around.

• It's not that big a deal anyway, other people have got more going on.

• I wouldn't know how to explain it.

• I have so much to be grateful for, I shouldn't find this hard.

What do you feel alone in? Which parts of your or your life do you notice thoughts like this around?

Perhaps it is in struggles with neurodiversity or difference of another kind, like chronic pain or ill health. It might be living with the impact of trauma or you could be without family support or estranged from your parents. You might be navigating something around identity- your sexuality or gender, changing career, becoming a parent, newly divorced, long-term unemployed. Maybe it is a particular loss - a child, a pet, a heartbreak, a friendship. It could be the nature of your struggle - obtrusive thoughts or habits, terrible panic, low mood or bleakness. Maybe you feel ashamed of a coping strategy e.g. drinking or restricting food. Life stage might be the thing you are finding hard but don't talk about - being a new parent, or not having kids when everyone else is, retirement, being a single parent, new to an area, leaving a job. Maybe you are hiding a hope, a dream, a passion, a creative urge. It can feel vulnerable to want more.

Maybe you feel some shame about your feelings or thoughts.

In every car, in every home, in every workplace, in your local café, in the supermarket queue...people are thinking about these kinds of things and many more besides.

Imagine for a second your own struggle. The one that you feel no one else understands or perhaps even knows about.

And now imagine a small group of people sat around you. You feel safe. You feel heard. You have spoken and shared about yourself. And these people speak back and they say,

"I hear you. That sounds so hard."

"Me too, I have felt that way."

"Thank you for telling us, I'm sorry you've had to hold that alone."

They don't offer you advice. They aren't there to fix it or take it away. But they hear you and they receive you with kindness and belief and respect. There is space for you here. The struggle is out, it has been heard.

Can you imagine what this might mean to you? Pause here, if you can, and let yourself feel what this would bring you.

<<<< >>>>

And now can you imagine what you sharing your struggle might create in a group like that?

I can, because I see it happen in the group I run and I know it happens in other scenarios when someone goes first with their vulnerability, in a space which is safe. Once one person has shared then someone else takes the risk and shares what matters to them. And perhaps then another person. Each getting to experience the same relief, the same contact, the same support which you received when you went first.

And you also get another experience - the warmth of holding someone else. Of being on the other side of that dynamic - the helper, the listener.

Because true community is reciprocal and mutual - it is I ask and I receive and you ask and you receive.

It's not me being strong and silent and always coping... and you feeling awkward and a bit of a failure for struggling. The inequality of one-way support.

It's the permission we give each other by voicing our needs and fears.

It's the power that emerges when I show you my struggle. In my pain is my power. In your pain is your power...the power to change how we both feel. And when we come together on that, well, that's something special!

We think community is about giving

But it is also about asking and receiving.

True solidarity, true power, true connection is both. It is lonely to stand in guarded and hidden. It cuts you off from the beauty of community, the power of together.

But crucially, it is also not serving others - the inequality of me always helping you, of me always being the one that copes, the one that holds it all together means I am creating a culture of judgement. Without directly saying it, I am communicating...

It's not really ok to struggle.

Because if I believe this about my own pain then it can't help but bleed out into my relationships. Our internal rules show up in the world.

So staying silent closes you down.

And potentially it closes down others close to you.

What are you modelling to others when you hold back?

And is that what you believe is needed in our world? Do you really want to choose this?

Loneliness is so often not about a lack of people. It is about a lack of being fully known - the pain of hiding what we feel is unacceptable. And whatever it is, the part of you that you hold back...that is the part which can open up the truest connection with others and the healing of you being fully known and accepted.

Yes, this does rely on tuning in to who are the emotionally safe people. Sometimes this means we need to find new people. Not everyone can offer us respect and kindness.

And sometimes it means we need to risk deepening our existing relationships - sharing more of ourselves in order to receive and in order to give. If we want connection, someone has to go first!

The world can feel hostile and full of judgement, gossip, focus on appearance, bants (groan....) but I work EVERYDAY with people who want more authentic, real conversation. They are out there. Most likely feeling they have to hide parts of themselves too.

How will we ever find each other, if someone doesn't make themselves visible?

I know community can be about helping out, picking up litter, delivering groceries to an elderly neighbour or volunteering.

AND I know that,

community can be what happens when I share my struggle with you and you share yours with me.

I sat in the group I hold (The Hearth, Fleet) last week and I heard people say they felt lonely. And I heard people speak and share and listen and receive and share and speak...it was so simple and so powerful. It wasn't expensive or complicated or manufactured.

It was genuine. And it involved trust. And someone to create the space and hold the safety. It involved a meditation, a bit of chocolate and a herbal tea.

I ask you to imagine this, to consider this, knowing that these spaces and experiences might not be in your life. And knowing that to find them, to seek them out or to risk opening up for more, might be tricky. But I keep coming back to the question, "Is it worth it?" And I know that it is.

I can't hold more groups. But I would love to help people set up their own. And I know there are groups out there - walk and talks, peer support, circles. And I know there are existing relationships and communities there - waiting for you to go first.

There is a power and a freedom in us.

There is beauty and connection and solidarity.

Curled up and waiting in our fears and vulnerabilities.

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear any thoughts you have on this...and if you are interested in setting up your own Hearth group or community space and would like some help, I would be happy to help you and you can get in touch with me here emily@emilymccoyshares.co.uk

I hope you are well. And I hope this stirs something in you.

Always with love,

Emily