Community is a vital part of living a free and happy life.
As you become more conscious, it is likely that you’ll want to connect with other conscious people. Going out, getting drunk, and having shallow and repetitive conversations loses its’ appeal. What we crave is an authentic community where we are inspired by each other to be our very best. To meet others in ways where it is natural for us to be open, honest, and undefended. This is a key element of how to be happy. This is why so many people get addicted to going on workshops because they get to be truly themselves. These training environments can be challenging but most people come away from them feeling seen, appreciated, inspired, and, most of all, connected. It is in these places that we can experience a real sense of being at home. This sensation is the experience of what it is like to be in real community.
When we get a taste of it, we crave it. When we were hunter-gatherers, we were part of large clans. It wasn’t like the current model of the two-parent satellite family wandering the earth with 2.4 children. Anthropologists say that it is much more likely that we roamed in groups of 12 but were part of a bigger clan (community) of between 50 and 150. There is strength in numbers and also beauty. In community we can’t really get away with being inauthentic. It simply won’t work. A healthy community unintentionally holds up a mirror to us. Inviting us to operate with greater levels of integrity and capability. In community, we are stretched and appreciated, inspired and driven to be our best for each other and ourselves. When we are in community, our place in the world is confirmed, our core values are refreshed, and so our understanding of what is actually important in life is kept close to heart and mind.
In indigenous communities they maintain their cultural health and identity by using rituals, rites of passage, and sacred celebrations. In many areas of modern life we have lost these vital parts of life. That is why the most powerful behavior-change organisations create transformational experiences and events that use ritual and rites of passage to help people relate to themselves in more empowered ways. Getting people out of workshops and getting their feet on the earth, getting them round a fire, using music, dancing, and, at times, terrifying challenges (rites of passage) are all incredibly powerful ways of inspiring us to be our very best. Dry, theoretical training events are not the way forward. Personal development is best when it is a wide-eyed, wild ride of pleasure and passion.
Bringing out your best should be a blast!
Love for all, and all for love
Tom
