Oh, what a couple of weeks… These past week have been a reminder for me how important community is for me even if I tend to think of myself as an independent person being able to deal with almost everything myself. I can have this laziness to go out and show up and rather stay with my own thoughts and get done what is next in my projects.
My journey of becoming a coach has taught me how sometimes I just can’t figure it all out by myself. I have learned to reach out to someone who can see my blind spot. As my journey of becoming a coach coincided with leaving the corporate environment, I also saw that I was missing human contact with people who live in the same reality (or at least almost) as I do. Back then, I just had to go get coffee and I would have an exchange with a colleague, sharing thoughts, talking through a problem or having a laugh.
In the beginning, I was so happy about my new flexible work environment at home that I hardly saw me becoming more isolated and self-sufficient in a somewhat unhealthy way.
About half-way through my training, I started bumping into some “old stuff”, I started feeling the walls that I had built around myself all these years to be the successful manager in a big company. And I was lucky enough to have people around me who could deal with my stormy self-doubt and questioning of everything I was about to do. I learned that reaching out and letting myself be supported is of huge value to me and those supporting me. That reaching out is actually a sign of strength rather than weakness.
These past two weeks have been about connecting with all this. About being again for real with the loving individuals who have walked with me through my stormy moments, who speak a similar language. I truly and deeply enjoyed those moments of connection that I would have missed in my past self-sufficient life.
I realized that I have a community in which I can grow alongside my colleagues and friends in a way I can grow in no others space. That I get richer every time and this is what a good community is all about for me – learning and growing together. Plus, after those moments, I can even enjoy my family and my work more intensely than ever before.
My practice? Plan consciously for moments like this for next year to also nourish this side of me, while growing within all the other communities that I encounter more regularly.
How about you? What are those communities that make you grow and where you are able to speak your language, find likeminded people with whom you can do “your thing”?
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