A Time of Coming Together: The Importance of Community

I spent this past weekend at a business retreat for women. When I arrived, I felt stuck and frustrated by the way the world worked. By the time I left, everything felt lighter and more hopeful. While the facilitator was excellent and the material transformative and valuable, the biggest change for me came from the deepening connection with a group of powerful, badass women. Their vulnerability gave me permission to be vulnerable myself. Their struggles helped me feel less alone. And their ideas and perspectives and resources allowed me to expand into new hope and determination regarding my business and my dreams.

The community reminded me of my own humanity and allowed me to see things in a different light. That's the deepest power of community.

With all the violence and turbulence occurring today, it's easy to fall into despair. For many, current events steal a portion of the available energy we all need to function. The political theater and media firehose are designed to keep us demoralized - and disconnected.

Communities connect people and restore their depleted energy (this, coming from an introvert). Communities ground us in our humanity. And communities keep our minds and hearts open to diverse ideas and experiences.

Seen this way, even hobbies and interest groups are a powerful and essential form of resistance. This is all the more true because they don't appear to be. A protest is obvious, and there's power in that directness. Protests act both as a tangible demonstration of dissent and as a collective steam valve for pent-up anger

But a book club unites readers in discussion and enjoyment. A workout class connects people collectively with their bodies. And a networking event creates an alchemy of shared resources and skills.

When I dance tango, I look around the room and I see dozens of people who have chosen connection over isolation and joy over despair. They're all still impacted by our current chaotic context, but they've found a way to put it aside for a few hours. In that moment, they are humans creating embodied, open-hearted beauty together.

The impact is deeper even than this, in subtle, unexpected ways. Here in New Mexico, for instance, dual role dancing (where dancers know how to both lead and follow) is common. In a time when the LGBTQ+ community is under attack, women dancing with women and men with men is an act of allyship and normalization, especially since most of them are straight. They do it for fun, not as a political statement. That's what makes it so subversive. It is an indicator of cultural change.

In this time of darkness and attack, we need each other more than ever. We need to stay grounded in the richness of our humanity. We need those spaces to cultivate joy as an antidote to despair.

This week, I want to share a song with you. I wrote it back in February, inspired by a popup social justice choir. May it serve as a reminder of the importance of community in these turbulent times.