Day 4: Plan to Create New Community

Your community includes every single person you know or meet: Your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances, shopkeepers, and the people you pass on the streets. Your community might also include people you talk with online. 

Community is inclusive and often accidental, and you need this kind of diversity in your community to fuel the most growth in your life. You will be gifted by many chance encounters with people who will propel you towards excellence. 

However, you can also intentionally and strategically create new community that meets your currant needs, gathering in the friendships that help you to grow into a better person. 

For example, two years ago, when I had a clear but undefined impulse to become more active for social justice, I went to a variety of events and committee meetings until I found the two action groups I wanted to join. I based my choice on the people I liked best, and consequently, made friends who are now essential to my life and priorities.

Maybe you want to find someone to talk to or walk with, or a neighbor who can help you with yard work, or an online study group... the options for community are endless (even in a pandemic).

Take out your Love Journal:

• First review conversations and interactions you had yesterday, and your general frame of mind with the world.

• Next, think about the people you will see today, and the conversations you may have. Make note of times when you might need to draw on any of the love habits.

• And then, answer these queries:

-What are my essential circles of community and how does each encourage me to grow?

-What do I want in my community that I don’t already have? What new circles of friendship could I seek out?

-What groups or causes do I really want to work for, be around, impact, and inspire (now or someday)?

• Brainstorm some goals for creating and nurturing your community in the days or months ahead, and add them to your Month Map or your Inspiration Page.

• And end with a 5-minute Love Meditation. Send the "pink light of love" to your circles of community.

Note: Creating new community takes time, persistence, and emotional commitment. The rule I learned is to Keep Showing Up, even when you don't feel especially welcomed. Some people and some groups are easier to "infiltrate" than others, but if you keep showing up you will eventually be accepted.

Marvin Thomas, in Personal Village says, "After about the seventh contact the internal shift to familiarity occurs. It is almost like the brain says, "Oh, she has been around for a while. She's an OK person." At that point you shift from the status of outsider' to insider. Everything gets easier."