My community
Even if you are introverted or extroverted, community is so important for us. We are social creatures and when we feel like we don’t fit in, belong, or have people in our corner we tend to feel isolated and can suffer from depression and anxiety. Having a sense of community tends to unite us and helps us to feel we are a part of something greater than ourselves. It can also help us reach our goals, keep us motivated, connect with people, and can offer a safety and security. And for many it can be a hard place to find or allow yourself to be a part of.
For me community is something I strive everyday to be a part of yet find myself always holding back. Community for me means family, and my experience with that well has fallen short and led me to be to afraid in the past to be vulnerable. It wasn’t until recently that I realized I felt like I didn’t have a place to call my own and the fact is that I never let myself have a place. I was in a mental head space that resisted every opportunity and chance because I believed I wasn’t suppose to have a place. Like for instance I am leaving the gym I currently work out of in May. I am so freaking pumped but also terrified at the same time. I know it’s the right move for me career wise and mentality. It also has opened me up to realize how much I will miss the gym I work at. Even if I didn’t allow myself to “belong.” I still did and this got me thinking.
Now that I won’t be at the gym everyday in a tiny dark room, feeling like that outsider it’s like I get to really take that place in. I get to re-evaluate my needs and what it meant to me and what I want it to mean to me in the future. And a huge thing for me is that I may actually get to enjoy it now and see it from a different side. For so long I couldn’t see past my business and mental noise because I hated working in that room. I was tired of the noise, tired of the loud weights dropping, tired of me not striking out on my own. But now I am and you know what that means? That I will be able to walk in there as a member. You know how much pressure will be off my shoulders and how much more myself I can be? Its freeing. I didn’t have a community because I wasn’t able to figure out how to separate business and pleasure, family and community, but now I get too.
I get to move forward into the future in my new space and create my own community of people I can grow with, laugh with, and help support, while also now honoring my roots of where I came from and enjoy it again. I get to be a member instead of the behind the scenes person and working there and that brings me so much joy. I watched everyone tonight doing the open and thought to myself now I can do this without feeling like I have to prove all the time how “perfect” I am. I get to show my super competitive side, my goofy side, my sassy side because before I didn’t know how to show that with my business being in the building. I got to see a lot of things, hear a lot of things and that made it even harder for me to feel safe. It shone a light on things for me that I would have rather been oblivious too because it took my joy away to hear them. It took my safety away, my security and that in turn made me pull back even further into that dark room. Which only led to resentment that I had a hard time letting go of. Watching over the past few years and being in a place that helped me grow as a person but also made me pull away because the things I heard or seen reminded me of trauma from my own life. It triggered me hard and I couldn’t find a way to move past it and instead let it consume me until finally I decide to finally move out.
Getting my own space helped me to separate a lot of things regarding the past and forgive. It helped me gain confidence and realize how much I love that place and the people there. I don’t tend to tell people often how much they mean to me or what they did for me because usually I cry and that kind of vulnerability is really hard for me. But that place no matter what was home for me, the home I never had, the home I refused to be a part of and the home I always wanted to be a part of. Confusing I know but leaving this place is the end of a lot of my past, it helped me face my demons, take responsibility for myself and brought me so many wonderful people into my life. As I am writing this tears are streaming down my face because I am going to miss walking in there and seeing everyone but it isn’t goodbye which make me happy. I love my gym, the good, the bad, the ugly, the pretty, all the things it’s shone and given me, it has a piece of my heart and I couldn’t be happier to know that now I can finally get to appreciate it the way I always wanted to, by being in the community now.
What you need to remember is that people are people and no matter where you go there will be ones you like, don’t like, can’t with and absolutely love. There will be the favorites and the ones you don’t know how to talk to and its okay. People will have their opinions and it’s okay for you to not to see eye to eye, just make sure that even though you don’t you all still love and support one another. Community for me is the loving support, the motivators, the inspirations, the creatives, the laughers, the ones who light up the room, the includers, it is people sharing with each other love and life and celebrating each other for who they are. If you find a place like that then never let it go even if you felt like an outsider, like you didn’t belong, you didn’t know how to belong, because that kind of community is worth stepping into your courage and allowing yourself to be seen.
Finding a community that gets you, that see’s you is all dependent on you and your likes. So figure out what your hobbies are, what do you like to do? There are tons of groups, activities, sports, and classes you can take right now that may be one step closer to finding your place. Just remember to give it a shot, to truly put an effort in and allow yourself to be open to it because if you never do then you have missed 100% of the opportunities and people who could transform your whole world. We all feel awkward, we all feel weird when we are the new kid, you aren’t alone there, so be the new kid until you aren’t. Then you get to be the one who helps the new kid who walks through that door.
Today was a 10!