The Next Perfect Step

Embracing Community: The Transformative Power of Togetherness and Connection

• Lori Tremblay - Canva

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Community shapes our lives and emotional well-being, becoming increasingly vital in today's disconnected world. The episode explores the meaning of community, personal engagement, and the significance of shared experiences, urging listeners to reflect on their roles in creating connections. 
• The importance of neighbors supporting each other 
• Historical context of communal living 
• The effects of technology on community engagement 
• The diverse nature of community needs 
• Envisioning a more connected future 
• Personal stories highlight the value of interaction 
• Encouragement to explore individual definitions of community

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome to the next perfect step, where all possibilities lie in conversation. I'm your co-host, laurie Mullen.

Speaker 2:

And I'm your co-host, laurie Tremblay. Welcome to today's episode, where we're going to talk about community and what it means to you to you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So community today to me is neighbors helping neighbors. Right, it is the food drive. It is someone coming out and helping you shovel your driveway. Someone coming out and helping you shovel your driveway. We also do have nowadays communal living, which is out there, where you know people have a community garden and they grow and they each have a set of chores and everyone has to do them every day. I know there's many of those out there, lori what does community right now look like to you?

Speaker 2:

Well, right now I enjoy getting together with our like-minded friends Best for a meal. You know, we get together and we just talk. It just feels good to be together with other people and I agree with you too, it's about helping other people, and I was thinking about, you know, the fires in um los angeles and how many people must are in need and just the neighbors step up to help other neighbors and help them get their basics, um supplies and just comfort each other. But I think it's about sharing yourself, basically sharing your, your love and your um humor, your joy, just taking a some a meal for someone, as you said, and just coming together and not not being isolated, not making, you know having yourself just alone in your room, just getting out there and interacting and, and you know, sharing yourself, sharing love.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about why we feel community is important.

Speaker 2:

I don't feel like we're meant to be an island, right. We're meant to be together. We're meant to be connected. When you think about the tribes that used to live in communal living, they used to help raise each other's children. To help raise each other's children, they were um eating together, gathering food together and then, even maybe a couple hundred years ago, extended families would live together and work on the farm or you know just um. Everyone was together and had their own own place in the community and their own space, interacting with each other. I just think that's it's so important. That's why I believe that's how we're wired actually is for connection and community.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree that I don't think. I think that community is important so that we can share ideas with like minded people. I think that it helps with us not being afraid of getting our basic needs when we know we have people we can rely on and that can help us. I think that we can learn to be more compassionate and open when we're in a community and we're able to lean on one another. So I think that there's communities important on on a bunch of different levels.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a part of me that also I do believe that we're not meant to be alone, that we do need to feel connection, but I do. I also want my alone time. I think about communal living. That's not how I would want to live Now. I would want to share and commune, but not all the time, and I don't want. I mean, I've seen some issues with communal living Like I mean, why have we gotten away from where we were? I mean I wouldn't. I mean we talked, you talked about, you know the tribes all living together, and then we are extended family, continue to live together. Why, why, why did we go away from that?

Speaker 2:

a good question. Yeah, I think, um, you know families, maybe kids went into the city to make my money and they just kind of it. Just, I think is our society got more technical, that it tends to bring a little more isolation, and you think about social media, I think about your everyone's on their drones, right, all the time. They're not connecting to other people. I think that's a big part of it is isolation. And and then, of course, the biggest example is the um, when we were all isolated, that was causing a lot of anxiety and depression. It's a lot of people and also, on the other hand, people realized how much they wanted to be connected and although they couldn't that, that made that um basic need even more, more to the forefront, I think but do you think it always has to be with a person?

Speaker 1:

so, like for me, when, when that when we were isolated I didn't feel the need to be more connected to people, but me and my husband got out, we went for walks in nature, we went for walks outside, and that was more the connection I needed. And I do believe, absolutely believe, that some people need, but I don't think everybody does. I think that connection looks different for different people and that's what also I kind of went back to when you said the thing about the tribe and about extended family. Like for me, the community that I want is like-minded people. Right, we have a common goal, we have a common energy that's familiar or similar to one another.

Speaker 1:

I think now, if you think of a tribe and I think of my town and I do like the people in my town, but I wouldn't necessarily want to be that close to everybody in my town I would more want to be in with a society or a group, a community where we kind of all are on the same page, we have stuff to talk about, where we can explore those ideas, and I think that we need all the ideas from different communities and stuff, but on an everyday basis. That's more like what I would want community to look like. I think about my family and we're all on different paths and pages and I would more want that kind of community, which never does not mean that we don't all interact at some point. But if we talk about like everyday community, that's more like what I would want it to look like. So, like in five years, what do you think community is going to look like?

Speaker 2:

I think it would be nice to have more things like coves and growing. You know, like you mentioned, community gardens where local people can take control of the food supply, for example, and just and also have a place to be together and to grow their own food. You know what I'm saying? It's a nice ability to be together. I'm rambling here.

Speaker 2:

No you're fine, I think, just being a good neighbor, as you said, just helping each other and I agree that being together with like-minded friends is important but also getting to, um, not be so isolated from people that might have different opinions, because that's where we are right now. So reaching out to people that are a little tour people in our town that might need some help or um smile or a kind word, yeah, yeah, me too.

Speaker 1:

That's why I would like to see us in five years Like I would like us to um help out the people and in our areas, right, um, like you said, like um have more um local food where they can come and then people gather to meet one another, or um an event, a forest needs to be fixed or cleaned up, and we come together and we all do it and we help each other with the everyday basic things so that we all feel like we're contributing and we all feel like we're contributing and we all feel like we're helping making the place where we live better together.

Speaker 1:

I think that that's important, but I think that this is going to be a big subject too. I think that community is something we're moving towards, and so I love this discussion and I think that there's a lot of things to explore and um, on a personal level and on a bigger level, you know, and working through some of like some of the things I talked about, like working through why I feel that way and how I can bring where I want to see community in the future and where I am now, and kind of come to a different place of how I feel and what I want to feel in the future. So, lori, do you have any, um any more thoughts on community?

Speaker 2:

I was just thinking um, when my husband, len, and I love to go up to Maine, years ago they would have these community dinners, like um, bean suppers, or like they'd have dinners at the fire department. You just go in there and you sit at this big, huge table with people that you didn't know and just start talking to people. You might meet somebody that you know came up from you know New York or or whatever, and they just start these conversations and it was just so much fun. We, we loved just going to those community dinners. You don't, like I said, you don't know anybody, but you leave with with a friendship, and that's just. That was just kind of fun. I just enjoy that.

Speaker 2:

So, like you said, maybe having events like that or, um, there's places where people can come together, and we do, you know there's. You can go to concerts and go out and for walks in nature. We'd love to do that too, and there are many ways to connect with animals and nature and each other, your family, it's. It's just. I think for me it's remaining open-hearted and not being closed to opportunities, but the people that I believe that whoever we meet, is not by accident. So I just always have that in mind and just try to stay open-hearted, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, we'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on what community should and does look like for you and where you would like to see it in the future. So please comment and help share your thoughts and opinions. And if you like this episode as much as we have, please like, share and subscribe. And until next time, how is your intuition leading you to the next perfect step?