Tips for Rootedness: Neighborliness

This episode is part of a Kiran's own Tips for Rootedness. These are bonus episodes that feature only her, no guest where she shares insights from her own unwanted changes, particularly from her many relocations and from her book A Mindful Move: Feel at home again.

She talks about the importance of neighborliness: Examples of what it is, why we need it more than ever before in our country and the world, and how we can show neighborliness, inlcuding across property lines to the whole world. She also talks about the need for more love not hate and division and creatively links in The Five Love Languages from the book by Gary Chapman. 

Harvard Business School Study https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364363388_Relational_diversity_in_social_portfolios_predicts_well-being

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Transcript

0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to the Uprooted by Unwanted Change podcast. I'm Kiran, and you'll get an opportunity to get to know me a bit more today, more the person rather than the interviewer. And you'll gain insights from my own unwanted changes. Every other Tuesday we're going to have a guest. And I had a guest last Tuesday. And in between, interspersed with that, I'm going to have my Tips for Rootedness series which will be for times when I don't have a guest like now. First of all, I've got to give a shout out to my daughter for the rootedness series. Not only for that, but for suggesting that I host a podcast in the first place! And for her amazing support throughout. I wanted to say that. The tips for rootedness on this episode are to do with neighborliness. What is neighborliness. to begin with? Or even what is it not? Why do we need it? And how might it help us feel more rooted after we have relocated? Or even just as if we're a newcomer in some place. That's what I'd like to talk to you about today. And I can tell you, I've experienced some polar extremes of neighborliness. Firstly, when we moved to America, I had a very unexpected welcome when we took our young family to a restaurant to eat. My kids were about, uh my son was almost four and my daughter was about 18 months at the time. If any of you have young kids, you know what that can be like. Well, the food took quite a while to arrive. And before it arrived, the kids were just getting grumpy, tired. We just decided we're not going to be able to do this. Let's just have it packed to go. So I told the waitress that. Once the food arrived, I went to pay for it. And the waitress says it's already been paid for." And I said, what? Like, no, we haven't paid for it yet. She said, no, no, it's all taken care of. The people on the next table to us, she said, they've got it covered. So I went up to those people. said, no, no, no, you, you, you can't do that. No. What's all this? And they insisted. They said to us, Welcome to America. I think maybe they may have overheard some of our conversation. They said, oh, it must be so difficult with young kids. They said, no, the meal's on us. Don't even think about it. Then we proceeded to go home. I must say, we were feeling suspicious about this because we thought, why would somebody do something like that? We've never experienced anything like that. I've also received literally received a welcome mat as a gift and cookies from a neighbor when I moved somewhere. I've also received a very different kind of welcome mat of garbage. Now this happened in Michigan in our first home in America, a rental home. I remember waking up one morning, opening my door to find a pile of garbage in front of me. Then I realized what had happened. The previous neighbors, they'd left all these cardboard packing boxes outside on the street to go in the trash to be picked up. Because we had ice, the streets were icy, these boxes were stuck to the ground. We could do nothing about them. They were full of garbage. They'd put garbage in there. I'm just assuming some of it must've flown around, landed in front of one of those neighbors' doors, and they weren't too happy about it, but that wasn't too nice. Another time the welcome we were given was a Swastika sign spray painted on our home. Now, when something like that happens, it can make us, well, it can make us really mad at first, but it can make us think how bad the world is. But we have to remind ourselves that while there are people like that, there's also many great people out there too. Because of the varied experiences I've had as a newcomer, it's got me so that I make a point of greeting and welcoming anyone who I first meet, whether they're new to my neighborhood, city, greater community, or even country. This might include people in a group that I belong to, whether that's in person or whether I see them online. What I've learned from my moves across three countries, four US states, and countless cities is that neighborliness is not just about being a good neighbor to the person right next door to us. It extends way beyond property lines and is something that we so badly need in our current times. My mother, she raised us to love thy neighbor and to be open and really understanding and respectful towards people who are different from us. Now, she didn't just say that, she actually embodied it through her actions. Let me give you an example. While she had her own Sikh faith, she would invite Jehovah's Witnesses inside our home to educate herself about other people's beliefs. She would read all their literature that they left behind. Then when some of my friends would go to Sunday school at their church, she would let me attend with my Christian friends. Both my mom and my dad were really neighborly and always ready to lend a helping hand to anyone who needed it. That passed on to me. Then in turn, I've passed that on as a kind of legacy to my kids. My mother, she was also a nurse and she exuded love and empathy. In fact, it was because England had a dire shortage of nurses and desperately what they had to end up doing was recruiting from India. And that's how I faced my first big move at age two. And England became our home, even though it was extremely tough being immigrants in the 60s. Later on, as an adult, when the US needed certain skilled engineers, I would face yet another relocation. This time with my own family. Eventually, we became US citizens and America became our new home. I think I learned from that early on about the interdependence of nations and how no country can be an island. With all the division and hate that's spreading around the world these days, I think we could all do with some neighborly love. I'm someone who believes that when we send out collective energy, it's powerful and people are gonna feel it, whether that's love or hate. So why not send out love? Just imagine if everyone did that. Especially if they did it all at the same time. In the words of the Beatles, some may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. But how can we hate someone we don't even know? I'm struck by how these days many people don't even know their next door neighbors. Never say hello, even. Whenever I moved to a new neighborhood, I'd always make it a point of introducing myself. I remember once inviting all my neighbors in my Cul-de-Sac, calling them over for coffee. They were so appreciative. They really thanked me for bringing them all together. They said, without me, they probably would never have met. Can you imagine that? I found I ended up building a kind of Cul-de-Sac community. I think it's one of the reasons why my daughter calls me The Connector. I seem to connect people all the time. A Harvard Business School study published online on October 17th, 2022. And I can put that in the show notes for you. It suggests that the more diversified our social portfolio is, the happier we'll be. They say besides seeing our partner or family daily, we may get an additional boost of happiness by chatting with other people in our world. Whether that's the checkout person at our grocery store, a neighbor or a friend we haven't talked to in ages. While the study found only an association, not really any conclusive proof, it's still worth a try, right? I mean, why not? Being neighborly doesn't have to involve huge gestures, although it can. I know when I go for my daily walk how much it means to me when someone passing by simply smiles and waves. I've noticed people doing more of that recently, which is great. We can use The Five Love Languages based on the book by Gary Chapman. We could give someone a compliment, Words of Affirmation, or a much needed hug, Physical Touch. a surprise gift for Gifts. Or even the gift of our time, our physical presence, Quality Time, like providing company to someone who's lonely or by doing something for someone, Act of Service. I remember when my elderly neighbor, who I knew well, would be trying to clear the snow from her driveway with a shovel. And these were long driveways in Michigan! Sometimes she would be surprised to find that I'd already shoveled it for her. We can even extend our neighborliness to people in other cities, states, and countries by being friendly or helpful. As much as I love our Canadian neighbours, my shovel is not quite ready yet for your snow in Canada. One way we can help our neighbours in other countries is by supporting them online. Like when my fellow podcasters in a Facebook group, they take the time to answer my questions and I have plenty! And how recently they celebrated me launching my first episode. They're the best! I couldn't have done this podcast without them. While it's great to have people during our good times, it's really in times of trouble that we need each other the most. Suffering seems to pull people together as we all experienced during the pandemic. How interdependent our world became. When I was fairly new in Indiana, I unexpectedly ended up being admitted to hospital. Now I really had not been prepared for this. This was really hard because I had only just dropped my kids to school that morning and my dog was home alone. and My then husband was out of town at the time. I really was not expecting this to happen. So I contacted my next door neighbor and she was incredible. She said leave it to me. Don't even worry about it. Our kids went to the same school and she said, I'm gonna pick them up from school, bring them home. Luckily, I had one of those keypad things on my garage. She got them into the house. She fed them. She fed my dog. She gathered up my things, my clothes to bring to me to the hospital and she took care of everything. She really did. She honestly ended up being the best neighbor I have ever had. I'll never forget that. Also in the greater community, there were people I barely knew and they were bringing us meals afterwards for the whole family. That was amazing. Having lived in many places, I've noticed how there are regional variations in neighborliness and community spirit because local cultures can vary so much even within the US. I probably found the Midwest to be especially strong on community mindedness. Our guest from the previous episode Scott McKinley. from Stillwater, Oklahoma, emphasized the importance of community and neighbors in times of adversity, such as when he and his family lost their home to wildfire. And he said his whole community rallied around him. They gave him all kinds of help, whether it was gift cards, donating money, clothes, food items, or physical help. He said he found that in times of need, it's often our immediate next door neighbors that are the first ones in line to help. He also said, when it feels like the world is so ugly these days, something that we don't hear often enough in our society is that your neighbors, they're pretty good people actually. I also loved what he said about receiving help from people from multiple countries, different races, backgrounds, political affiliations. It didn't matter. They just all wanted to help. I found that when we first relocate to a new place, it may not be apparent how wonderful our community is. Well, it can take a bit of time, I think sometimes. In fact, in the first couple of months, you may think, it feels like a vacation, and you may be going through the Honeymoon Period of a move and seeing things through rose-tinted glasses. Like everything's so perfect. That can very quickly become the opposite because after about one to two months into a move, that's what all my research and everything has shown me is that then when the reality of the move kicks in, that this is no vacation and we're here to stay for good, we can begin to generalize about the people and the place and see everything as kind of the opposite. I've certainly done that. If I met one person who treated us a certain way, I'd think, everyone's going to be like that. To give you an example, in Oregon, when my son's car broke down at the bottom of the hill down our street, a couple of neighbors who saw my son and I trying to push the car up the hill, didn't even bother to offer any help. So I started thinking that the neighborhood and the people in it, the Oregonians are really unfriendly. I started to generalize. But I quickly realized how wrong I was. Or we can become fearful of the unknown. I'd sometimes be worried about who my new neighbour might be. be a serial killer? When we're driven by fear and ignorance, I think that's when we can stick labels on people who are different from us and see them as the other. It creates a wall between us and can lead to distrust and even hate. At times of uprootedness, whether due to hospitalization, a wildfire, job loss or something else, when we can to start shedding any labels we attach to others. For instance, if we needed a kidney or emergency blood transfusion tomorrow, we're not exactly gonna care who we're getting that from, who it came from. I'm someone who tries to see the good in people, I'm shown otherwise, of course. But I first try to give people the benefit of the doubt and try to get to know them. Sometimes like an onion, We may have to peel away at all the layers, at the many layers to get to the essential human being beneath that. I love when I'm finally able to do that. We all have our stories about who we are and why we're the way we are, why we believe what we do. That's why I'm so excited to bring you this podcast, the kind of stories of these amazing diverse individuals, for us to have a better understanding of each other. Now more than ever before, we need community and love, not hate. We really are all just neighbors on the same planet we temporarily call home. Our next guest, Chris Waker, is an incredible young man who will truly amaze you. He's a snowboarding professional turned coach now, talking about resilience after a major injury left him as a quadriplegic in a wheelchair. Chris himself is a huge believer in community and it's helped heal him on this incredible journey. to becoming a motivational speaker who now helps bring hope to others. As some of you might know, I'm a brand new podcaster. I must admit, if you hadn't noticed it yourself, I was super nervous doing that first episode. Well, I would love to keep improving and here's where you come in. Please share, subscribe and provide feedback to me via the Uprooted by Unwanted Change Facebook group. I can't wait for you to join us. next Tuesday See you then. And thanks for listening.