Becoming yourself takes courage. After my last post (Becoming Yourself Together) on the importance of authentic community, a reader reached out to me with a question. He said he’s been going through a really difficult season and had stepped away from some important relationships in his life. The challenge to pursue authentic community hit him hard, and he asked for some practical advice on how to reengage. That took courage. Courage both to acknowledge his need for change and to reach out for help. He definitely has my respect.
For him and any others with that same question, here are some practical ideas on how to engage in community:
1. Ask Your Higher Power – if this isn’t your thing, no problem. Move on to the next step. If you have one, start by asking your higher power for help and guidance in finding community. For me, that has meant talking with God about my desire for life-giving, authentic relationships and asking for His direction.
2. Be Intentional – put yourself in situations where community has a chance to develop. Go to neighborhood gatherings. Join a team. Take a class. Volunteer with an organization. Plug into a church. Try a meetup.com group that sounds interesting to you. Eat lunch with co-workers. Go where people are and engage with them. Introduce yourself. Ask them about their lives.
Sitting in your living room waiting for community to happen isn’t going to work. Even though I’m an introvert, I stop and introduce myself to neighbors while out running. Take cookies to new people who move into my area. Volunteer regularly with a charitable organization. Play in a band at a church. Initiate monthly gatherings with some author friends. Schedule poker nights. Through all these efforts, I’ve been able to find really wonderful community. Life is busy. People are busy. If you don’t step up and initiate connections, it probably wont happen. Make time for the things that are important.
3. Give First – authentic community takes time, effort and sacrifice. Sometimes it starts by you giving first. Offer to help a co-worker move. Lend a hand to a neighbor landscaping their yard. Volunteer with a charitable organization you believe in. Do what someone else wants to do when they want to do it. Look for ways to help others. As you do, you’ll spend time with people which allows potential relationships to form or deepen. When they do, you’ll probably start finding yourself on the receiving end as your new friends give back to you.
4. Be Vulnerable – real, life-giving relationships require vulnerability. If all you talk about with people is sports and the weather, you’ll be stuck with shallow acquaintances. For authentic community to develop, you’ve got to open up. Share the hard stuff. Admit your struggles. Talk about your real feelings. It’s intimidating, risky, and scary, I know, but when I’ve taken the first step and shown my willingness to “go there”, I’ve found that people usually reciprocate. A few examples:
a. My wife Lisa and I get together regularly with a few other author couples to hang out, have dinner, and talk about the ups and downs of author life. One evening, we went to a new level of community when I chose to share my story. I told them about the significant events in my life that had shaped me as a person, both good and bad. The beautiful thing is that I was not only completely loved, accepted and supported by them, but that we have started taking turns with a different person sharing their story each time we get together. We now have a deeper intimacy and trust in our friendships.
b. I’ve had an accountability partner for over 15 years. A friend I meet with regularly to talk about life. Someone I open up to. Share my struggles with. Tell them the kind of person I want to be and ask for their help. Give them permission to ask me hard questions and speak into my life. It’s an incredible, tank-filling relationship. I was invited into this by my first accountability partner, and I learned about the power of this kind of relationship. When my job took me to a new state, I asked one of my new work friends to take on that role. When he moved away a few years later, I asked a different friend if he would step up. Over ten years, that partnership has become second only to my relationships with God and my wife and kids. Our lunches are one of the highlights of my week. I have that relationship because I asked for it. I admitted that I need help to become the kind of person I want to be and discovered that he desired the same thing.
5. Maintain – once achieved, community won’t just coast on auto-pilot. Like a regular oil change is required to keep your car running smoothly, authentic relationships require attention. Ignore them and they will start to fade. Don’t let this happen to you! You did all the work – enjoy the fruits of your labor. Give regular time and consideration to your meaningful relationships, and they will pay huge dividends.
So how about it? Do you have authentic community? Which of these steps do you need to take to find or develop real, life-giving relationships? Decide to make that effort today. If you do, you’ll take another huge step toward Becoming Yourself.
I never forget to eat. When I wake up in the morning, then around noon, and again in the evening, my growling stomach reminds me that my body needs food. Consistently filling my physical tank comes pretty easily, but I often loose sight of the fact that I have other tanks as well. An emotional tank. A relational tank. A spiritual tank.
I recently sensed a dryness in my spiritual tank during an intense week I spent finishing the rough draft of my first novel. The work was going well but left me feeling drained. After running some errands, I had just gotten back to the apartment where my wife 
Changing my plans, I left the apartment and walked down to a local art gallery. I spent the next half hour just soaking in the beauty of paintings and sculpture. Something about the nature of art has a spiritual component that feeds my soul. I’ve learned that for my spiritual tank to be filled, I need to regularly focus on things that are beautiful. Prayer, spiritual writings, silence and solitude, and spirit-focused gatherings are all helpful too, but taking in beauty is a key practice for me. I left the gallery feeling recharged and at peace.
What feeds your soul? What type of beauty fills your spiritual tank? Maybe it’s a walk in nature or listening to moving music or viewing great art. Whatever it is, I encourage you to start by taking 4 minutes to
As the deer pants for streams of water,
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
By day the Lord directs his love,
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Throughout my ghost hunting experience, choosing to embrace it all meant focusing on the good and joyful aspects of each step. That doesn’t mean I denied the exertion and the injuries of the search or my disappointment at the commonplace explanation of the light’s source. It means I chose to focus on the child-like wonder during the search phase and the feeling of accomplishment in the unmasking phase.
Some clarification on this point. Obviously, not everything in your life is equally enjoyable or offers the same degree of potential happiness. Right now some of you are going through terrible trials and struggles. In no way do I mean to minimize your pain. What I’m saying is that even the hardest things we face provide an opportunity for something good. During college I learned some horrible news that I knew would affect me deeply for many years. While I was devastated and grieving, I found a spark of hope underneath it all, a quiet excitement that came from knowing that going through this journey could make me a better, stronger person if I let it. That experience was one of the lowest and most difficult seasons of my life but I am so grateful for the things I learned and who I became through it. I did my best to embrace it all.
What does applying this idea look like in your life? Here’s a couple examples:
We all want to be happy. Life is filled with obstacles to fulfilling that desire and we need to find a variety of ways to overcome them. Choosing to embrace it all is just one approach that’s been helpful for me. Look for the good, the beautiful, and the joyful in every season. Choose to embrace it all. If you do, you’ll take another happy step toward Becoming Yourself.