It’s funny isn’t it that when we start to think about, or focus on a particular thing, it seems to pop up everywhere. There’s science to this phenomenon that I’ll leave for another day, but it’s happened to me this last few weeks.
I’ve been spending a of time on Substack recently. Many of you know I love to write and unsurprisingly, I love to read.
I hear client after client tell me how alone they feel, how they don’t really have many people who they feel are on their side, who have their back. How they would love others to notice when they’re sick or it’s their birthday.
In essence they ache for community. I often feel that way too. Can I trust people after experiencing what seemed like transactional belonging? It’s a healing story in progress.
Shane Meyer-Holt from In the Shift podcast, has recently started writing on Substack too about being Untethered and how we could rethink and find community and care given how the world feels now. Have a read.
Which led me to come across the writing of Rosie Spinks. Rosie wrote recently about how we don’t need friends, we need people.
It’s a beautiful idea. Unpacked a little, it says, we don’t need as many deep friendships as we think we do, we need proximity to people regularly. Even as burnt out and exhausted as so many of us feel, as low and flat as our mood may be, saying yes can lift it, even by a small percentage.
We need more people in our lives, is the takeaway. About 50 she says, when we add them all up. A network.
Our nervous systems co-regulate with others. The barista who knows your order can settle the wobbliness of not feeling seen. The school mum, the colleague who’s a bit annoying but asks after your kids and grabs you a snack on the way back from her lunch break. The neighbour who brings your bin in when you’re away.
Even us introverts who crave time alone to recharge and find social interaction draining, need more people just to be around. Just to do things alongside without talking is regulating. More time over quality time allows for connections to deepen, Rosie Spinks says. In time, the quality comes, we can be known and seen.
What does it feel like in your body as you read this?
I both, ache for more connection and it feels raw and vulnerable at the same time. I want more time with people and I feel tired. Can I live with feeling tired if it means more people? I think so.
What do you think? How can you bring more people in?
If you’d like to work with me you can get in touch here. It’s my privilege to support people to navigate the impact of religious trauma and harm in faith spaces.
Jane
