Identifying Three Types of Communities (but Only One that Combats Loneliness)

Welcome to Street Lights, a dose of leadership insights that doesn’t dismiss or shy away from power, identity, or belonging, created by Aiko Bethea and the RARE Coaching & Consulting team. This is the place to disrupt your default thinking and status quo approach to leadership. This is where we say the quiet part out loud. Everyone’s invited to this party, just bring your curiosity and generosity with you! Let’s dive in.

In our last edition we discussed Loneliness at Work: When Work is the Source of Mental Health Challenges . We gave employees strategies to counter loneliness and leaders ways they can support their employees to decrease feelings of isolation. If you’re just now tuning in, please read the prior Street Lights as this is part three of a three-part series on Recognizing Isolation and Rediscovering Community.

This week, we’re getting to the part where we will explore our different types of communities. It'll help us to apply appropriate boundaries so that we can get to the antidote to loneliness... core community.

Our RARE Community

If you’re the least bit familiar with our work at RARE Coaching & Consulting, you’re aware that we believe shifting culture and healing are best sustained when pursued within community.? While most of our work is within Fortune 500 companies, our vision and mission is tied to our RARE Exchange (RAREx) community .? We learned that participants of our publicly-offered workshops and trainings yearned to stay connected. The insight, validation, and courage they obtained by learning in community sustained them in making meaningful life changes and leaning into strength- their individual strength bolstered by the strength of their new community.?

Learning in a curated community provided a container for vulnerability evidenced by sharing experiences at work that left them feeling demoralized, but also encouraged to speak truth in the face of fear and possible repercussions.? We are 200% believers in the power and purpose of community.?

I can share many stories of the impact community has had on my life.? Ninety-five percent has been powerful and empowering, while 100% has been impactful. Community has supported me in:

• Being more anchored into my values and being clear on where my values derived from
• Understanding and sharpening my voice
• Consistently using my voice
• Being cared for and nurtured, challenged and expanded
• Remaining connected and not spiraling into my rabbit hole of perpetual solitude at the risk of becoming isolated and lonely

While I am a believer that the workplace is not intended to provide core community to its employees, I do understand that a nurturing community in the workplace can result in:

• Increased employee retention
• Healthier employees (mental health and wellness)
• Impactful and innovative employees
• Increased connection and engagement

Based on research, we know that “productivity and efficiency come when employees are engaged, inspired, and connected to their coworkers.” Workhuman (September, 2023) ? But for so many reasons, I shudder when promoting community and connection at work boils down to more? productivity and profits for communities. I don’t believe that the purpose of people is to work, but I believe that work should exist to support healthy people, communities and societies.

Whereas toxic workplaces (indicative of unhealthy workplace culture and communities) results in:

• Low employee retention
• Less productivity
• Increased employee absenteeism (mental health and wellness)

In earlier issues of Streetlights we shared how workplaces can decrease isolation and even a few ways you can find community at work.? However, in this issue, I want to dig into creating core communities.

The Point of Community

Community is where we can inspire and be inspired. We can support and ask for support. We can grow and help others grow. We can encourage and uplift the generation walking behind us. We create connection and combat social isolation and loneliness. Specifically, core community is the antidote to the global epidemic of loneliness and social isolation.?

in community, our potential is truly realized. what we have to offer to each other is not merely critique, anger, commentary, ownership and false power. we have the capacity to hold each other, serve each other, heal each other, create for and with each other, forgive each other, and liberate ourselves and each other.

~ adrienne maree brown, in relationship with others (July 7, 2009)

When we work to find community and belonging at work and outside of it, we access compassion, empathy, new ideas and perspectives. When I speak of community, I am not talking about silos of sameness. However, I always honor the value of having a tribe who is from a shared lived experience, but to grow, we cannot remain in sameness.?

Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.

~ bell hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope”, p.197, Routledge (2013)

All of Your Communities Aren’t the Same, So Stop Treating Them the Same

I coined core community because often we speak about community as if there is just one type of community. This results in us making the mistake of treating all of our communities the same, giving them the same access and privileges and expecting the same level of care from all of them. This can result in burnout, harm, confusion and even increased loneliness. Therefore, I think it’s helpful to identify different categories of communities. Note that some of these communities may overlap, or you may have community members who are in multiple community spaces.?

Community of origin

The places where we spent our formative years, or that most greatly influenced our formative years are our communities of origin. This can be informed by geographical location, racial or ethnic communities, our families, or even our place of belief, faith or worship.?

My expansive community of origin not only includes my immediate family, but I acknowledge how the culture and beliefs of my community of origin are derived from the tentacles that influence my upbringing and inform how I may feel familiarity and connection:

• Black low-income community of Spartanburg, SC
• First-gen Japanese-Americans (primarily biracial)
• Immigrant families in America
• Southern Black families
• Japanese Shinto Buddhist traditions
• Southern Black Christian congregations

My community of origin has provided many of my basic necessities. Sometimes out of obligation and sometimes out of love. It has also been a source of limiting beliefs, irrational beliefs, and unhealthy indoctrination.? Although I have default sentiments of affection and nostalgia, I often have to disrupt my instinct to forego boundaries. I can jump into protector and BFF mode when I’m intoxicated by familiarity and nostalgia and mistakenly expect? connection and care. I over-index, take off my armor and jump into the deep end of vulnerability.?

This is where we gained the saying: All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.??

This saying is a reminder that merely sharing the same race and ethnicity doesn’t mean that someone is “kinfolk” or worthy of being treated as close as trusted family members (or really, core community members.)

Core community

Core community hits our core- our heart and our souls often based on shared commitment to values or humanity. It is where we are fed and nurtured. It’s where we invest ourselves. This is the container that invites and nurtures our vulnerability. If it had a label on it, it would read: HANDLE WITH CARE.?

In this container we can challenge others and stay in connection. But most importantly, we invite ourselves to be challenged. Here we are not at risk for being excommunicated, judged, and shamed. Here, we are faced with the work we must do to grow and become closer to who we aspire to become. Here, we can be steadfast in our values. Here, there is no value in covering, code switching and assimilating. Yet, our comfort is not in complacency.

To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.

~ bell hooks

Here, we can ask for help. Here, we can name our mistakes and failings. Here, we can freely put down the role of protector and allow ourselves to be protected. Here, we can name our weakness and allow others to be strong- without the price tag of “repayment” and indentured gratitude. Here, we can show our wounds and allow others to apply a balm. Tears are welcomed, unharnessed laughter is prompted, and there’s space for all of us. Here, we are not too much or not enough. Adrienee marie brown’s quote above refers to core community.?

This is where we may grant our most expansive boundaries. Core community is the antidote to loneliness and social isolation.

Note that for many their core community is not comprised of any family members. This is normal.?

Functional community

These are communities where we are connected through a default utilitarian or practical purpose. This includes communities like:

• Educational, school, hobby or learning based
• Workplace
• Homeowner’s association and neighbors
• Clubs and organizations of our children or other family members
• Civic organizations

Like our community of origin, we can have moments of joy and we can even have moments where we are held in care. However, these isolated “moments” do not necessarily equate to being a core community and we can fall into over-indexing with vulnerability and trust.?

With each community, you will hold a different boundary, in terms of what’s okay and what’s not okay.? In addition, your expectations of each community will look different. Your expectations should be aligned with your boundaries, that community member’s abilities, as well as their expectations and boundaries.

Identifying Your Core Community

Recognizing that core community is the antidote to loneliness and isolation prompts us to hold our core community close, and hopefully also cherish them and step up our contributions and care.?

Some key factors you can ask to determine if individuals are a part of your core community:

• They have values that are aligned with mine.
• They tell me the truth even when it may be challenging.
• They do not shame and blame me, but they will hold me accountable for my impact and actions.
• They do the work to remain anchored into their values.?
• They allow space for me to share my thoughts, ideas, and dreams.
• They are nonjudgmental.?
• They do not set an expectation for me to code switch or to cover.?
• They dig in to understand me and provide empathy.
• They provide space for me to be vulnerable and share when I’ve failed, ask for help, and be emotionally exposed.
• They maintain confidentiality.
• I reciprocate the above.?

Flickering Lights

As you consider your communities, and specifically individual members of your communities, reflect on:

• Do you treat individuals in a way that is aligned with their appropriate community designation? Or, do you find that you have misapplied boundaries and expectations for some?
• How have core community members supported you in remaining connected?
• How have you reciprocated the nurturing you’ve received from core community members??
• Would you be considered to be a part of someone else’s core community? If so, what qualifies you to be a part of their community? (Consider your values, actions, and other ways that you show up for that person.)

Heads Up

I’m excited about our upcoming LinkedIn Live with my dear friend Elaine Lin Hering , author of Unlearning Silence. It takes place next Tuesday, September 17 at 3:00 ET. Register here to join us. (If you haven’t gotten your copy, you’re missing out!) We’ll speak with Elaine about ways we learn silence via community, social norms, and other avenues. We’ll also explore how we can unlearn silence.?

We have an upcoming three-part workshop that is a deeper dive with facilitated discussion on the topic of this three-part Streetlights series:? Recognizing Isolation and Rediscovering Community. If you’re interested, register here . (Scholarships available.)

Community Connection

Do you want to be a part of the RAREx community? Reach out to [email protected] ,? simply subscribe to Streetlights, or follow us on IG: rare_coach.

Until the next episode…

RARE Coaching & Consulting works with organizations and individuals who are ready to push past their limiting beliefs and remove barriers to equity and inclusion. RARE helps executives and teams to become innovators and leaders in their workplace and industry. Discover how to work with RARE for executive coaching, team development, workshops, speaking engagements, and more.