Mending with community support

MINDFULLY MENDING MARCH SUGGESTION: today, ask someone for some help. It can be something as simple as asking someone to open the door for you when your hands are full instead of juggling all your things and opening the door yourself. 

I believe that humans were meant to live together in communities, supporting each other by sharing resources and responsibilities. "Progress" and "development" have created this totally weird society where we live in stacked apartments and don't even know our neighbours. We get on elevators and stare straight ahead, pretending the other people aren't there. We have completely exhausted parents who either work all day and then come home to do a second full time job, OR, are at home all day doing the most important job in the world and STILL have to do all the things that need to be done. 

We are meant to need each other. 

We are meant to rely on each other. 

I didn't go to a public school until grade 7. Before that, I was schooled in a house with 40 other children. In that setting, we learned interdependence. Every morning, a group of children would bake or cook an afternoon snack. At the end of the day, we would come together, sit in a circle, and eat the snack that had been made for us by our peers. 

I learned the importance of taking care of the people in your community, whether or not they are people you know. Even if they are people you don't particularly like. 

Community fosters a sense of belonging. That feeling of belonging might just be the most important feeling of all. 

In order to belong, you need to rely on others. And you need to reach out to others. Life is its own special kind of asshole sometimes and getting help (or emotional support) from others is one way to be resilient. 

Mending means accepting that you were not meant to be responsible for everything. You were meant to help others and to DESERVE to receive help in return. 

Be kind,

xo

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