The Transformative Impact of Community on Mental and Physical Health
Since the beginning of time, the onset of creation, the world as we were supposed to know it, humankind was not mean to exist alone. When God created Adam, he saw that he was alone and create a woman to be a companion. This was one of the kindest exhibitions of love that God has shown to humans. Community.
Since then, communities have shifted and looked different and taking on various forms. Some communities I’ve been involved in would be the wellness community, vegetarian recipe community, public health community, motherhood community, childbirth community, writers community. These are are larger categories of communities, but we could break these down even further. Within the childbirth community, we’ve got the clinicians, OBs and Midwives, then Doulas, and educators, then within that we’ve got the ones that serve outside and inside the hospital. I could go on and on. My point here is to create a picture for you that there is community for everyone. If your someone like me who enjoys community this post is for you.
What does it even mean to have a community? I think about this often between the ups and downs of missing ours and how it has not only impacted my husband and I, but also our oldest son.
In between all that, I’ve had a chance to deeply reflect the gaps that not having a strong community leaves, but in tandem, the thought of creating a new one and a shift in perspective from the current mindset. Instead of dwelling on the absence of one and the emptiness it creates, the shift we decided to take was where can we serve because in service we are really only able to see the needs of others and learn to meet the needs of others. Sometimes we need to get outside of ourselves and do somethig uncomfortable to shape different types of communities. TWe do live in a time where it’s self care, self preservation, and self self self, it does leave little room for balance as the pendulum has swung in the other direction. We went from burnout and we’re last on the list to first and only on the list in some respects. So let’s break this down in the way it effects the mass majority, particularly women in need of each other.
I polled my instagram audience to see what the needs are for many women in regards to feeling support and almost 100% of the responses had the common theme of needing a community. I find it interesting that we are such a socially connected society yet socially disconnected at the same time. It lives in the virtual space but plenty of studies of human behavior show that we operate best around each other in a physical sense. Even teaching my childbirth classes in person and virtually each have a different vibe. We can spark dopamine and oxytocin the feel good, want more hormones much better in person through body language, hand gestures, eye contact etc. It is not entirely impossible virtually but it takes more awareness.
Of course my love for learning about other countries lead me down a path of the way other cultures navigate community. It’s not even a question.
Community is a way of life.
Throughout getting my MPH, part of the information I gathered involved looking at birth in other cultures and I found it so fascinating that other counties have perfected the art of real community. Without a second thought, a woman giving birth knew that her postpartum experience would hardly be lonely. She’d have support with healing from nourishing meals being prepared for her, care for her other children if she had any, keeping the home, and the simplicity of just existing around people who loved and cared for her, for her the healing for her body and soul. She had support of the emerging new woman she was becoming, the woman that was born the day her baby was. She would willingly and almost anxiously listen to the stories of women who’d walked the path before her, forging her way through tradition and sanctity of the foundation that was laid out well before her time. The common theme her is that this woman is cared for beyond belief. Most of us in the U.S.A. have no idea what this even feels like or could hardly describe. This woman, most likely unless there’s an existing predisposition, is at a very low risk of developing PMADs which I find quite profound because many times, in women who experience some levels of PMADs are women, report feelings of persistent loneliness, isolation, and lack of support. These other cultures and ways of life exhibit something I find completely missing in the American women’s health space or just in our culture in general. That is the establishment of togetherness.
As much as American’s like to say we’re in this together, I do believe that statement comes along with various amounts of conditions. “We’re in this together!”…until we disagree. “We’re in this together!”…only if you do and think the way I do. I believe we can carve out some spaces of community and togetherness here and there, but the general vein is that online is where community has gravitated towards, but how can we depend on that longevity of a virtual community to serve you and vise versa?
Communities are catalysts for so much change and diversity in thinking and a collective sharing of ideas. I suspect it isn’t long before women rise and begin to be reminded of what we were created for. The real sense of togetherness. I can’t help but wonder where and how we lost the connectivity that we craved. Perhaps we traded it in for self preservation, or perhaps we were sold a narrative that we didn’t need each other somewhere in the girl boss, I can do it myself craze. Whatever the case, I do gather that we are at the cusp of either breaking down or breaking in. We are either going to be breaking down at the lack of community as we begin to succumb to the divisive nature that often society feeds or we are in the throws of breaking in a new form of community that emanates across each woman that would suit her specific needs.
How can you find a community of women that align with you?
Local Facebook groups. Interact with posts and immerse yourself in conversations that are adding value.
Start your own local facebook group!
Hang out at the park without being on your phone. Staring at your phone makes you look unapproachable and unavailable. Smile and wave.
Identify your interests, needs, and the ways you like provide and receive support.
You can also listen to this podcast all about needing community and creating one for yourself.
Open your mind to new conversations.
Get good with learning and remember peoples names.
Ilicit dopamine and oxytocin through conversation to encourage the other person to remember you.
Of course, and as always, you are welcome to reach out to me for any resources you need!
X,
Gi