I've been thinking a lot about community lately.  Partly because I live in a very rich community environment (many of us refer to it as the Portland bubble) which benefits me greatly, and partly because of how the world is turning these days, I thought I'd share some lessons learned along the way regarding community building.  

I think one aspect of community that's important to its success is communication. The ability of community members (you and me) to be able to hear feedback, accept/hear what's useful in the information and act/move on it is key. The better we get at giving and receiving feedback to one another the better our relationships will be and the faster we'll mature. To me, feedback shows that someone cares about someone else. Our society does not really do feedback very well - and because of that, we all generally don't take to it very well.  In an article I wrote a while back I wrote about how we need to get better at opening our minds.  I think it's worth a read. (the comments are also very good)

Since then I've had some further thoughts about feedback. Here's a way to handle feedback that gets your hackles up - to be able to more easily parse what's useful and what's not within the information.  Imagine that when you give a person feedback (positive or negative) that you are speaking to the 20 million other people who do things that way. That's a way for both the giver and receiver to depersonalize the experience some so that the triggering of old hurts does not automatically happen.  example: passenger says to driver: "you're following the car in front of you too closely, please slow down you're making me uncomfortable".  So, the driver in this case is like 20 million other drivers who do this thus making 20 million passengers uncomfortable. That said, the driver can either decide to acknowledge the issue, ignore it, or tease out what they feel is useful without taking the criticism of their driving personally. And it goes the other way, too.

When you are the recipient of feedback, imagine that you are one of 20 million people hear it.  Example: Someone compliments your work on a particular issue. Well, they're complimenting 20 million people who've decided to take actions on that or some other issue - you're in good company.  

How does this help build community? Well, it's one facet in our getting better and better at getting in close with each other and helping one another mature!  And, according to a good friend and amazing therapist, much of her work is about helping people mature because "when they've matured, they no longer need therapy".  

So, here's to improving our communication skills and learning to give and receive feedback well. Of course this is just one area in the communication area and is just one part of building strong communities. These topics are a lot of what I right about so, stick around and perhaps something will appeal to you enough to try it out.  Let me know how it goes!  

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From Crystalinks: The number 11 represents twin spiraling DNA and our Reality as a Consciousness Hologram with 11 being a Master or Masonic Number. People see 11 more and more as consciousness evolves.