Co-living & Co-working Tour Reflections | Our Collective Is Calling
Discovered this mural on a stop in Palm Springs to better understand communities that place a high value on the arts and design. It also satisfied my current fascination with the high desert, and nicely aligns with the theme of this newsletter.
I want to use this post as an opportunity to share my insights and findings from my co-live/co-work tour throughout the US and Mexico. At this point I have lived with eight different friends or colleagues, sometimes in their home, sometimes in an agreed upon inspired location. Some were single, some were divorced, and some were coupled. We co-lived, co-worked, co-learned, co-created, co-explored, co-connected and co-imagined. Each of my stops was one or two weeks, and had a very different flavor, based upon the unique personality of the locale and the desired goals of my respective partner in connection. Meals and skills were shared, hearts and minds were unveiled.
Part of my motivation for this tour was that after spending four months throughout the fall traveling in Portugal and Morocco, I spent a lot of time observing and engaging people outside of their natural habitat, including digital nomads and travelers from all over the world. I gained a new level of appreciation for the desires we have to leave home in order to find inspiration, connection, clarity, and insight. How open we are when we show up in a new place, in ways it can be challenging in our daily lives at “home.” And yet, most people I met also expressed an equal desire for rootedness, grounding connections, and a sense of home to return to after their unique adventures. Additionally, the host of the Innate program geared towards digital nomads gave me some good food for thought when he shared that his work in this field for the last 3-5 years had led him to conclude that most people think they are looking for a “place” to help them feel rooted, when what they are actually looking for is a “community” to give them that sense of rootedness. And within this, I am following my own curiosity about how I can design my own life with an equal balance of freedom AND connection, groundedness AND inspiration, while supporting others in creating their own unique balance of these elements.
So, as I returned to the US, I put my anthropologist and/or sociologist hat on, and set out to “study” people in their natural habitats to understand more about how others are finding their own balance between desires for stability AND novelty. I could not help but consider the impacts of COVID on people’s lives related to these topics, while also furthering my understanding of the adaptations people have made due to the availability of remote work. So I charted the stops on my tour and began considering who I might connect with along the way.
My family has recognized that I have the same passion for networking as my late Uncle Doug had in his career as a Public Health School Administrator in Higher Education, building bridges across institutions and disciplines, always looking for connections which can yield mutual benefit. And while I am unlikely to pursue a PhD at this point in the world of academia, I am committed to a PhD in the school of life
In the end, I had meetings, formally or informally, with over 80 people in the past three months. These ranged from a 70-something retreat hosts or grandpas to 20-something recent college graduates finding their way in the world of remote work, and everything in between. Some of those connections were revisited from previous chapters (personal and professional), some of them were lifelong friends, and some of them were new connections aligned with my emerging interests in conscious communities, conscious leadership, and conscious travel.
Views from a hike in the snowy landscapes in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I indulged my love of college towns, that also place a high value on outdoors livin'.
I brought into this study what I had observed about Americans in my experiences traveling in both Africa and Portugal, where our ability to show up in a “big way” was always evident, but depth or vulnerability were rarely our strengths in our additions to communities or cultures we traveled to. Our performative nature, personally and professionally, took up a lot of space wherever we landed. And yet our enthusiasm and optimism were always a bit infectious One of my friend’s in Rwanda commented that Americans are so excited about everything, referencing a story where a girl he met was overly delighted by the discovery of an avocado tree. At times, people distrusted our friendly nature and willingness to get cozy so quickly. And no doubt there was surely existing evidence of our inability to sustain those connections upon departure.
On top of this, I have been reading about what makes Americans unique in our ways of relating and connecting, which seems to be a thread that has been consistent over time. First of all, the people who settled these lands had the courage to leave behind family and friends in order to seek a great level of autonomy, freedom, and opportunity. So from the get go, we kind of indicated that our personal freedoms were more important than our social ties.
From there, we built a society that celebrated each person’s right to choice, expression, and identity. We extolled certain values and virtues, but often created lives and societal structures that were deeply out of alignment with those aspirations, and have this weird lack of integration between our desires for purity and pleasure, which inevitably breeds shame, which therefore breeds disconnection (which Brenee Brown has taught us much about in recent years).
Our emphasis on access to opportunity has led us to be more geographically mobile than most other societies, which often has led us to quickly make someone’s acquaintance, but only go “yay” deep. And our effort to find our worth through acquiring material possessions so that we might be perceived as successful by society’s standards, has led us to prioritize image over true intimacy. The underlying message seems to be, don’t let people see behind the curtains. No wonder we have an epidemic of loneliness, that was only exacerbated by COVID. And then layer on top of this the decline in trust among people since 1972 in the US, and our hope for facilitating true connectedness within our culture can seem kind of bleak.
So, when I think about the fact that I was allowed in eight people’s homes over the past three months, and for extended periods of time, that in itself feels like a bit of a marvel. Especially coming out of COVID times where we came to have increasing levels of caution on who we let into our “inner circle.”
Here were some of my findings:
Most people indicated that their lives and social circles shrunk greatly due to the Pandemic, and most still feel like they have not rebounded. Some are okay with that, and others aren’t.
Many revealed that their closest connections do indeed live at a distance, and their social support system is not very strong in their immediate proximity. There was a longing for “couch friends” but a recognition of limits in their relational capacity to balance investing in connections both near and far.
Consistently, I heard people share that at least one very intimate connection was destroyed over conflicting views about how to respond “appropriately” to the pandemic. And they were still grieving those losses of people they thought would always be an anchor in their lives.
We have lost our metaphorical “town halls” where we cross paths with people from different walks of life. Grocery delivery, remote work, decline in church attendance, and online platforms for neighbors to connect have all decreased our access to in person chance encounters outside of our inner circles.
The effort it now takes to find new communities or connections seems like a heavy burden that many people struggle to make the energy to prioritize, especially as the high demands of work have resumed.
Some have found the most viable path to re-building connection rhythms outside of work into their lives is through hobbies, like voice lessons, ceramics, or tap lessons.
While it might be easy to assume that single people are the ones most impacted by the lack of access to connection, those who are coupled or have families have expressed an equal or maybe even a greater sense of isolation, due to lack of time outside of existing commitments.
With connections that ground us in flux, we have a less strong foundation to then build upon to find more inspiring connections within our existing spheres. The easiest way to access that seems to be through listening to podcast materials, going on themed adventures, or enrolling in an online course.
In order to feel truly connected, we often need to go beneath the surface in conversations, and it often takes someone leading in vulnerability, or effective facilitation/leadership to help people feel safe enough to “go there.”
When choosing travel experiences, people are prioritizing activities that will allow them to calm their nervous system (wellness), be free of their overly structured life (room for spontaneity), and create memories with important connections (peak experiences).
Huge thanks to my co-conspirators in this life experiment, including Harper Haynes, Kristin Economo, Ren Little, Will Myers, Ikiah McGowan, Pam Soberman, Jack Smith, Sutton Sorenson, & Tamara Thomas!
So where does that lead me from here? The month of April has been a time for integration and reflection, while also scouting Northern New Mexico as a home base for the coming months. Al-Anon taught me that we first have awareness, which is often in the mind, then we move to acceptance, where we come to understand something in our heart, and only then are we in a place to take action. I am asking the divine forces to continue to show me how I might best be part of the solution and allowing daily inspiration to flow from there.
Whimsical decor catching my eyes as I tour through the eclectic shops and spend time re-connecting with my hospitality roots by visiting various resorts and Inns throughout in Santa Fe.
I am continuing to follow the co-living movement, envisioning my next group coaching offering, and considering how I can be part of creating a collective to support soulful business concepts. In the meantime, in case you are looking for more regular rhythms to be in connection with people who can offer support and solidarity, check out PACE groups as a current solution. Each of us gets to play a part in reimagining the social fabric of our society…are you feeling any callings or nudges?
Kindred Spirit Connection: Lars has spent his whole life managing properties in the hospitality field, and when COVID hit and greatly disrupted the industry, he decided to start discussions with his colleagues about how he could use that time to pivot and create greater impact. This led him to start Singular Places, where they feature properties around the world committed to sustainable practices. If this doesn’t stir up your travel lust, I don’t know what will!
Suggested Peak Experience: I was grateful to reconnect with my Rwanda Chapter through a recent conversation with a fellow member of the Transformational Travel Council, Greg Bakunzi, who runs the Red Rocks Initiative. He is doing amazing work in community-based tourism within the Virunga Mountains, where people are drawn to witnessing the majesty of the gorillas. Check it out!
Thought Provoking Watch: Within our Transformational Travel Design Course, we have been looking at “case studies” of organizations who are embodying the core principles of sustainability, personal transformation, and authentic cultural connection. With that in mind, this documentary on Bodhi Surf & Yoga Retreat Center in Costa Rica is super inspiring!
