Notes on being yourself in the group
Notes on being yourself in the group
Can you belong to a group (or many groups), and still decide for yourself who you are being and becoming? Can you know yourself within a group?
Hello my friends and readers!
This week’s post is something we are all very familiar with: belonging to a group. A group or community of people can help you grow, or it can hold you back. The real question is, do you get to be who and how you want to be within this group?
Read on for the article.
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If you count the number of groups you’ve belonged to so far in this life, whether by birth or choice, it may surprise you how many there are.
We humans learn to see ourselves at an early age as belonging to groups.
We are part of communities: family, neighborhood, gender, sport teams, religion, ethnicity, schools we attend. We are innately social beings, and most people tend to work from within various groups. Even a small group of people can accomplish big things when they work together. People are social creatures who need each other.
As we grow, we add more groups based on our personal preferences - musical tastes, friends, work/career, political/social, unions, things we enjoy doing. Gardeners, painters, musicians, bankers, business owners, readers, writers, parents, crafters, psychics, actors, volunteers - these are just a drop in the giant bucket of groups people create and join.
There’s power in numbers, strength in groups. The groups that really work for you can help you grow, stretch beyond where you were, and expand. Groups of people help each other live better. We literally need each other to live and thrive.
Nobody does it alone, and also: no person or group can do the work you and I are here to do for ourselves.
Recent new groups I’ve joined: I’m writing this piece while online in my weekly writing group session. It was just two of us for the past year, meeting mostly every week for an hour or so, creating and holding space together to do our own work. Now there are 3, and soon may be 4. All of us agree that this weekly online date is valuable, it has helped each of us focus and do the work. We don’t talk much, but we do validate what we’ve accomplished.
On Fridays I paint with another abstract painter I know, and this is so much fun! It’s helpful and supportive too, for both of us. We share food and good chocolate, listen to music, and paint. We look at each other’s work, and make suggestions. It’s helped us both grow as artists, and I look forward to it every week! It’s also helped me personally to see my work in a new way.
I’ve recently learned about the Silent Book Club, eeek! My favorite kind of book club, I’ll be showing up for one of those group meetings soon.
Being yourself in a group
But the real question in all of this is: can you belong to a group (or many groups), and still decide for yourself who you are being and becoming? Can you know yourself within a group?
Some of the groups we are part of are crucial in helping us to know ourselves more completely. The ones that encourage group members to grow, explore, and become, without judgment, are a gift. Everyone benefits from feedback, encouragement, coaching, laughter with friends, human interaction.
If the people in this group also allow each other to be just how they want and need to be, so much the better. If real communication and feedback is encouraged among all the members of the group, this is the best!
Some groups don’t want you to be you
But there are other kinds of groups that don’t do any of this, and in fact may have the opposite effect on group members. Have you ever experienced having some part of you shut down by a group you were part of?
Whether it was from family, school, religion, work, neighborhood, or something else, it’s traumatic to be actively shut down by the people around you, or not feel safe to speak up about abuses in the group. These are the kinds of groups run by tyrants of all kinds, and filled with stifling stuck rules and punishments. Communication is controlled, and often minimal. Agreements are fluid and can change at a moment’s notice, or are not honored. Many corporations operate like this, and so do other kinds of rigid status driven institutions.
What helps you to have your space in a group?
When you choose to know and love yourself, you end old unconscious agreements that may have kept you stuck in situations and groups that had no interest in seeing you as you want to be seen.
It helps to know yourself according to you, and nobody gets to judge how you choose to do this. It’s always worth taking the time to know and love yourself.
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Inspiration for having lovely people in your life
Thank you for reading and watching! Have a gorgeous week. Love, Kris