Men, women, we need each other

You don’t need to mix in funeral circles long before you hear week after week sad and happy stories of life.  Stories—all our stories—are interesting.  We must get beyond the thought that our story isn’t interesting, worth investing in, worth listening to.

One of the commonest paradoxes I hear almost every day is the fact that we, as human beings, isolate ourselves when we most need connection.

When we isolate ourselves, it’s often because we can’t be vulnerable—it’s shame or it’s guilt or it’s fear, or it’s that we don’t want to be a burden, or for some strange reason we don’t feel we’re worthy of being invested in.

Isolating ourselves is the sure-fire way to enter the sinkhole syndrome.  It’s a refusing of all help because we feel we can trust our vulnerability to nobody.

We feel alone so we stay alone, thinking all along that we’re safest there in our isolation.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m astonished how many couples and individuals leave it to the death knell to invest in counselling—that would otherwise have called the truth into the light so it could be faced.

But in our isolation, we stay cocooned in a place where only the enemy can get us there.

If there’s one reason fellowships like church and AA work, it’s because it’s community—men, women, we need each other.

Being together is an intransigent force for good.  Simply by being around people who are healthy, we who are unhealthy begin to grow and thrive.  But we must first take the risk to take the step into the light.

Sometimes we’ve isolated ourselves because it’s been people who have hurt us.  A place, a situation, a people group triggers us.  We’d be far better off facing those situations in some safe way to reconcile them—always with an open mind and heart to learn.

We need each other.  And not just men for men and women for women.  We need to be in platonic community.  We need to be able to appreciate others, and when finally, others are valued and prized and esteemed in our eyes, watch what’s happening in our hearts.

Watch what happens to your mental health when you thrust yourself into healthy, mature, lifegiving community.  Along with good sleep patterns, diet, and exercise, it always improves.  Simply being in loving, joyous community will help so many spiritual maladies.

And do you know the test of a loving community?  You can tell your truth, you can risk sharing your real thoughts, you can be vulnerable—without feeling it’s a risk, without being fearful you’ll disappoint people, or worse, betray them.

Loving community is about being free to be the best first versions of who WE are.

When we’re benefactors of such a freedom as being able to speak our truth, we see the value, and we invite others into that spacious expanse where trust abounds.

We need each other.  We need others to validate us, and in seeing the value in this, we take that lead and love others even as we enjoy their love.

Photo by Ben Duchac on Unsplash