Being our awkward selves is often what the world needs

Community, Directions, Journeying
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At times it has been awkward being myself. I haven’t fit in. I have been misunderstood. I didn’t understand. I have had a different view or experience than others. I didn’t meet someone’s expectations or didn’t read the memo about the dress code. Most of us have had those awkward moments simply being ourselves. 

What I have learned is that being awkward isn’t just about me. When I’m feeling awkward those around me are often feeling awkward too. It arises between us and if we are willing to navigate the awkwardness, the outcomes are rewarding and often mutually beneficial.

Being a non-drinker has made for plenty of awkward moments as friends gather. New friends would invite me to a gathering, and it wouldn’t occur to me to tell them beforehand that I don’t drink. There often would be this moment of almost horror on their faces as I replied to their question about what I wanted to drink with water or lemonade. Yes, their expectation of where the evening was headed, suddenly took a turn.    

Sometimes people simply don’t know what to do with us and we of them. We don’t fit their mold or expectations. Suddenly we are navigating into uncharted waters and feeling a bit uncomfortable heading into the unknown. I’ve been there myself; we have all been there.

I remember meeting a Muslim couple from Malaysia at a conference. After several days of some great conversations, as they were leaving, they showered me with gifts. I didn’t know how to respond or reciprocate; I had no gifts for them. It was awkward and a bit uncomfortable. I wanted to ask them how to navigate this and didn’t want to offend them; I didn’t say anything. Although I did accept their gifts, I missed an opportunity to get beyond how awkward I felt. After we each returned home, our connection and friendship didn’t grow. I let that awkwardness keep me from reaching out.

I admire people willing to be a bit awkward and to navigate through the awkwardness that surfaces, the people who confidently lean in, care, and allow awkwardness to guide them towards something new. They pay attention, step in, ask questions, explore, and forge a path ahead. When they navigate these awkward moments, they invite trust, connection, opportunities, change, and even joy.

When one person in the meeting addresses the white elephant in the room and asks the question everyone is wondering, although it might be awkward, everyone wins. Think about how grateful you’ve been when someone has told you the zipper on your pants was down. Awkward yes and thank goodness they spoke up. I value these people.  a

Others treat this awkwardness as a red flag; they might back away or attack. They avoid that person who told them their zipper was down the rest of the night or the person who asked the hard question. They blame the host for not communicating the dress code for the event via a text versus an email. They skip the team dinner. They don’t mention you have chocolate all over your cheek. They close down mid-journey as the situation becomes a bit awkward much like I did with the Muslim couple I met at the conference. 

Often I wonder if I had shared how uncomfortable I was receiving such gifts, with nothing to reciprocate with, what would have happened. Maybe we would have had a great conversation about the tradition of gift-giving in their culture or family. Maybe I would have returned home and sent them a gift, thanking them not only for the gift but for their willingness to share with me a bit of their lives. I lost the chance to wonder, learn, and develop a friendship. Embarrassment and a bit of discomfort got in my way.

The illusion that everything should move ahead smoothly or go a particular way can stop us from navigating those awkward moments. I have had a friend offended that I didn’t order a drink with her, and she somehow translated my lack of drinking as a judgment of hers. I would have been happy to have been her designated driver. When there is a detour in the road, most of the time taking it, being open to the path ahead, and letting go of what you expected to arise is worth it. The awkward moments provide us with detours; we choose how to navigate them. 

When we want to learn or develop a skill, awkwardness often arises. I remember sitting in a drafting class and having to ask out loud in front of the whole class how to sharpen my mechanical pencil. I had absolutely no idea, I was a bit embarrassed. I knew that if I wanted to learn this skill, I had to be a bit awkward and ask. There was no figuring this out on my own or faking this. Imagine if we met awkward social moments simply as a sign that learning is ahead of us.

Although I haven’t at times taken the detour offered by awkwardness well, I have found that the unknown destination ahead when I do outweighs the discomfort that arises from being awkward. Lean in when you feel awkward, welcome it when you notice others feeling awkward and you might be surprised what gifts arise. As I close, I am reminded of the Russian fairytale, The Fool of the World and The Flying Ship. Sometimes what the world needs of all of us is to be our awkward selves.

Where are the dishes? Finding our capacity to be genuine together

Community, Journeying
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Photo by Dmitry Zvolskiy on Pexels.com

In my twenties, I dated a man who when I came over would hide all the dirty dishes in his stove. When I arrived, his house was always neat and tidy. I had no idea about the dishes until much later. When I discovered the dishes, the challenge wasn’t the dirty dishes; the challenge was I lost my sense of knowing who he was, and in many ways, trust was lost. He was not the person he had shared with me.

I can recognize the motivation behind the hidden dishes was an attempt to be considerate.  He didn’t need to hide the dishes. What might have happened if when I came over the first time and he simply shared that keeping the kitchen clean isn’t a priority for him, that he works super long hours and when he’s off he would rather spend his time on other priorities than keeping up with the dishes each day.  

Maybe we would have had dinner and tidied up the kitchen together and we’d get time together and a clean kitchen which he appeared to value based on the fact he was hiding all those dishes from me. Or maybe we would have eaten takeout and headed out for a movie leaving the dishes right where they were. Being genuine invites real connections and builds trust in all our relationships. And yes, not everyone is going to be comfortable with all the dishes in the sink and that is OK too.

One day I was hanging out with some friends and one of their phones rang. Pete quickly picked up the phone and began to talk in a different tone of voice. We soon discovered that he had a practice of consciously changing the tone of his voice when he was at work. He had his everyday voice and then his work voice.  

We all have often heard people talking about not being able to be themselves at work and choosing to develop a work persona. Now yes, your work colleagues might not want to hear all the details of your weekend adventures. This doesn’t mean you have to be less of yourself.  You can be genuine in any community. How can we build truly trusting communities if we aren’t being genuine?

The moment, the situation, and the community you are engaging in will determine how you might engage.  The fact that we navigate these experiences differently doesn’t mean we have to be less genuine. Being genuine is finding your place in those spaces. Being genuine and authentic isn’t about sharing every nuance of your past, your hopes, or your concerns on the first date, interview, exchange, or meeting. It is not sharing every thought and judgment that crosses your mind.  Sometimes oversharing gets confused with being genuine or authentic.

Being genuine is a willingness to be yourself in the moment, to be present in the current situation, the current conversation, listening and sharing. It’s about being aware and respectful of the current situation, recognizing what is appropriate, what is needed, what is unclear, where the conversation is going, and being willing to honestly connect and share.

You don’t need to hide or fake it. You might be cautious as you enter a new community, a new relationship, a new conversation trying to find your place, identifying how you might belong. You might want to move slowly to gain awareness and gain some understanding of the situation, the team, and the new boss. You can be respectful and curious as you begin. You can respect a new culture and still be yourself. Being respectful is part of being you; it isn’t about changing who you are to belong.

Being genuine in any situation gives us the capacity to identify if you can find what you need, if can you be of service, if are we headed in the same direction, if we can find a connection here, if you need to change and if can we move together. Not every community, conversation, relationship, or path is ours to step into. We can find our way in our capacity to be genuine together. Yes this can feel awkward at times and well worth it.

Creating Meaningful Community in a Transient World

Community, Journeying
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“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” 

Desmund Tutu

Longing for connection is part of our human experience; we are wired to connect. As I left the high-tech corporate world a mentor recommended that I reach out to a friend of his to explore my interest in community. I was particularly curious about learning that arises in conversations and exploring further what I had learned from Etienne Wenger’s community of practice model. What drew me in me was both my love of learning something I hadn’t yet seen thanks to someone else’s presence in my life and my own longing for connection and belonging.

What this friend said to me that day caught me by surprise, planted a seed and I’ve been curious about it ever since. During the previous year, I facilitated a community of practice bringing together team members from across the organization I worked for to share experiences and knowledge and to learn from each other. I wanted to do more of this with other organizations; I wanted to bring people together and create spaces for learning together and community. With this intention in mind, I sat in the coffee shop hoping to hear some sage advice to support my efforts forward. 

What Stephen shared that day was his perspective that it isn’t possible to create community in a work setting. How is it not possible? He went on to describe the temporal nature of community in organizations and how it doesn’t build trust and true belonging. We live in a transient world where people are joining and leaving communities every day and commitment to communities waning. Many of us have experienced spending years of starting your day with a morning check-in with your teammate or classmate and one day they leave and your daily connection and morning ritual is gone. Knowing that these connections are temporal, I notice people hesitating to step in fully, the neighbor who moves in, doesn’t meet or connect with the neighbors, or the teammate that fulfills their job responsibilities without ever sharing a meal with a colleague. Oh my, what did this mean and how was I going to move ahead?

My own experiences to date pretty much mirrored much of what Stephen shared. I had changed schools, moved towns, lived in and outside the US, left jobs, leaving and losing communities I had built and invested in. I also stayed in a school community when everyone I started with left. I was a member of a community that got divided as the founding leaders decided to go their separate ways. I committed to an organization as it merged into another. Relationships ended and years of holiday rituals and connections were suddenly gone. Friends have moved. Colleagues have been asked to leave. I lost a partner when health challenges arose. I have welcomed new community members; some have fully stepped in, while others have stepped in with reservations. And after some time, I also noticed myself entering new communities with both trepidation and longing. I found it all a bit heartbreaking.  

The following years I put my desire for community development to the side and found myself on a learning journey. I took my visual and instructional design skills and had the pleasure of consulting to an incredible network of thought leaders and master practitioners in the field of facilitative leadership, conflict resolution, dialogue, rites of passage and creating learning environments in education, corporate, political, and non-profit settings. I was SO grateful for all that I was able to absorb during those years and the willingness of these amazing individuals to mentor me in their work as I supported them.

I finally found my way back to community years later. This time designing an online space for an educational community to meet outside their courses and to connect and support each other. Thanks to the previous years I had some good clues on how to proceed. In addition, a seed was planted in me during my conversation with Stephen. I’ve been holding the tension of two realities, our need for connection and belonging and the transient and complex world we live in. How do we create deep meaningful connections and community that honors and supports us in these transient settings and world? I don’t have it all figured out and I have learned a few things so far:

  • Community is about people, not organizations, legal structures, interests, and missions. Community is about connection, relating, caring, support, working together, and companionship along our lives journeys. Don’t confuse the structure, space, and domain with the purpose of community; community is for us. If we don’t show up in the community space, there is no community. Community spaces and structures simply give us access to each other and give us the capacity to do many incredible things we can’t do on our own.
  • Together we are a community. And within that community you have individual connections.  Over time these connections form your own circle of community, they aren’t a community in and of themselves they are your community.
  • Give people the space to grow, develop and change.  Community needs a domain, a focus. Clarity of focus helps people find their place in the community to share their gifts and choose to engage. Community must welcome change and evolution.  Over time your role will shift and evolve. Community spaces themselves must shift and evolve and be redefined. Be willing to expand and grow your community.   
  • It is important to acknowledge membership shifts in each community. People come and go. Both new and existing members bring value. Support transitions as people enter leave and shift their roles in communities. You never really leave a community you simply step into a different role; you are always connected.  
  • We belong to multiple communities, and you don’t have to choose between them. At different times different communities will take on more of a priority. Your role, needs and gifts you have to share and receive in each are different. One of your gifts is your connection and bridge you bring to all of your other communities.
  • Community is worth it regardless of the heartbreak and challenges.  We need each other. We are not supposed to do this all on our own. We thrive when we are connected to a thriving community.

Some how these lessons seem so simple. Having learned these tidbits I find myself more engaged, more willing to participate, and more connected. Although it’s not easy, it’s surely worth it and I am grateful. If we can build community within a transient world I feel hopeful that we can regain trust and our sense of belonging. There is a lot of work still to be done and I look forward to what is ahead, creating space for community and learning in my life.