Fighting Isolation, building solidarity

Over the past few months I've joined lots of community building events; listening circles, conferences, virtual coffee clubs, Offers and Needs markets and training. Something that comes through in every session is our yearning for connection, community and solidarity.

In some of these spaces people are open about how isolated they feel; confronting climate crises, recognising the violence of colonial capitalism and the disconnect between societal norms with our body and natural cycles can feel like lonely work. The crippling anxiety, the cognitive dissonance, the feeling of desperate urgency whilst locked into a capitalist system that demands we still earn money to simply exist. Reflect on the phrase "cost of living" and contemplate how alien it would be to apply this to birds - who do birds pay to exist?

Something I've found really powerful in helping me find my voice, advocate for the causes closest to my heart and move into activism has been finding community and solidarity with comrades. I want to share thoughts on the places I've found community and what they offer as these feelings of helplessness, loneliness and isolation only serve to further capital's interests and fuel a collective [false] sense of powerlessness.

Something I think we have really lost in Western societies are places we can show up and just be our authentic selves. Thinking about your life;

• Do you have spaces you can be your authentic self?

• Do you feel like you need to hold back, mask or bite your tongue?

• Do you have spaces where all of your emotions welcomed?

• Do you have spaces where you can share raw emotion with no judgement, no fixing, no solutions?

• Do you have spaces you can just be and be held?

I know for many of us the answers to some if not all of these questions are likely to be no. But this inability to just "be" ourselves authentically is a huge part of what it means to be human.

As someone said to me recently; We are human beings, not human doers.

Finally, anyone who has been on a call with me knows I can't help but share resources - in another life I would have been a librarian - I'm always digging out books or sharing Upstream podcast episodes that I think will resonate with people.

Below are some of the resources I've found helpful on my unlearning and community connecting journey so far. I'll be updating these periodically as I find new resources. I hope these are useful and offer some ideas for connection and community.

educational and solidarity spaces

Upstream Podcast - As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a Stan for the Upstream Podcast. I run the Upstream Podcast Coffee Club and have started a transcript library of the episodes. This is partly because the episodes are an amazing source of radical political and economic education but also because Upstream and it's co-hosts Della and Robert changed my life. By listening to Upstream episodes I slowly realised I wasn't alone in thinking something was "off" with mainstream economics. I followed their Instagram account which gave me a daily dose of memes and genuinely feel in community when listening to their episodes and sharing insights with members of the Coffee Club.

Post Growth Institute - my main interactions with the PGI have been through their Offers and Needs Markets and facilitator training, which has been really transformational in bringing post-growth ideas to practical ways of networking that build community and solidarity. Find out more about Offers and Needs Markets on my website and also dates for upcoming in-person markets.

Wellbeing Alliance - I joined their members calls early into my move into freelancing and to just be in a virtual space whether others were talking the same language and having the same thoughts felt so liberating. They have an online area where you can engage with others and also join member calls which run on specific topic areas.

memes

I'm relatively new to these spaces, but wow - where have they been all my life! Facilitating these spaces is an art and some will be managed better than others, but the amazing circles I've joined are run by beautiful people that have a magical ability to put your mind and body at ease within minutes. The first circle I joined, just the opening introduction reduced me to tears. Hearing that I was welcome, all my thoughts, all my emotions with no judgement was mind blowing. It doesn't feel like there are many spaces available to us that offer us the gift of being fully welcome in whatever form we happen to be in, in that moment.

Circles I'm involved in;

• Parents for Future

• Radical Empathy Authentic Listening (REAL) Circles with Caitriona Martin

• Rewilding with Leila Madeline

social media

LinkedIn - this might not seem like an obvious place to find community and solidarity but over the last 18 months I've been connecting with more people in the ecological, regenerative, post- and degrowth economics space. There are a lot of people out there sharing really interesting things. I regularly repost on LinkedIn which can be a route to finding new connections.

Instagram - again, there are so many good accounts sharing interesting perspectives, radical education, artwork, funny memes. A small selection of suggestions below;

• Upstream podcast; anti capitalist memes

• Traumatized_thriving; decolonised tools and resources

• __public_library; Palestinian activist, writer, disruptor

• Elwingbling; beautiful artwork

Whatsapp groups - I'm in a variety of different groups focussed on movements and many of them are local. Being able to connect with people in person can be really powerful for building solidarity, movements and connections. Groups I've found that might be available locally to you;

• Local parents groups; preschool, nursery and school groups

• Parents for Palestine/Palestine Action groups; information about local events, rallies, protests, petitions

• Practioner support groups; new economics, facilitators, parenting and babywearing

• Parents for future; local climate action group and climate cafes

circles

I have hundreds, if not thousands of memes saved on my phone. I just love their ability to convey meaning in a few words or picture. Sharing memes with friends, family and comrades feels like one form of service.