Me Time ✨- Ikigai : Community

Hello, Sunday. It's a beautiful day today outside. Just gonna hang out here for a few moments. I know JC And Luke play music. I could sing. You probably don't want to hear that, though. No singing for me. I mean, I sing well in the shower, but I'm gonna allow everybody to come on in. Hello, Rick. How you doing today? Happy Sunday. Hello, Jules. Happy Sunday. Such a beautiful weekend. Hello. Speak Wonder. So great to have you all coming in today, taking a little me time. Time for you, time for us.

Time for us to come together. I am where I'm always at on Sunday mornings at Psycho Bar. Not always, but many of them. But as you come in today, I'm going to invite you to take a deep breath, find some slow ah. Speak Wonder. You're so sweet. Thank you. Take a deep breath. Take a pause, Be present. Today, our conversation is around me time, but specifically around community. So here's my question to get us started. Coffee and poetry. Is that what's going on? Speak Wonder. Here's my question. To get started, I would love if you would type into the chat the name of a community that you're currently connected to.

You don't have to just write one. Maybe there are several. So Cadre is a community. For me, Cycle Bar is a community. I have a community of ambassadors that I'm with with Lululemon. I have a community of runners that I run with. I am part of this World Majors series of marathons. So I have a community there. Speak Wonder has your Bible study group. Yeah. So there are all these different communities that we have naturally found ourselves becoming a part of. Coffee Shop peeps. I love this. So when you think of community, what do you think of?

For me, it's about people that come together with a shared passion idea. People that come together for a common purpose. Maybe. Maybe you're coming together to raise awareness to something or to volunteer to make a change, a positive change. But I'd love for you to just take a moment and think about all the communities that you're in. And then my second question for you will be, are there any communities that don't lift you up anymore? You still might be a part of them. You still might attend to the things, but maybe that community isn't as passionate to you anymore.

So I asked that question specifically. As, you know, life ebb and flows. We all ebb and flow. You have your fitness, family, the library. Yeah. We have so many different types of communities and sometimes something happens in our lives where the communities that we are a part of, maybe they don't fit anymore. Maybe they don't work anymore. I also was a part of Toastmasters and that's a really great example. I'll use that one. When I was a member of Toastmasters a long time ago, I got to a point where I had my purpose for why I wanted to be there.

And I loved everybody in my group. And then all of a sudden I changed jobs. And when I changed jobs, that community got lost. So now I have an absence of that community. But I needed to fill that time. It happened that at that point in time too, I was kind of done working through that Toastmasters program. But something will happen and either the community is lost, maybe you've outgrown the community, it doesn't serve what it did before. Or maybe you've had a life changing event where you need a different community, you need something new.

You know, I am a part of Cycle Bar here and we pride ourselves on community. We do a lot of events in and out of the studio so that people feel like they have a home, they have a place to connect to. And it's interesting because when you think about those communities, it takes time to become a part of one. So you walk in the door the first time, you walk into your fitness family or the gym, or you walk into a church or the library or insert whatever for the very first time, it's not a community yet.

How many times to that same thing does it take before it feels like it's community to you? And what about it made it finally stick? So I think about Cycle Bar here, right? We're a fitness studio, indoor cycling, and we have hundreds of members. We're very lucky, very blessed. We opened almost nine years ago, which means that we went through George Floyd because we are in the center of uptown. We went through Covid. We went through all of the changes that have happened in this neighborhood, yet we still have members that have been here for almost nine years.

Community. Those members are helping to introduce themselves to other people. We create that sense of community. So whenever we go into something new, we're looking for something. But how intentional are we with identifying what it is that we need? What is it that we're looking for? If we're looking to become more active physically and we know that group fitness is our thing. Are you looking for the workout or are you looking for the community? Or are you looking for both? I've worked out at tons of boutique fitness studios.

I am a boutique fitness junkie. I don't like big box gyms, but it's not because they're not good. It's because I like the sense of small and I like the sense of belonging a little bit more than what sometimes a big box can offer me. But they're great. They all serve a purpose. But I can go to a fitness studio and love the workout. But if I feel like there isn't a sense of community there, I might not come back. Because that's what I'm looking for. That's what I crave. I crave a really great workout, but I also crave being with people that I can connect with, that can bond to.

I've gone to gyms for many years, and then over time, that's changed. So what I've started now is I've started to realize that, you know, a lot of people out here on Cadre, in our Cadre community, we're going through a lot of different things personally, professionally. And so community can mean different things. You can dial in here, you can see our faces. We don't get the luxury of seeing yours, unfortunately, but. But we get to see your words and your comments and when you listen on replay or type into the comment section in our other forums.

So we create a sense of community in just a very different way. To feel seen, to feel heard, to feel valued. And what I've started to realize is over the past couple of years, there's a community in my life that I feel like is missing, that I. I think I was afraid to tap into. And it's not that I can't do this at Psychobar Community, but the community that I feel like I'm missing is a community where I can start to talk more about my grief. Now. I can do that here. I'm doing that. Hi, Andy. Happy Sunday.

I'm doing that every other Friday on Cadre. So I'll have the next one. Not this coming Friday, but the Friday after that where we'll talk about grief and we'll talk about community and create that space there. But I've really been craving the opportunity to talk more about the different emotions and experiences. A lot of times I go internal first because so many people around me rely on me to lead right, wrong or indifferent. And I love it and I love to be there for everybody. But I found that I'm really cautious about allowing that to enter into my spaces.

When I need something more from people, it's not because people don't want to be there for me. It's because maybe I'm just stubborn and I feel like I don't want to put that out there for everybody. I don't want to be a burden on anybody. Right. And so we look at our communities in different ways, and it takes time to peel the layers of the onion back for those communities, for us to trust, for us to trust that the community is a safe space for me, Trust that I don't have to put on my Persona. I can just show up as who I am and then trust that on any given day, when I'm going through that experience or that emotion, that that community can support it and can handle it.

And sometimes there are communities that are there for that, and sometimes there are communities that aren't, and then sometimes we outgrow them. So an example of a community that I've outgrown. I already used Toastmasters, an example. Not that I don't love Toastmasters. It just felt like I was looking for something more from that community. It became stale. It became stuck. I'm somebody who likes to really push myself, learn, and grow. And so when I find those communities that allow me to move and evolve and push beyond, I look for that.

I crave that I work through that. And so it's finding a little bit more of that in those spaces. In that time, I found that when my mom and dad passed away, I lost the community of going to their facilities and the nurses and talking to them and knowing their names and bringing them treats on holidays. I lost that community because I lost my parents. So I replaced it with a new community, a community that I'm building with some of my sound bath and sound bath, meditations, speak, wonder. I'm in a community of parents coping with estranged children.

I want it to. I want to be done with this community. Yeah, sometimes there are points in times where we're ready to evolve and grow and move on. But what's interesting about that is we invest so much time into these spaces that letting go can be really hard because it's a part of who we were. And when we let go of that community, now we either have to face a reality or we have to find something new to replace it with and be really super intentional with that. So right now, I am craving more community.

So sometimes I can go to places and I can lean into them, or I listen to a lot of people that come to our cycle bar community, or my clients or my fitness friends, or people that come to my sound bass, and I listen and I. And when I feel like I've heard enough, then I like to create something. So I'm in the process of creating A couple of new communities right now where people can come together and actually physically gather. I really am looking into that. How might we actually come together in person and do a little bit more that way?

And then how might we evolve that into something maybe a little virtual as well? So what are you craving right now? Are you craving more connection? And if. Yes, specifically, what are you craving? Connection around art. Are you craving connection around walking? One of the groups that I'm creating is a run walk club. I'm not calling it a club. I'm actually calling it community. Because sometimes clubs can feel exclusive, like there's a membership. I'm creating a run walk community where once a week we'll come together and we'll move.

It's free. You just show up as you are. But it's about creating that human connection. I'm finishing a certification in becoming a run coach because I like to know what I'm doing. I like to feel credible in what I'm talking about. So that's important to me. Speak wonder. You're craving a connection around life theater. So maybe if we learn a little more about the communities that you're looking for, maybe we can create some little conversation corners around that through Cadre as well. So what is it that you're looking for?

What is it you're ready to let go? And what will make you stay? What will make you commit to that community? Right, because we think we have all this time, we get so busy, but we need to be really intentional with our investments. Who are the kind of people we want to attract? Who are the kind of people that are going to lift us up? What do they do in these communities? How many of you have been to a book club and nobody reads the book like you don't ever talk about the book. I joined a book club.

I want to talk about the book. If I'm going to read the book or listen to the book, I want to talk about the book. I want to know your opinion. So I've fallen off of so many book clubs because nobody talks about the book. So what is your intention? What is it that you're craving? What is going to lift you up and help you grow and expand? And which communities are holding you back for becoming the best version of you? Because those communities served a purpose, but maybe they don't serve the same purpose anymore.

And it's okay to let that go so you can create space for the new. So today, on this day of me time talking about community, I crave more community, more connections. So with that we are going to do an announcement soon about an in person Cadre event. So taking it off of the virtual and kind of coming into a human space together. So anyone in Minneapolis or Twin Cities area or state of Minnesota, we're going to do a Sunday morning meetup on Cadre and that date we're just finalizing right now. Hold space for June 8th Sunday morning and stay tuned for more.

But I love you all. I'm always so grateful to see your smiles and hear your words popping into the chat. Let's continue to explore community and what we need. So type in the comments here or let's I'll post a comment post in our mainstream. I'd love to learn more about the communities that you're in, the communities you're looking for and the communities you've outgrown. So with that, have the best day. Speak oner. Yeah, you need a ride from Ann Arbor? We'll get you here. I hope you guys have the best day.

I love you lots. Get outside, move your body, explore, write and just be present. Be grounded and enjoy your time today.