E132 - Going FourWords with Community
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Speaker 2: [00:00:00]
Hello
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Create Today with Beth Buffington. Here's a question I want to start our conversation with today. When was the last time you spent real unhurried time with people who genuinely get you? You know, those people who understand you, who laugh with you, who understand why you might be worried about something.
People who share your passions, who light you up, who make you feel like the best version of yourself. When did you last spend time with them? Because here's what I know. If it's been a while, if you're mostly moving through your days on autopilot, you know, doing the work, handling the responsibilities, scrolling through life on a screen, something important is quietly [00:01:00] draining out of you.
And most of us might not even notice that it's happening until we're running on empty. So today, I want to wake us all up to something so simple, and that is community. Community that is real, alive, connected to your actual passions, that kind of community. doing this, is not a luxury.
Taking time to be with people who make you happy is not something that you earn when the to-do list is finally done. It's not a reward for when things finally slow down. This, my friend, is a biological need. It is actually a business assist if you need to tie it to a professional reason in order to enjoy yourself and have a little time to smile.
And the research is really clear, being with people [00:02:00] you enjoy is one of the most powerful predictors of how long you will live and how well you will enjoy the time you are living. Let's say that again. Being with people you enjoy is one of the most powerful predictors of how long you will live and how well you'll enjoy the time you have while you're living. So if you're putting off being with your people because you're so busy, or if you've been feeling a little bit lonely lately,
If being in community is simmering on that back burner, this episode is your nudge. It's your wake-up call. So let's start with why community matters more to the quality and longevity of life than most of us realize. And while we chat [00:03:00] about this,
we're also gonna look at what happens inside you, inside your creative life when you finally stop going through life on autopilot all by yourself. So let's start with science, because you know me, I think that when we understand that enjoying time with people isn't just frivolous, that it's actually scientifically good for you, when you realize what's actually happening biologically inside your body, well, it suddenly makes it easy to understand being in community isn't optional in your life.
It's vital for your life. It's vital for life. So as I was preparing this episode, I happened to listen to an episode of Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris. This is a podcast that I highly recommend. This week, uh, Dan Harris interviewed Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. He's an oncologist, a bioethicist, [00:04:00] and one of the country's foremost thinkers on longevity, and he made the importance of community very plain.
He said social interaction isn't just good for us psychologically. It triggers a genuine biological response. So real connection releases dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter, and it floods the system with oxytocin, sometimes called the love hormone.
And it actually down-regulates cortisol, which is your body's primary stress hormone. So in other words, to make it simple, community calms your nervous system. It lifts your mood, and it reduces the chronic stress that wears your body down over time. And loneliness, well, this is the absence of real connection.
When you're lonely, it's because you haven't been with your [00:05:00] people, your people. And research shows that loneliness activates pro-inflammatory genes, genes that contribute to chronic inflammation and disease. So your body registers isolation as a threat, because evolutionarily it is. Because we did not survive as a species because we were the strongest or the fastest.
We survived because we could collaborate inside a community. And this happens through building trust and confidence in the people that we find we enjoy being around. Because together we're able to do what none of us can do by ourself So let's talk about a very important study that was started a long, long time ago.
[00:06:00] Way back in 1938, Harvard researchers began following the lives of 724 people. They tracked their health, their relationships, their choices decade after decade, and it is now the longest scientific study of adult happiness that has ever been conducted, and it just wrapped up its 85th year. So after all that time, all that data, what did they find?
Well, Dr. Robert Waldinger, who directs the study today, says it simply. He says, "The people who were the happiest,
who stayed healthiest as they aged, and who lived the longest were the people who had the warmest connections with other people. They weren't the wealthiest. They weren't the most accomplished. They weren't the ones who ate the cleanest or logged the most miles. [00:07:00] The happiest people were the ones with real warm relationships.
These strong social connections showed lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. Dr. Waldinger also said something that I hope sticks with you long after you're done listening to this Create Today episode. He said, "Loneliness is as powerfully detrimental to our lives as smoking or alcoholism."
Multiple studies have shared this fact, that loneliness is not good. Social disconnection carries the same health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Oof. That's a lot to think about. So this is not soft science, my friend. This is not a [00:08:00] self-help theory. This is 85 years of data
telling us your relationships are as important to your health as anything else you do for your body.
So you see, this is why I'm talking about adding community into your life on a podcast that talks about creativity. Community is vital to your creativity because it's going to help you find your people. And we now know that community matters. We just talked about that. But if you're someone who's been, um, you know, that nose
to the grindstone kind of professionals, or you've been lost in a sea of caring for others, you have a busy small family, or you're caring for elderly parents, and time with the people you need for your happiness is something that is not part of your life right now, how do you [00:09:00] actually find it?
How do you introduce the people you need into your life? Especially if life has you on autopilot, moving through the days, checking the boxes, being ultra responsible and productive, and just, you know, surviving that rat race. How do you find community? So here's what I believe with everything inside me.
Your creativity, it's your compass. When you give yourself permission, and my friend, that is really important as well, you have to say to yourself, even if you're so busy, "It's okay to find my people. It's okay to find the folks who make me happy, who make me laugh, who will make me feel vital and important.
It's okay." And it's not okay to feel guilty about taking regular moments in your day, in your week, in [00:10:00] your month to be with your people. It is something that's gonna make you a stronger, healthier person so that you can be the person you need to be for the people who need you, okay? So when you give yourself permission to be with the people who genuinely light you up, that's when you will step off autopilot.
You will become present in your world, and you become you again. Only a 2.0 better you because you're going to be happier because you're inside a community of people who are going to support you, uplift you, and see you for who you really are. And when you show up as you with your people, it's because you've found the people like you who are also showing up as themselves.
And that's how real community forms. It's not an obligation. It's not by proximity. You live next door to me, I guess you're my people. [00:11:00] No. it's through a shared passion, and that's where creativity is your compass. People coming together with creative joy that puts like-minded people into the same room.
"Hey, I knit. You knit? Let's get together." "Hey, I love to hike. You hike, too? Let's get together." That is like-minded people becoming community. And lately I've seen this firsthand so many times, just in this past year and the past few months. My Create Today membership is a community of creative professionals who come together to share the building and the maintaining of their creative businesses and their creative confidence.
And they have become fast friends who support each other during our masterminds and outside of the time that we spend together professionally. [00:12:00] My Sylva Sessions Creative Wellness membership is also another place where I have seen community. This is curious creatives who want to find more happiness and wellness by exploring their creativity through their nutrition, their movement, and better creative understanding.
And I've also seen it through the powerful retreats like Sylva Solace. This was a four-day retreat to explore creative resilience by understanding the power of creativity in our health and in our hearts.
This was a gathering of, creatives across the United States who came together. Most of us did not know each other, but by the end of that weekend, we were creative sisters.
And I also saw it on a four-day bike tour on the GAP Trail in Pennsylvania with my husband Tom. Here we were, all strangers at the trailhead on Sunday morning. But- Pretty much by [00:13:00] Tuesday afternoon, the people in our group felt like people we had always known.
And by the time we left, we were fast friends who have been texting each other ever since. In each community that I've just discussed, we've discovered that we were all there for the same reason, the love of a shared passion, and the adventure of learning more about that passion and understanding the people who were coming to that community to help us, to cheer us on, and for us to help them and cheer them on.
The aliveness of moving or laughing or sometimes crying together is powerful. Having a shared passion that is explored together does what years of small talk can never do.
And research backs this up. A peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health [00:14:00] found that when people come together with combined interests, between social support and creative output, well, that is when people felt genuinely held by their community.
And in turn, and this is so important, the people who came to this community because they needed social support and creative output, they found that they create more boldly and more freely. They found confidence in their creative interests. You see, belonging and creativity, they aren't separate things.
They feed each other, and it's beautiful to witness, and even more beautiful to experience this firsthand. Another research study found that engaging in a creative process as a social act motivates us to find our people and to share the work that we are doing, [00:15:00] and it builds connections that sustain us over time.
These will be your people, not just today, not just tomorrow, but for years to come. Your creativity doesn't just fill your soul, it is going to lead you to your people if, and only if, you give yourself permission to find them.
Now, I want to take a quick moment here to give you something to ponder. What we're talking about today, community, you will find a welcoming space here inside Create Today for community. Create Today has several key ways for you to find your people. First, for the professional creative, the Create Today membership.
It's a community for creatives who are serious about their work, their businesses, and their wellbeing. It's a [00:16:00] place where you'll get resources for success, encouragement for what you're working on right now, and real connection with people who understand the creative entrepreneur from the inside out
And I am so excited about something that's coming to Create Today very soon, something that I've been building that is going to make finding a creative community for you today even more powerful, more intentional, and more accessible than ever. Now, I can't share everything with you just yet, but July is going to be a really good month to be paying attention.
So now, now is the perfect time to get on my email list so that you can have a front row seat to a community offering that will be life-changing for you. So head to [00:17:00] www.bdi-create.today and hop on my email list, and enjoy all the goodies that my site will give to your creativity in heart, mind, body, and soul.
And my friend, this exciting July opportunity is gonna be here before you know it Okay, let's get back to our discussion about why you need to find your people. Let's explore the power of creativity through another lens.
I think this is gonna help you clarify your thoughts that community is not just one more thing to add to your, "I guess I should do this someday," list.
Community should be a creative priority for you right now.
it should be something that you're purposefully weaving into that beautiful life tapestry that you're making [00:18:00] with the goal that creating community in your life with repeating events with your people, that it's going to make your life happier and healthier in heart, mind, body, and soul. So let's go to my Going Forwards framework and look at its playbook, right?
When you go forwards with your creativity, you discover how these four words, revive, realize, refine, and release, how they will give you the why and most importantly, the how you should go about finding and using community to strengthen your life for happiness and longevity So let's take a look and find out how community will benefit your life in every phase of going forwards.
So let's start with our first going forwards word, and that is revive. [00:19:00] Now, when you're running on empty, when the creative well feels dry and motivation has gone quiet, but the responsibilities and the to-do list is still l- you know, growing and growing and growing, community is one of the fastest ways back to replenish your depleted energy.
There's something that happens when you spend time with people who are curious and passionate and genuinely glad that you're in the room. When you're together with your people, you leave the experience with more energy and inspiration than you had when you arrived. It fills you up. Community lifts you up.
It celebrates with you. It even weeps with you. Community makes you feel more whole, more wholly yourself no matter what phase or emotion you might be going through at the time, and that is the definition of the [00:20:00] first stage of going forwards, revive. Replenishing your empty fuel tank, and that's exactly what community will do for you, too.
Now, let's look at our second of the going forwards, and that word is realize. This is waking up to your life and realizing the goodness around you. The daily grind, the rat race that we all find ourselves locked inside of can become a kind of fog that keeps you from noticing the beauty in the world around you.
that fog I'm talking about is that autopilot that keeps us going through the motions of doing our jobs, of being responsible parents, or helping and caring for those who need us. Autopilot keeps us from seeing the goodness, the, the small [00:21:00] things that make you happy every day, and it keeps us from appreciating the fun that we can have in the responsibilities we have in caring for our families.
Even though, woo, there's a lot of work with bedtimes and carpools and doctor's appointments and home care, right? There's still good to be found, but that fog sometimes keeps us from seeing it. Also our phones and social media, our constant worries and stress, this keeps our minds focused on the negative instead of the beauty in our world.
But being part of a shared passion community, it pulls us out of that fog. It gives us a moment to remind us that there is joy to be felt, there is beauty to notice, and there are people worth knowing. And community is something that will share that beauty, and wake you up, [00:22:00] and make you alert for seeing the world in a better way.
And that is the realize phase, an awakening.
Now let's go forward with our third word, refine, which is doing the work, but doing it together when you're in community.
Here's something the research on creative community consistently shows, that the people around you directly affect the quality of your creative work. And when you are in community with people who encourage, who give good advice, who challenge you and cheer you on, you don't quit when things get hard.
You're not afraid to do the work. You are refining. You see, community isn't only a place to have fun and feel good, it's also making us better at what we do, making us [00:23:00] braver at what we do, making us more confident with the work we are producing, And it keeps us reaching and working for our goals and dreams even on the days when we feel fatigued and discouraged.
And that is why community is so important when you are in the refine stage. Now let's talk about that last and final going forwards word, and that is release, which is the courage to let things go the release phase is where I see community making a very big difference. Because so many of us carry creative gifts that the world genuinely needs, especially right now.
But for whatever reason, we hold them back. We don't let them get out to do what they were designed to do, and that's because our inner critic is [00:24:00] telling us, "Hey, it's not ready yet. You are not ready yet. This isn't a good time." That your work isn't good enough right now, that no one will care or like or buy whatever it is you're doing at this moment.
So we hold onto our gifts thinking, "Today's not the day," and we hide them. We keep them from a world who needs to hear our creative voice today, right now. But community is what dismantles the lies that our inner critic tells us. When you're surrounded by a community who understands your work because they share a similar passion, this is a community who believes in your vision, who has told you in a thousand small ways that your voice does matter.
Well, when you're with community, your confidence increases, your bravery increases, and releasing your work [00:25:00] into the world suddenly feels more doable because you are supported by community. It doesn't mean that everything's effortless, but it makes everything seem more possible, and that if something goes wrong, I'll probably be okay, too.
My people are here to help me figure out what to do next. Community makes you braver to do the things that are outside of your comfort zone, and that is why it's so hard to release things, because you kind of feel a little awkward. And sometimes all we need is people who say, "It's time. I see you. It's time to let that project out into the world.
It's time to release." So my friend, if you're taking notes today, here is what you should highlight with your favorite color. Your people [00:26:00] are out there right now. They are looking for you the same way you are looking for them. These are the people who could be in a creative class that you're thinking about signing up for.
These are the people you might meet on a weekend retreat. These are the people inside Create Today who have the same goals and dreams as you right now. Right now, they are strangers, but if you get brave and join your community of like-minded passionate people, these people will become your people, people who will become vital to your creative happiness and the longevity in your life.
But they can't find you if you're not showing up.
you need to be brave and find them, and join them in the world, in the activities, [00:27:00] in the studios, or the trails, or the retreats and workshops, or the tables, wherever these real conversations are going to happen. So here's my invitation to you. Or maybe this is my dare to you. I dare you, do one thing this week that puts you in the same space, physical or virtual, with people who share your passion.
Find one class, one membership, one conversation you've been putting off. Or if you have a community that you haven't been to in a while, get back with them. Go to that membership. Continue the conversations that you enjoyed in the past. Community doesn't build itself. You have to be there.
but it builds faster than you think. But you have to join them, and you have to continually join [00:28:00] in to get that beautiful response community will provide. But it only happens when you begin Thank you so much for spending this time with me today.
it means so much to me to know that you're tuning in to share time with me. And if this episode made you think of someone in your life who needs community but hasn't found their people yet, would you share this episode with them? Just forward the link and tell them, "I thought of you." And it might be exactly the nudge they need today.
And that small act of reaching out and sharing, that's community too. Remember, Create Today has a community experience that is waiting for you. Maybe it's time you looked into it and tried it out. And everything we talked about today, the Create Today membership, and [00:29:00] that new opportunity that's coming in July, all of it is at www.bdi-create.today.
So my friend, keep connecting, keep talking, have fun, and relish the bliss that you receive when you're in community. And remember, the world needs you to be in community so you can be the best you can be, and the world can become the best it can be. You need community so you, my friend, can stay creative
