These last few days I have been writing a lot about community and Tribe here on Steemit and in my personal life I have seen and experienced first hand the huge benefits of having my community around me. I really enjoy having time to myself and time with just my girls. I have never felt the need to have people around me all the time, if anything I can feel a bit overwhelmed, if there are. I like a balance between the two.
Recently my life changed, I split from my partner of 11 and a half years and found myself a single mum to my 3 girls. I have always been fiercely independent and it has been so important to me in the past, that I always be the one to look after myself. I guess that comes from growing up in an abusive home and feeling let down, so much by my parents. Because of this, I always found it difficult to ask for help, as if I still needed to prove to myself that I could manage. Of course that changed for me when I became a parent, I started to reach out to others so that we could support one another on our parenting journey.
When I got pregnant with my first Daughter, I joined a anarchy parenting group in Cork, being in the group and engaging with other parents who really shared similar values to me was hugely supportive. Most of us were anti-vaccination, really into attachment parenting and had no intention of sending our children to mainstream schools and most of us wanted home births. We all felt very connected to the earth,all of these things really bonded us. . I had just landed back in Ireland after being away for 11 years and I had no community there. I moved to Cork because it was free to have an independent midwife and as a result a home birth. It wasn't long before I found the local anarchy bookshop and it was from there that I found my community.
It is not easy to go against the flow, you have to be prepared to be called irresponsible and an unfit parent because of your views, but with my community behind me I felt empowered. I was not alone in my views and I stood taller as a result. I would still have made the same decisions, but it would have been a lot tougher to fight my corner and I would have come away more exhausted. Being within that group and during our weekly meetings, we would discuss what needed to be discussed, we would share our research on vaccinations, on alternative therapies, on home education and we would reassure one another and as a result each one of use would leave feeling recharged. Ready to go back out into the world and stand firm in our choices. Once our babies were born we keep the group going until eventually it turned into an anarchy kids group. But I had my core community there and from that we formed a women's circle, called the Wild Women of Cork and the dad's would meet every week with the kids in the local forest to teach and learn bush skills. I can not really find the words, that give justice, to the amount of support that the women's group gave me. It was a place where we could gather together and allow out wild side to be free, to dance, sing, play music and just be. So liberating and so important in strengthening our connection to the earth and one another.
There is that saying that it takes a community to raise a child and I agree with that, but it also takes a community to help us grow as adults.
I am the person I am, because of my life experiences, the choices I have made and the people who have come into my life. We have so much to learn from one another, so much to share and exchange with one another. Sure we can be strong when we are alone and we sure as hell can get things done. I done that a lot in my late teens and all through my 20's, too scared to reach out to my friends, because I did not wish to feel let down and because I did not feel worthy of their support. Back then it was me against the world, me curled up with nature not trusting other people. But now I am stronger and happier with my community around me.
Right now I have two communities in my life, the one on here and the one away from here and wow I really have been blown away by the amount of support they both have given me and how empowered I have felt because of them.
As I mentioned earlier I have been going through a huge transition in my life, experiencing times where I have been over come with sadness and others where I have been over come by rage. Writing about those times on here, sharing them with my online community really helped me to let go of those feelings, but more than that has been the chats that i have had with some people on Discord. At any given time there is usually some one online, someone I could reach out to and I did. With 
Damn but I feel very lucky and honoured to have such amazing community and Tribe online, 
A few weeks ago 
contacted me to see if we could arrange a meet up as she was coming to Spain for a few days. Of course I said yes, I am so inspired by her and her food. So last Monday she arrived in my local town with her husband and beautiful little boy and now just over a week later they are still here. They are staying in my caravan next to my truck and they have really been spoiling me, cooking me and my girls amazing food, and helping me out with work in and around the Truck. Niina's husband even made me and the girls a pull out bed.
Before they came, I really had begun to feel exhausted and a bit overwhelmed with some things in my life. I really had been looking forward to a break when I returned back to Spain in July after spending 6 weeks in Ireland with my sister, but instead arrived back to my partner telling me he had met someone else whilst I was away. So since then I felt like I was running on empty, but then Niina and her family came and now I am feeling recharged.
in my home, how lucky am I?On top of that I have some friends who are coming to my place on Friday to help me get my winter garden set up. I kind of neglected my garden's this year as I was over and back to Ireland, and I was definitely feeling overwhelmed by the work I needed to put in to them, so that I could once again grow some food. But now, because of my local community, what would have taken me days, will now be done in one. Helping me, to keep me and my girls nourished with fresh food and getting me back into the garden, which I find so therapeutic. There are so many benefits to growing your own food, be it for your physical health or mental health.
Today I also held my first creative circle, which went really well and which is a huge step forward in the start up of my Women's Collective, Weave To Empower. I am setting up this project so that me and other mums can come together and support one another. The idea of this community has really helped me thrive in the last few weeks as it has really got me to become creative again and now that it has started to happen, it has made me feel even more empowered.
When we come together and share ideas, when we come together to support one another, we are creating such positive energy that flows from us out into the world. This powerful force, this love that we generate, it is this love, that is creating change. Change in us and change in the world and this is how community helps me thrive. Because when I am engaging with my community here on Steemit or when I am with my local community, I am communicating with them from a place of love and respect. Because we honour one another and we want to create a better world together. Being part of my communities makes me a better person because I strive to be the person I am meant to be.
We can Journey alone
and still we will learn
but in Gathering together
we will reaffirm our power
and stand stronger altogether.
and still we will learn
but in Gathering together
we will reaffirm our power
and stand stronger altogether.
