Relationships and people are important. For a long time, I didn’t place as much value on them as they deserved but as I have gotten older and wiser, I realize relationships are the fabric that holds this world together. And it holds our individual worlds together too. One rip in it can be like a hole in a sail.

Relationships require a lot of work and in our outcome-oriented culture, it is hard to see the immediate “gains” of investing in a relationship. Time is a limited resource, and short-term satisfaction feels more relieving to our stressed nervous systems than trying to instill and practice a longer outlook.

But the longer outlook is necessary. And developing the capacity to work towards something long term is critical. Focusing on building, repairing and nurturing relationships should be seen as vital activities. Depth is important. Quality over quantity. Staying over running. Building over tearing apart.

Note: This is not encouragement to stay in toxic relationships but to recognize when ruptured relationships are at the fault of our own egos.

It is wonderful that there are safe spaces nowadays to have open, tough and real conversations.

It is the group and facilitator’s responsibility to make a space “safe.” A space that has a culture that allows for those types of conversations to happen. A space that is led by curiosity and not blame. A space where participants actively contribute to holding that space and its values.

If a participant shares in that space and does not feel safe, it can easy to point to the space and say – it is not safe! But an individual who enters those circles is not simply at the whim of the guidelines and the group. They are an individual who has a personal responsibility for their feelings. In a meeting today, someone pointed out that there is a difference between unsafe and uncomfortable, and I found it quite profound. The distinction is that the group is responsible for making it feel safe and the individual is responsible for distinguishing their feelings and if they indeed are not safe or if they are rather not comfortable.

Being uncomfortable may feel the same as being unsafe, especially if we are in a new group, have been wronged in the past or don’t have a lot of practice sharing and being vulnerable with others. Our nervous system will raise all sorts of red flags because this new feeling feels like a threat. While how we feel should never be discounted, we need to evaluate if we are the cause of our own fears of safety. A safe space (that has an effective facilitator and culture) will never truly feel safe until we can do that within ourselves.

Why are flaws considered bad?

After all, humans are inherently imperfect creatures. The magnificence of this human experience is the ability to recognize where we may be lacking or need some repairing and bolster or heal, and we can also use that experience to support another flawed human.

If we did not have flaws, would we come together in community? Would there be a need for relationships? Would we be willing to offer or receive help?

Perhaps our flaws give us the ability to connect, empathize and help – all aspects of being human.