Building a Community for Mental Wellbeing

In previous posts, I have spoken about the significance of social connectedness and community actions in fostering mental wellbeing. I have delved into the factors involved in achieving mental wellbeing. Let’s talk about how we build our communities for mental wellbeing.

Building Community for Mental Wellbeing

An article on the website of the David Suzuki Foundation enumerates steps in the building of community. The benefits of being a part of a community include social connection, access to social support, promoting a sense of belonging, addressing safety and security in the community, offering an opportunity to work together (collective action), and fostering resilience.

Listed recommendations incorporate “green” practices, as in environmentally friendly practices to reduce consumption and promote recycling of items, skills, tools, and resources. The activities involve engaging with your neighbours. How else do we build community except via social interactions?

For the complete list of steps in building a community, you can access the article through the following link:

Twelve ways to build community

https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/twelve-ways-to-build-community/

Building Community: Starting Somewhere

Walking around your community, create a mental inventory of what you see, what you like, what could be beautified, what requires some tender loving care, what is missing, and what is on your wish list for the community. Perhaps you ought to write down your observations.

Step aside for a few days and allow the list to simmer in your head.

Return to your notes. Taking a fresh perspective, review the entries with the lens of how you can contribute to improving your community by addressing the items on your list. Write down your unique skills and abilities which you can lend to achieving the changes reflected in your list.

Fundraising, marketing, inspiring, compiling physical resources, contributing physical labour, cheerleading, accessing people in power, planning, organizing people, being the telephone/email/social media liaison and promoter, convincing, summarizing everyone’s ideas, providing a unique solution, compromising, feeding the group, and a number of other functions can likely be fulfilled by different members of your community. Each of us has a talent to share.

A Community for the Wellbeing of All

Is that even possible, to have a community for the wellbeing of all?

Anything is possible when we put our heads together, when we share our brawn, and when we set aside our egos. Yes, that means we participate collectively and compromise our personal need for recognition, adulation, and stardom.

Even the narcissist may learn something during community building. Community is not about the one; it is about the collective.

Dirty words in a society bent on individualism. But, this discussion is necessary if we are going to survive as a world. We have to learn some give and take. We must develop gratitude for what we have. It is imperative we compile our assets to make the world better for everyone, for every living being, and for our environment. My frailties are complemented by your strengths- and vice versa.

The riches of the world at our disposal require a collective effort to sustain all of us. The human brain fully used can guide us to be logical, compassionate, organized, frugal, embracing, and creative in our stewardship of Mother Earth’s inhabitants and resources.

We can engage in building a community for the mental wellbeing of everyone, if we take the time and make the effort to do so.

When our communities experience physical and mental wellbeing, Mother Earth will exhibit gratitude by sharing her wealth with all of us. Should we fail to protect our environment and each other, we will deplete Mother Earth. We will be left with the garbage we create every day in each of our homes. A great mound of garbage as our legacy, the legacy of the most foolish of living beings, HOMO SAPIENS.

Community Wellbeing for Individual Wellbeing

Listen to the videos by Jessica Posner and Kennedy Odede for inspiration:

Building Community: Jessica Posner at TEDxMileHigh

Kennedy Odede is Building New Communities Among Nairobi’s Poor

Set aside your greed. Step away from your selfish desires. Detach yourself from your ego. Relinquish the thirst for power. Squelch the cry of being a victim. Let go of your excuses: feeling tired, having no time, lacking money, whatever the excuses you have amassed to justify a life of inaction for salvaging Mother Earth from the garbage all of us have deposited in her world.

It does not take much to reunite with other human beings and bond in saving our world from ourselves. You do not have to sacrifice your personal life. Each of us needs to offer a bit of time and effort to build community and try to heal the damage we have levied on our home, Mother Earth.

Building Community for Our Collective Wellbeing

Pick up the plastic bag on the sidewalk. Pick up the cigarette butts in the grass.

Greet the cashier and the bank teller with a smile and a kind word.

Thank the customer service person on the telephone.

Smile at your neighbours.

Invite the stranger lost on a hiking trail into your home. (Two people did this for me and I will never forget their kindness and beauty.)

Prepare a meal for a friend experiencing a tough moment in life.

Call or text a former colleague whose smile, dedication, and work contributed to your success and your sanity in the workplace.

Offer to organize a community refuse pick up day. If no one joins you, go out and pick up the refuse because Mother Earth will accept your invitation for a better world.

Remind yourself that you are not deserving of special treatment compared to anybody else. Everyone is unique. Everyone is a gem to behold. Everyone has something to share for the benefit of all.

Be kind to everyone you meet. Show interest in their wellbeing.

Thus, you will become part of the process of making our world, the community to which all of us belong, a community of wellbeing for everyone and every living being.

An ageless woman offered me this kernel of wisdom: it is easier to be kind than it is to be hateful. Cheers for her kindness and humanity.

Cheers for a world infused with mental wellbeing.

Selected References:

David Suzuki Foundation. Twelve ways to build community. Accessed online on June 13, 2024, at https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/twelve-ways-to-build-community/

Jessica Posner. (July 16, 2012). Building Community: Jessica Posner at TEDxMileHigh. TEDx Talks. Accessed online on June 13, 2024, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0nM8l9qeGY&t=99s

Kennedy Odede. (November 19, 2023). Kennedy Odede is Building New Communities Among Nairobi’s Poor. TIME. Accessed online on June 13, 2024, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv6rP-e1KuA

Disclaimer: The content of this post is not meant to substitute for a consultation with your healthcare team.

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