Strengthening Relationships

by Raven

I can’t say this enough.  Community is all about relationships. I can’t say it enough because there are people who still think that if you can get the place and figure out the right way to do it, you can easily create a community.  There are people who try to do this and can’t figure out why they can’t make it work.  Community researcher Katarzyna Gajewska.calls this the Techie Fallacy after folks who seem to regard community building as an engineering problem.

The first step in creating community is finding people, but once you’ve got a community up and going, the best way to make it last is to focus on relationships.  So the big question is how do you build relationships in a community and, maybe more important, how do you make those relationships stronger?

The communes have developed several tools to do just this.

Recently, much of the mainstream world celebrated Valentine’s Day.  While I am sure that there are people on the communes that send a card to their sweethearts, many of the communes have transformed this day into Validation Day.  Rather than sending a card to one person telling them how much you love them, on the communes, cards are created for all the members and most people write notes on them with positive things they like about the person.  Thus, on Validation Day, everyone gets a card with lots of lovely things on it.  Someone said these cards were natural antidepressants–if you felt down you could just look at your card and feel better.

The cover of my Validation Day card one year

Another tool for paying attention to relationships is the clearness process.  Like consensus, clearness is a process developed by the Quakers that was secularized by the group Movement for a New Society who put out a pamphlet about it which Acorn Community then used and later other communities, including Glomus Commune, have incorporated into their membership processes.  I see the clearness process as a social hygiene tool.  It’s important in busy communities because members tend not to talk about little irritations which then build up.  Communities that use this process often require at least once a year clearnesses with every other member.  (Which usually comes down to twice yearly clearnesses–once because member A needs to do a clearness with member B, and then again when member B is doing clearnesses and needs to do one with member A.)  Two members sit down together and make sure that they are “clear” with each other–and, hopefully, talk about any difficulties that they might have with each other.  And, if the members can’t work it out, the community as a whole may get involved.  I see this as a way of dealing with relationship problems before they blow up. 

Yet another tool that the communes have pioneered is a set of communication processes called Transparency Tools.  Paxus (who helped develop them) has made them available in a “fingerbook”.  They consist of several different exercises that range from simple ones like “If you really knew me” to more daring ones like “Hotseat” and “I have a story about you” and some that can be tricky like “Withholds” and “Unsaids”.  The point is that these are all ways to get to know someone better.  I’ve often seen them used at events like the Communities Conference but they are much more useful in a real functioning community situation.  To give a trivial example, if I meet someone in a workshop and they say “If you really knew me, you would know I love the color purple”, that’s nice but if I never see them again, it’s not really helpful, but if this same thing is said by someone you live with, that’s good information–and maybe helpful if you want to get them a surprise gift or do something nice for them.  And if someone says, “If you really knew me, you’d know I was abused by my father”, it’s tragic, but there’s not much you can do for someone in a workshop. However, that’s something important to know about someone in your community.  Warning, these tools seem simple but can be powerful.  Paxus warns about making sure that everyone is okay after going deep–they can be dangerous in the wrong hands, like letting someone who is drunk use a chainsaw.

Finally, I mentioned consensus earlier.  While consensus is a decision making process, it definitely has relationship strengthening side effects.  While voting creates winners and losers, consensus, when it’s done well (and it often isn’t), involves listening and trying to understand each person’s needs and points of view. People can end up feeling closer after making a difficult decision, especially if they feel heard and included.

Probably the most important thing that strengthens relationships is listening.  Listen to each person.  Seek first to understand, then be understood. Remember, relationships are the most important part of a community.