Building Community by Creating Safe Spaces

As we ladies of table #13 leaned in around the microphone and shouted "safe" into the microphone in unison I was struck by how important that word really is when creating community. I thought about all the other places where I felt a sense of community and they all had that one thing in common, safety. Feeling safe in a space helps open up the doors to share your experiences and understand each other better and in the best of circumstances helps us support one another, and isn't that what community is? A network of people who trust and support each other?

Traditionally I have thought of community as something that takes a lot of time to develop but sitting with the women of table #13 I felt that deep connection and support after only an hour and a half of general session and I found myself looking forward to see each other again the second day. Even as I sit here a few hours before the end summer school I'm hoping that we get assigned to the same tables again for graduation. Every story we shared about our personal obstacles was a step to building something between us. We not only learned more about each other and the world around us but as each story was shared and met with compassion we learned to trust each other a little more. By using language like oops (I unintentionally hurt you) and ouch (you unintentionally hurt me) we were able to redirect those feeling into something constructive unencumbered by defensiveness. We could focus on being better together. This stretched beyond the table and permeated the rest of my day and interactions. Learning how to trust each other deeply made us all safe. Safe to share part of ourselves, safe to make mistakes, safe to own those experiences, to say we were sorry and move on. Safe.