The NLP Canada Training Community

I wanted to write "the wonders of community." We do not usually talk about wonder; we are more comfortable with the practical-sound of benefits. But it is wonder that drives me to work so hard to build community - for myself, for my partners, for our clients. It is wonder that I experience when I look at a room of people from different places, different perspectives, different lives and see how much they gain from thinking together.

It is a huge amount of work to maintain a community. It requires lots of practical steps. It requires a thick skin when there are not enough replies to an invitation or when everyone wants to come and a blizzard stops them where they are. It requires a heart that keeps beating when key members step away. It requires a rock solid belief that people will come back when they are ready to be open again, ready to gather what they need to move toward a new goal or through a new transition.

Why do I do it? There is nothing better than being part of a community that is awake, engaged, and hopeful. There is no moment better than the moment when we make our stone soup: when each adds something small so that we all make something that is more than enough. The longer I work, the more I learn, the more it seems to me: human beings are at their best when they come together in community.

The energy that comes to me through our gathering and our connections (sometimes one to one, sometimes in small groups, occasionally in larger groups) is always more than it took to get me there. I am always in motion, always moving toward something good when I am building community. The community is not the end itself: it is a means to waking up every morning ready to find what I need in myself and my world. It is a means to making change that works.

When you find yourself so tired that you cannot imagine taking on one more task - when you find yourself so fed up with people that "hermit" looks like a career choice - when you need to smile and the tv isn't doing it for you - then you need to find just enough energy to get to a community event. There you will find that there is energy around you and - miraculously - energy within you.

A community is an opportunity for wonder.

You are always welcome to join ours.

Linda