You and I matter to each other*

Or, why do we need a village and what the blinking heck is a village anyway?

The yoga that I practice is the yoga of the householder.  I am not a monk or a hermit.  I am deeply immersed in family life and community.  I need to engage with the world and this engagement inherently involves exchange.

There is an ongoing discourse about “the village” in motherhood circles.  More specifically, about the lack of “the village” and the way in which isolation leads to mothers feeling desperately unhappy, unsupported and unacknowledged.  I’d argue that this issue goes beyond motherhood.   Isolation and loneliness are the unwelcome pillars of 21st century British society.

In order to build a village, it is important to understand exactly what this metaphorical concept means.  For the purposes of this piece I am working on the basis that a village is a group of people forming a network of support for one another.  Just to be clear, I am not talking about a geographical location or a physical neighbourhood, although those things can of course function as a village too. 

In my view, a village does not consist of a group of people at the same life stage experiencing the same issues.  This is a peer group. 

You can find a peer group in motherhood through the social opportunities some antenatal courses offer and, further down the line, at the school gates or in home education groups.  Elsewhere in life you might find a peer network through support groups for those experiencing particular difficulties (for example, an addiction support group) or shared interest groups (for example, a book club), or in the workplace.

A peer group has benefits and it has drawbacks (as any mother who has been the only one walking up and down in a café with a screaming baby while the other new mothers in her peer group sip coffee and chat as their babies sleep will agree).  It does not and cannot form the basis of a village.

In order to function effectively, a village needs to be intergenerational and consist of people from many different backgrounds and with many different life experiences.  And a village is entirely built on a foundation of reciprocity.  Not reciprocity in a capitalist quid pro quo sense (I’ll walk your dog if you babysit my child).  But a wider sense of mutual exchange into and out of the community.

If you feel villageless, the best thing you can do to begin to create a village is to give.  To plough some time, effort and commitment in by offering up whatever it is that you are able to offer on the altar of community.  Perhaps you hear of a neighbour who is having cancer treatment and you suggest that you can give them a lift to and from hospital for some of their appointments.  Perhaps you know of a young family with a new baby, and you drop round a cake and some nappies.  Perhaps you volunteer your time with the foodbank or on the PTA.

And if you are in a season of life where you have nothing left to give, understand this: asking for specific help is in and of itself an offering that can begin to generate a true community.  If you are the person having medical treatment, or with a new baby, or desperately struggling in some way, reaching out and asking for help is a gift to those around you who would also like to be part of a village but simply do not know where to start.  So often people hear of someone in trouble and say “let me know if I can help”.   Let them know.

Over time small actions like these begin to build the community you need.  It might be that the person you baked a cake for never, ever returns any kind of direct favour.   But that isn’t ultimately what we are all looking for here.  By building connections, you will find that at some point further down the line you are able to ask someone else for help.   And the wider web of community will support you.

And if you are in the depths of winter it will, however unlikely this may seem, eventually turn to spring, and you will be in a position to offer out support to those who need it in acknowledgment and thanks for the support you yourself needed at an earlier, harder time.

It takes time and effort to build a village.  If you are in a moment of abundance it takes a mindset that says “there can never be too many people in my village” rather than one that says “I have all the friends I need now”.   If you are in a time of darkness it takes the courage to reach out and ask for help.  It requires action.  And communication.  No village will magically form as a result of you sitting at home wringing your hands bemoaning the lack of a village.

So, here are some ideas for getting started on building that village.  These are all things I have witnessed over the last few weeks.  They are actions people within my village have taken:

• Tell people you are struggling and explain why.  It isn’t moaning to say when someone asks how you are (or even if they don’t) “this week has been really hard”.  You never know what might come of this.
  

• If you get the sense that someone might be lonely or having a difficult time send them a message or pick up the phone and ask if they want to meet up for a coffee or a walk or to go to a yoga class together. 

• Reach out to the wider community and ask: “my baby is due in July, would anyone else who is due around that time like to meet up over the summer”?

• Reach out to an individual and offer: “would you like some help with marketing?”, “can I pick up the kids for you?”, “do you want to borrow my car?”.

• Make a cake and drop it round at someone’s house.  Send a postcard telling someone you are thinking of them.  Reply to a post on social media.

The metaphorical village consists of a million small moments of real life connection.  Each time you reach out and offer or ask for help you add another connection.  You expand and strengthen and solidify your own support network and you challenge the very structure of our late stage capitalist society that tells us we can do everything alone.

* The title of this post is also the title of the final chapter of “My Gita” by Devdutt Pattanuk, a book which explains and explores one of the foundational texts of yoga, The Bhagavad Gita, in a way that is accessible to a contemporary Western audience.