Cultivating Your Tribe…

“Tell your story. Shout it. Write it...Some won’t understand it...But many will thank you for it. And then the most magical thing will happen. One by one...your tribe will gather. And you will never feel alone again.”

L. R. Knost

I encountered an exotic creature in a recent zoom meeting - a woman who did not care, one iota, what most people thought of her. She cares deeply about people. She advocates for the vulnerable among us. But she only cares about how a handful of people experience her. And it is not because she wants their approval! She wants their respect. She does not want respect handed to her; she wants to earn it. Their opinions help her gauge the effectiveness of her efforts.

I was bowled over by her way of seeing herself and the world. This is very, very different from my way of thinking. I am more inclined to ask for support and approval first, and only later consider if the ask was appropriate or the return on my vulnerability worth it.

She and I are opposite in some ways; I want to learn from her.

It seems to me that there is no true satisfaction in the road of adaptation to fit the expectations of others. If we adapt our story to gain approval or avoid judgment - what’s that acceptance worth? We are not being accepted for who we are, at best, we are being taken on face value - the image, the face that we painted on to mask the story we fear will not be good enough.

So this exotic creature with her internal sense of worth is not only colorful, she is authentic. Delightful. A force to be reckoned with! She is who she is, and feels best when she knows that those who like and love her are part of her life in a genuine, authentic way. Here’s what she said, “I would rather have fewer friends than to have a bunch of friends who I cannot trust to stay when I’m at my worst.”

Bravo.

I pray that each of us finds the tribe that gathers around us, not because we coerced them through image crafting, but because they appreciate a decent authentic relationship.