A Week in the Life of COnnect!
“Click.”
You’ve gotten the Authentic Revolution emails, but always held back on trying out the live events. You don’t have enough time. It’s intimidating. Today, though, you decided to do the free trial, and attend two weeks’ worth of events. You want more community, and you want someone else to hold the space for once - so, why not?
The email comes with your login, and you get on the platform. First, you hit a screen with some steps and cultural intentions. The intentions seem useful: Show up prepared, honor ourselves, own our experience, hear others out. Try not to give advice, fix, coach, or therapize. It feels exciting to find a space where you could be yourself, and not be judged for it.
You click into the “Start Here” and read about COnnect’s practices. What’s up with the capital O, anyways? Turns out the FAQ tab answers that. You check out a few Resources, and then browse through the Calendar to see what your options are.
You want to try out a couple of different things. But, attending an event with a bunch of people seems intimidating, so you sign up for the Connection Buddies program as well, to get matched 1:1 with another platform member and get prompts to connect.
All right, you can’t put it off any longer. Time to try an event.
The first one you join is a classic: Morning Organic Circling. The facilitator walks through a brief introduction to the practice, then asks if you’d like to split into groups. You go into a breakout room. Now there are just a few people on screen, and you instantly feel present as the practice starts. It’s like sinking into a deep pool, where parts of yourself you usually don’t feel during the work day - your body, your curiosity, your self-acceptance - are all welcome. You stick around even after the circle ends, just to connect. “I’m going to join this every morning,” you decide. It’s a great start to your day.
On lunch, you pop into another event. This one is the Facilitation Fear Lab. The title makes you nervous, but you do some leadership at work, and this might help with a difficult situation you’re confronting. Your partners help you play out the situation you’re struggling with, in real time, until you hit your trigger. Then, they pause the scenario, and you get to brainstorm other ways of confronting the issue. Your next work meeting instantly goes better!
You liked these events so much that you keep going over the weekend. You attend two more morning circles, with different facilitators (amazing how diverse the practice can be, depending on who is leading!) and then hit the DOing event on Sunday, an intentional co-working space that lets you work on a passion project you’ve been putting off for months…okay, years.
There’s so much else still to explore. What is T-Group? Or Authentic Relating Games? Or the LGBTQIA+ Circle? It’s a good thing you still have a week of the trial left! But, you already know this is worth way more than the $40/month it will cost to stay on. You call your partner over.
“Hey, want to join this community with me?”