Cohousing-L Mailing List: Privacy vs. drop in times

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Roger Berman asked about privacy vs. drop in and how you deal with it.

This is one of the MANY things you learn about each other in your first year
living together. Your life will change in some many ways. It can be very
helpful to establish a format to talk about such things within your group.
These gatherings are not to make decisions, but to share ideas, things about
each other you want others to know, and can also be used to defuse issues
and conflicts. These are called Sharing Circles in my community, some groups
call them talking circles, third meeting, wisdom council, etc.

The point is, create a non-decision space to meet and talk. Your group will
benefit hugely from this as you start bumping into each other as you start
living together. There are many formats for this, I published one in
Cohousing magazine years ago. I can probably dredge this up and post it on
the ICRP if anybody is interested.

Rob Sandelin
Northwest Intentional Communities Association
Building a better society, one neighborhood at a time