Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Communication when times are stressful

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

I am currently writing a paper for the ICRP about moving in issues and how
to work with them, so this is a brief ramble, off the top from my current
thinking and in progress writing. I'll send the URL out when its more
together.

One of the challenges of cohousing is that often there is a wide diversity
of reasons why people are  involved and come to live there. There  can be a
pretty big range between folks that want a convenient condo, which has a
dinner club and some pleasant social  relationships and  those  folks that
want a very intimate sharing of lives. I see this range a lot in cohousing
groups, and I find  it seems to work best that those that want an intimate
sharing of lives to create a time/space routine to make this happen and not
expect the whole community will want to make time to do this.

For example, I know of several cohousing  groups do a recurring intimacy
sharing circle, which is attended by only a subset  of people,  it happens
at a regular time so people can plan, but attendance at this gathering  is
entirely optional. The folks that  want closer intimacy create it, those
that DO NOT,  avoid it. It is OK for people in cohousing not to want close
relationships. In fact, they may have chosen cohousing specifically because
the relation requirements were low enough to be tolerable for them.

I have personally made the mistake as a facilitator of trying to do a
intimacy circle in a cohousing group without letting those that did not want
to be so involved with their neighbors escape. It was not a successful
experience because the honest truth was, there were people who did not want
the same thing. My mistake was believing  the person that  told me that
everybody wanted the experience, because she saw the world as a reflection
of what she wanted.

This is a common reality with people, they operate under the unquestioned
assumption that everyone is kind of like me, thus I should expect  from them
what I could expect from myself.  This is described by Robert Nozik as
"foundational thinking" in that you don't even question it, it is just the
way you operate in the world.

Obviously if you want closer relationships within the community, it is an
easy step then to assume that if other  people  don't want the same thing,
there is something wrong with them, or with the community as a whole.

The intimacy level, and desire  for intimacy  will vary greatly in
cohousing. This seems pretty normal from my perspective and I have learned
the obvious: You can't force it on people that don't want it. There can also
be a gender gap. Holding a women's circle  and men's circle is one way to
find support on either  side of the gap. There are often folks who would
much rather do hard physical labor, like  digging  ditches, than talk about
their feelings. This is OK and is part of the balance of life in a large
community.

I have found a good course of action is to identify what makes yourself
happy, and then put your energy into making that happen. If  closer ties or
community building is what you want, setup your own sharing circle in your
house and let those that participate follow the path that it created. It
seems to work well to hold at least three  such events in sequence on a
recurring time pattern to let those that really want it to rearrange their
schedules in order to participate. So if you do just one, and only a few
people attend, it may be the second time many more will attend as they
adjust  their schedules to make room for it.

When you hold expectations of other people, you need to be able to look at
yourself in the mirror very honestly and check to see if you are reflecting
your own ego or needs upon  other people without their consent. If you are
very self  honest, and do this check, and the answer is no,  it is a
reasonable community expectation that x,y and z happen, then you are in a
good place to ask the community to honor it. But beware  of your own biases
based  upon how you think the community should be operating.

As you have discovered, living together brings up all sorts of conflicted
issues. Some of them are fairly clear to define and work with: Eg, the kids
toys left on the paths, the barking dog, the cats pooping in the garden
beds.  Eventually you will have to grapple  with some deeper and harder  to
work with issues such as: I don't like the way you parent, or I don't like
the way you look at my spouse. These kinds of conflicts can create  some
wounds and scar tissues which may very well impair certain relationships
permanently. When you get in the deeper waters its very helpful to have a
lifeguard around. Many groups contract with a family counselor to help them
in these situations.

It is often helpful to setup special  focus circles  to clarify conflicted
issues. Rather than bring up kids issues as one agenda item of several in a
business meeting, hold  an entire meeting just about kids issues. Focus on
one topic, share perspectives and ideas, and then, if  particular solutions
make sense, then bring those up at the business meeting.

Also realize that you are just beginning to live together. You have years
and years  to figure this  stuff out, there is no  hurry and, based on my
experiences in your community March, there  is very little to worry about
the community falling apart. It might not be exactly what you expected, but
there is way more glue than gaps at Duwamish. And of course, leadership is
what makes things go. Work  parties happen because people do the leadership
to call the time, get the materials, etc. Communication work can benefit
from leadership as well. Call a special meeting to identify strengths and
needs, and then follow where that path leads. You have  a great set of
skills and so all you need to do is apply some of them.

Rob Sandelin
Community Works! Http://www.ic.org/nica/cw1.htm
Check out the resources on the Intentional Communities Resource Pages at:
http://www.ic.org/nica/resource.htm










-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org
[mailto:cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org]On Behalf Of March Twisdale
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2000 7:43 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Communication when times are stressful


Dear Fellow Cohousers,

Hi, my name is March and I've not posted in awhile.  I have just looked
through the archives, but I feel that I'll need some back and forth
discussion to better work through my current frustrations.  Let me give a
quick background of where we're at here in Duwamish Cohousing:

    Basically, construction of our 23 unit community (plus a CH and a small
commons) was to take 9 months and be completed in April of 2000.  Today is
Thanksgiving of 2000 and we just got into our Common House about two weeks
ago.  We just attained substantial completion on Nov. 9th.  We finally had
all moved in between June 17-July 25th and have been living with
construction workers constantly coming in and out of our homes, repainting,
retexurizing, ripping up plants, fixing the heating, lighting, etc.  It is
very stressful for some of us and annoying for all of us.

    So, I joined in March or April of 1999 and have been somewhat concerned
from the get-go about how much "Community Building" gets put off for "the
next meeting" while mostly only business stuff gets done.  Once we moved in,
we had all talked about how much easier it would be to attend to the living
together stuff, communication, etc.  However, when we did finally move in
people were so stressed by the construction and moving issues that instead a
lot of negative attention got focused on the length of meetings (4 hours
every Sunday) and we cut back to every other week meetings.  Then we cut
back to 3 hour meetings and now we are down to 2-hour meetings every other
week.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but 4 hours together a month (only 4 months into living
together) as a community doesn't seem like a lot of time....AND we are still
shunting the Community Building stuff off to this imaginary "next meeting".
This really bothers me because I see all sorts of normal "American" style
behaviors emerging amongst our members...communication is falling
apart...cliques are forming...people are feeling isolated...feelings are
being hurt...and trust is suffering.  This is what I hear from others and
feel myself.

    So, my question is....how can I encourage more attention to these
issues?  We even have a "CPR" (Conflict Prevention & Resolution) team set
up....but until this week they were too busy to meet until we had a problem
to deal with....where's the Prevention in that?  AND....I had problems way
back (as have others) but there's a big sense of people being too stressed
to deal with the less important issues of communication.  We've had teams of
people out working on Sweat Equity projects every weekend,...but no one will
gather to talk about communication.  Even talking about the kids (there are
18 children in our community so it's a big issue) gets chronically cut from
our agendas.

    I'm frustrated because we're spending time on the superficial, business
stuff....and ignoring the infinitely more difficult and more important
interpersonal stuff.  I'm scared that we will fall apart on the inside while
our outsides finally get finished!

Thanks for all input from others who have been there,
March