Having A Supportive Community Around You Is So Important

It's so easy to feel alone and lost on the path because everything is new and everything is forever changing faster and faster. That is where the power of a supportive community lies. We need to surround ourselves with people who are on the same path as us to grow even faster.

Transcript

I hope that you guys are doing amazing wherever you are in the world.

My name is Boomshakha and I welcome you to my channel.

As always I'm so grateful that you guys are listening,

Subscribing and commenting.

I really appreciate the support.

And of course if you guys want to support me further you can do that by going to my Patreon site.

The link is in the description below.

And you can give me a dollar a month,

Five dollars a month,

Whatever you prefer.

In this video I want to speak to you guys about community and how I believe one of the reasons why there is so much loneliness and so much depression or any kind of psychological disorders or anything like that related to that is because of the fact that we are losing our community day by day,

Rapidly.

Obviously a lot of it has to do with nuclear families.

The fact that you're not raised by your entire family or by a village,

Like they say you need to be raised by a village.

You're not raised by a village anymore,

You're just raised by one or two people.

And those one or two people are also not really present because they're working.

They're working full time.

And so perhaps you're lucky enough to go to daycare,

Perhaps you're not.

Perhaps you go to school and then you come back and you are one of those latchkey kids where you have to be by yourself for a few hours before your parents come home.

Perhaps you have siblings,

Perhaps you don't.

So you know you're even more alone if you're an only child.

Perhaps you live in a place where there are a lot of kids around and you can play with them or maybe you don't.

You live in an isolated fashion and so you don't have even that sort of support system.

One of the reasons,

One of the main reasons,

One of the primary reasons I love Chiang Mai,

One of the reasons why I tell everyone that I love it here so much,

Not only because there are so many other things for it and I don't think I could ever go and live in a European or American or a Western country again,

Is because I love the community that is here.

Nothing else really is that fascinating about this place.

I love it for so many different reasons.

For me,

The food is delicious,

The weather is awesome,

But the main reason why I keep on coming back over and over again is because of the community.

It's because as soon as I step into Chiang Mai,

I feel like I'm stepping into my own village.

It's like that song in Cheers,

You know,

You come back,

You go where everyone knows your name and even though everyone doesn't know my name here,

A lot of people do and they want to hang out with me.

They have time to hang out with me and we do get into groups and get together and hang out and have fun together all the time because of the fact that there's a lot more time and a lot more free time with people here because they're not spending all their time scrambling to pay their bills because of course it's a much cheaper and easier lifestyle here.

And so the community is easier to build here whereas in Western countries,

In industrialized countries where it's so expensive to live,

Most people are just spending all of their time making money and paying bills rather than actually living and spending time in community.

And if you do spend time in community,

We are one of the lucky ones.

And one of the reasons,

One of the main reasons why I dislike a lot of times going back home,

I love meeting my family,

I love seeing them,

It's so gratifying to me to hang out with them,

Spend time with them,

But I always have this sense of loneliness and this sense of aloneness when I go back home,

Even despite the fact that I'm surrounded by my family because I miss this community that has been created,

That has been created around me in Chiang Mai.

And so whenever I do feel alone and lonely in Chiang Mai,

I can just message someone and we can hang out.

We can go for dinner,

We can go for a coffee,

We can go for a walk,

We can go for a massage,

Whatever it might be.

And it's not like I have to message 3,

000 people and then one person says yes,

I will message 10 people and almost all of them will be like,

Yeah sure,

Let's go,

Kind of thing,

Right?

And so I love that because it gives me the freedom to have people around me in a very easy fashion.

I don't have to force it,

I don't have to plan weeks in advance.

When I was in Toronto,

You'd have to plan any event at least a week in advance if not more,

Because people are busy,

People have work,

People work overtime all the time.

They barely have weekends to spend with friends and family,

So if they do have any free time,

They tend to spend it on their own.

That's what I noticed about myself as well because I was working so much in Toronto,

I tended to spend,

Not only because I'm an introvert,

But also in general I like to spend time on my own because I had to do my chores,

I had to catch up on all the laundry and cleaning and all that stuff,

And then I had to catch up on my alone time.

By the time all of that ended,

There was rarely any time for me to do anything else.

Of course,

No time for yoga,

Of course no time for anything else really to take care of myself.

And so I'm not going to go and spend that time with friends or family,

I'm willing to spend it on my own.

And that's basically just of most of how Western civilization lives right now.

Of course this country,

Chiang Mai and Thailand in general is kind of moving in that direction as well,

But Chiang Mai is kind of like a little bubble where we created,

Because of all the digital nomads here,

Because of all the furongs here,

Because of all the communities that have been created here,

It's a little bit of a bubble,

It's a little bit different.

And so I come here and I haven't found this kind of community,

This kind of bubble,

This kind of,

This just people around that are just my tribe and who are interested in getting to know me,

Hanging out with me,

And who have time to do that,

Time and money to do what they need to do or want to do.

So I haven't found this anywhere else and I've travelled to a lot of different places because I wanted to see if there was any other community like this.

Now of course I haven't gone to all the different places in the world,

So I don't know how it is,

And I haven't lived in most places long enough to perhaps have that idea,

But for my thing,

Whenever people ask me,

So where are you going to move next,

Where are you going next?

I always think to myself I don't really want to go anywhere else,

I love it here so much and I don't actually really want to move anywhere else.

I think I'm happy here and I could pretty much stay here for the rest of my life if allowed to do so.

And this is one of the reasons I wanted to share it with you,

Not because I'm like,

Alright everyone move to Chiang Mai because the community is here,

But because I wanted to talk about community in general.

I think it's one of the most important things that human beings are missing right now.

Of course nature is absolutely one of those things,

You know,

The concrete jungles we live in doesn't allow for the connection with nature,

With Mother Earth,

With the ground,

With our food,

With our water,

Etc.

All of that connection is lost,

Obviously,

But all of that can be negated and a lot of it can be alleviated if we had community around us.

But not only have we lost our connection to the Earth,

To our mother,

But also we've lost connection to community.

We spend all of our time,

Most of our time by ourselves.

And not only that,

If you're an introvert,

It's even exemplified,

You know,

It's even made even worse because you're not only an introvert,

But you also have no community around you.

And many people,

I think,

A lot of reasons why people are ending up being anxious or depressed,

Or unable to share,

Or unable to be vulnerable around other people,

Becoming cynical and bitter is because they've lost their community,

They've lost the people around them,

Or they never really had it in the first place.

And I noticed that for my mother and my family at least,

Because my mom moved away from her family,

She's a huge family in India,

But because we moved to the Middle East for job opportunities and for things like that,

She was always by herself.

And I noticed that it really took a toll on her mental status.

She was depressed a lot of times and also sad because of the fact that she was alone a lot of times taking care of us.

If she had her family with her,

If we still lived in India,

I'm glad that we didn't,

But if we did,

She would have her family and friends to take care of us,

And she wouldn't be by herself all the time.

And so this is a trend I notice in a lot of people around me,

Not only in Toronto,

But in general in the Western world,

Whenever I go to a lot of different countries,

One of the things I notice is a lot of people are by themselves.

When I visited Japan,

One of the main epidemics that Japanese people have is of loneliness.

Everyone eats by themselves,

Everyone walks around by themselves,

Everyone shops by themselves,

And most people just hang out on the internet by themselves,

They play games by themselves.

It's become a very lonely,

Isolated culture.

One of the ways to get back around it,

Or to fly past it,

Is to build your community,

To find people around you who are of your tribe,

Who want to hang out with you,

Who are loving and kind and generous with their time,

And who want to be around you so you can have someone that you can message and be like,

I am not doing anything tonight.

Let me message someone and hang out with them.

Now,

I am an introvert,

And I'm saying this about community,

So it means a big deal guys,

Because it really has completely changed my perspective on how I live in the world.

I used to spend a lot of my time alone,

But now I am open to the idea of messaging someone saying,

Does anyone want to do brunch?

And four or five people,

Or three or four,

Or even one person will say yes,

And I'm like,

Yes,

Let's do it.

And the opportunity to hang out and to have conversations,

To learn from them,

To learn to teach them,

To have that interaction is so valuable to me that I really,

Really appreciate it,

And I really feel like community is one of those things that could really heal us,

Despite the fact that there is a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world,

Despite the fact that we've lost our connection with Mother Earth and we're basically destroying her little by little.

I think community is one of those things that's really going to pull us back out of the ground and then pull us back into the ether and back into ourselves again.

My recommendation to you guys is if it's possible for you,

If it is at all possible to build a community or to find a community that you can be a part of,

Obviously not a cult or a religious community,

I mean it can be a religious community,

But a community in general that appreciates you for who you are and who wants to hang out with you is so,

So necessary.

I think one of the reasons why religions are so popular right now is because that's a community,

It's a self-built community that you can just go in and you can attach yourself to it.

I don't really like religious communities too much,

Of course,

Because of the dogma and because they're just so strict and traditional.

But I like communities in general,

I do believe that they are a source of happiness and joy and they really do make me feel not alone again,

But also whole again in a really,

Really fascinating way.

I'd love to hear from you guys,

Are you guys part of communities or not,

Or what do you think about communities in general?

I know this is a random topic,

But I really wanted to share it with you guys because I've been noticing the effect of having a community around me on my mental psyche and my mental health.

Again,

If you guys like these videos or don't like them,

If you like them,

Support me further by going on my Patreon site.

You can check the link out below in the description and you can give me a dollar or five dollars a month.

And I shall see you guys in the next one.

Bye for now!