Building an Online Community
When I started my yoga journey life was easy breezy. I lived within walking distance to a few studios, I had a large support group/community to pull from and had the ability to get up and go to any class whenever I wanted. It was so easy to connect with people and I made some really great friends in my neighbourhood. Fast forward to today and life is a lot different. I have a child now, which means I can't get up and go practice whenever I please. I moved to a new community where I had no connections, little support and the closest studio was a 15 min drive away (which is a LONG walk without a car). Add in the pandemic, multiple floods, an overwhelming unintentional home renovation and a toddler with no friends but me...life was harder. My "everything happens for a reason" mentality started to shift and I was loosing touch of the person I had put so much time and love into building. The silver lining was that I was aware I was loosing myself and knew exactly what I needed to do to start building myself up again.
With no end in sight to the pandemic, I decided I was going to connect online. My background is in media and content creation and I could feel my soul yearning for a new creative outlet. So, I created this blog first. I decided to write about yoga, because it's what I know and what I love. I have never tried the blog route before (I usually make videos) but I quickly fell in love. Being able to write out the thoughts circulating in my head has been truly inspiring. With every post I write I can feel my old soul coming back to life. I first reactivated my facebook account from university and joined every local group on Facebook. I hit up the mom groups first, hoping I could get some socially distanced playdates, or at the very least, a local mom friend to chat with online. Words cannot describe how lonely I was after moving to a new place near the start of a pandemic. Before the pandemic I had set myself up nicely. My car was working so I was able to go to the Early Learning groups every morning, I was enrolled at the YMCA and had purchased some yoga class passes to be used in the new year. But before I could make new friends and catch my stride in the community, the community shut down. For months I was lost, waiting for someone to post in one of my groups about something I was interested in. But it never happened. So what did I do? I took charge and I created my own group. I created a group for locals to talk about what I wanted to talk about, yoga and wellness! It was scary putting myself out there. I find that I am very quiet and reserved until I know the group of people, but that just wasn't working for me. I needed to take charge and create the community that I missed in Toronto and wanted here. It's just the start and the group has a handful of members now. BUT that's a handful of people who are interested in the same things, who may have never connected before the group. So the advice I have for you today is to take charge of what you want in your life. Even if that means steeping out of your comfort zone. This switch of mindset has given me new mom friends to talk to (playdate pending), a creative channel that has brightened my soul, and an online community of likeminded people that I will hopefully be friends with for a long time. Are you feeling lost or in need of a friend or community? Message me and I can help you get the ball rolling. Namaste.
Love Nastassja
