Connectedmess

The other day I was musing on what it would take to have mentally healthier communities. I realised that it's the same things that make relationships so enriching that also make them so hard to form. The power of safety with another person. Trust and mutual respect. These are things we bang on about all the time in the field of therapy, however we rarely expand our thinking out to the community level. I'd love to initiate acommunity garden project in my suburb and will start working on it, however I worry about working with people who have different world views to me. I think this in a really human thing to be worried about, but I'm also a product of my context. I feel isolated where I live and crave connectedness to others despite world views. I want to be around people who are different, be aware of my judgements, yet not attached to them, fuelling my subjective feeling response. I also want the same in return. I'd like to just be with people who aren't like me and yet feel safe with closeness and distance. No outcomes in mind. No purpose. No strings. Just a process. Do I want too much? Or si ti truly as simple as I think it could be (with a new paradigm in mind for relating in community groups). Is it possible to combine community development with overt therapy techniques that focus of interactional process? I don't know but I'd love to find out. Watch this space....for a while......