Creating a Personal Village  Marv Thomas, MSW, Excerpted from Personal Village: How to Have People in Your Life by Choice, not by Chance (Milestone Books, Seattle WA (followed by a Conversation with Marv Thomas)

 

I am a man on a mission. My mission is to revitalize community for myself and everyone I can reach. Half a lifetime ago, in my work as a psychotherapist, I realized that many of the people who came to see me would not have been in my office if they had experienced and were still embedded in a strong, supportive circle of people. As a young father and professional, I began to recognize that this rich circle was missing in my own life as well. At the same time, I began to realize that some people seemed to have a knack for surrounding themselves with people and creating intimacy, abilities I lacked.

I also shared the growing sense of distress that many feel about what our modern world is doing to our humanity. It was obvious that our sense of community was being seriously eroded in our headlong race into a future of modern wonders. I have watched from my comfortable place in the Western world as we've lived through the greatest technological leap forward the human race had ever taken: a leap both exciting and promising, like nothing before in history, but with a price. I grew up in a traditional, strong extended family that had just migrated into the city from the farm culture upon which America was built. My family shared the farm values of hard work and of community. Babies were born at home and the old folks died in each other's arms. Life was hard, but regardless of what happened a strong circle of community always supported everyone. Even though I had not learned the skills necessary to create such a community for myself, I saw firsthand the power it could hold in leading a rich life.

As a young man, just launched into a career in the space program, I found myself suddenly caught up in technical, hurry-hurry, modern America. It was not long before I recognized that something was missing. I had to find a way to balance this new exciting world with the strong sense of community in which I had grown up.

This need started as confusion as I experienced the collision between our humanity and the pressures of modern life. Then it turned into alarm as I became aware of current problems in the context of the history I was studying. Most of the people I talked with saw the same problems, but they tended to respond either by ignoring them or by complaining. I decided I was going to apply what I knew from my community-based childhood to improve the quality of life for myself, my family, and the people around me. I realized that to do less would simply be adding to the problems that worried me. Eventually I left my career as an engineer and studied to become a social worker.

My growing awareness of the necessity for vital communities led to what has become a burning passion over the last thirty years. It was urgent that I find a way to think about personal communities and develop a way to strengthen them. I closely studied the communal dimensions in my work as an organizational consultant and psychotherapist, and I explored the back alleys of our culture at every level, watching people on the streets, in malls, in classrooms, in business settings, in the halls of government. I studied anthropology, sociology, the world's religions, and depth psychology. I poured over all the literature written about community and immersed myself in both current affairs and history.

My efforts eventually gave me a way to think about personal community and allowed me to develop a body of material that anyone can use to create a supportive cast for themselves. Before I could write about the topic of personal community, my earlier engineering training impelled me to develop a theory about all community systems, from the most immediate to those of every level of society and even to the entire global community. What started out as a single book about personal community has turned into a series of books that I am driven to write. I identify with George Bernard Shaw when he said: "I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. The harder I work, the more I live. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a splendid torch which I want to make burn as brightly as I can before I pass it on to following generations." What I learned taught me how to surround myself with a strong circle of people. The professionals called this immediate circle a personal network or convoy. I came to call it my personal village. The first in my series of books [Personal Village] is about how to create community at the most immediate, personal level….

What I…describe in this book is not a one-time effort. Just like caring for your health or finances or career, your personal village will require continual attention and tending. Community is not a simple process like throwing a party or changing the tires on a car. It is not a step-by-step process like baking cookies. It does not have a beginning or an end. Like the quest to know God, community can be embraced in many ways and approached from many directions simultaneously. I have tried in this book to show you many of the levels on which you can enhance your own circle of important people….

 

May you blossom fully. May your loved ones blossom fully, and may everyone living on Mother Earth blossom fully to the ultimate that is our human heritage. May every person come into perfect harmony with their highest self and with each other.

Excerpted from Personal Village: How to Have People in Your Life by Choice, not by Chance (Milestone Books, Seattle WA, 2004) by Marv Thomas, MSW.

© 2004 Marv Thomas. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

A Conversation with author Marv Thomas, MSW

Q. In your book, you refer to the bedrock values of your rural upbringing. How do the lessons of your formative years play into your concept of the Personal Village?

A. I grew up in a family that had just migrated off the farm. The values they brought with them included community, though they did not call it that. They simply looked after each other, supported births and stood by at deaths, and observed the ritual of family life by gathering often for big dinners, trips to the cemetery and to Sunday church. I simply grew up experiencing the richness of a warm circle of well-known folk and assuming that an extended circle of people would always be available to me. When I left home and moved into a modern, fragmented, hurry-hurry society I was simply shocked at how isolated I felt. My childhood experiences gave me a template about how to have a vital personal community to support my personal life. And I learned that I need to support the same thing for the people around me.

Q. In what ways have people become more distant from one another? Aren't the Internet and digital media making us more "connected" than ever?

A. Oh, many influences in the modern world have acted to cause more distance between us. Our mobility is one thing. Instead of wandering around in our natural neighborhoods, we drive miles to meet someone for coffee or spend hours in a commute. Another feature of modern society is our devotion to being in a hurry. We scurry here and there with such speed that we do not take the time to stop and have a leisurely conversation. And when we do slow down we too often are seduced into plastering a phone to our ear or watching the television instead of simply talking in a contact-rich way with the people who are right in front of us.

The electronic ways of communicating have evolved naturally to compensate for our lack of connection. Now we can hurry and talk with someone at the same time, that is if we do not drive into someone in the process. We can say what we want to important people via e-mail and come back later to see how they responded. This is efficient and contributes to our productivity, but it also leads to fragmentation and hurriedness. The digital world is a blessing and curse.

Q. What are some examples of "dysfunctional communities," and what can people do to avoid them?

A. Domestic violence makes a family community dysfunctional. A bully at school or work makes the school or workplace community dysfunctional. A community that is dominated by a control freak is a dysfunctional community. A leader who used the community members for his/her own advantage creates a dysfunctional community. A community where the members do not take care of each other is dysfunctional.

If the community circle you find yourself in feels wrong in some way, it probably is. What you can do is take the community effectiveness test to orient yourself in a more precise way to what is wrong. Then talk with friends outside of the community. Consult this book for clues about how to bring about changes. If it is possible, talk with other members of the community circle and see if you can collectively agree on a way to bring about positive change. Always think about trying to bring harmony between people and to find a way where everyone's needs are being met to some degree.

Q. Forming a Personal Village demands that you consciously connect with the people that make up your world-neighbors, the people you encounter every day during your commute, the person who serves you coffee at Starbucks, etc. Does this mean that one has to be outgoing and dynamic to have a Personal Village? Are there techniques that "wallflowers" can follow to achieve greater depth to casual relationships?

A. Well, extroverts do have an easier time forming connections. For the rest of us there are lots of ways. The best is to simply hang out with people who are doing things that are interesting to you. If you hang out long enough you will begin to see ways to become involved and the others will naturally begin to include you.

Q. Is having e-mail and IM buddies the start of a Personal Village? How has instant communication affected the current state of human interaction?

A. It can be. However if the relationships that happen electronically never evolve into face-to-face contact they may feel very intimate -- like a journal that talks back to you -- but the real contact necessary for depth in a Personal Village never occurs. The electronic forms of community can be a real boon for people who are isolated in some way and have no other way to make contact. But real Personal Village happens when people are close enough to see and talk with each other face-to-face.

Instant communications have tricked us into believing that sharing data, including what we are thinking and feeling, is the same as real human communication. It has made our lives more efficient and in some ways fun, and it has opened up new possibilities that did not exist before. But if it replaces, rather than serves as a garnish, our face-to-face connections will go hungry. You cannot eat data.

Q. You highlight the Rule of Seven as a means of adding people to your Personal Village. What is the Rule of Seven, and how does it work?

A. The Principal of Seven is your strongest tool to create new relationships that have depth and trust. It is your best friend in navigating around your Personal Village.

How it works is that all of us, now matter how confident and brash we seem, are nervous with a new relationship. When we can watch another person over a period of time, gradually our discomfort diminishes and we become more receptive to a new person. The research shows that comfort begins to develop after approximately seven different interactions have occurred. When you keep showing up or hanging out the opportunity for accumulating the magic seven connections occurs naturally. Then it is easier to establish contact with a new person.

 

In 1970, Marv Thomas began developing a practical working model of community. Since that time he has been helping many people deepen communities and has lectured and presented workshops on this subject. He speaks not only with the authority of someone who has "been there," but as a professional counselor who for thirty-five years has observed the damage that isolation imposes on our population. He is well known in Seattle as a teacher, lecturer, psychotherapist and marriage counselor. He also has a degree in Engineering and worked in the aircraft and space industry as a part of the team that sent the first men to the moon. Thomas is a founding member and former director of the Group Process Institute. He trained directly under Fritz Perls, Leon Fine and Virginia Satir. He has taught group process and community theory for many years, appeared on radio and television and delivered many speeches and lectures. His broad and diverse training and experience gives him an authority on the subjects of systems thinking, human relations, and community dynamics. Marv lives in Seattle with his wife of 43 years and has two grown sons. For more information, contact Marv at: Marv Thomas, Lakeridge Institute, P.O. Box 27645 • Seattle, Washington • 98165-2645, (206) 364-9494 • marv@marvthomas.com or visit the website: www.personalvillage.com