We experienced a wellspring of response when our daughter Penny was born and diagnosed with Down syndrome. People showed up in prayer, meals, messages, and care. And like so many families, we eventually learned that while those early waves of support don’t last forever, the need for community does.
I recently talked with my friend Katherine Wolf, co-founder of Hope Heals, about our need for community. After surviving a massive brainstem stroke in her 20s, Katherine now lives with significant disability and speaks often about suffering, hope, and community.
I asked her how families can find and stay connected to community. I loved her ideas:
REACH OUT.
“The small step always is to reach out to one other human being [text, invitation to coffee, etc] and see what happens.” Maybe 10 people will say no or don’t respond, but the 11th might say, “I really need what you bring into my life.” She says to find the people (and be the people) who are willing to stay for the hard story without trying to fix it. “What we must do is find the people who need the people and then they become your people.”
__
BE REALISTIC.
When we talk about community, we often swing between too much optimism, where community is seen as the answer to all our problems, or too much pessimism, where it’s assumed to be mostly hurtful and never truly good. Katherine encourages us to be realistic. That means recognizing that we will experience both deep connection and real disappointment, sometimes even within the very same relationships. Instead of optimism or pessimism, we become realists about community.
__
STAY CONNECTED.
Stay connected in consistent ways that keep relationships alive over time, even if time commitments and locations make that difficult. One example—Katherine finds the Voxer app to be really beneficial. She’s says it’s all voice-based, and there’s no texting or staring at a screen. You just talk back and forth, almost like leaving walkie-talkie voicemails.
How to Find Your People When You Feel Invisible with Katherine Wolf 🎙️E23 on Take the Next Step with Amy Julia Becker • Created together with Hope Heals Camp
SUBSCRIBE to my Substack newsletter: amyjuliabecker.substack.com
JOIN the conversation on Instagram: @amyjuliabecker
LISTEN to my podcasts: amyjuliabecker.com/shows/
CONNECT on YouTube: Amy Julia Becker on YouTube
