invest in relationships
Deepen relationships with ourselves, our community, and the planet and see how we are all interconnected.
We recognize and value our interconnectedness.
To citizen is to invest in relationships with ourselves and with others. Investing in a relationship with ourselves means knowing ourselves, checking in with our own thoughts and feelings while also being open to change. We invest in relationships with others because we are stronger together and because to citizen is to live and cooperate with others! When we strengthen our relationships, we are valuing our interdependence and practicing living in community, which has wide ranging personal as well as societal benefits.
KEY Ideas
- Investing at different scales of relationships: with ourselves, each other, and our planet.
- Our world is governed by interconnectedness — there are no true private islands.
- We must figure out how to humanize one another.
- When you're in trusting, authentic relationship, you see the other person as human, equal value to yourself.
- We may not agree on everything, but as humans we always have things in common.
- Listening to each other’s stories is one way of humanizing - moving past our differences and find areas of connection.
- Investing means we try to resolve conflict and forgive; knowing that the cycle of “rupture and repair” is a part of every healthy relationship.
- Checking in with others by asking how they feel about a situation rather than what they think about it.
- Being curious about others and taking the time to get to know them and their background.
- Remembering and focusing on our shared experiences as humans, rather than our differences, to build understanding and bridges.
- Practicing forgiveness and conflict resolution within our relationships, knowing conflict is inevitable and doesn’t need to mean the death of a relationship.
- Seeing a stranger as a part of ourselves we do not yet know, to paraphrase Valarie Kaur, author of See No Stranger
- Making time to notice our own thoughts and feelings.
start citizening?
I’m in
