Why We Long for Community and Why So Many Spaces Fall Short
Recently, I have been hearing more and more clients, friends, and acquaintances express a longing for community. My friend, collaborator, and coaching colleague, Shelly Naughton of Fleche Coaching & Consulting, has been noticing the same thing. Together, Shelly and I began interviewing thoughtful women about what community means to them. We have been intentionally listening for and learning from this need.
What we are hearing is a hunger for something many of us seem to be missing: authentic welcome and belonging, meaningful connection, a place where we can be real, and space for honest conversation with others.
As Shelly and I began asking more questions about where this desire is coming from and what people are truly longing for, the same themes kept emerging across many different parts of life. These conversations have resonated deeply with both of us. In response, we have decided to create the Chrysalis Community: a space shaped by connection, conversation, and the possibility of real transformation.
Where People Are Looking for Community
We seem to be living in a time when more and more people are aware of how much they want community, yet less and less sure where to find it. Many of us spend our days surrounded by people at work, connected online, or moving through full calendars, and still feel the absence of something deeper. We may have acquaintances, group texts, social media networks, and even professional circles, but those spaces do not always offer the kind of belonging people are longing for.
In many cases, these spaces can feel artificial because they were never designed to hold the fullness of being human. Online spaces can create visibility without real intimacy. Professional spaces can offer connection, but often within limits shaped by performance, busyness, or role. Even wellness and growth-oriented spaces can sometimes leave people feeling as though they are consuming ideas rather than being truly known.
We are more connected than ever in some ways, yet many people still feel unseen, unsupported, or alone in what matters most. Something important is missing in many of today’s communities.
Traditional Versus Modern Communities
For much of human history, community was woven into the fabric of daily life. People gathered around shared work, shared responsibilities, shared rituals, and shared seasons of life. Women came together to sew, prepare meals, tend children, carry water, grieve losses, and mark transitions. Wisdom was passed from one person to another. Stories were told. Burdens were shared. People were witnessed in both the ordinary and the difficult parts of being alive. There was something sacred in those spaces of shared life.
Modern communities are often similar in one way: they are built around shared interests, shared locations, or shared identities. But those things alone are not enough. What is often missing is authentic connection, acceptance, and safety. Even in spaces where people appear to have much in common, many still feel disconnected, unseen, or somehow outside of true belonging. Shelly and I heard this again and again as women described communities that looked connected on the surface but did not feel safe or authentic underneath.
Why Many Modern Communities Fall Short
When Belonging Feels Fragile
Consider your own experience. Perhaps you have entered a community with hope, only to realize that belonging was more fragile than it first appeared. It could be a mom group, a neighborhood circle, a school parent community, or even a wellness group.
At first, the space may seem welcoming. But over time, invisible expectations begin to surface, and acceptance may depend on how well you fit the culture of the group. You begin to sense that some experiences are not received with respect or understanding. The unspoken rules are rarely stated directly, but they are felt: be pleasant, but not too honest; share, but not in ways that unsettle the group; be yourself, but not so much that you disrupt the norm. You learn the rules as you witness the judgment, gossip, shunning, and exclusion of others. Eventually, you realize that it may not be safe to be fully seen, heard, or known.
When Communities Are Built on Exclusion
When the subtext of a community becomes, “we define ourselves by who we are not,” it is no longer grounded in belonging, but in exclusion. In those spaces, people may feel pressure to perform, conform, or hide parts of themselves in order to avoid rejection. It may feel safe enough when we are in the majority, but when we fall on hard times, look different, live differently, or simply do not fit the expected mold, we are faced with a painful choice: live inauthentically in order to remain accepted, or risk exile.
When Connection Is Built on a Shared Enemy
Another theme we inferred in our interviews was that communities formed around shared pain or struggle can slowly become shaped more by judgment than by compassion. In those moments, people may bond not through care and mutual support, but through shared anger, fear, or hostility. Brené Brown calls this “common enemy intimacy”: a false sense of closeness that forms when people connect by directing negativity toward another person or group.
I first observed this in my previous work with adolescents. Today, I see it all around me among adults as well—in workplaces, on social media, in reality TV, and in politics. Our culture increasingly seems to encourage relationships formed around identifying and excluding a common enemy: someone seen as different, threatening, or otherwise unacceptable. These alliances may feel powerful or connecting at first, and they may even make for compelling entertainment, but they do not create real trust or true belonging.
In communities built on fear or shared enemies, belonging is always fragile. It is only a matter of time before alliances shift, and no one is truly safe from being cast as the enemy.
Why the Longing Remains
Authentic connection cannot grow in communities that feel like a game of Survivor. When communities are shaped by exclusion, unspoken rules, and counterfeit forms of belonging, people do not feel safe enough to show their true selves, speak honestly about their lives, or ask for help. While these communities may be carefully branded, scheduled, and outwardly organized, they often leave people working hard to avoid rejection rather than resting in genuine connection.
This is why so many of us are hungry for something more. We are not longing for communities built on performance, sameness, or subtle exclusion. We are longing for spaces where people do not have to prove they belong by fitting a mold or defining themselves against an “other.” We are longing for communities shaped by honesty, presence, encouragement, and room to become.
Why This Really Matters
This longing for something more is not superficial. It matters deeply because, as human beings, we are wired for connection. We are not meant to live in isolation, and without meaningful community, something in us can begin to feel incomplete.
It also matters because when communities fall short in the ways I have described, people struggle to feel truly safe. And safety matters more than we may realize. It is part of what allows our nervous systems to settle and makes genuine connection possible. When we do not feel safe, we protect ourselves. We hold back. We edit who we are. We may show up physically, but not fully. Research supports this, including Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, which helps explain why safety is so essential to regulation, social connection, and wellbeing.
But this is not only about our relationships with others; it is also about our relationship with ourselves. When the communities around us send the message that people who are imperfect, struggling, suffering, or falling on hard times will be judged, excluded, or quietly pushed aside, we are placed in a painful dilemma. Every one of us can look within and find our own flaws, wounds, and past failures. If belonging requires us to accept a culture of exile, then at some level we must also exile the parts of ourselves that are imperfect and human.
This painful self-exile steals our peace, diminishes our joy, and leaves us feeling less than whole.
True, safe, and inclusive community matters because until we find it, we may struggle to belong even to ourselves.
What might change in your life if you could feel safe, whole, and free to show up your authentic self in community without fear of harsh judgment? Is that kind of community possible? In my next article, I’ll explore what truer, healthier community might look like.
