Shaylyn Romney Garrett: 4 Cultural Norms That Keep Us from Connecting
Listen Now!
Shaylyn Romney Garrett: 4 Cultural Norms That Keep Us from Connecting
Listen Now!
Episode Overview
Today’s guest is Shaylyn Romney Garrett, a writer who has dedicated all of 2019 to reconnecting — you’ll hear a lot about her journey in this episode. Shaylyn has spent her whole life studying, experimenting with, being fascinated and frightened by community, yet she thinks she has less community than anyone else. On her blog, Project Reconnect, Shaylyn takes on a new challenge every month to bring her back to community, connection, and relationship.
Listen on to find out about Shaylyn’s monthly reconnection challenges, including what’s been the hardest, what holds us back from hosting people in our homes, how meeting your neighbors can make all the difference, the dark side of our individualistic culture and the cultural norms that keep us from connecting.
They’ll also discuss…
- Why we’re threatened by loneliness and isolation and the pill for loneliness being tested
- Self-care vs. community care
- The cultural norms that keep people from connecting
- The importance of leading with vulnerability instead of your accomplishments
- What constitutes a real connection
- Why perfection is the enemy of connection
- How the definition of neighborliness has changed, and why it’s so vital for us to make an effort to meet our neighbors
- What holds us back from hosting people in our homes
- How Shaylyn’s path to reconnection has affected her parenting choices
Cultural norms like individualism, busyness, perfection, and privacy keep us from connecting. There are consequences on a societal level for only seeking connection when you need to connect, and Shaylyn challenges us to seek connection not selfishly, but because others might need to connect too. Shaylyn talks about how the solution to loneliness can be found in reaching out and caring for our neighbors, and that community, connection, and social wellness are essential to being happy, healthy, and thriving.
Social Wellness Challenge
Go meet your neighbors!Â
If you wake up every morning feeling lonely, set the intention of opening yourself up. Open your front door, sit on your front porch, open your garage, go do yard work out in the front yard — just to signal to people that you’re there. Open a space to connect. There are people walking around you with deep hurt who need someone to reach out to.
Links
Shaylyn’s Blog — Project Reconnect
Weave: The Social Fabriq Project via the Aspen Institute Â
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us — Book by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell
The Vanishing Neighbor — Book by Marc J. Dunkelman
The Second Mountain — Book by David Brooks
The Power of Meaning — Book by Emily Esfahani Smith
Bowling Alone —  Book by Robert D. Putnam
This Week’s Guest
Shaylyn Romney Garrett
Shaylyn is an accomplished writer whose work is published in Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s award-winning book, Amazing Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, and is a staff writer for  Weave: The Social Fabric Project. She’s also a successful social entrepreneur who spent 6 years living in Jordan, where she co-founded the nonprofit Think Unlimited, focused on social innovation for Arab youth in the Middle East.
Shaylyn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Peace Corps volunteer. In 2011, she won the prestigious Draper Richards Kaplan Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship, was awarded membership to the Clinton Global Initiative and has been a TEDx speaker. To top it all off, she’s a certified Holistic Health Coach and a permaculturalist!
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