Creating a Life Together Quotes

“1. What do you want more than anything? For yourself. 2. What do you want more than anything? For the world. 3. What do you want more than anything? For your children. 4. What do other people do that hurts you? 5. What do you fear? 6. What makes you mad? 7. What makes you cry? 8. If you could go back in your childhood and change your mother (or primary female care-taker), what would you change? 9. If you could go back in your childhood and change your father (or primary male care-taker), what would you change? 10. What didn’t you get as a child? 11. If you could make something in your childhood better, what would it be? 12. If you could make something in your childhood go away, what would it be? 13. What do you need to feel safe? 14. What do you need to feel loved? 15. What do you need to feel happy? 16. What kind of community do you want?”
― Diana Leafe Christian, Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities

“First, living in community cannot erase buried emotional pain. When people find that after living in community they’re still yearning for something valuable and elusive (although they may not know what it is), they tend to feel angry and disappointed.”
― Diana Leafe Christian, Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities

“Community does involve psychology stuff — which, in my opinion, is why roughly 90 percent of new communities fail. Forming a community is deeply psychological. Emotional pain and hidden expectations exert a powerful pull on people, and community founders are no exception. Put a group of people in a community visioning session, and you have dozens of different needs and expectations, known and unknown, ricocheting invisibly around the room.”
― Diana Leafe Christian, Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities