Tribe Dreaming: What Have I Done to Support Community on Steemit? A Response to @elamental's Writing Contest

in #tribevibes5 years ago (edited)

How do you support your Steemit communities? Whether you participate in you Steemit sub-community's writing challenges, create community engagement challenges yourself, run or participate in contests for your group(s), manage a group or groups, or are just a well rounded Steemian participant engaging in various groups' activities, this is your chance to shine your light for the community, and really make people aware of how one person can have a great impact in our Steemit space and world.

This is what @elamental asks us in his tribe - unifying post here.

But...eeek! I find it soo hard to talk about the things that I have achieved here on Steemit because we’re raised to be a little more humble than that and I’m not really good with ‘I’ as in ‘I’m so great because...’. I also find I have to step outside of myself and look at what I’ve achieved as if I’m not looking at me, but another person. However this is a great exercise for any of us to do because it helps muffle that darn inner critic that is never ‘good enough’.

Yet I firmly believe each one of us in both the Steemworld and the bigger world has the ability to radiate out into the world, and I think that in my small ways, I try to do just that.

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Tribe Vibes

@elemental has coined this hashtag to unify the tribes and groups that are supporting quality, professional content and help advance the Steemit platform with positive evolution. Many of the people I'm close to here are in one or more of those groups, including @freedomtribe, @naturalmedicine, @earthtribe, @teamgood and @ecotrain.

Being an Outsider and Being in All Tribes at the Same Time

I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider in most communities I’ve been in, mainly because I have such a fluid identity that I find it really hard to play by the rules of any one ‘tribe’. I don’t know if it’s my rebellious side or the fact I was bullied as a kid which made me wary of any kind of group that had exclusive rules for membership. I’m also interested in a whole heap of subjects and my own blog here on Ste emit doesn’t consistently ‘fit’ with one niche or another. On some days I just want to write fiction, on others, I want to write about healthy food or history or surfing or yoga. At first I thought that made me a bit of an anomaly here but after 6 months and around 1000 followers I think maybe I have some interesting stuff to say that people like reading, and it’s inspired me to write more even if they don’t, because I get alot of other things out of it – it’s a creative outlet by which I get to express my heart after years of being in the shadows and not really finding my voice. That’s what being bullied does to a kid – it makes you a little scared to express who you really are, because what is those elements are rejected too?

Finding A Place and Realising My Unifying Theme

One day, I discovered a tribe I liked on Steemit, @ecotrain. I was totally humbled and a little perplexed being invited on as a passenger. I felt totally chuffed that I was worthy enough to be accepted somewhere with people who clearly liked my writing (and thus, perhaps liked me too?) but did I have to post on environmental stuff all the time? As that’s not something I could stick to – I wanted to write about yoga, or maybe an Australian gothic horror story, or a recipe for vegan cheese, or a musing about the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia. Then I saw the #ecotrain byline – ‘making the world a better place’. Now that’ was something I could stick to. What if every word I wrote had that end goal? That through my writing I could make someone’s day brighter, or perhaps get people to think about important social justice issues like indigenous rights, or a passion of mine, plastics and ocean pollution? What if by revealing my own problems with mental health and anxiety I could connect to people who also felt like this, and thus make them feel less alone?

So that’s what I have tried to do on the Steem blockchain – write careful, conscious content that in some small ways, makes the world a better place. This extended into friendships with other passengers and people I connected with under the #ecotrain hashtag, and later @tribesteemup and @earthtribe. I love the comments here but Discord was a good supplement to that, and some conversations would end up in private chats as some got deeply personal. I realised I had a lot of wisdom and experience to share with people suffering, especially with mental health issues like anxiety. I have had people shyly reach out to me asking advice because they’d read what I had written and felt the same way, and wanted to talk to me about what they were going through. I feel pretty good about having the opportunity to be of service to others in this way, all spring boarded from writing on the Steem blockchain.

Real Life World Betterment

The last few years I've been following the same essential philosophy I've been adhering to on Steemit. What can I do to make the world a better place? It's easy to focus on the negative and we are hard wired to do just that as a protective mechanism. I've fallen into that trap of negativity and hopelessnes before, of utter despair and feeling like I didn't matter. But I do - every little action, no matter how little, can make a difference. You just have to soften up a little and be vulnerable to do it - nothing good happens from shutting yourself off from the world.

"Be soft, don't let the world make you hard. Be gentle, don't let people make you difficult. Be kind, don't let the realities of life steal your sweetness and make you heartless." - Nurudeen Ushawu

I realised it was my compassion and empathy that kept me in teaching (I teach teenagers, and love it) though there's many things about the school system that I find broken, and I'm not even too keen on teaching literature in the way the curriculum wants me too. But there's more powerful people than me driving that and I don't have the power nor the energy to change that system from within. What I could do, however, was teach meditation to the kids at school, and I've worked hard over the last few years to make that into a reality. There's a way to go yet but Steemit helps give me the confidence and the conviction to keep pressing forward with this important dharmic path. The more consicous awareness I can bring to others, the more likelihood I can perhaps indirectly influence a better world. This is the proper meaning of education and growth to me - a heightened awareness.

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And being with teenagers, there's an added bonus too - I get the chance to be kind every day, which is a blessing. Because kindness spreads - it can ripple outward. Whilst it might seem a small thing, it can have a huge impact on people's lives.

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Creating Natural Medicine

It was also through those kinds of conversations and interacting with folk here about practices such as meditation, yoga, neuroscience, herbalism and other content that help us navigate this big and wonderful and often confusing life that began @naturalmedicine. It started off as a private Discord chat about creating a community specifically for sharing healing modalities and discussions around natural alternatives to big Pharma on Steemit.

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Whilst I had no real idea of what I was getting into, I loved rolling up my sleeves and getting to work on creating a logo with the help of the wonderful @hungryhustle, who brought the vision into reality with the beautiful lotus and heart logo . I asked @hungryhustled because he designed the @tribesteemup infographic outlining its tenets, which is pretty gorgeous – and @tribesteemup’s tenets align perfectly with @naturalmedicine’s (and @earthtribe and @ecotrain fit beautifully under those principles too), so I knew he'd know what I wanted.

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Wren of @mountainjewel was instrumental in her enthusiasm as she supported me to manifest the dream @holisticmom had started with a 'what if' into a reality. All of a sudden realised I was creating something that people really wanted and were excited about – a place to celebrate and share natural healing and wisdoms on the Steem platform. I realised I wasn’t just on the periphery of things but creating a center where people could come and ask questions if they needed help with a physical or mental illness or simply come to read what others have written on the subject. And we luckily realised that natural medicine wasn’t always about fixing or medicating our bodies systems but also nurturing them – body and mind and the spirit that moves them.

And thus @naturalmedicine aims to be inclusive of any Steemian who wants to be consciously aware of their own capacity to heal and to help others to heal and to themselves:

promote natural, holistic and supportive alternative remedies on Steemit, moving away from big pharma and towards a more intuitive healing that is supported by ancient wisdoms, home remedies, herbal lore and science, indigenous traditions of healing and other learnings that inform and support us to heal and nurture our bodies, minds and spirits. We welcome all alternative practitioners and those with an interest in natural therapies, cures and medicines, and are committed to sharing and promoting these paradigms and understandings on the Steemplatform. We support co-curation, mutual support and the promotion of the @naturalmedicine community, and are inclusive and respectful of each others skills, wisdoms and knowledge.

I’m pretty proud of the ‘Archives’ on @naturalmedicine Discord server that aim to go beyond post promotion but to create a knowledge bank under particular subject areas – everything from psychedelics to birth and sound healing, as well as Chinese medicine (@metametheus is our man here) to emotional freedom tapping (@eftnow is your man for that wonderful technique) and herbalism (@walkerland, @ofsedgeandsalt, @mountainjewel are some of the passionate herbalists who post their work there) to @zen-art’s practical advice on how are brains are wired or the benefits of Vitamin C. All of a sudden we had to create more and more channels just to accommodate all the different sorts of natural healing that were being written about on Steemit - @trucklife-family’s gorgeous explorations of nature as a healing space, @kennyskitchen’s musings on the Tao Te Ching.

Working with @metametheus, @mountainjewel and others, I'm trying to make a supportive and nurturing community that helps people feel valued and stay on this platform doing the brilliant things they do - so many people have so much great stuff to offer it would be a shame if the changes of the Hard Fork discourage people from contributing. I can't think of a single other social platform that supports conscious content in this way and really want it to succeed because I care about the potential this place has for making the world better, even if it's in small ways.

Whilst I’ve never been a big player on the platform and it’s not my style to be one, I do my best to be part of things. I write on the questions of the week posed by @tribesteemup, @ecotrain and @freedomtribe (and now we host our own questions for liquid steem incentive, which you can see here) because they are questions that need discussing because that’s the kind of platform Steemit is – a place to discuss and raise important subjects that can be taboo elsewhere or at least suppressed because they force us to confront things about ourselves and society that need addressing if not absolute change.

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On @freedomtribe I’m a content hunter and help with the curation posts and promoting @eaglespirit’s fantastic initiative #freedomfriday. I'm also honoured to be in the @earthtribe Discord server and absolutely support their projects that that, like the other tribes, aim to ‘make the world a better place’.

I’m constantly inspired by the folk there and hope in some way I’ve provided a service that’s of value to the people that jump between the tribes like me. Sometimes we need one tribe, sometimes another, sometimes all of them – that’s the global world we live in, after all, that we can walk into one person’s tribe and learn and grow and contribute, then travel into another and do the same and then come back again. What a beautiful place Steemit is that it gives us the opportunity to do that, and is is a credit to all the different tribes that they allow this fluidity too.

A big thankyou to all the tribes who have included, loved and supported me on Steemit. You have made my world.

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Special thanks to @flauwy for the introduction of the #tribevibes monster created by @kayrex ... how gorgeous is he? I absolutely love the synchronicity of this as @naturalmedicines new challenge image, the one we are using for our fortnightly challenges from now on in, also contains the tree of life sacred geometry. This cant be a coincidence, can it? Love it.

This post is also an entry to win 1up tokens. If you havent heard of these, check out @flauwy's post here




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If you're a supporter of all things natural healing, you might like to read our introductory post here. We'd also love to welcome you on Discord here!!

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Woo hoo I just love this post river and miss you in chat ... those photos you posted are gorgeous and this writing in all you do is commendable. thank you for all you do, you are a huge support and a lovemama.

much love,
eagle spirit

Awwww you know I'm two.hours from home and constant wifi... I will be a constant river of love soon! Xxx much love you beautiful gem x

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woo hoooo can't wait!!! xox

Love ya work, #naturalmedicine mumma!! 🤗🙏🏽💜🌿

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Couldn't do it without you, Uncle @metametheus!! xx

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Couldn't do it without you, Uncle @metametheus!! xx

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I guess one of the hardest thing to do is to remove never from good enough @riverflows.
That takes long to heal.
Love your post.

Yes! It's so hard - always a journey! xx Thanks for your comment, appreciated x

As what Agent Carter said, "I know my value!"
Why it's so hard to see is in the journey indeed.
You must be home now smelling your own bed.

This was such a brilliant post and I felt touched and reminded of myself, ever wandering over all platforms, being basically everywhere. Some call this my weakness, I will proof it is my strength. As you demonstrate here perfectly, we are all part of many communities and often feel disconnected from all. 1UP will support all these consciousness endeavours of yours via the #tribevibes tag. I feel also a strong synchronicity to have read this post of yours. By any means, Steem is a time hungry business and our all networks grow quickly. I have not been following your recent progress, so it was just the perfect moment to stumble upon you again.

We can empower ourselves with the communities on Steem. And 1UP will empower the Steem communities on so many levels. #TribeVibes is the movement that WILL change the world.

some call this my weakness. i will prove it is my strength.

@flauwy I love this comment so much. I totally get what you mean as when you flit in and out you can feel as if people think you're being flaky or non committal but that's not it at all. your comment made me realise even more that people like us are needed - we're doing our best and #tribevibes is a great way to say 'hey, we're all united' in this whole conscious awareness thing, whatever you call it. And tribes need different folk to make them stronger - the wanderers, the dreamers, the organisers, the loud ones, the quiet ones, the innovators, the writers and artists and tinkers and makers. We are all uniting in an amazing space and I am so humbled to be part of it all. And I'm totally stoked that you have had a chance to see what we're doing at @naturalmedicine and how we fit into this big tribal puzzled. Sometimes Ithink we should be called @naturaltribe, which would have fitted better haha! Much love to you, thanks so much for your beautiful comment and thanks for the support. X

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Really really inspiring @riverflows! I often feel the same when it comes to fitting in to more than one specific tribe, and all the Make The World A Better Place tribes have made that jumping around from tribe to tribe really possible.

that’s the global world we live in, after all, that we can walk into one person’s tribe and learn and grow and contribute, then travel into another and do the same and then come back again.

I love it. Excellent work on creating @naturalmedicine, I need to dive into all the archives a bit more

Good luck on winning your 1Ups, you are doing tons to support community on steemit, I find myself always smiling when I see you've responded to one of my posts on steemit or a thread on disccord!

Thanks for everything you do 😁

Really? Man if I make you smile my work is done! That really makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. Thanks so much!!!

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Yes yes really! Sorry for the late late reply.... I'm catching up! You're welcome 😁

Chuffed being invited to ecotrain?! HAHAHAHA. Did you do that on purpose or did you derail without knowing it. I enjoy reading your posts. So honest. So real. So funny. I also feel like my rebellious nature makes me not fit in but there's definitely so many tribes here. And how amazing is "your" naturalmedicine. Enjoyed the read @riverflows!

Ahahahaha you are the BEST. I guess I was following a train of thought and didn't notice...

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I'm so glad to be in community with you!

Awww thankyou, and ditto! You are so inspiring and I feel quite humbled to be in one with you!

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OMG @riverflows this is such a wonderful piece, as you are indeed one of the most beautiful souls I've encountered here, and am so pleased and humbled to call "friend". I was deeply humbled and thrilled that you invited me into NM, and am forever grateful.
You indeed have, and continue to make the world a better place, at the very least with the work you do here and on Discord.
And the way you and your team have developed NM is nothing short of tremendous.
This is not to blow smoke up your tush, this is to hopefully add just a tad of momentum to your already amazingly high production level.
So much love to you and the team,
-Logan

Awww... I'll take the tush smoke!! Thanks my friend, this means the world to me 💚💚💚

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Hi @riverflows!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.991 which ranks you at #3533 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 51 places in the last three days (old rank 3584).

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 219 contributions, your post is ranked at #25.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • You're on the right track, try to gather more followers.
  • The readers appreciate your great work!
  • Good user engagement!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

Great entry article @riverflows. Thank you for all your wonderful contributions to our conscious communities, and especially for helping form @naturalmedicine. Much love.

Aw, much love back atcha @elamental, appreciated xx

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