Since 2013 I have been trying to live in a co-op and in 2020 my dream FINALLY came true. While I’ve already been a part of a few conscious communities, actually living in a codependent community is a completely different experience and one I would highly recommend – here’s why:

Why live with six other people?

When I decided to officially move into the co-op the world felt like utter chaos. Think back to June 2020 when Black Lives Matter protests had just broken out across the country and COVID lockdown continued to drag on. I was hoping to find a community of folks, ideally older, who could help process the current events… Little did I know we still had an impending hellish fire season in California that September and an extremely stressful election that would end in an attempted coup.  I was so relieved when the community I found often discussed these issues, and we even took action together! Having a sounding board of peers with which to discuss current events over dinner kept me grounded in the moment, finding a sanity together amid the madness.

I was also excited to make new friends! I luckily ended up loving my housemates… even more after getting to know their quirks like how Blanchard is a caricature of himself who eats three bites of vanilla ice cream every night and how CN wears blankets as dresses while spouting profound inclusivity. While moving in with strangers is a strange way to make friends, it was an extremely effective way to get to know people really well.

The Hearth

The name of the co-op is The Hearth aka The Coaching House and it definitely lived up to the name of warmth and personal development. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned from this community:

CULTURE can be formed even amid a small group and can have a profound effect on your life.  As the coaches say, it can be the “water you’re swimming in” or the context you have to acknowledge, even if you don’t fully understand it. The culture of the Hearth is present, inquisitive, and caring. These characteristics have seeped into my being due to my experience here.

RITUALS are the underpinnings of a culture, the ways we put our ideals into practice. It seems like such a simple concept, but I didn’t fully appreciate rituals until practicing them with a group of committed people. For example, we had the ritual of eating dinner at 7pm together every evening which kept us connected and nourished. What rituals do you practice that help you embody your ideals?

SUPPORT can mean SO many things. I had not realized the water I was swimming in with the American ideal of “making it on your own”. The Hearth completely dismantled this structure of knowing whereby people asked for support from some of the bigger (like selling a car) to even the smaller (like making Spotify work well) life tasks. I had previously thought “you just get those things done yourself!” but the process of helping others opened up a new vulnerability for me to ask for support on random things. I would have never expected depending on others to feel so liberating.

CHORES are something everyone asks about regarding group living. They are a pain with a large group, obviously, but for me the philosophy that we are “hosting each other” was a really sweet way of thinking about it. So when I clean, I consider it “cleaning up for my guests” who are actually my housemates.

ABUNDANCE is aplenty from groceries to furniture to a lending hand. We have so much more when we live together, and while we give a little more we are rewarded with abundant appreciation in return as well, completing the cycle of abundance.

Update from 2022

I help co-create my own co-op with four friends! We enjoy a rich community and friend group, in part due to our stated shared purpose:
~ House Vision~
This house exists to enhance our personal and collective journeys with a diversity of experiences, communities, thoughts and actions.

~Guiding Vibes~

  • Chill but hype
  • We are on a vision quest, a journey together and welcome new experiences and people
  • We explore the new new, occasionally pushing ourselves and each other to the edge of our comfort zones
  • We create together
  • We include each other, but realize not everyone can do/ go to everything
  • We support each other to grow and make our individual growth happen
  • We aim to be our best selves and hold each other accountable in each other’s pursuit
  • We respect solo/recharge time
  • A lot of great things happens outside
  • We prioritize our relationships over arguments, knowing we enrich each other’s lives in many ways
  • We recognize we have abundance together
  • We savor it

-JB’s Yung Padawan