Finding your home

Community comes in many forms. The one where we live. The one at work. Our family. Old school friends. Shared hobbies. We move through different communities all the time — some chosen, some inherited, some just circumstantial. But every so often, if we’re lucky, we find one that goes deeper. A group of people who see you as you are, without asking you to shrink. Where the connection feels effortless. Safe. True.

I found that this weekend. A community of people so kind, generous, and open-hearted that I’ll struggle to put into words what it meant (but all the same, I’ll try, however short I fall).

The world teaches us early to manage ourselves. To be palatable. To be productive in a certain way. To present the version of ourselves that gets the most approval and causes the least disruption. And so we edit. Maybe we even mask.

If we’re lucky, we meet people who invite us to stop, not through words necessarily, but through their warmth, their welcome, their love.

Eight years ago, I met someone like that, in the sauna at Clacton Leisure Centre (of all places!). He was sitting quietly, meditating, wearing what I later learned were blue-blocker sunglasses. You’re more likely to find a woolly mammoth than see a scene like that! Long story short: 30 minutes later, we’d become what his wonderful wife would later call “sauna boyfriends.” We happily embraced it!

Since then, he’s introduced me to so many things that have expanded my life, my mind, and my wellbeing. He never pushed anything. He just lived it. Winter sea swims. Topless cold walks. Breathwork (before Wim Hof made it a thing!) He lives with a wild and open-minded intention, but never in a preachy way. I have always been grateful for his bombastic energy. I always will be.

This past weekend, he and his wife opened up their home. A leafy, quiet, beautiful place and invited sixteen people from different parts of their lives to spend time together.

People from all kinds of backgrounds: spiritual types, creatives, former bankers, old friends. There was no common job, age, or lifestyle, just a shared connection to these two generous souls and a willingness to show up with open hearts.

It became the most healing and powerful experience of my life.

We didn’t all know each other when we arrived. But over fires, field walks, and long conversations, something shifted. There was laughter, tears, and moments of stillness. People offered support without needing attention. There was cacao, music, silence, and shared meals. It all felt easy. Honest. Unforced. Beautiful. Kind people, caring for one another without judgment.

On Sunday morning, we sat in a circle, each holding a warm cup of cacao, passed around by beautiful souls who bring calm to every space they enter. One by one, we shared what the weekend had meant. And it meant the world to every single one of us.

It’s easy to forget that this kind of connection is possible. That it still exists - human connection - stripped of pretence. We live in a world of algorithms and fast takes, where everything is curated and nothing is slow. A world where autocratic powers shape the news, technology mediates our relationships.

In all that noise, believing that we’ve lost something we’ll never get back is tempting. But this weekend reminded me: we haven’t lost it. We’ve just been looking in the wrong places.

We still have the ability to gather. To build something that is sacred, without needing to label it that way. To be there for each other, including total strangers. To hold space when someone’s falling apart, or when they’re finally coming back together. We can still do that. And we have to.

Every one of us carries a gift, a light, a presence that can lift someone else. And when you put enough people like that in one place, something happens. It doesn’t need a name. You just feel it. You know you’re part of something bigger than yourself, and somehow more yourself at the same time.

That’s what I found, after forty-one years.

A quiet, strong, generous circle that opened up and let me in. A community of pure love. And now I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to open circles like that for others because the world needs them. Because we need them. In the words of Dan, who I met this weekend: Peace. Love. Unity. Thank you, Dan.

Thank you for reading. May you find your community. May your light shine.

With great love and blessings,

Benjamin