It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were marking the 1000th day of the hashtag, although that was way back on 28th September 2020. This post in August 2020 provided a reflection of the hashtag ahead of that and one phrase that stood out when re-reading it today was:
“But what was unexpected and a gift that arose from the hashtag was the connection and community around it.”
That thought resonated with a recent talk I did for the ACBS chapter in Peru for their “Creating Compassionate Communities” event. So I thought it would be appropriate to mark the 2000th day on 27th June 2023 by sharing some of the reflections from that talk.
It is not a story about a hashtag – it is a story about connection.
Connection 1 – the start
The scene – a cold early spring day in 2017, a therapy room, I am in the midst of a long period of depression, with a simple question being asked of me.
“Have you heard of Paul Gilbert?”
I looked up from my favourite view of the floor.
“Who?’
(Sorry Paul)
Now picture the therapist drawing a big red circle on a piece of paper and saying “Paul has this model, of three circles – our threat system…” now a large blue circle was added “…our drive system…” and then a smaller green circle “…and our soothing system”.
This was accompanied by the sound of a celestial choir and a ray of sunlight shining onto the paper.
Okay. That bit didn’t happen but the model made some sense within my befuddled mind. In parallel to therapy I began to read around ideas of compassion and acceptance, starting with “Mindful Compassion” and it started to help. A more compassionate, supportive approach enabled me to become less uncomfortable with depression, leading to writing about it – first to just a small group of friends, then a public blog, which started to get shared on social media. That lead to connections with people experiencing similar to myself and to those in the wider compassion community.
Connection 2 – the hashtag
One of those connections was with Dr Mary Welford. In December 2017 Mary ran an Advent of Compassion, posting a daily post on Twitter of something compassion related – a talk, an article etc, and invited others to do so. This provided me with the inspiration for doing that every day for a year and so the #365DaysOfCompassion hashtag was created. This blog post explains what the simple idea was.
As covered in the 1000 day reflection post I support the hashtag with daily quotes, mainly taken from tweets, and matched with an image that I thought reflected the author’s words. I have my daily posting schedule where Monday= book quote, Friday = musical quote, Saturday = the Review, and Sunday = a podcast, with other days posting articles, research, blogs and videos. The Review was created to enable a weekly collection of the daily posts, providing an online magazine of all the posts. To avoid costs, as anything to do with the hashtag is always free and intended to be freely shared, the Review went onto Flipboard in Feb 2020, with the 167th edition to be published this Saturday. All editions on Fipboard are available, which provides a great compassion-themed library of resources.
Connection 3 – the unexpected
The hashtag has lead to many unexpected things. Writing has often been helpful for me, so aside from a personal blog and an ebook, a hashtag themed community blog came along, with diverse contributions from many people. Talking about depression and compassion wasn’t alway easy, however the hashtag has been presented at workshops, public and corporate events. The hashtag has been featured and discussed on a number of podcasts, providing opportunities to explain what it is and how compassion has helped, which includes talking about CFT while in Paul’s lounge for the BABCP podcast in 2018! The YouTube channel provided another way to share how CFT and CMT help from a non-clinical perspective.
Again inspired by Mary, the Book Club came along, which for a couple of years was run on Twitter and then moved to a live video format in early 2021. It is now back with a full schedule for the rest of 2023. The Chisi Awards started off as a daft idea in December 2017 on my personal blog as a way of sharing and recommending resources which had been helpful and has continued every year thanks to the support of the community, with the 6th awards in 2022 highlighting podcasts, books, video and community members who made a difference that year. So much of these unexpected things are because of connection and community.
Connection 4 – the community
And it is that community that is the biggest unexpected and loveliest aspect of the hashtag. The daily posts idea was to simply share something that perhaps someone else may find helpful, and I know that has happened many times, for many people over the years. It was uncertain whether the daily posts would last even a year, yet here we are, in the sixth year of the hashtag. It has created a community feeling, with some people part of that since day 1, some since only yesterday. Some people have come and gone. Some are very quiet, some more active. And none of that really matters to the hashatg – everyone is welcome, everyone is valued.
It is a community that someone recently called a “home from home”.
I have no idea how many people have a connection to the hashtag through its various channels and formats. All I do know is those connections have made a wonderful community that now celebrates reaching the 2000th day.
So it is not a story about a hashtag or connection – it is a story about community.
Thanks for being part of it.
#365DaysOfCompassion 