The Power (and Beauty) of Checking in with Each Other

How are you feeling right now?

It’s a pretty simple question, but it’s also a powerful one. How often do we stop and check in on each other?

The Mid-week Check-in

Over in the Coworking Content Alliance, we do weekly check-ins with a twist. We ask people to respond with a gif.

Week after week, this simple question leads to a stream of hilarious, silly, sometimes sad, insightful posts from coworking space operators around the world.

That fun little exercise is proving to be the heart of our community. When people are up, we celebrate and laugh with them; when they’re struggling, we give them support and a friendly word.

I always look forward to our mid-week check-in. Other people have told me they do too. And our gif game, I must say, is on-point. People dig deep to find the right gif to express their mood.

Making Space for Each Other

In the last few months, I’ve been really fortunate to be part of several communities that do regular check-ins. I’m doing Cotivation with two good friends, I have a few standing meetings that always leave space for people to check in about how things are going for them, and I have friends I check in with several times a week.

One of the cool things about regular group check-ins is that they allow us to see that we all experience the same things: joy, frustration, overwhelm, excitement, sadness, anticipation, loss, reemergence.

When you hear regularly from people, it becomes clear that we can be overwhelmed one week and have a great sense of accomplishment the next; we can be excited one week and disappointed the next; we can be sad one week, and peaceful the next.

This is the whole human experience, isn’t it? The ups and downs are part of the deal.

We’re just sharing them with each other, and it’s really powerful.

And beautiful.

Hard Times and Good Times

The other day I was challenged to remember what I was stressed about at this time last week.

I had to really stretch my brain to try to remember, and what I came up with was pretty vague.

Hard times come, and good times come, and somewhere in the middle is life. And we’re all here for it.

CheckYoMate

The simple act of checking in is inspired CheckYoMate. The idea is just to reach out to people in your life to see how they’re doing.

It’s as easy as picking up a phone or cutting through the small talk to let someone know you care.

With that simple gesture, we can start dismantling loneliness, destigmatizing mental illness, and building supportive communities.

Do you have ways to regularly check in with the people around you, whether your members, your friends, your family?

What do you do? Do you have a strategy that works really well for you? I’d love to hear what you’re up to. Email me or share in the comments.

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