The Nine Lives Series - The Community Member

The Community Member: Community Should Be a Place You Belong, Not a Place You Disappear

By Dana L. Cox | Executive Coach, TEDx Speaker, Author

You are in a room with people you know. A meeting. A planning session. A conversation about something the group is trying to pull together. An event. A fundraiser. A project the community wants to make happen. Someone says they need help organizing it. Before you can even think about whether you want to be involved, someone else speaks.

“Oh she’ll do it.” A few people laugh. Someone adds, “She’s the one who always keeps these things running.” The room turns toward you. You hear yourself answer.

Sure.

You tell yourself what you always tell yourself.

I care about this community. Someone has to do it. It’s not a big deal.

It feels like generosity.

Here is what is actually happening.

She has become the woman everyone counts on in the community. The one who organizes things. Shows up. Supports causes. Serves on boards. Volunteers. It looks like influence. It looks like leadership. It looks like generosity. But underneath it is often something else. Expectation.

Once she became the dependable one, the community quietly built around her reliability. And at some point participation became responsibility. Responsibility became identity. And identity became something she was no longer free to question. The community simply came to expect it. And she came to believe that stepping back would mean letting everyone down.

The Lie That Keeps Her Showing Up

The lie is that if you care about your community, you should always be available to it. Women are praised for being involved. Supportive. Present. Helpful. The woman who always shows up becomes admired. But admiration quietly becomes an obligation. And over time she stops asking herself the question that used to matter.

Do I want to be here? Or am I here because everyone expects me to be?

Those are two very different reasons to be in a room.

What I Tell Her When She Is Sitting Across From Me

Community is powerful. Belonging matters. Connection is real. But belonging is not supposed to erase her freedom to choose where she shows up. She is allowed to step back from roles she never consciously chose. She is allowed to show up when she wants to, not because the room has already decided she will. And if the community cannot function without her saying yes every time, that is not a measure of her value. It is a sign that the community never learned to share the weight.

Community should be a place you belong. Not a place you disappear.

About the Author

Dana L. Cox is an executive coach, TEDx speaker, and author of From Burnout to Badass. She is the founder of FIX Coaching & Consulting and creator of the Positioned to Paid™ framework, which helps high-achieving women move from invisible to unstoppable in their careers and lives. Learn more at danalcox.com.