Community Standards for Keeping Each Other Safe

Our 12 Community Standards represent the votes of a majority of all active members who attend our groups. The section Recommendations from the Board of Directors describe how to suggest new Community Standards for the next round of voting.

Summaries of Our 12 Community Standards

Summary: All of our Standards are intended to keep us safe so that we can continue to feel connections as close as families and as strong as a mind meld in some situations. Click the links to read the actual, detailed agreements.

Additional Recommendations from the Board of Directors

How to suggest new recommendations and Standards. Voting members are those that attend groups. (3 recommendations)

12 Community Standards

We Treat Our Groups as Safe, Confidential, and Supporting Communities

  • Our groups are confidential communities, and what happens inside of those communities must remain confidential in those communities. In the future, if the Joyful Wisdom Community provides individual coaching services, what happens in coaching sessions is also confidential.

Our Gentle Approach to Our Agreements

  • We recognize that it is often difficult to distinguish how our agreements with one another apply to our behavior, and we agree to forgive one another when we err.When someone is attending our groups for the first time, we agree to first invite them to read our Standards for Keeping Each Other Safe — as posted here.
  • We agree to find gentle ways to remind one another about errors. If you have a problem with someone else and we have a clear agreement about it, the first thing to do is to remind the person about our agreements. If that doesn’t work, ask another group member to help you, and if that doesn’t work, ask for help from a member of the board or other designated individual.

Our Groups Are Not Appropriate Places for Selling, Promoting, or Proselytizing

  • We agree that recruiting and selling are different from openhearted sharing. We agree to avoid using our groups (include chat groups) for selling, recruiting other people for causes — political or not, or proselytizing about religious or other types of beliefs. Selling includes promoting supplements, insurance, and services, such as coaching and computer support.
  • At the same time, we recognize that we all believe strongly in some of the things we care about — which could be products, movements, or spirituality. All of these things can be appropriately discussed as a form of sharing, so long as your focus is only on sharing your experience and not on convincing other people to try something new.
  • If you know that every member in your group has common beliefs about fighting climate change, promoting peace, solving social or environmental problems, or working on a specific personal health need, then your group can openly problem-solve about it by common agreement. However, everyone should avoid doing anything in this regard for personal profit — and we agreed to bend over backwards to each avoid giving a wrong impression about our intentions.
  • In sharing from the heart, all of these issues will come up, which is entirely expected. When you’re sharing from the heart, you might say something along the lines of “This is my experience.” And, “I’m really working hard to change X by doing Y…” In this kind of sharing, you’re not trying to change anyone’s mind or get them to buy into something, no matter how good you think it is.
  • Our groups are for changing ourselves only. In other words, in the Chrysalis, nothing is shoved down anyone’s throat, and there is no one right way. When operating with this distinction, any resistance that anyone feels to any suggestion is cherished as a means to understanding more deeply. The resistance that you feel may be a important element of the truth that the group will embrace.

The Joyful Wisdom Community Does Not Tolerate Hatred

  • A coach who is operating through or associated with the Joyful Wisdom Community may seek to help you work through strong feelings of bias against any person or group of people — whether you have personal feelings about a specific person or hatred towards a group of people that are defined by race, lifestyle, gender orientation, religion, or politics.However, this tolerance toward hatred should only be expected in one-to-one coaching.
  • Our groups are not appropriate places to work through personal issues involving strong feelings of bias against any person or any group of people — unless that is the reason for creating the group in the first place. If you need to work through such feelings, please ask for a private coach, and please realize that expressing feelings of hatred in a group may be destructive towards the group — or that it may taint your own reputation within the group.
  • On the other hand, it is appropriate to ask your group if they are willing to help you work through such strong and negative feelings. If all members of the group are willing to help you with such feelings, then such a decision by the group does not violate these standards.
  • If you aren’t comfortable with strong feelings or opinions expressed by other members of our community, please ask a member of the Board of Directors to help you deal with the issue. This might mean helping you to accept more diversity of opinion, belief, or lifestyle, or it might mean helping you to gently confront harmful behavior.

Recommendations from the Board of Directors

  • Since many people don’t like reading long lists of Standards, bylaws, and other organizational details, we’ve summarized them in the table of contents for this page. If you disagree with our summary, please contact a member of the Board of Directors.
  • If you think we need another Standard to protect our organization or its members, please be prepared to have a Chrysalis about your concerns with the Board of Directors. Even if we agree completely with your concerns, a Chrysalis about it may create a more concise and comprehensive recommendation.
  • Periodically, we will submit potential new Standards to the membership for a vote. Members are defined as people who have actively attended face-to-face groups (including on Skype and Zoom) recently multiple times. This can include two-person groups and members who meet regularly on or with the Board of Directors. Chat group members who do not actively attend such face-to-face groups are not voting members.