I’ve talked to the same barista almost every day at 12:15pm for the past year. It’s maybe a five minute interaction, tops. And somehow it’s become one of the most consistent, grounding parts of my day.
For a while, I was kind of embarrassed about that. I didn’t understand how something so small could matter that much. It’s just coffee. A super quick conversation usually about something pretty ‘surface-y’. But overtime I started to notice something in my routine coffee chat:
Those interactions were actually not small at all.
We tend to think that what shapes our mental health are the big things. Think: Major life events. Big decisions. Breakthrough moments. And while those things do matter quite a bit, what I’ve noticed is how often we overlook how our day-to-day emotional experience is shaped by something much quieter.
Small, repeated moments of connection.
It’s the person who remembers your order. The coworker you exchange a few words with between meetings. The familiar face you see on your walk, even if you never say much to each other. These moments don’t feel life changing as you go about your day, for sure, but what I’ve begun to notice is that they do add up to something that is rather amazing.
From a psychological perspective, humans are wired for connection. Not just deep, intimate relationships, either. But rather a mix of that plus consistent, predictable interactions that signal:
These small interactions help regulate our nervous system in ways that we often don’t consciously notice. They, instead, create a sense of familiarity, a sense of steadiness, and this subtle undercurrent of being held within the rhythm of our daily life. And when those moments are present consistently, they can quietly support our overall sense of well-being.
In our work, we see people searching for ways to feel better. They want less anxiety, less depression, more confidence, or to trade out self-criticism and doubt for self-love or acceptance They’re often looking for:
But when we approach our mental wellbeing in this way, what often gets missed is this:
Sometimes the things that are already helping are the easiest to dismiss. Because they seem to small or they’re too ordinary or they’re too “insignificant” to count. But those are often the exact things creating moments of regulation, connection, and stability.
As humans, we spend a lot of time trying to change how we feel by doing something big (ask me how I know!).
A new health routine. A significant life shift. A major decision about our job or house or family or … the list could go on forever. And sure, sometimes that is very necessary. But a lot of the time, how we feel is shaped less by what happens occasionally and more by what happens consistently. Like the small conversations that take up space in our days, the familiar environments, and the moments where nothing dramatically large happens but something still feels good.
When we think about “community” we often imagine something large and structured, like a running club or a city counsel meeting or a neighborhood we share with others. These are lovely examples of community, but we adopt these examples as being the only experience of community we can skip right over the reality of how community is built. What my experience with my favorite barista has taught me is that community is often built through:
& honestly it’s not always something that you have to go out and expedition for. Sometimes it’s already present in your daily life in quieter ways than you expected.
If I can offer you anything on this topic, it’s this:
If there’s something small in your life right now that feels grounding; something that you might be tempted to brush off or minimize, it just might be worth paying attention to. Because not everything meaningful announces itself as a big deal. Some of it just…shows up consistently. And over time that consistency can shape how you feel, more than you might realize.
What happens if we show up in our lives holding the question, “Can I create with you?”? And we allow ourselves to show up to every moment with the vulnerability to create meaning from all that we experience, not just the big life events. What if the moments in between hold stability and peace and inspiration and love and connection? What if we start considering them worthwhile enough to let them build and contour our lives on the daily?
We often think our healing or change has to come from something big. What I’m wagering here is that sometimes this starts with noticing what’s already right in front of us. The 5 minute conversation. The familiar rhythm. The small moment of being seen.
Those things matter. Often times more than what we tend to give them credit for.
