52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 7

March 29, 2020 Kristopher Swanson

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Check in with your neighbors.

Good day, friends!

Over the past couple weeks, we have been thinking about a couple definitions that researcher and physician Justin Moore outlined on his episode of our podcast. In the episode, Justin talks about how social isolation and loneliness are not the same thing. Social isolation is a state of being, or the state of being separated from other people, whereas loneliness is a possible response to that state of being. So, while social isolation creates the conditions that can lead to people experiencing loneliness, social isolation does not guarantee that those people will be lonely.

We recognize that in the midst of this pandemic, we all might have to be a little bit more socially isolated from our neighbors. Social distancing involves intentionally separating ourselves from one another by a minimum distance of six feet, right? But here’s the thing: In the midst of this social isolation, none of our neighbors have to feel lonely! I’ll say it again. In the midst of this social isolation, none of our neighbors have to feel lonely!

So how do we help prevent our neighbors from feeling lonely and continue to foster relationships with them in the midst of this time of heightened social isolation? That’s exactly what these neighboring tips seek to address. There are so many ways we can do this, but this week, we propose one of them: that you check in with your neighbors.

This tip is a natural follow-up to last week’s neighboring tip, which was to ask your neighbors for their contact information. Checking in with our neighbors, just to see how they are doing and catch up, is a vital part of neighboring, and in this time of coronavirus, more important than ever. And all it takes is a simple greeting, such as “Hi neighbor!” and a simple check-in question, such as “How are you?”, “How are you feeling?”, “What have you been up to?”, “What’s up?”, or “What’s a crackalackin’?” You get the point. There are tons of ways you can verbally check in with your neighbors! Here are a few ways to physically do the checking in with social distancing in mind…

Wash your hands and then knock on your neighbor’s door or ring their doorbell and walk at least six feet away before engaging in conversation with them.
Call your neighbor (perhaps using that recently gathered contact information!).
Wash your hands and then write your neighbor a card or letter and put it in their mailbox.
Wash your hands and then write your neighbor a note and stick it on their door.
Write a chalk message to your neighbor on their sidewalk or driveway.
Text your neighbor.

Check it out! A list of ways we can check in with our neighbors! We hope this tip proves helpful and encouraging for you, and we hope you enjoy this neighboring experiment.

Happy neighboring!

P.S. If you would like to listen to our podcast episode with Justin Moore, simply follow one of the links below! Our podcast is called The Neighbor Next Door, and Justin’s episode was released two weeks ago. The episode is titled, “Justin Moore: Neighboring for Health”. We also released an episode last week titled, “Neighboring Tip - Neighboring in the Time of Coronavirus”, and this episode presents a more general neighboring tip that includes a bunch of ideas on how to be a good neighbor in the midst of this pandemic. Enjoy, and thank you for listening!