I’m Really Struggling with My Online Business…
On loneliness, belonging and why I'm done pretending Facebook groups and coaching programs are the village we're craving.
As I’ve become more and more clear about what I want and desire in this stage of life, it’s become obvious that REAL, in-the-flesh community and experiences are where it’s at.
I want to be highly involved in my children’s lives. AND I want to pursue my purpose and have a business.
For a long time, I thought the online coaching world was the sweet spot where those dreams could coexist.
But I’m not so sure it is anymore…in fact, I’m kinda sorta sure it’s not.
The Unicorn Phase
At first the online coaching industry felt like a UNICORN!
Here was this glittery, high-octane space filled with spiritual entrepreneurs, creatives, and coaches who got it. They wanted to go deep, talk about the stuff nobody else was talking about, and build lives with no limits.
My days consistent of Zoom calls with juicy trainings and breakthroughs. Group chats buzzing with pep talks and gifs and “You’ve got this, babe!” messages. And late-night Voxer voice notes that were like if therapy and girl’s night had a baby.
IT WAS THE BEST!! People I could talk to for hours on end about purpose and polarity and marketing strategy and mystical awakenings—all from the comfort of my cozy, vibey home while wearing Lulu leggings?! YESSSS PLZ!
For the past decade plus, I told myself: These are my people. This is sooooo much better than what I’m experiencing “in the real world.”
And for a while, it worked.
For a while, it really did feel like community.
I wasn’t just inspired—I felt seen, understood, and surrounded by people who shared my values and my vision.
The Slow Fade
But then something happened. It didn’t happen all at once—it was more like a slow leak I didn’t notice at first.
The coaching program ended. The group chat went quiet. And all those late-night Voxer conversations trickled down to birthday texts or the occasional “OMG love this for you” Instagram comment.
At first, I didn’t think much of it. Life gets busy, right? People move on, join new containers, chase new goals, have babies, and do life things.
Then I thought maybe it might just be a me thing.
But it kept happening.
Then I figured it was just certain communities that fizzled out. Or maybe just online only experiences.
But the retreat experiences weren’t that much different.
I’d show up to these in-person experiences absolutely starving for in-person connection. And they delivered! Shared meals, spontaneous dance parties, soul-baring conversations until 1 am—so many juicy moments where I was like YUM. YES. This is it!!!
And then…I’d go home.
Integration is real after any powerful experience, but this felt different. It wasn’t just the normal emotional drop after an intense high—it was realizing that I was back to my everyday life…alone.
Sure, we’d DM or check in now and then. But the day-to-day, year-after-year rhythm I craved just wasn’t there.
And this was the heartbreak I didn’t want to name and ignored for a reallllly really long time…
For the most part, even though these were people I truly loved, they weren’t my community—they were my network.
Networks are amazing for inspiration, access, ideas, even friendships. But when hell is breaking loose with the kids and you desperately need a hand…When you’re sobbing on a random Tuesday afternoon and just need someone to sit on the couch with you…
Networks don’t show up at your door with soup. Once I let myself admit that, I couldn’t unsee it.
Why Online Coaching “Communities” Often Disappoint
But it did take me a while to admit it.
Partly because I was enamored by the online coaching world that had given me so much. Partly because it was also my livelihood. And partly because these spaces really do hold magic! They’re full of big-hearted people doing epic, creative things.
Even with all that, I kept feeling the same ache.
When I looked honestly at my experiences, most coaching spaces fell into the same pattern:
1. They revolve around a person or a program—not each other.
Most of these spaces are built around a central figure or shared goal. Whether it’s the coach, the launch, the curriculum, or the promise. And once that container ends, the thing that held everyone together disappears.
TRUTH SMACK: When you’re in it, it feels like connection—but it’s connection mediated by content or even a shiny vision, but not by shared life.
2. They collapse when the container closes.
That group chat that was blowing up every day turns to crickets.
Those people you thought you’d be besties with forever are off doing their next mastermind. And so are you.
TRUTH SMACK: True community doesn’t evaporate just because the initial reason for gathering changes—it weathers transitions because the relationships are the point, not the curriculum.
3. There’s a performative undertone.
People show up polished, “on-brand,” and a little extra curated.
You might share your struggles or “vulnerabilities”, but you’re still the “growth-oriented, working-on-myself” version of you, not the messy, contradictory, “I haven’t showered in three days and I just freaked out at my partner” version.
TRUTH SMACK: True community invites you to be ALL of you. The all-star achiever and the hot mess express.
4. There’s no embodied care.
In real-life communities, people notice when you’re sick. They drop food at your door. They watch your kids when you’re overwhelmed.
TRUTH SMACK: In online spaces, you can post something vulnerable and get thirty-five emoji reactions and a “sending love, babe” but no one shows up with soup.
Not every program ticked all these boxes. And I’m def not saying these spaces are bad—they’re not. They served a purpose and continue to serve a purpose and are valuable to many people (including myself.)
But I was using them as a replacement for something ancient and embodied and irreplaceable…embedded, interdependent, in-the-flesh community.
The Retreat Illusion
Because I realized the importance of in-person connection, I decided to prioritize attending retreats. Suuuurely that was the answer!!
These came waaaay closer to what I was craving!
being in the room with people—getting to look them in the eyeballs, squeeze ‘em tight, wipe their tears
laughing over shared meals of food that were either cooked with love for us or that we made together
being in circle with each other holding space for big life moments
listening to people cry and howl without a mute button
moving through rituals and life moments side-by-side
But even retreats, with all their intensity and intimacy, were still…fleeting. Because they’re a peak experience, not a permanent ecosystem. There’s no shared life holding them together. No ongoing rhythm. No structure of mutual need.
And so, they illuminated what I wanted—while also highlighting the painful distance between that desire and my day-to-day reality.
Networks vs. Communities
What I finally realized—after yearssss of trying to convince myself otherwise—is that what I had was (99% of the time) a network… not a true community.
Sociologists make this distinction…A network is a group of people connected by interest, industry, or purpose. They’re often fast, vast, transient, and transactional. Think LinkedIn groups, coaching programs, Instagram, etc.
Networks are powerful and valuable! They connect us to ideas, opportunities, and people across the world in a hot second.
They’ve given me opportunity, learning, inspiration, and access to people I adore. But they def don’t replace what humans have needed for eons and eons—THE VILLAGE, babyyy. I am craving the daily, embodied, we-know-each-other’s-lives kind of belonging that humans evolved to need.
That’s where a community is different. It’s built on shared life, shared life, and mutual obligation—people who know you, rely on you, and show up for each other over time.
Networks = connection, but not necessarily belonging
Purpose: Exchanging information, resources, opportunities. (I connect with you because we overlap or I need something you have).
Structure: Loose and transient. People come and go, because the point is the exchange, not the relationship.
Mode: Mostly digital, asynchronous, disembodied.
Emotional tone: Stimulating, inspiring, but rarely holding you through your Tuesday afternoon breakdown.
Stability: They dissolve when the shared interest or platform fades.
Communities = belonging, identity, shared life
Purpose: Commitment to each other and something bigger than ourselves. There’s a sense of we-ness—a “who we are” and “how we live” together.
Structure: Dense and sticky. Your kids know their kids. You borrow sugar, they show up at funerals. People share multiple roles with each o ther.
Mode: Synchronous, embodied, rooted in a place (physical or digital with real culture, ritual, and rhythm). People don’t just share information…they share life.
Emotional tone: Safety, belonging, responsibility, sometimes friction (because being close is real), but also deep meaning.
Stability: They last and can withstand changes because shared identity—not a temporary goal—holds them together.
For the past ten years+ I’ve been living mostly in networks. So while I’ve been “connected” to zillions of people, I’ve experienced profound loneliness. After all, being visible isn’t the same as being known. And despite my best efforts and wishes, I’m not going to find permanent belonging in temporary containers.
The Loneliness Epidemic is Real
I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. It’s not just a mom thing or a business owner thing either. It’s a human thing.
Loneliness is literally a public health crisis.
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General released an advisory calling loneliness and social isolation an epidemic—saying it has the same health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
CRAAAAZY. But like…not so crazy if you’ve experienced it.
And the data backs it up:
People with strong social bonds live longer.
They have lower rates of anxiety and depression.
They even experience less chronic pain.
Belonging isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s literally medicine.
Humans are wired for interdependence. For most of human history, belonging wasn’t something you had to find on the internet. It was built in.
We lived in villages, clans, and tribes where survival depended on each other:
Someone grew food while someone else built shelter.
Kids were raised by many caring adults.
If you were sick, people noticed—and they showed up.
Life had a rhythm that kept people woven together: meals, rituals, celebrations, mourning, even boredom—together.
Modern life stripped most of that away. We move often, live far from extended family, and fill our calendars with endless activities—but rarely bump into someone we know at the market or see the same familiar faces week after week in a shared physical space.
Sooo…What actually creates a sense of embedded belonging?
Physical or consistent shared space (where you see each other without having to schedule it).
Repeated rituals (shared meals, standing weekly hangouts, communal experiences, even just knowing who you’ll see at the park every Sunday).
Mutual obligation (you matter because people need you and you need them).
These are the very things online coaching spaces (and, honestly, most modern life) rarely give us.
How Digital Life Erodes True Community
It’s not that we don’t want this embedded belonging I’m speaking to—it’s that the way we’re living makes real community harder to sustain.
Place-based rituals have disappeared.
Community used to be built on shared, in-person rhythms—meals, markets, ceremonies, barn raisings (or, you know, just helping your neighbor carry in groceries). Those repetitive moments create embodied trust. Today we might “like” someone’s post but never know the sound of their laugh, what they smell like after gardening (ok…I don’t garden, BUT IF I DID!), or how they look when they cry.
Weak ties dominate.
Digital life encourages “many, shallow” > “few, deep” connections. You might have 15k IG followers—but none who know your childhood dog’s name or what calms you when you’re spiraling. That shallowness doesn’t just feel different—it is different biologically (oxytocin bonding, nervous system regulation, etc.).
Accountability is basically optional.
In a real-life village, if you screw someone over, word spreads—and you deal with it. In the only world, you can ghost, block, rebrand, change your handle, etc. That lack of accountability changes how people show up for each other (or don’t).
Community care infrastructure has collapsed.
Historically, communities literally kept people alive—watching kids, sharing food, taking care of each other’s homes and bodies. Networks rarely step into that role. If your car breaks down, your TikTok followers aren’t coming to pick you up.
Belonging is conditional and performative.
Online “communities” often bond over shared beliefs or aesthetics, which can feel good—but step out of line, change your mind, or disagree—RUH ROHHH. Canceled. BUH BYEEE! Real community holds friction and difference because connection is relational, not topical.
What I Actually Want
What I want is to be in community every day. I want people I do life with.
Not just the ones who’ll cheer me on in a group chat or send fire emojis when I publish a siiiick post—but the ones who know when I’m away and need help putting my trash out, who can read the look in my eyes and know when something is off, who know what make my kids giggle, who know the quirks of my husband, and of course, who know the way I like my coffee (this was a trick!! If you really know me, you know I rarely drink coffee and am a matcha girl through and through—but how do I like it?! HMMM).
I CRAAAVE kind of built-in belonging where you don’t have to schedule two weeks out to see each other because you already do—every week, every month, year after year.
I want mutual need. I want to matter to people—not because of what I can teach them, launch for them, or inspire them to do—but because I’m in their life, and they’re in mine. I want to be someone’s “Oh shit, call Lexi, she’ll know what to do.” And I want to have that for myself as well.
Why I’m Sharing This
Because this is where I’m feeling stuck. I know my business doesn’t have to be my personal life. I know I can continue to have an online business while prioritizing a real world existence.
AND the reality of me being me is that when I love something, I go BIG and all in on it. And idk if I want to go big on the internet.
I also feel morally obligated to do the thing that I believe is in the highest service to the world, my clients, my community, my family, and me.
And I’m struggling to see how online communities fit that vision.
Maybeeee they’re better than nothing. But this is where I’m trying to figure it out.
Because I really do love connecting with all of you and creating content that the world can see.
I’m also sharing this because maybe you feel this too. Maybe you’ve joined coaching programs, online memberships, or masterminds thinking this is it. Maybe you’ve tasted moments of closeness but still feel like you’re floating, not rooted.
What I know for certain is…
Humans need community—the kind that doesn’t end when the program ends. That’s what I’m craving and calling in right now.
What about you, boo boo? Have you felt any or all of this too? Are you craving more real life, in-the-flesh connection? What does community look like (or not look like) for you right now? Tell me, tell me!! I’d love to hear what’s real and alive for you <3