We Heal In Community

Our nervous system keeps us in a dance around “safe enough”. We can protect ourselves into a safe life where our only social contact is through characters in books and on screens. No one will lash out or hurt us. We have a high level of safety.

As we heal we become more interested and available to interacting with people in relationship. It helps to be gentle with ourselves and our protective mechanisms at the same time as we explore and open. There is no right or wrong answer here and it shifts all the time. It’s a dynamic process.

We’re not going to always be in the sweet spot of being around safe enough people and optimal conditions for growth. Building strength and resilience in our nervous system helps us widen our window of tolerance which then opens more possibilities for the connection we all long for.

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Last week I experienced profound healing that comes from holding and being held in community.

As we feel safe enough, we are increasingly able to take the risk to connect and share what is really going on within us. It might not always feel like a choice because sometimes it comes barreling through and we break open. It makes sense that we hold things in for protection. We are not sure we’ll be okay if we let ourselves feel. It can be messy and intense. When we are open and are “met” it can be a huge release and relief.

We are cautious about putting ourselves in situations where we feel vulnerable - to a tide of emotion, to being judged or shamed by others, to being not noticed and not seen, abandoned or turned against. We have experienced the pain of this. We know this in our body.

We can’t talk ourselves out of protecting ourselves and we can’t talk ourselves into being open and taking a risk. That assessment happens in our unconscious, our body, our nervous system. Consistently regulating our nervous system through all the powerful practices we have now (like these Emergency Practices) helps us build the strength and resilience we need to keep taking the risk to connect.

As I’ve healed, I am more available to be present and grounded as others share. I am able to resonate deeply with what someone is sharing without being activated into my own relevant traumatic experiences. I am aware when we have common experience and I’ve done enough healing of my own trauma that it doesn’t hijack me anymore.

I can listen to someone sharing their experience without making it about me or needing their reassurance that I’m okay while they are sharing. I also don’t need to protect my heart which means I can more easily let people in now. I don’t have to suppress or control what I feel and I don’t need to go into freeze for protection.

I feel like an adult and my perception is more accurate. If someone is sharing something painful I can stay grounded and listen. Without suppressing my response, I can briefly set it aside. I have enough stability now to wait until the time is appropriate for me to work with what has come up. That might be on my walks in the forest, time on the couch with my dog, a conversation with a friend, or work with a therapist. I am well resourced now.

Working with our own trauma and stabilizing ourselves helps us be safer for each other. We don’t have to be perfect and we need to feel cared for. Imagine if when you were hurt as a child, you were held and cared for. If you felt the warmth of someone’s caring and their hands holding yours. If someone was there for you, interested in knowing you, caring what happened, and reassuring you of your worth through that connection.

As adults, it is not someone else’s job to fill those gaps for us. There is a lot we can and need to do for ourselves AND we don’t have to do it alone. We can’t actually heal alone. We need to be in community. What I experienced last week was the safety of a sacred circle. Holding and being held were a flow of connection.

One way we hope for belonging is to make ourselves acceptable so we’re included, not scorned, shamed or ostracized. Rejection lands so hard on our tender hearts.

True belonging is when we can be accepted as ourselves. Affinity groups can be a powerful way to share parts of ourselves that have not been acceptable in mainstream culture. People “get us”. We don’t have to protect ourselves from being judged and we don’t have to explain ourselves. We can relax our guard in this specific common ground.

We need places where we can bring all of ourselves to be witnessed and held. We need each other. We need to be strong for each other. We need to be safe for each other. We need to fill ourselves up and connect with kindness for ourselves and each other.

This is what we’re building in our Sunday free community class.

We’re forming a community where we can be here for ourselves and each other. We’re having experiences again and again that we don’t have to be perfect and the situation doesn’t have to be perfect. We are increasingly more resilient and if someone else is dysregulated we can cope. In the past we might have been activated into a shame storm that devastated us. Now we can witness this arising with kindness and compassion, come out of shame, and reconnect.

With this strength, we move in the world needing less protection and with more confidence. Through opening our hearts to each other and sharing authentically, we realize in our bones that we are not broken. We have been through traumatic experiences and our system has done its best to protect us. We can release shame and see through false core deficiency beliefs. They are simply not true. We trust this as we are healing.

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This week on Sunday we are doing somatic inquiry around the shame and embarrassment we feel when we make a social blunder. We’re anxious and have said something awkward. We have that sinking feeling in our gut or that heaviness in our chest. Working through this with inquiry and then sharing some of what we feel with others is a way to build strength through the experience of connection. Many people do this in our small sharing circles. Others do this through journaling or contemplating on their own. Both are welcome, then we come back together in the larger circle.

You are most welcome to join us! Details here.