“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” -bell hooks
I went to therapy school, spent years getting clinical hours to get licensed, spent too much money on trainings, read some of the books, all so I could sit in a room with another human being and their pain. Hot take, we don't need therapists, we don't need these fucking trainings, we don't need to intellectualize our hurt. We need safety to feel, community, connection, elders and ritual. White supremacy coopting healing is SOOOOOO WEIRD. And i'm an insider! It's fucking weird!!
Thanks for your thoughts. Ultimately, though, I think the missing piece is most of us have relational trauma from childhood (I would argue all trauma is relational) which means the relationship with other humans is fractured and we perpetuate these relational harm patterns into our adulthood. And yes, the root of the relational trauma is due to oppressive systems, but we have to heal somewhat to learn how to feel safe with ourselves (I.e. have a regulated nervous system) before we can relate to others.
Really recommend the neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr Bruce Perry's work on the developing brain and how trauma impacts it. He talks about the 3 R's. 1st we need to regulate, 2nd we need to relate 3rd we need to reason (I.e. how our brains operate is that if due to trauma/stress the reptilian non verbal brain is in fight/flight/freeze survival mode, then our thinking cortex part of our brain is shut down, so we struggle to relate (via the limbic system) and to reason (via the cortex).
I find from my experience of being part of a family, workplace, activist group is we don't know how to be in right relationship with each other and relational harm is continually being enacted upon each other. I for sure never feel safe in these places, I only have a select number of people I feel safe with.
This is such a great point! I think most people, like you said, are healing from relational trauma from childhood. Then we’re thrown into a world where we generally feel unsafe. I’m not sure if you’re in the US, but I can say from my experience, many people do not feel safe here in general. It is hard to heal and head out into a world that feels unsafe. And, like you’re saying, I think the world feels unsafe because we don’t know how to be in relationships with each other.
Thanks, yes 100%, I'm in the UK and similarly most people feel unsafe so focus on their own little world I.e. their partner, kids, biological family. Plus the oppressive systems of capitalism, heteropatriachy, imperialism etc keep us in survival mode struggling to make ends meet, living pay check to pay check to stop us from being able to actually heal from trauma, learn how to relate healthily to one another, be in community, and fight the system. The deliberately pushed ideology of survival of the fittest, aspiritual materialism where we are all separate beings serves capitalism and makes us not feel responsible and accountable to one another.
I feel this so much Amina AND in my very new awareness of this, I've found the "healing" so to speak happening with these very few people in ways that never happened alone. Thank you for sharing.
Healing comes in waves and stages. When I think about healing in isolation, I think of the archetypal hero's journey - almost all Abrahamic prophets, for example, experienced periods of exile, loneliness and total isolation. Yunis in the belly of the whale, Muhammed (sA) meditating in the mountains. My friends who have made it on "the other side" of their healing journey speak about a period of temporary but intense loneliness.
What seems to be happening now is that we get stuck in this stage. What is normally a period for self reflection, processing pain, understanding one's needs and boundaries before returning to the world with a stronger sense of self, is becoming an indefinite state of fear and avoidance.
I think healing in community requires courage and guidance from someone we trust. For people who haven't experienced the gift of safety in the presence of others, its a huge ask, which is why the pull of isolation is hard to resist. I personally haven't found this courage yet, and your article truly spoke to me. Thank you for the wonderful read.
A fantastic read and so affirming for me when I think of the difficulties of constantly self-improving and self-healing to just survive. And if we're all engaging in this, it actually does seem counterproductive to do it alone. I'm curious and looking forward to read your "thoughts" on how this take interplays with toxic and unhealthy people-pleasing patterns, boundary-setting, social contracts and norms, collective movements that run afoul of an individual's concept and understanding of self. In some instances and environments, the collective might not have individual's best interest, which I guess is the point: under these systems and ways of being, the collective is ACTUALLY unsafe to (any and every) individual. The challenging result being a more awakened person attempting to facilitate the creation of new collectivizing patterns among a largely anti-collectivist collective. Very interesting
I also really needed to hear this today as I'm spiraling as to why when I've put so much effort into working on myself do I feel the worst I've ever felt.
This addresses something I’ve been thinking about so much! Just like you, in 2020 I left an extremely violent relationship and turned inward to heal so I’d stop repeating these patterns in my life. I think healing is new to us as a culture (speaking from someone in the US), so I think we’ve hit uncharted territory when it comes to what comes after healing. I think this turn inward movement is so important because, until recently, I don’t think many people did this. But we’ve now hit a point where we get to ask what comes next, and I actually think that’s an incredible place to be as a society.
From my own experience, the next move has been intense vulnerability. Opening up to others and practicing my healing and boundaries has been hard, but so worth it. I think people coming together in creative spaces is what comes next. Part of the loneliness epidemic is people feeling a lack of purpose. The people I have started to connect with, as I come out of a healing space, have turned out to be pretty incredible and I have found others who want to build beautiful things in this world. I think the next step is reintroducing creativity in a group space.
I think community programs like community gardens, for example, would be a productive way for people to come together and support themselves and each other through creative means.
As a young adult, I used to make time to volunteer at a variety of places, outside of work, because I think having a practice where you give back to others without an expectation of receiving is so good for your mental health. It heals you in ways you wouldn’t expect.
I think it’s important to have balance, and that’s what we’re stepping into. We must cultivate a strong inner world so we have the ability to move through the world with integrity, but we absolutely need an outlet where we give back to our outer world. Like you’re saying, it can’t be constant inner work without giving back to the outer world in some capacity.
Sorry for the long reply, I think you started an important conversation and it’s one I’ve been thinking a lot about within the confines of my own life. Thank you for bringing this up.
I love this reminder to focus on connections and community. Such a good and important point.
I do think that we should still find self care inside of us. Accessing “nonjudgmental self-awareness” is a legitimate relief from pain commonly stemming from the internal judgments we form when external circumstances don't go well. Cultivating this - including through internalizing it through the process of receiving it from others - makes us more available to connection, not less.
I believe self care should absolutely include responding to our needs for relationship with others by seeking healthy, nurturing, and playful connections. Self care does not mean stiffarming our needs to connect with others. If that's the result of what we're doing, we should question whether we're doing actual self care.
Yeah it definitely has to be a balance. Like you can’t completely heal in community if the community around you is super effed up and none of the people in it are committed to also healing …
At the same time I get your point. Self healing can get obsessive and just another fixation we try to buy into to ignore actual potential avenues to a better life.
Definitely depends on the circumstance and I’m sure most will have to find their own balance depending on who and where they are in the world.
Yes. Self everything is killing us. Our only way forward is together. And we need practices, language and skills to bring us out of internalized isolation. It’s the reason why I’m working to share the 5 Bodies framework for collective belonging, because it prioritizes self care while centering collective care. Thank you for articulating this.
“Our survival is not dependent on us overcoming or healing our trauma completely per se. The entire framework is flawed given that we live in a fundamentally traumatic empire. Our survival is bound together & dependent on us struggling together. Liberation is about collective struggle not isolated self-improvement. Yes, we must seek & yearn… but not just for ourselves to “feel better” in a vacuum. We were never meant to carry these boulders alone.” Thank you for this Ayesha.
As always you have articulated things in ways I could never! I work for a mental health charity focusing on working with young people from ages 13-25 and I’m always trying to advocate for group work and community and creativity because I know that’s what people need!!! And yet the funding is constantly being cut because it’s not seen as effective as “traditional” 1 to 1 therapy. Sigh. But thank you for this i feel inspired to keep on doing the work and will share this with anyone who will listen
Please keep doing what you’re doing!! The group work and creativity is so important! Knowing you can be vulnerable in a group environment is how we heal❤️Thank you for doing the work you’re doing
Thank you for articulating sentiments that have also arisen to me. It’s encouraging to have conversation around this area. I’ve been working on a small post for Insta with very basic somatic techniques for trauma overwhelm yet have ground to somewhat of a halt to it as the two Arabic people who I asked to help haven’t got back to me this week, understandably given current events, yet it raised the question for me about individuation in the west and whether this was even applicable in more collectivist cultures….
I would like to write a longer response yet in bed with a fuzzy head & flu so hope the above makes sense. I’d be interested in any feedback.
I find Tara Brach’s perspectives inclusive in this sense with recent podcasts on the Bodhisattiva Path, and the need to incorporate action through developing a strong spine with an open front (heart).
Thank you Ayesha. I can see how this describes almost every ounce of "healing" up until the past few years for me. Further isolating and self-obsessing...
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” -bell hooks
I went to therapy school, spent years getting clinical hours to get licensed, spent too much money on trainings, read some of the books, all so I could sit in a room with another human being and their pain. Hot take, we don't need therapists, we don't need these fucking trainings, we don't need to intellectualize our hurt. We need safety to feel, community, connection, elders and ritual. White supremacy coopting healing is SOOOOOO WEIRD. And i'm an insider! It's fucking weird!!
Thanks for your thoughts. Ultimately, though, I think the missing piece is most of us have relational trauma from childhood (I would argue all trauma is relational) which means the relationship with other humans is fractured and we perpetuate these relational harm patterns into our adulthood. And yes, the root of the relational trauma is due to oppressive systems, but we have to heal somewhat to learn how to feel safe with ourselves (I.e. have a regulated nervous system) before we can relate to others.
Really recommend the neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr Bruce Perry's work on the developing brain and how trauma impacts it. He talks about the 3 R's. 1st we need to regulate, 2nd we need to relate 3rd we need to reason (I.e. how our brains operate is that if due to trauma/stress the reptilian non verbal brain is in fight/flight/freeze survival mode, then our thinking cortex part of our brain is shut down, so we struggle to relate (via the limbic system) and to reason (via the cortex).
I find from my experience of being part of a family, workplace, activist group is we don't know how to be in right relationship with each other and relational harm is continually being enacted upon each other. I for sure never feel safe in these places, I only have a select number of people I feel safe with.
This is such a great point! I think most people, like you said, are healing from relational trauma from childhood. Then we’re thrown into a world where we generally feel unsafe. I’m not sure if you’re in the US, but I can say from my experience, many people do not feel safe here in general. It is hard to heal and head out into a world that feels unsafe. And, like you’re saying, I think the world feels unsafe because we don’t know how to be in relationships with each other.
Thanks, yes 100%, I'm in the UK and similarly most people feel unsafe so focus on their own little world I.e. their partner, kids, biological family. Plus the oppressive systems of capitalism, heteropatriachy, imperialism etc keep us in survival mode struggling to make ends meet, living pay check to pay check to stop us from being able to actually heal from trauma, learn how to relate healthily to one another, be in community, and fight the system. The deliberately pushed ideology of survival of the fittest, aspiritual materialism where we are all separate beings serves capitalism and makes us not feel responsible and accountable to one another.
I feel this so much Amina AND in my very new awareness of this, I've found the "healing" so to speak happening with these very few people in ways that never happened alone. Thank you for sharing.
Healing comes in waves and stages. When I think about healing in isolation, I think of the archetypal hero's journey - almost all Abrahamic prophets, for example, experienced periods of exile, loneliness and total isolation. Yunis in the belly of the whale, Muhammed (sA) meditating in the mountains. My friends who have made it on "the other side" of their healing journey speak about a period of temporary but intense loneliness.
What seems to be happening now is that we get stuck in this stage. What is normally a period for self reflection, processing pain, understanding one's needs and boundaries before returning to the world with a stronger sense of self, is becoming an indefinite state of fear and avoidance.
I think healing in community requires courage and guidance from someone we trust. For people who haven't experienced the gift of safety in the presence of others, its a huge ask, which is why the pull of isolation is hard to resist. I personally haven't found this courage yet, and your article truly spoke to me. Thank you for the wonderful read.
Thank you for taking the time to write this. You put words to the feelings I couldn’t describe, it helped me a lot 🙏🏻✨
A fantastic read and so affirming for me when I think of the difficulties of constantly self-improving and self-healing to just survive. And if we're all engaging in this, it actually does seem counterproductive to do it alone. I'm curious and looking forward to read your "thoughts" on how this take interplays with toxic and unhealthy people-pleasing patterns, boundary-setting, social contracts and norms, collective movements that run afoul of an individual's concept and understanding of self. In some instances and environments, the collective might not have individual's best interest, which I guess is the point: under these systems and ways of being, the collective is ACTUALLY unsafe to (any and every) individual. The challenging result being a more awakened person attempting to facilitate the creation of new collectivizing patterns among a largely anti-collectivist collective. Very interesting
I also really needed to hear this today as I'm spiraling as to why when I've put so much effort into working on myself do I feel the worst I've ever felt.
That’s how I feel too! I always tell others that a lot of people will tell you to go heal, but no one actually tells you how painful the process is
Wow this is so relatable 🫂
This addresses something I’ve been thinking about so much! Just like you, in 2020 I left an extremely violent relationship and turned inward to heal so I’d stop repeating these patterns in my life. I think healing is new to us as a culture (speaking from someone in the US), so I think we’ve hit uncharted territory when it comes to what comes after healing. I think this turn inward movement is so important because, until recently, I don’t think many people did this. But we’ve now hit a point where we get to ask what comes next, and I actually think that’s an incredible place to be as a society.
From my own experience, the next move has been intense vulnerability. Opening up to others and practicing my healing and boundaries has been hard, but so worth it. I think people coming together in creative spaces is what comes next. Part of the loneliness epidemic is people feeling a lack of purpose. The people I have started to connect with, as I come out of a healing space, have turned out to be pretty incredible and I have found others who want to build beautiful things in this world. I think the next step is reintroducing creativity in a group space.
I think community programs like community gardens, for example, would be a productive way for people to come together and support themselves and each other through creative means.
As a young adult, I used to make time to volunteer at a variety of places, outside of work, because I think having a practice where you give back to others without an expectation of receiving is so good for your mental health. It heals you in ways you wouldn’t expect.
I think it’s important to have balance, and that’s what we’re stepping into. We must cultivate a strong inner world so we have the ability to move through the world with integrity, but we absolutely need an outlet where we give back to our outer world. Like you’re saying, it can’t be constant inner work without giving back to the outer world in some capacity.
Sorry for the long reply, I think you started an important conversation and it’s one I’ve been thinking a lot about within the confines of my own life. Thank you for bringing this up.
I love this reminder to focus on connections and community. Such a good and important point.
I do think that we should still find self care inside of us. Accessing “nonjudgmental self-awareness” is a legitimate relief from pain commonly stemming from the internal judgments we form when external circumstances don't go well. Cultivating this - including through internalizing it through the process of receiving it from others - makes us more available to connection, not less.
I believe self care should absolutely include responding to our needs for relationship with others by seeking healthy, nurturing, and playful connections. Self care does not mean stiffarming our needs to connect with others. If that's the result of what we're doing, we should question whether we're doing actual self care.
This is very relatable. I was coming to the same conclusions as you!
Yeah it definitely has to be a balance. Like you can’t completely heal in community if the community around you is super effed up and none of the people in it are committed to also healing …
At the same time I get your point. Self healing can get obsessive and just another fixation we try to buy into to ignore actual potential avenues to a better life.
Definitely depends on the circumstance and I’m sure most will have to find their own balance depending on who and where they are in the world.
Yes. Self everything is killing us. Our only way forward is together. And we need practices, language and skills to bring us out of internalized isolation. It’s the reason why I’m working to share the 5 Bodies framework for collective belonging, because it prioritizes self care while centering collective care. Thank you for articulating this.
“Our survival is not dependent on us overcoming or healing our trauma completely per se. The entire framework is flawed given that we live in a fundamentally traumatic empire. Our survival is bound together & dependent on us struggling together. Liberation is about collective struggle not isolated self-improvement. Yes, we must seek & yearn… but not just for ourselves to “feel better” in a vacuum. We were never meant to carry these boulders alone.” Thank you for this Ayesha.
As always you have articulated things in ways I could never! I work for a mental health charity focusing on working with young people from ages 13-25 and I’m always trying to advocate for group work and community and creativity because I know that’s what people need!!! And yet the funding is constantly being cut because it’s not seen as effective as “traditional” 1 to 1 therapy. Sigh. But thank you for this i feel inspired to keep on doing the work and will share this with anyone who will listen
Please keep doing what you’re doing!! The group work and creativity is so important! Knowing you can be vulnerable in a group environment is how we heal❤️Thank you for doing the work you’re doing
Thank you for sharing, this was something I needed to hear and be reminded of today. 💕
Thank you for articulating sentiments that have also arisen to me. It’s encouraging to have conversation around this area. I’ve been working on a small post for Insta with very basic somatic techniques for trauma overwhelm yet have ground to somewhat of a halt to it as the two Arabic people who I asked to help haven’t got back to me this week, understandably given current events, yet it raised the question for me about individuation in the west and whether this was even applicable in more collectivist cultures….
I would like to write a longer response yet in bed with a fuzzy head & flu so hope the above makes sense. I’d be interested in any feedback.
I find Tara Brach’s perspectives inclusive in this sense with recent podcasts on the Bodhisattiva Path, and the need to incorporate action through developing a strong spine with an open front (heart).
Thanks for writing this, it really resonates with me!
Thank you Ayesha. I can see how this describes almost every ounce of "healing" up until the past few years for me. Further isolating and self-obsessing...