“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.
Yesss I came here wanting to ask something similar... I love this article and resonated with it so much. As someone who's been through a lot of the training to deliver coaching and Psychology, it's amazing for me now to look back and realise how this MASSIVE missing piece of community and collective was missing from it all along... and yet, when I discuss this with some people, I find that they did not feel safe with others in their childhoods and so find it very hard to grasp the concept of others as "safe" in adulthood. There's "work" to be done to help them feel safe, and yet, the reality is that a lot of white, capitalist "dominant" culture ISN'T "safe" - so they often feel they are gaslighting themselves and putting themselves unnecessarily at risk by trying to connect with others. In the end, I think people need to find their own 'safe' communities and build from there, but it can feel insurmountable for those who have grown up to find their inner worlds the only "safe space".
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.
But we find healing from that with others. Idk about you, but i actually healed a lot with building trust with others. Like ....we still cant be alone. We cant all just be scared and unwilling cos its either we try or we dont. This post says yes work on your pain but do not do it alone. That is to you in the scenario you reference and everyone else in it too.
When people are activated, forming connection in the way that person is receptive to, helps build a bridge. Its 50/50 again, yes, but people have hurt others all throughout time. People hurt in communities, there is no way we will never not hurt one another. But the question is 1. Can we listen and 2. Can we DISAGREE. Not can we excuse harm, cos a. A lot of "harm" is actually discomfort and b. Actual harm can be met with transformative justice but that requires community and connection so
We have to try. Regardless of how hard, what shape it takes, we cant stop trying because its never going to be easier, only more and more important. As lonely as we are, in the West we are also addicted to comfort. We have to be connected even when its uncomfortable.
Ps. I say this having come out of another isolation hole and i know i will make myself climb out every Time i slip back in. Every time.
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
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.
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.
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.
It's not black and white. You're critiquing something real about how capitalism has twisted healing into a commodity, but everyone's different and needs different things. What does 'self-help' and 'wellness' even mean? These are huge, diverse territories covering everything from therapy to meditation to community practices to ancient traditions - some helpful, some harmful, some in between.
Declaring what 'true healing' is feels a bit arrogant. Reality is messy and complex - it's not linear. Some days we need solitude, some days we need community, some days we need both, some days nothing works. And that's okay. It's not an either/or situation. We don't have to reject all individual work to embrace community, or vice versa.
The commercialization of healing deserves criticism. The pressure to constantly work on ourselves can be exhausting and isolating. But swinging completely to the other extreme isn't the answer. Sometimes that book or podcast or therapy session gives us exactly what we need. Sometimes it's a conversation with friends. Sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's neither.
The problem isn't with working on ourselves OR connecting with community - it's thinking we have to choose between them. Healing doesn't fit into neat boxes or follow a single path. It's as individual as we are.
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
It’s interesting I’m reading the book “Rest is Resistance”and acts like meditation for me comes from a place of slowing down and resisting the need to be productive. I’ve also been experiencing a lot of isolation and loneliness. I know healing happens in community. I’ve tried to reach and meet new people and have felt like my needs weren’t met or I face rejection trying to make new friends. So, that adds to the isolation.
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.
“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.
Yesss I came here wanting to ask something similar... I love this article and resonated with it so much. As someone who's been through a lot of the training to deliver coaching and Psychology, it's amazing for me now to look back and realise how this MASSIVE missing piece of community and collective was missing from it all along... and yet, when I discuss this with some people, I find that they did not feel safe with others in their childhoods and so find it very hard to grasp the concept of others as "safe" in adulthood. There's "work" to be done to help them feel safe, and yet, the reality is that a lot of white, capitalist "dominant" culture ISN'T "safe" - so they often feel they are gaslighting themselves and putting themselves unnecessarily at risk by trying to connect with others. In the end, I think people need to find their own 'safe' communities and build from there, but it can feel insurmountable for those who have grown up to find their inner worlds the only "safe space".
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.
But we find healing from that with others. Idk about you, but i actually healed a lot with building trust with others. Like ....we still cant be alone. We cant all just be scared and unwilling cos its either we try or we dont. This post says yes work on your pain but do not do it alone. That is to you in the scenario you reference and everyone else in it too.
When people are activated, forming connection in the way that person is receptive to, helps build a bridge. Its 50/50 again, yes, but people have hurt others all throughout time. People hurt in communities, there is no way we will never not hurt one another. But the question is 1. Can we listen and 2. Can we DISAGREE. Not can we excuse harm, cos a. A lot of "harm" is actually discomfort and b. Actual harm can be met with transformative justice but that requires community and connection so
We have to try. Regardless of how hard, what shape it takes, we cant stop trying because its never going to be easier, only more and more important. As lonely as we are, in the West we are also addicted to comfort. We have to be connected even when its uncomfortable.
Ps. I say this having come out of another isolation hole and i know i will make myself climb out every Time i slip back in. Every time.
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
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.
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 🫂
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.
It's not black and white. You're critiquing something real about how capitalism has twisted healing into a commodity, but everyone's different and needs different things. What does 'self-help' and 'wellness' even mean? These are huge, diverse territories covering everything from therapy to meditation to community practices to ancient traditions - some helpful, some harmful, some in between.
Declaring what 'true healing' is feels a bit arrogant. Reality is messy and complex - it's not linear. Some days we need solitude, some days we need community, some days we need both, some days nothing works. And that's okay. It's not an either/or situation. We don't have to reject all individual work to embrace community, or vice versa.
The commercialization of healing deserves criticism. The pressure to constantly work on ourselves can be exhausting and isolating. But swinging completely to the other extreme isn't the answer. Sometimes that book or podcast or therapy session gives us exactly what we need. Sometimes it's a conversation with friends. Sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's neither.
The problem isn't with working on ourselves OR connecting with community - it's thinking we have to choose between them. Healing doesn't fit into neat boxes or follow a single path. It's as individual as we are.
This is very relatable. I was coming to the same conclusions as you!
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
It’s interesting I’m reading the book “Rest is Resistance”and acts like meditation for me comes from a place of slowing down and resisting the need to be productive. I’ve also been experiencing a lot of isolation and loneliness. I know healing happens in community. I’ve tried to reach and meet new people and have felt like my needs weren’t met or I face rejection trying to make new friends. So, that adds to the isolation.
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.
Thank you for sharing, this was something I needed to hear and be reminded of today. 💕
c