Greetings, old friend. It’s been a while.
I took a bit of a break from writing over the last month (to focus my time on launching my 2024 Adventures*). I have another week or so to finish that process and am looking forward to returning my attention to writing, a craft I love dearly, and on this channel in particular.
Until then, I wanted to share a few thoughts about personal healing and community, thoughts that were worded beautifully by
in this video that popped up in my feed this week (it’s just 3m30s, give it a watch if you can):He touches on a few themes that are central to my thinking and writing, including the disintegration of community, our disassociation from the natural world, and the interconnectedness and web of relationships that define any human being.
The most important theme he touches on is, however, for me the notion that personal healing is, at its heart, a collective journey. I wrote about this in my post about Restoring Connection to Self (‘Reconnecting to Self Need Not be a Solitary Process’).
This quote from the video sums it up: ”I’d like to reverse the version of spirituality that valorizes retreating from the world.”
I concur wholeheartedly: while there is a solitary aspect to any personal growth or spiritual journey, I’ve experienced and witnessed the much greater power of undertaking that journey in the context of community.
In my early 30s, I was blessed (the recognition of the blessing didn’t come until much later, but it was indeed a blessing) with a ‘long dark night of the soul’: a 2 1/2-year descent into depression that shook me to my existential core and redefined the map of who I am in the world and its borders.
My ascent from those depths involved many healing paths; some of those were solitary journeys, but the two most impactful aspects of my journey involved others, and in both cases, many others.
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The first was a Kundalini yoga teacher training I completed in 2006.
I’d been casually participating in a Kundalini yoga class at Lotus Yoga on Harbord St and after a few months, I finally put the pieces together to notice that the classes were providing me with a significant boost of wellbeing. I decided to deepen my practice by signing up for an upcoming teacher training.
Over the course of those 6 months - at a time when I was psychologically and emotionally fragile, I found deep connections and profound healing both on and off the mat with my 20 fellow practitioners. My meditations and solo practice were made much more profound by the experience of sharing, dialogue and connection within the community.
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The second was a group therapy process that I was invited to by my therapist. Labelled an ‘encounter group’, it was not designed (at all) to be a support group; the aim of the process was to create a group container where everything is explicit, talked about and analyzed, where your usual relational bullshit and ways of being and behaving with other people would be mirrored back at you in painstaking detail. It was a place where there was no hiding, a strategy I’d used to great effect for most of my life.
The experience I went through with that group remains the most profound healing experience of my life. I learned how my coping strategies - strategies I developed as a child - no longer served me or others well in adulthood.
Most of the time that was a painful process, but entangled with that pain were profound connections with the others in that group: deep connections that arose because of the level of vulnerability the process invited (I write about the role of vulnerability in human connection in my post about Restoring Connection to Others).
The experiences I had within a genuine community were some of the most impactful and transformative moments of my life, aiding in both my healing and personal growth. Both involved solitary aspects of my work, but that solitary work was made much more impactful because of the community that supported me, held me accountable, and showed me genuine care and love.
Over the coming years and decades, I believe our species will be called to its own collective healing process, one that will likely be brought on by increased disruption and threats to our established ways of being.
As with individual humans, that healing process is typically not undertaken willingly but is often forced upon us by what I call the ‘cosmic punch in the face’.
I believe we will almost certainly get many collective punches in the face over the coming years: shocks that run the risk of causing us great pain both individually and collectively. We can greatly reduce that pain by not isolating ourselves but rather coming together in supportive and loving communities to embark on the healing journey together.
This is the journey of Coming Home we are all called to.
With love,
Mike
*My 2024 Wayfinders adventures are currently only open to current members and alumni. If there are spots left by May 15 I will open them up to others so if you are interested please join the waitlist or send me a reply to this email