Individual Healing For Collective Liberation
Hello!
Welcome to my newsletter. I have created this space as a counterpoint to the liberal individualist wellness culture that pervades both the digital and material worlds. Here I would like discuss some of the skills and strategies we need to be whole and hale people in late-stage capitalism and then channeling this into living well together and in right relationship with our natural environments.
I have seen a lot of discourse lately, primarily on social media, that being well in a broken world is dysfunctional in and of itself. However I see things differently, I believe that individual healing is our collective responsibility, because it is through our individual healing that we are able to function well in community with each other. It is through our individual healing that we become able to take responsibility when we cause harm, set and affirm clear boundaries, ask for help when we need it and interpret the information that our feelings are giving us accurately.
Living in healthy community is a complicated dance between individual and collective responsibility and in the world that we live in it has become very challenging to figure out where these lines need to be, especially since it is generally highly contextual and nuanced! The world we live in thrives on binaries, right and wrong, good and evil, in and out. The world we need to create has to make space for complexity, uncertainty, humility and not-knowing, but it can be deeply uncomfortable learning how to live in that way and what tends to happen is that we slingshot between being overly harsh towards ourselves and overly permissive without taking time to find that messy space in the middle where we can treat ourselves (and those around us!) with loving firmness.
In this space I hope to share ways of developing these skills so that we can start to form healthy communities in our own lives, beginning with a healthy relationship with ourselves and expanding this out into the wider world around us. This is influenced by my practical experience as a counsellor, my interest in evidence based best practice, and my education and work in the community. Obviously this information is funneled through me and is therefore filtered through my world view. There are many different approaches to well-being in the world and the approach and information shared here may not be right for you.
I have turned paid subscriptions on with the idea that any money made from this can be used to fund my anti-racist workshops in the community. Particularly the workshop How To Talk To Your Racist Uncle that I developed with my friends and collaborators, Jessie Dennis and Lenka Rochford. Paid subsriptions will entitle you voice recordings of exercises and other bits and pieces of content.
Please feel free to share with anyone who might be interested!