The way our culture is set up, the way that psychotherapy typically goes, and the way that current social norms are, we are encouraged to proclaim ourselves as the victim. We do this as we recount our childhood trauma for the 20th year. We do this in our identity-based groups. We do this in our protest groups. We do this in art spaces. In these spaces, the job of the community, therapist, the artist is to tell a story, construct a story about how things happened and why they did. We inevitably tell a story about how we were hurt and how someone else is to blame and how we suffer because of it. But the way we tell the story matters.
We must go through the process, yes, of feeling our pain and suffering and intensely usually identifying with it. Sometimes, however, we grow so tired and frustrated of being mired in the same never-ending story that we decide that there may be another way to view the story. Sometimes, we decide that the pain caused by seeing ourselves as a victim and the world against us is too great. Sometimes, we open ourselves to the possibility that our suffering was never personal. Yes, I discuss the “default toxicity” of our spaces and how it can heavily contribute to our suffering, and must we see ourselves as victims – because we have suffered? Do these always go hand in hand? Must we hand over all of our agency and power to systems and spaces? Must we believe that we are nothing more than completely at the mercy of the spaces we inhabit?
Perhaps there are points where we realize we have been harmed but do not exist in the world as victims. Perhaps sometimes we have this thought that what our bodies endure and have endured, sometimes, has nothing to do with us. It was never fair, it was never our fault, and it also, sometimes, was simply physical.
What do I mean by physical? Many of us are understanding that we have gone so much of our lives believing that there was something wrong with us – when in reality, it was our spaces that were not meeting our needs. When we enter spaces that are not a fit for our needs, spaces where our body is overwhelmed, we can call that space toxic to our body. Because systems of disconnection and conditioning pervade our society, many spaces have “by default” not met our needs and, therefore, have been toxic to us. Taking on the toxicities of all spaces we have inhabited through our lives, these toxicities “clog up” our bodies, often leading us to be “chronically overwhelmed”. This process of recounting the toxicities of our spaces is critical. Collectively and rigorously seeing the “default toxicity” within our past spaces (what I call “microsystems of disconnection”) provides us with intimate understandings of space elements that we can use to design or redesign our spaces of deep connection.
And there is so much more that we are learning we must unravel. What we often overlook in our spaces when we talk about designing spaces of deep connection where our needs are met is that which is much less obvious, the energetic space. To see all toxicities contributing to our spaces, we must be able to “see” and measure all of the energy of spaces (e.g., mental toxins created by racism, patriarchy; toxicities in our light, sound, air; patterns of disconnection that individuals bring with them). Fully seeing all toxicities, we can begin to understand where exactly our spaces (and our bodies) have been “clogged up”. Then, we can begin to experiment with moving that energy and unclogging our spaces (and our bodies).
Collective (movement) practice, which focuses on how we collectively move energy, then, is a powerful approach to designing spaces of deep connection. It is an often-hidden, ancient approach that many of us are seeking, studying, or drawn to, though we call it different things. I define collective (movement) practice as the collective practice of moving physical energy in a space to create the energetic conditions necessary for deep connection to be possible. I believe there is gold in the rigorous study of collective (movement) practice and these ancient wisdoms are here to teach us how to do our Work of designing spaces of deep connection. As we step into our full power to build spaces of deep connection that meet our needs, as we slowly uncover ancient wisdoms of collective (movement) practice, we all deserve the opportunity to learn the truth and the power of collective (movement) practice. Zooming out, we can see that, within this study of collective (movement) practice, there are thousands and thousands of years of ancient science, art, design, culture, and medicine guiding us as we build our spaces of deep connection. May we find each other, study together, learn together. May we fully step into our power as builders of spaces of deep connection. Join us at our Open House to collectively practice seeing the “default toxicity” of the microsystems of (dis)connection we’ve left behind and to co-learn, reflect, and share about how we use collective (movement) practice to design/redesign spaces of deep connection.
These ideas and questions are central to Raw Movement, an approach to inquiring about and experimenting with co-creating spaces of deep connection through collective (movement) practice. If you’re in the practice of creating grounding, deep connection, home, family, and desire to experiment with co-creating spaces of deep connection, find out more about Raw Movement at: www.rawmovement.org.
This writing is a part of my Conversations on Deep Connection series. If you’re also in the practice of creating grounding, deep connection, home, family and would like to get notified of new conversations, click here to get notified of new conversations.