Beliefs are naturally dissociating. There is nothing necessarily wrong with beliefs. And there is nothing necessarily wrong with dissociation. Dissociation can occur with a sense of safety and with a sense of threat. For example, we can be dissociated and terrified – or we can be “zoned in” while we write poetry or make a dance. Both can be dissociative states. In fact, a healthy amount of dissociation is a normal part of everyday life. Psychologists even posit that human beings have a natural need for altered states of consciousness – a need for variation in their mental experience of their time on earth. These altered states can be accessed through meditation, dance, art, drugs, chanting, hypnosis, and more. Dissociation can induce a feeling that you as an individual no longer exist but are absorbed into the collective in some ethereal spiritual realm. When absorbed into the spiritual realm, however, you cannot pay attention to the physical, earthly needs of your body or the other bodies and beings on this planet.
Relying on these dissociating experiences heavily can leave us disconnected from our own bodily, emotional, and psychological suffering and the suffering of our fellow humans (all who suffer differently according to the privilege and stigma assigned to them by systems of conditioning and disconnection). So what does it look like to connect to the physical world? It does not look like beliefs. Beliefs are naturally dissociating because the energy of belief is the energy of thinking in one’s head, increasing energy where dissociation often occurs. In fact, beliefs and thinking excessively can “clog up” the energy in our heads, disconnecting us from our bodies and each other. Practices, and in particular collective (movement) practice are ways that many of us balance out our beliefs, ways we bring connection back to our bodies. I define collective (movement) practice as the collective practice of moving physical energy, using movement, art, and design to create the energetic conditions necessary for deep connection to be possible. And, for many of us, that collective (movement) practice involves connecting to this whole physical world – each other, nature, our communities. Many of us are finding that when we engage in this collective (movement) practice – when our spaces are filled with collective movement practices of grounding (e.g., dancing, marching, praising & worshipping), put simply, we feel good. We are seeing that in prior spaces – for example, in belief-oriented spaces – we felt less connected to our bodies. We are seeing the connection between what happens in a space or what is practiced in a space and our level of connection to our bodies. We are seeing the connection between our feelings of overwhelm and what happens in that space. I applaud us for all that we are noticing, and I am cheering us on.
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.