Depression is quite normal in a society where we are conditioned to consistently hold back parts of ourselves. Actually, it is to be expected.
Racism, neurotypicalism, ableism, and all systems of conditioning and disconnection force us to hold back parts of ourselves to be loved and accepted. In addition, there is the overt violence and harm that various groups experience simply because of who they are. In response, we hold back parts of ourselves to physically remain safe.
If we are depressed or grieving, it makes absolute sense. Constantly holding back parts of yourself – constantly protecting yourself – is exhausting. In fact, when we hold back parts of ourselves, our bodies get “held back” and “clogged up”. They get overwhelmed by not saying, not being, not doing that which comes naturally to us.
To address our personal grief, many of us are stepping into all parts of ourselves and asking ourselves how we create our own spaces where we accept all parts of ourselves and our identities, especially those that have previously been rejected, harmed, ignored, or abandoned.
Accepting that we are all grieving the difficulty of being our full selves in this society AND knowing that we will not feel disconnected forever, we can move in and out of it through the practice of being ourselves. And when we practice being ourselves together, we create strength. This collective (movement) practice, this practice of being our raw selves together – speaking how we naturally speak, moving how we naturally move, stimming how we naturally stim – moves physical energy in our bodies – unclogging ourselves – allowing us to release and embody those aspects we previously could not due to a lack of safety.
The mental health industry convinces us that depression is individual, one, and, two, a lifelong “condition”. However, depression can also be viewed as a natural response to the experience of not feeling loved, seen, heard, and cared for. Depression can also be viewed as a side effect of having to hold yourself back in order to be safe.
We are at a time where we are discovering who we are – who we were from birth, what is written in our DNA, who our ancestors made us to be. We are discovering our most unseen, most hidden, most unexpressed identities, feelings, and desires.
Depression and grief are often problems of consistently being in spaces where we were encouraged to disconnect from ourselves; spaces where we could not be ourselves and therefore we “held back” and got “clogged up”. We were rewarded for leaving parts of ourselves behind – rewarded with acceptance, more safety, etc. We were rewarded in our overwhelm. But now, we are asking ourselves, what does it mean to “unclog” ourselves? What does it look like to collectively practice being our true, our raw selves, together? Bravo to all of us doing this work and on this path. We cannot be held back.
And so, 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.