Western psychotherapy and personal development is focused on instilling independence rather than intuitively working with what a person needs in the moment. From my research on the needs of neurodivergent, gifted, chronically stressed, chronically ill, and disabled folks, we often feel an intense desire to be supported and cared for, but this is often undermined and replaced with a one-dimensional focus on becoming “independent”.
And from my lifetime of experience, I have not received much joy from doing things completely on my own. There is a nuanced reality that we must simultaneously develop our individual capacity, while we are intensively supported, cared for, loved, attended to. And the goal is not independence categorically, it is whatever arrangement allows the individual and community to be healthiest and most healthily connected. For every person, the degree of independence and degree of support and care will be different.
I will add to this that many therapies and approaches treat the individual as separate from their emotions, traumas, sensitivities, conditions, etc. and therefore have a fantastical version of “healing” (read: ableism) that can lead to the individual denying themselves of what they truly need in the moment. Often, therapy involves an unconscious motive to better oneself, to prove oneself, to fail less – which places the body in a state of tension. These elements of ableism are a part of the “default toxicity” present in our spaces, toxicities that are present by default in spaces just by nature of the current space, time, and context we are in.
But what if our spaces allowed us to move forward with more comfort, more ease, radically allowing our selves to experience what is beyond our conception? What if the goal is NOT to make it on our own? What if we knew that other people, that so many spaces, so many homes & families would be holding us as we go on our journey? What if our discomfort in our spaces was not the discomfort of having unmet needs but the discomfort of having others support us in meeting our needs? Once we can identify these default toxicities – ableism in action, and in particular not being encouraged to ask for/receive help or support, we can design or redesign our spaces powerfully.
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.
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.