Why Do We Heal In Community

Healing is made possible through the magic of community. When we connect with others, we activate our ventral vagal nerve, enabling feelings of safety, belonging, and self-regard to emerge. We were never meant to do the work of healing on our own.

The medical-industrial complex, which has its roots in colonialism, has destroyed our belief in the necessity of communal healing. We are taught that our trauma is ours to deal with and we’re expected to heal ourselves in isolation. But this is not how healing happens.

As infants, we learn to regulate our nervous system by turning to the rhythm of our caregivers, which enables us to feel safety. If your caregivers are absent, missatuned, or abusive, we’re missing a crucial experience in our development: The capacity to self regulate.

As adults living with trauma, we need others to help us reconnect with a sense of safety and to nurture feelings of belonging and self-regard. While self-regulation is an important skill to learn, it doesn’t negate the necessity of co-regulating our nervous systems.

We have been told to disavow community and to become solitary creatures because we’re more powerful when we act together. If we want to imagine a world free of systemic oppression, then we need to work together. Community is the way to heal the world.

-author unknown