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Can there be safety in a collective healing process?

A seed by: Zainab Amadahy
Project: Main Pool
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Zainab Amadahy is an author of screenplays, nonfiction and futurist fiction. The most notable of her academic writings is “Indigenous Peoples and Black Peoples in Canada: Settlers or Allies” (co-authored with Dr. Bonita Lawrence, Mi’kmaq). Zainab currently sits on the Advisory Council of Muskrat Magazine, where many of her writings appear. Of mixed heritage (African American, Tsalagi and Seminole), Zainab lives in Nogojiwanong, Ontario, Canada and has authored works of fiction and nonfiction. Now semi-retired, she has worked in community arts, nonprofit housing, Indigenous knowledge reclamation, women’s services and migrant settlement. For more on Zainab and to access to some of her writings check out swallowsongs.com.

Disciplines:

Literature
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This seed is a collaboration with: Write With Me

Great question.  I have more: Can there be safety in a collective healing process?  What kinds of safety Whose responsibility is the provision of whatever levels and kinds of safety are desired?  When people entering the APL process discuss their safety concerns, what do they mean?

Certainly, everyone agrees on the imperative of being as physically safe as possible in all situations, including communal healing activities.  The threat of violence, criminalization, and forms of coercion should, of course, be a nonstarter in communal healing spaces.  Unfortunately, as we know, our ancestors did not have that safety.  Indigenous healing ceremonies were outlawed.  Black churches that hosted events related to racial healing were often targeted by White supremacist violence.  Rootworkers, curanderos/as, and Indigenous healers could be arrested for practicing their craft, even in the pursuit of saving lives.  In today’s group healing events, however, it is reasonable that one can expect a level of physical safety and freedom from violence.  Hence, in my experience, physical safety is rarely a concern in today’s communal healing processes.

If the kind of safety people want in their healing circle is where they can be authentically vulnerable without judgment or ridicule, that too seems doable.  Presumably, everyone in the circle is equally vulnerable and shares the same foundational belief system around healing, so group covenants characterized by sincerity and integrity are relatively easy to establish.  It’s inherent to the effectiveness of collective healing that participants have worked on themselves enough to be prepared with practiced skills and techniques to receive challenging and triggering stories.  Responsible and experienced facilitators can certainly help provide safety by screening participants, recommending preparatory exercises, etc.  Bringing people together who share an identity or have experienced a type of trauma, for instance, can also provide a sense of safety initially, but less so as the process progresses when fears around being judged, ridiculed, and retraumatized heighten.  It helps to reinforce the idea that every member of the group shares responsibility for maintaining a safe space.  Ultimately, people should be able to leave if they do not feel safe or trust the process.

It's important to understand upon entering any healing process that dispensing institutional “justice” as it is meted out by the domineering cultures of our world does not equal healing for anyone involved.  Rather it continues cycles of traumatization.  On the other hand, transformative justice is aligned with the concept of restoring humanity to states of healed / wholeness / holiness.

In my experience, some folks entering collective healing spaces are looking for more than safety from judgment and ridicule.  Often, they are looking for assurances that they won’t have to air their deepest regrets, divulge their most shameful secrets, or publicly inflame their most painful wounds.  And that is simply not aligned with the pursuit of collective healing.  So, one has to be ready, willing, and self-trusting enough to be witnessed in these activities.

As I’ve experienced it, communal healing intends that we share stories that activate our strongest emotions so we can feel them together.  We all know what shame, guilt, grief, fear, rage, hatred, etc. feel like.  When we activate those feelings in a group, we have an opportunity to RECOGNIZE ourselves in each other.  Given the necessary circumstances, any of us can be victim, perpetrator, savior, judge, or not-so-innocent bystander.  Most of us experience all of these relational roles at some point in our lifetime.  Hence, when we can offer compassion for other people’s very human emotions and their desire to be accountable, reconcile, and heal, we can bring that same compassion to ourselves.  We forgive and release together.  We inspire each other to a new level of awareness with our shared revelations of meaning.

In communal healing, there is no safety from publicly expressing the pain of our worst experiences.  Simply put, the promise of communal healing begins with the gentle and compassionate scratching of each other’s wounds.  The more people who role model the various outcomes of their healing work, the more they will inspire others to seek wholeness because connection always feels better than isolation.

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