True healing isn’t found in isolation. Self-help isn’t enough.
How often do you hear about self-help, self-healing and self-love?
In our individualist society, and our individualistic health system, we have an incessant focus on developing self-connection.
“You’ve gotta love yourself before you can love anyone else.”
“No one can tell you who you are.”
“You already have all the answers you need.”
These are nice ideas that support our independence and individualism.
The problem is that relational issues – the way we relate to ourselves, others and the world around us – need relationships to heal fully and completely.
Why is this? Because humans need connection to survive.
In human history, being alone or disconnected from community was a threat to life. Prosocial behaviours – being able to reflect on one’s self and stay in connection with the community – helped us to stay alive.
If you’ve ever watched the TV series ‘Alone’, you’ll know how tough it is for the contestants to be so isolated and to have to do ‘all the things’ required for survival.
We are a social species that works best in collaboration, sharing tasks with our community.
Over the course of history, humans have collaborated so well that we have essentially taken over the world!
The problem with an individualistic society
Having nurturing and supportive relationships is synonymous with good health and wellbeing.
We literally need each other.
And yet, we face significant barriers to nurturing connection.
We live in a society that values business, constant achievement, and endless production.
We are more connected through our screens than through touch, presence and deep listening.
And we have increasing reports of loneliness, even in social settings. You can read about this here, here and here.
It’s incredibly hard to develop strong, safe and nurturing relationships when we have limited relational skills or have faced difficult experiences in previous relationships. This is one of our biggest barriers.
In an ideal world, we’d experience safe and quality connections early on, and these would support an inner sense of ‘okayness’ with ourselves, our relationships and the world around us.
On the other hand, if we don’t experience consistent safety, trust, autonomy, love and connection from our caregivers and society, we can have a pervasive sense of ‘not okayness’ and feel that the world is not safe.
As we grow, we can be drawn towards relationships that mimic this disconnection, rejection, distrust or hurt. We can learn that relationships with friends, colleagues or partners are not safe havens, but places of pain.
Self-oriented healing has limits
I am going to go out on a limb and say that I believe no amount of ‘self healing’ will create a sense of safety in relationships with others.
Without developing a sense of safety (in the context of a new and embodied experience of trust and connection in a relationship with another human) there are limits to what is possible in self-oriented healing.
You can find a deep connection with nature and animals, but without practising deep connection with other humans, it alone won’t fully develop your capacity to receive love into your core.
You can access states of transcendent consciousness in meditation, but without learning how to share your inner light in relationship with another, it is much harder to allow yourself to be seen fully and completely.
You can develop a strong relationship with your inner world, but without engaging in the relational dynamics that bring out your scared, hurt and protective parts, these parts of yourself do not learn that they can be cared for by you and another.
This is why, even in mystical and religious traditions that focus a lot on self reflection and self connection, there is still a teacher, guide or facilitator.
In the therapy room, it’s the presence of the therapist – the attuned clinician– that provides a space for a person to experience something new inside themselves, in the context of being supported by another.
It is through being received, that we can often receive ourselves.
It is through parts of us being known, that we can know ourselves.
It is through mirrored reflection that we can see ourselves more clearly.
The depths of our inner world can be scary. If we want to turn inwards and develop a deep connection with ourselves, we also need an attuned guide to support the process.
This relational healing – where we work on ourselves with a teacher, partner or guide – allows us to develop the true skills of relating.
Skills like setting empathetic boundaries, conflict resolution and intimate communication about likes, dislikes, desires and yearnings.
That’s why I believe that we can’t do it all alone. It is important to work with a skilled practitioner who understands relationships and relational safety. Who can help us develop tools for self-connection and also be a safe relational presence.
And it’s why I believe true healing does not happen only in isolation, in a monastery or alone out in the wilderness.
Whilst these spaces can offer insights and discoveries, we also need community and connection-based healing to integrate them into our lives and relationships.
That’s why I see the Third Pillar of Vitality (Supporting Sacred Connections) as developing skills not just for connecting one’s Self, but with each other, with our spirituality, and with the natural world too.
None of these are complete on their own – we need them all to thrive, to be enriched, to be vital.
We need them all to be connected to the complex whole of who we are and our mind-body-spirit experience – in the context of our lives, in relationship to others and the world.
If you’d like support to forge these connections and relational skills, in a safe and supportive environment, you know where to find me.