I had the most wonderful group experience this week.

This is a group with a purpose. We are there for a reason, and it concerns big things.

One of the humans in the group had experienced something wild and crazy (read: possibly traumatic) right before coming on the call.

I proposed that instead of spending the allotted time discussing the purpose, we give space to this human and their experience. After all, what is a community (this thing I want to cultivate) if we glide past the experiences, needs, and capacity of even one member?

The rest of the group was absolutely down for it!

The human seemed simultaneously horribly uncomfortable with the idea of taking up that much space and deeply touched that it was being offered. 

After feeling those feelings, they agreed it would feel better to work through them.

I was careful to ensure that we all held the container for this human to absorb what had happened in a way that made it about them and not about what we thought of it. Even as everyone shared their experiences, it remained lovingly centered on the person who had been through it.

And what came out of it was pure magic.

Everyone felt how the time we spent allowing true expression of a more immediate concern than the group’s stated purpose brought us all together in a different, more intimate way.

I imagine the person involved was able to log off the call and treat what happened as an anecdote of some weird thing that happened to them… instead of something their body would hold onto and create confusing tension and stress at odd moments.

I run these groups not because it’s a more efficient way to work with people but because the results of a group of intentional humans are exponentially greater than the sum of their individual parts.

My task is to hold the space for that magic to happen. To guide it and allow it to work and flow.

It feels like a component of my life’s work.

Have I ever mentioned, here, why I began doing groups? 

It’s because they fucking suck, for me.  Or at least, they did.

I have been one of those people who excel at blending in.  Depending on the situation, I can be a chameleon and fit in with whoever I’m with- playing the part to a tee, or a piece of scenery blending in to the wall so beautifully I’m overlooked.  Two sides of the same coin, if you ask me!  In neither one am I genuine, nor do they allow me to truly enjoy myself.  Even if I seem like it, I have always found that it takes a considerable amount of energy to have fun in a group of people.

I have recently engaged in some speculation.  Could it be that I never knew who I was, so I could never be myself?  Could it be that I have always been a leader and so had to play-act at being a follower?  Could it be that I was wounded in the places where I would have truly understood what it meant to belong?

And really, what it has meant is that for decades, interacting with more than one other person at a time has frozen me up, unless I could put on a persona. 

Which is particularly awful, because I am enough of a natural historian to know that humans are meant to belong.  We are made to exist in groups of up to 150 individuals.

So…

I decided to take action.

Of course, for me, that meant going at it head-on, intellectually.  Because that felt like the safest way to start.

I have applied my knowledge of how other animals exist in groups, combined with specific training in using Somatic Experiencing®️ in groups, and experimented over the last year. 

Five groups in, and I’m beyond thrilled. 

I have talked about how I feel about these groups – how they’re going, and what lovely feelings I have after each session.

But I haven’t truly collected words from those who have participated. 

As I hear from these folks, though, my own feelings are reinforced.

The topical groups work even better than I had hoped, bringing regulation and a greater sense of safety around issues with significant impact on those who signed up (so far, this has been Climate,  Collapse, US Politics, and Groups themselves).  The Finding the Roots group incorporated more teaching on my part, but the primary focus is for members to learn about their own nervous system in practical, embodied, safe-enough ways.

And, of course, the overarching theme for all the groups is that they are a collection of people.  Often, there are group members who are absolute strangers at the beginning.  As time passes, however, the group evolves into a small community. 

We care about each other, and we begin to feel safe, opening up and being vulnerable, while also understanding that the point is not to spill your guts just because it’s supposed to feel safe.  Instead, learn to recognize your own needs and boundaries, and honor how you truly feel within the community context.  

Which takes extra thought and work.

Over the years, I’ve heard many people speak about community.  I’ve heard some lament about how it is a lost art.  I’ve heard others deeply appreciate the community they are part of.  And everything in between.

What I absolutely know to be true, as a student of nature and the human animal, is that we need it.  We have never been biologically set up to be alone. 

It’s also a place in us where there is often deep trauma.  Perhaps this is because of the aforementioned loss of community-mindedness, maybe not.  I have lots of thoughts on this- these are just a few.

I know what it’s been like for me, personally. 

My family of origin- what substitutes in our culture as the first “community” we are exposed to- was so stressed that it was a loose conglomeration of biologically related people.  We were all so traumatized that we were isolated within the group.  There was love, don’t get me wrong, here.  But there was a lack of necessary support and validation, and trust.

That set-up didn’t bode well for me as I entered the larger world.

And still… I need, we all need, to be surrounded, included, known, loved, supported, heard, valued- by more than a few individuals.

This is the fundamental base of community, as I see it. 

Nuclear family isn’t the end of it.

Most humans on the planet no longer grow up in this sort of community.

I have literally had to look to other species to decide for myself what I need.

No huge surprise, here, I spend at least 20 minutes a day hanging out with my bees.  To me, they are the ultimate community, to the point that they aren’t even really single organisms.  I look at a colony of bees as the organism; a single honey bee can’t go it alone, point blank.

I’ll probably talk lots more, going forward, about what I’ve learned from the bees.

But let me start with this:

I want community.  I want to create community guided by these principles: everyone is surrounded, included, known, loved, supported, heard, and valued.

That doesn’t mean liked.  That doesn’t mean agreed with.  It doesn’t mean smooth sailing all the time.  There are all these things that we think community is, that it isn’t.  But it is fundamentally workable.  And perhaps it is also work…  To make sure that everyone gets these things means give and take, it means accepting, it means boundaries.