To the Village: New Year Message & Update

Well, here we are again. It's been a while so this is a long one.

If you have been with me for some time, then you are familiar with my end-of-year email. My work is not just a means of income but a way of life woven into my days. So taking a break from the office offers just enough space to notice how much I love being there with you and inspires me to check in. I’ve traditionally been moved to write a message from this place of appreciation as I reflect on the common themes noticed in sessions throughout the last while. That wasn’t the case this year. I was not inspired at all and struggled to find the words to connect. That’s because when I really look at the undertones of what people have been saying and what their bodies are expressing, the commonalities which seem to preside are states of apathy and lethargy. We seem to be craving vitality and strength but just can’t maintain a sustained level. Healing time has been slow, motivation has been evasive and peace has been frequently named as a goal. As a practitioner, this is all hard for me to face.

My approach to bodywork comes from an understanding of the reciprocal relationships between the psychological, physical and spiritual bodies. The role of massage therapy can work to shape a stable and spacious place to inhabit. I see it as a tool of guidance to help cultivate an intimate relationship with the body in order to appreciate a full sensory experience of life. This mission, however, is deeply individual and lately I have felt called to ask how this translates on a larger scale. We invest all of this time and attention focusing on our own container as a supportive place to live but what about the container of our community? Who holds us after we learn to hold ourselves?  Who is tending the fire so we can go explore?

I’ve been reading a book called The Wild Edge of Sorrow by psychotherapist Francis Weller. In it, he presents the various forms of grief we face in life and how we might allow these profound experiences to shape us. In particular, he identifies “the grief of what we expected but did not receive”. This is the idea that we are all born with the anticipation that our needs will be supported, our gifts will be accepted, and we will be welcomed into a rich relationship with the earth and our community. This birthright includes rituals of celebration, healing and space for grieving. Clearly, this is no longer what our culture prioritizes and we eventually notice a subtle (or perhaps not-so-subtle) disheartenment when these components of a full life experience are not met. Weller writes,

“The absence of these requirements haunts us, even if we can’t give them a name, and we feel their loss as an ache, a vague sadness that settles over us like a fog. This lack is simultaneously one of the primary sources of our grief and one of the reasons we find it difficult to grieve. On some level, we are waiting for the village to appear so we can fully acknowledge our sorrows.”

I am beginning to wonder if we have mislabeled our current state as one of “burn out”. I don’t believe that we are burnt out. I believe we are grieving. Through social justice challenges, the strain of the pandemic, the blood of a genocide, the threat to democracy, and the crisis upon our natural world, we are hurting and it is starting to show. Over the last year, I have repeatedly heard this need for a village and I fear that we have been falling short. I believe we have worked so hard on imposing boundaries to protect ourselves, to empower ourselves and to refine our experiences. But in doing so, we may have also narrowed ourselves into isolation and created this chasm of division we now stand on one side of. Boundaries are still important. But humans are semi permeable beings and we cannot help but resonate with the happenings around us.

For the most part, we seem to be doing ok like this. It is not the anxiety bomb of 2020, that's for sure. But what I am hearing is that we want more than existence. We want to feel alive and connected and inspired. As long as we neglect this grief, and as long as our neighbour is suffering, we will feel strain and be separate from optimal wellness.

I would like to invite you to take the essence of a village into the new year - the idea that every person is cared for because they are important to the whole. This is not an altruistic request but an acknowledgement that we are all essential by virtue of our own existence. We do not need to earn a place at the table of our community. Each one of us IS the community. Perhaps we have lost this belief of belonging. We have been made to feel useless unless we are performing for vast amounts of money or attention and we consider ourselves fortunate as long as we are not destitute. But this is not enough to feel fulfilled. This is not about solving the world’s problems. It’s a shift in perspective. An intentional practice of holding more space for others through understanding. To consider what grief looks like and how we support the process. And, perhaps more importantly, a practice in trusting our own hearts to others to help divide our burdens and promote a collective healing. We know how to do this. We have just forgotten.

This year, bring your gifts. Open your heart. Be curious about others. Let us expand.

Thank you for a year of allowing me to exercise my own place of belonging. I hope to see you around my fire in 2022.
-Alicia