{"id":66575,"date":"2025-10-02T13:47:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T20:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thegoodtrade.com\/?p=66575"},"modified":"2025-10-06T16:14:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T23:14:00","slug":"how-to-find-community-support-for-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thegoodtrade.com\/features\/how-to-find-community-support-for-healing\/","title":{"rendered":"How Community Can Hold Us Through Our Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is tempting, even for the lovers of vulnerability and podcast-length voice notes, to reserve their healing for the behind-the-scenes moments. My friend (an Aries, and so independent and high-reaching) often repeats the proverb, \u201cMany hands make light work.\u201d She usually reminds me of this when my sneaky hyper-independence tendencies<\/a> kick in. Whenever she offers it into the space, we almost immediately surrender to it, letting ourselves witness the village mentality at work, even though London raised us. It is proof that what many of us are actually calling in is support, witness, and a togetherness that isn\u2019t connected to status or profit \u2014 a necessary exhale from the age of self-reliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“What many of us are actually calling in is support, witness, and a togetherness that isn\u2019t connected to status or profit \u2014 a necessary exhale from the age of self-reliance.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Healing has become a word thrown around in online spaces, often with good intention, but still often hyper-fixated on the individual load of this mammoth task. There are many avenues to cater to our wellbeing and more people are open to the balm that is finding community spaces that nourish not just our social life, but also bring the nervous system out of fight or flight mode altogether and into ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a world where online communities are commodified and the word itself has become overused or equated to the labor of having to fill your cup first<\/a>, it\u2019s important to rediscover what community can be and what it can offer towards our collective healing. We reached out to experts to get to the heart of what healing in community looks like and the effect it can have when meaningful intentions are explored and maintained together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What does healing in community mean \u2014 and what are the benefits? <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Our healing potential is expanded when we join our personal efforts with collective ones. Nahid de Belgeonne<\/a>, author of \u201cSoothe: Restoring Your Nervous System from Stress, Anxiety, Burnout, and Trauma\u201d and somatic movement educator, tells us that the nervous system is designed for connection \u2014 while we can<\/em> regulate alone, deeper repatterning happens when we join together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Our healing potential is expanded when we join our personal efforts with collective ones.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing in community gives the body new evidence: that you don\u2019t have to hold it all yourself, that you can be both vulnerable and safe, that you can rest without the world collapsing. The benefit isn\u2019t just support, it\u2019s nervous system expansion, your capacity grows because you\u2019re not doing it in isolation,\u201d explains Nahid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antoinette Cooper<\/a>, MFA, founder of Black Exhale, collective trauma facilitator, and author of \u201cUNRULY,\u201d also sees the importance of healing in community as a way to remember safety within the body at both an individual and collective level. Cooper\u2019s work with her non-profit encourages her to affirm that \u201chealing in community is an indigenous practice. We have always needed one another, not just for parties, funerals, or cookouts, but for the vulnerable work of healing.\u201d In creating these community spaces, Cooper holds compassionate space to be seen and participate in healing without the risk of being retraumatized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“While we can<\/em> regulate alone, deeper repatterning happens when we join together.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A 2021 study<\/a> focused on urban American neighborhoods facing economic hardship found that community resources contributed to minimizing stress and facilitating healing. In the study, social support through extended family or wider networks proved to offer a path to coping and healing. In fact, having access to social cohesion in a neighborhood proved to lower the effects of PTSD in comparison to neighborhoods that lacked it. For Cooper, personal and collective healing are deeply intertwined: \u201cWhen we heal in community, we remember that individual healing also serves collective liberation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to consider that healing in community invites an awareness of the many different aspects of healing that may need to occur in a community \u2014 the generational, societal, environmental, systemic triggers that may impact members of a community differently based on historical violences or events are all a part of the journey. Cooper suggests that coming together to embrace healing is an interruption to isolation and serves as a step back to indigenous practices and a step away from pervasive individualism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What can healing in community look like?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There are several ways to participate in and prioritize community healing. Whether it\u2019s joining a journal club or attending somatic release classes like yoga or meditation, you can find an option to suit your personality, local environment and availability, and daily routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other activities to consider for collective healing are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n