healing is with

As an American, I’ve often been taught that individualism to the point of isolation is a virtue worth pursuing. This was further framed by my religious upbringing that embraced capitalistic interpretations of “self-reliance,” including bootstrap ideology, purity culture, and prosperity doctrine. Happiness and fulfillment were frequently claimed to require insular interactions in a small group of people who lived “righteously” and nuclear family arrangement that excluded anything outside of heteronormative structure.

I’ve come to learn, instead, that fulfillment and rich, happy moments come through expansive, safe communities of belonging. Safe community and belonging require inclusion and acceptance, and don’t create conditional worthiness based on patriarchal, hierarchical imperatives. Safe community fosters belonging that flows beyond the social structures of family units and race relations and sexual orientations and gender expressions that fall within the status quo. Regenerative social impact is produced by communities that facilitate regeneration. My ethos has become community learning, community care, and community transformation that leads to new imagination and ultimately new systems.