Personal growth is not personal
Community-building in west Greenland, Sep. 2021
““For community is an amphitheatre where the gladiators have laid down their weapons and their armour, where they have become skilled at listening and understanding, where they respect each others’ gifts and accept each others’ limitations, where they celebrate their differences and bind each others’ wounds, where they are committed to a struggling together rather than against each other.””
Personal growth, for most, is suggestive of an individual, solitary journey: we meditate behind closed doors, see a therapist on our own, read a self-help book in the quiet sunrise hours.
There are certainly important aspects of one's growth journey that can and should be undertaken alone. In my humble opinion, though, our Western focus on rugged individualism misses an important mark.
If one's personal growth journey is - and I believe it is - a process of individuation, of becoming whole and shedding that which no longer serves us, there is only so far you can get on your own. Without others to mirror back to us that which we cannot see on our own, we miss blind spots and we lack the accountability and support of a nurturing community.
One of the most powerful experiences of my life, when I took the greatest leap forward in terms of my own growth, was back in 2004. I was in the darkest hours of a 'long dark night of the soul', deeply depressed and borderline suicidal, when my therapist invited me to join a therapy group he was hosting every Wednesday night for 3 1/2 hours.
Desperate for anything, I agreed. I arrived, apprehensively, the following week to a room of 7 strangers and took my place on one of the cushions on the floor, in a small, dark room.
I came expecting a support group, but a year later I came away with something completely different, and much more meaningful.
This group was what our therapists (his wife co-hosted it) called an 'encounter group,' and it was designed to make me encounter - viscerally - all of the bullshit, habitual patterns, and programming that had been etched deep into my neural pathways over the then 3 decades of my life.
Every Wednesday evening I faced the clearest mirror I had ever faced and had my words, behaviours and beliefs reflected back at me, often in not-so-subtle ways (and I did the same for others). It was a place where I could no longer hide, could no longer get away with my habitual bullshit, and could no longer wear the masks I had become so practiced at wearing.
I'd never experienced the level of vulnerability I experienced in that room before. It was difficult (gut-wrenching at times) but it was also incredibly uplifting, like a giant weight lifted from my shoulders. For the first time in my life, I could just be myself, totally unfettered, with all the consequences - good and bad - that entailed.
This was also the first time I had experienced community, in its most meaningful form. Through our shared vulnerability, I connected with the people in that room on a level at which I'd never connected with people before. In that room, our differences were laid bare and welcomed. Our pain and suffering were held and appreciated. Our struggles became our communal struggles.
It was a place for deep contemplation, where one could, as M. Scott Peck says of community, develop "increased awareness of the world outside oneself, the world inside oneself, and the relationship between the two."
This community was an essential (and, for me, lifesaving) component of my personal growth. From that time forward, I've come to recognize the incredible value of community in one's healing and growth journey. My own growth incorporates both individual and community practices. Each supports and strengthens the other. My Wayfinders adventures and events rely heavily on fostering and nurturing deep community.
I've been studying community ever since that experience in that basement 18 years ago. It's a topic I'm deeply fascinated by and I'm currently on a deep dive with a few fascinating teachers and mentors.
I'll share more thoughts on the blog about the value of community, what makes true community, and how to create and nurture community over the coming weeks.
Here's to your own journey.