self healing is collective healing

we show up for others by showing up for ourselves // self-healing is collective healing ::

in my meditation this morning, i asked how we can show up to support each other in relationships. what i heard was “you show up to support others by doing the work on yourself. When you do your work you get the experience, the vocabulary, the nuance. Then you know how to show up for other people."

this feels very true for me. the more i work through on my own shit — difficult relationships, family stuff, privilege, whiteness, resentments — the more I have to offer to my loved ones and community when they are going through their stuff. the more i work on me, the more i have to give.

in fact, it’s the ONLY way i have ANYTHING to give.

When I do the work on me, I understand. I understand not just through my brain and my head, but in my body and in my heart. Doing the work on ourselves is how we internalize the lesson and learn the pathway by which pain travels, how traumas imprint us. It’s how we learn to see from the inside out and how we relate to each other. 

i sometimes worry that self-care and self-work are only helping me, not helping others, and that they are selfish endeavors. I have to be conscious of not abusing the privileges i have by using self-care as an excuse to not show up for service, AND i’m seeing that, in balance, self-care and self-work are actually forms of service.

I do my work, and then turn around and share it. 

Something I hear from the guides all the time is that our nervous systems and our bodies teach one another, unconsciously, and all the time. it’s why we feel so good being around certain people, even when there is little or no talking. it’s like our energetic bodies and nervous systems are taking notes when we are with those people, patterning new pathways.

when we learn in ourselves, we automatically teach those around us, just by having internalized the lesson. self-healing is collective healing. we have to turn around and share it to complete the circle, and we have to be with ourselves to get it in the first place.