Chapter 8: Collective healing in systems change

These days collective healing is in the zeitgeist. You don’t have to scroll too long on social media to find the latest on trauma and healing.

In 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, I was in Santa Fe at a gathering for system change practitioners and trainers. We were asking a lot of questions about what the field needed to provide collective healing. One of the key questions that emerged was related to the connection between healing the self and healing systems. Melanie Goodchild guided us through a healing ceremony and then convened participants to explore what it meant for systems change.

In systems change, we focus our attention on the relationships in systems. In this way, we can see that if relationships are healthy, the system is healthy. But how is healing connected to systems change practice? I come to this question from a feminist perspective. My experience in intersectional movements addressing gender-based violence in all its forms informs my work in systems change.

Since the Santa Fe gathering, I have been exploring this question and tracking my insights about healing practice and systems change. Here are a few to share for now.

Locating ourselves in the system and inviting the fully human

In our work at The Systems Sanctuary, we always start our programs by “locating” ourselves in the systems in which we are working. We ask participants to reflect on where they are in relation to the issue they are trying to solve. We invite them to ask themselves:

How does the place where I come from inspire my work, and how does this give me power, privilege or challenges?

We ask these questions to help people see how their histories and culture create the context and relationship to the systems change work that they do. We encourage them to see the complexity in their stories, to uncover blind spots and to enter the conversation in a more connected and rooted way. Collectively, we tether ourselves to our ground and our story and draw a line between ourselves and the systemic context in which we are now operating.

This helps us to see how subjective we are in seeing, being and doing. When we work with complexity, we can easily disconnect our own humanity (our deeply complex selves) from our engagement in change.

What is your lineage?

In systems practice, Rachel and I always position ourselves as practitioners and not experts. This encourages participants to see themselves as experts in their own experiences.

When we teach systems change practices, we always acknowledge that people may come to this practice from many different lineages. We also say that this practice may be familiar, intuitive, and that some participants may be experienced in some aspects of the work, and seeking guidance in other aspects.

What is your lineage in systems change? What are your lineages in healing practices? What has been your own healing experience? How does this connect to the work you are doing?

Ground in where people are coming from

It is important to not make assumptions about where people are at in terms of trauma or healing. Healing is a very personal journey.

It’s important that a space is held well with boundaries and clear invitations into a process so people can consciously determine for themselves how they show up and what their limits are.

Work with the experienced practitioners here

Early on after the Santa Fe meeting, I started talking with Terrellyn Fearn, director of Turtle Island Institute. I was interested in her perspective on trauma and healing. Terrellyn, has decades of experience working in collective healing and most recently working as Engagement Director for the Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).

I was particularly interested in talking with her because I knew from years of working with young women in violence prevention that creating spaces for collective work requires skilled design, practice and facilitation.

I have also seen what happens when people convene without the appropriate experience to do this work. Unskilled process, lack of political awareness and analysis, lack of leadership rooted in lived experience result in processes that risk (re)creating harm, retraumatizing and alienating people. I have seen patterns that are really important to learn from.

Skill and experience will ensure that the leadership, facilitation and process are grounded in the experience of those who are experiencing harm from that system. It will also ensure that dialogues have the space to hold multiple perspectives and navigate the power dynamics that may emerge. Facilitators require a deep understanding and analysis of the structural and systemic issues of inequity that cut across systems change, so that these can be named, welcomed into the room, and worked with throughout a process.

Many people working outside of dominant systems have the skill and experience to hold space and to lead processes with integrity. Many practitioners, facilitators and healers who have honed their craft working in community and movement spaces hold the wisdom required for collective healing spaces. Unfortunately, systems change work is often designed within dominant systems, even though systems change leaders know that non-dominant perspectives have insight and leadership skills to guide the way. This can be a blind spot that leads to missteps and oversteps.

It is important to be open, and willing to learn and be guided by community healers who do this work well.

Check the guru and the ego

In both the healing and systems change field, I have sometimes met people with an aura of the “guru” about them. They seem to be special, and wise, with gifts beyond those of ordinary human beings. They are more evolved. Or so the unspoken guru aura would have us believe.

I find this very troubling. Who gets to be a guru or spiritual leader, and how do they become one? If the guru of the moment thinks they are more special or more evolved, I start looking for the door.

I have found guides and teachers who keep their ego in check. In these rooms, I feel humility, authenticity, and a lived wisdom. I can sit comfortably.

Systemic framing

In dominant culture, trauma and violence have been framed as individual experiences, and therefore used as a way to pathologize and render these experiences problematic. Neo-liberal values end up blaming the victim, rather than understanding the issues as systemic and perpetuated by conditions in the culture.

A systems lens is an opportunity to bring greater awareness to the conditions that create violence and harm. Patriarchy, colonization and capitalism run through all our systems, including education, health and the economy. By naming these dominant values, we create space for people, relationships and understanding. This acknowledges and validates the collective harm and violence that people navigate in systems we are working in. It moves us from individual blame.

Practices I appreciate in our systems change spaces

Creating space for the human: Complexity invites the human; the culture you create invites the fully human. Being human is counter-cultural to the polished and professional cultures of organizations and business. Sharing from a place of authenticity and challenging notions of expertise, achievement and performance also invites the human. Sometimes people need to be in caucus groups to feel that they can show up in all their complexity.

Sharing and exchanging experiences: When we create the space for people to connect from their experiences, we begin to see patterns that make our connection clear. We hear from each other that we are not alone in our experiences. We start to see that what we have internalized is also connected to systems and cultures. This breaks through isolation and sets the path for building a sense of community, shared power and collective action.

Sharing ritual: Which rituals help you personally create a space for connection and healing? Rachel and I always open with a check-in to set the tone and help people land in the space. It helps us to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. We also like to begin our sessions with meditation and breathing to shift the energy into our bodies and to ground the group. We set intentions through setting culture and framing, and inviting participants to share their hopes and expectations. I like to practise gratitude when we close the session. Rachel has taught me that its really important to close strong and end well.

Drawing on wisdom traditions: There are many ways to connect different lineages of wisdom traditions. I enjoy being in spaces where people share their practices. Women once were considered healers. Natural and plant medicines were their science; spiritual healing was also valued. Embodiment practices connect us into our hearts and to our many ways of knowing. In holistic embodiment practices, illness is not regarded as something to be fixed or solved, but as information that can be used to help us come back into balance. What traditions do you practise? What are you curious about? As Terrellyn asks, “How do you tend to your spirit?”

What I have learned:

I still have lots of questions about healing practice in systems change. One thing that I have learned is that the more I travel, the more I come to understand that by ‘healing self’, I shift the patterns in my life and this ripples out into the world. That by practicing gratitude, I come to appreciate the simple beauty in life. By sitting with the trees, I come to understand time differently. That by letting go, I find my own sense of freedom to create.

I have come to understand that my deepest work is outside of the actual systems change work I do, and this makes me question and see that I need to move my centre of gravity. The change sector feels for me, like a block in the system, there is more room when I ground this work in other ways. I feel called to expand beyond these limits and to keep walking on the edges.

I have also learned that our wounds are our gifts, that there is wisdom in our flaws. I remember that I have been on this journey for a long time and we have what we need to find our way.

Our Inquiry

The care series was an inquiry into creating cultures of care in systems change. We were so honoured to be accompanied by Grandmother Kahontakwas, Diane Longboat who shared her teachings, and opened us in prayer and invocation. Her wisdom offers deep teachings about healing and care.