The Importance of Community & How Our Pain Can Become Our Superpower

    I wrote a few days ago that if my own deep wounds are what enable me to heal others more deeply, then it is my privilege to carry these wounds. And I mean that from the depths of my soul. I just want to bring this message a little deeper into my consciousness today by expounding on this statement.
    I read a couple weeks ago a book entitled What Happened to You? by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry and they say in that book more than once, that the most crucial component to recovering from past trauma and its devastating effects on our psyche is community; a place where one can feel they belong, where one can feel 100% accepted exactly as they are with all of their idiosyncrasies, with their differing needs, and unresolved triggers. This means that there is nothing more important than our connection to one another, there is nothing more important than the time we spend listening to, supporting, and healing each other. So when I say that it is my privilege to carry the deep wounds that I carry, it is because those wounds are what allow me to contribute a more profound level of healing to the communities I become a part of. But I must add, that the community I have found has been essential to my growth. We spur each other onward, we heal in tandem with one another. That's the beauty of the human experience.
    Just last night, I thought about the movie What a Wonderful Life and how the young man began to wish he had never been born. Well, the number of times I have wished to have had a past without traumas has been incalculable. But, just like in that movie, had the survivor version of me never existed, perhaps those around me would be a little worse off. If I had never pulled myself through a massive crisis of faith, my words would have little weight. My anguish is what gave me my power; my power to heal, my power to uplift, my power to inspire; and it would be silly of me to waste any more time wishing that things had been different.