Healing In Community

You cannot heal alone. You need community. But you have to find and choose the right community.

The right community to heal has safe people in it. People who are for your growth, not opposed to it. People who, when you open up to them, move towards you. People who are vulnerable. People who have an honest heart. People who are accepting, not judgmental.

Your group of friends, a special support group, or a spiritual life group should be a healing community for you. Unlike other groups, a treatment clinic, or rehab facility, you don't leave them when you receive healing. You stay to celebrate your healing and to help others heal their hurts.

Henri Nouwen, in his book "The Wounded Healer," says that you're in a healing community "not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for  a new vision. Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength."

I am often amazed at the kind of help that people in my "Healing Is A Choice" life groups can give to each other. They all come first focused on their own wounds. As enough time goes by, those who heal shift their focus of looking at their own wounds to looking at the wounds of others and how they can be instruments of healing to them. As they bring healing to others, they become whole.

Do you need to heal in community? Let me know. I can help you find or start one.