At almost 50 years old, I have by now spent thousands of hours of my life listening to and supporting clients in one-on-one sessions. Slowly, carefully, building trust with the individuals who choose to trust me, repatterning attachment, filling in gaps left by parents who didn’t know what they didn’t know, imparting tools and skills and loving my private practice singles and couples into greater wellness.

And, despite my lifetime of investment – or maybe because of it – I don’t believe that private sessions with only one highly skilled person are the answer to the question of, how do we heal as a species.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know the value of my work.  I consider myself a highly helpful stopgap measure. A stand in. One that is entirely unsustainable but also, very much needed for this moment in time. The intelligence it takes to design communities that can truly take care of the most vulnerable members among us and nourish the collective need for belonging is evolving, but slowly.

In my private practice, I offer doses of the nourishment that full-fledged, intelligent community provides. But I have never seen what I do as the long term answer. Community holds that; community could only ever be the answer. The piece I hold of that possibility is only that, a partial offering.

This past weekend, I served on the teaching staff of The Summer Revival Gathering, a four day, arts, culture, community and life celebration event, centering indigenous and elder wisdom, welcoming children and families, and amplifying local and regional artists of extraordinary caliber. And there, I experienced a taste of the dream I dream when I sit in my small, second floor, private practice office and watch my clients bravely shed their defenses, knowing full well that when they leave, they are often going back into the same toxic spaces and places that will require them to armor all over again.

At Revival, it wasn’t just me practicing alone. Not even close. I was one of hundreds of healers there.  Hundreds. Across the musicians and the organizers and the herbalists and the authors and the teachers and the DJ’s and the bodyworkers and the heart tenders and the activists and more, I was part of a collective, a healing force, that was unified in ways that are rare at events this scale. The intention to take care of one another was pulsing through the footfall of every person I encountered who was co-creating the event. I knew even in the holding I did, I was held.

This became most apparent when I taught on Friday afternoon in the Conscious Touch Temple, the physical space where ten other educators and I were offering classes on embodiment throughout the weekend. Our intention was to share gentle education and healing with participants around the experience of touch, a complex topic for most people, and an essential nutrient in healthy adult connection. I designed my workshop, the opening act in the temple, to lay a foundation for the edgier workshops to come. I began with the simplest exercise I know, an Authentic Relating game called, “Far Away/So Close”.

Even after only the first minutes of leading the exercise, I noticed him.  His eyes were instantly red and wet. His face subtly flushed.  The exercise included working with a partner to communicate through gesture only – no words – the desire for proximity, stillness or distance. The partner agrees to move slowly in response to the first person’s directions – forward, backward or stay put. And the entire exercise is a quiet, potent meditation, a living feedback loop on what the animal body wants, in a safe enough space to listen for it and ask.

Watching his tears flow as the exercise progressed, I thought he might stop. I expected he would leave. I imagined he might ask for support. But he stayed through the class and engaged in the remainder of the exercises, while I continued to notice his tenderness as he moved through the tent.

After class, he approached me, and I welcomed him. Bravely, he began. “What is happening to me?” Something had been opened in him by the exercise on asking for closeness or distance – something with a force to it – that didn’t map onto his expectations, but was finding a channel that day through his chest.

So I sat with him. We grounded. And I gently encouraged him to try something that I might not be able to do if he were about to walk out of my office. I encouraged him to welcome the waves that were still breaking over his heart and lungs. Taught him a simple exercise for getting into relationship with those waves. Confirmed he had close friends near and knew to lean on them for holding. And made sure he was aware of other resources at the gathering, including making plans to check in with him in the next day or two. I did not answer his question of what was happening. I encouraged him to keep listening for his own story. And then he walked away.

Oh my God, I thought, as I watched him leave. Did I give him what he needed? I had never met him, had no idea his background or history and certainly couldn’t properly assess his psychological stability, all the factors that professional psychology training drills into us as vital for safety assessments.  But I wasn’t alone. I knew that feet from where he left me, he was already in the midst of countless doorways to support. I told my team about our exchange, prayed and proceeded to keep my eye out for him as the weekend unfolded.

Two days later, I saw him again.  It was the closing day. I was flooded with relief, and curiosity. “How goes it?” I began. And he told me of the most magnificent openings that had followed that initial floodgate in my class.  About how he had taken my advice to ask friends to hold him and the generosity of their support. How he had tried the practice of welcoming the sensations and acknowledging their presence, however much his intellect was balking. How he had visited the grief lodge and wept and allowed his tears to crest and fall.  And how much the evening musical soundscapes had enveloped him in so much beauty that he felt he had been on a journey throughout the weekend. That’s how he was. He was very, very well.

He also told me his answer to what was going on with him, the question with which he had opened when we first met.  A storyline he had pieced together not because anyone had diagnosed him, but because he had been wrapped by the support he needed to relate to his experience on the terms of the experience, with patience for his animal body and the emotion that lives there to show its truths.  How beautiful, I said. Yes, I hear you. That makes sense. I’m so glad you have this clarity.

This kind of work often takes many months, if not longer, in private practice.  I always refer my clients to community resources, but it isn’t always the case that I can work in such synergy with other hands and hearts to support someone to open.  I left the Revival Gathering elated to have tasted the dream I have long known is possible, the one where we hold each other to hold each other. Where I am not working alone. Where I too get so many needs met, while meeting so many needs. Where no one is left out of the experience of belonging, while we can all evolve, heal, grow and revive together.

I’m back at my private practice today, back to meeting with clients one-on-one and back to supporting them as I do. My heart is full as it always is on client days. There is smoke in the air outside from the nearby fires, sadly, and I am staying indoors and writing when I might be walking on my breaks. It has been quiet between sessions. But if I tune in closely, I can still hear the lively din of the weekend, the echoes of songs we sang, the laughter of the children and the taste of togetherness, a subtle buzz on my tongue.  A taste I want more of.  

Photo from Revival 2025