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Community, be it in the realm of Reimagine or Rethink, would be grossly deficient if we do not consider Wellness and Mental Health. While the focus of our writing is not yet on this area (as of 2023), we are keenly aware of the need in this area. We offer this webpage as a brief preview of some of our thinking. We hope you enjoy it and find it valuable. It will augment our broader Foundation thoughts on Community, and a practical outworking in the areas of Land, Housing, Food and Education. We will post what follows in the Rethink side of CR2 and as a sample in the Portal.
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Our language uses the term “community” to mean many things. We are part of an online community. Our neighborhood has a good feeling of community. We attend our favorite service organization and call it community. We go to a particular church and call it community. We look at a map to find out where one part of a city has regions or neighborhoods that have an excellent reputation for community. Corporations try to develop a sense of community and an esprit de corps—a “spirit” of oneness in a group or body, the “corps.”
If you would like to read (or review) a working and “get started” definition of Community, we recommend this article:
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How does Community impact Wellness and Mental Health? Are they somehow connected? Or is Wellness and Mental Health a body of ultimate truth owned solely by the mental health professional? Degrees and accreditation do not automatically imply Wellness and Mental Health. There are practitioners of these professions who quietly struggle with the very symptoms they seek to treat. The ancient Biblical statement, “Physician, heal thyself!” is worth including in these probing questions.
A Journey into Community is not “just for individuals.” Community always means more than one.
Our well-being, our personal health in all dimensions (spirit, soul, and body), depends on our collective interactions. We are not just scientific islands of DNA, muscles, organs, tissues and molecules. Modern “community” (a façade) often implies “separateness” and “individuality.” We see this in architectural forms, designs for streets and neighborhoods, how we live and eat together, and how we share resources. That is a short list of affected areas.
Contrast our modern separateness with ancient cultures and tribes. Consider our earlier Western cultures when we had higher percentages of agrarian activity in smaller villages. Contrast our modern ways with Indigenous cultures. Take a peek into smaller European or Asian villages—some embrace older ways. It won’t take long to see tremendous gaps—gaping holes—in our understanding of interconnectedness.
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Instead, we rush down to the grocery store. We abandon the Community of growing crops, animal husbandry and collective food preparation and storage. The box store replaces artisanal works and other creative endeavors.
Fleets of long-haul trucks bring products to us from great distances. We are no more connected with the farm than watching a cartooned farm laborer on a television show. Artisanal craftsmanship is traded in for mass-produced injection moulded products. In perfect isolation, we gather our food or other products from shelves. Then we pay at the robotic self-serve checkout terminal. It will complain (with a nasal voice) if you don’t bag your products quickly enough. Then we push our own cart to the car.
Self-sufficiency? An unattainable theory for many in today’s grid-connected society. Turn off the power for a few days and watch the chaos. Left uncorrected too long, civil unrest, looting and even anarchy can follow. Or shut down supply lines with a virus—watch shelves empty with panic buying.
We carry and embody stress within ourselves despite the power being on and supply chains flowing. Our heart, our subconscious, knows the risk and that something is amiss. Ignoring the problem with a cloak of busyness and “business as normal” cannot remove the hidden burden. Inwardly, we yearn for safety, in the totality of our being, in the Commonwealth of Community.
Instead of Community places of gathering to share meals (if so desired), we discover alternates. Walled subdivisions and high fences emerge between adjoining houses. Long gone are picket fences and a visit with a neighbor.
Author-editor’s note: We are very aware of the need for individual spaces and places for individuals and family units. We are not talking about “communes” in CR2. What has happened to the Community and extended family within the Indigenous longhouse? Or perhaps the rural Community Hall, where potlucks and crafts were common?
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This societal separateness is a disease.
Separateness spawns pockets of illness in our minds, emotions, and body. We are not separate parts in isolation: even our human body teaches us this. Daily tasks are much more difficult with the loss of limbs. The visually less-desirable aspects of our anatomy are critical to our wellbeing. We need the liver, colon, and kidneys just as much as skilled fingers that play the flute, a voice that sings a cappella like an angel, or the dance of a ballerina.
Our body is a dance and symphony of life with many interdependent anatomical features and systems. The digestive, musculoskeletal, circulatory, nervous, immune systems and so on. Grab a hot dish just out of the oven and the pain messaging surges through your whole body. We simply cannot isolate–cut off–an internal or external member of our body and expect that there will be no consequences.
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Lions on the hunt are opportunistic: they will seek the isolated, the very young, or the weak member of the herd. Separateness increases risk and weakens. Separation sets up a member of the herd for the attack. Disease is like the lion’s sprinting lunge for the kill—the lion’s kill is simply the outcome of separation. While there may be genetic or other factors involved in disease—akin to the weakened member of the herd—separateness from Community compromises our wellbeing. Separateness is a catalyst for a decrease of Wellness and Mental Health.
We need the whole. Community is critical to our Wellness and Mental Health.
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Not just any “whole,” for some gatherings and groups are inherently unhealthy, toxic or even against the whole. Consider, for example, how auto-immune diseases like lupus attack the body itself. Through confused immunological responses, the immune system attacks what it was supposed to defend.
Separateness creates a lupus-like response in groups. Members attack other members of the organization when disunity, factions or cliques reign. This can easily create physical diseases for individuals within this “climate.” A toxic workplace is a good example. Another illustration might be the heavy burdens of legalism, control and undue restraints. Organizations, corporations, religions and their assembling, and relationships are all targets—a lion’s snack—when separateness reigns.
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But we should spell “disease” differently: “dis-ease” is more apt as some writers have noted. We are not at ease, and stress is rampant in society. Instead of a neighbor and close friend to share one’s burdens with, we find “solace” in pills and practitioners of modern medicine. All too often, we find the practitioners detached from anything except Science on their exalted pedestal-perch. Instead, we chalk illness up to a host of factors (genetic, viral, bacterial, etc.). We become a laboratory slide for the microscope of Science and the Petri dish of Prescription Pills.
Science is valuable and must be the servant of Community and people.
The inversion is destructive.
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Ratchet up and lift the bar of our societal dysfunction. Watch the merry-go-round of modern medicine try to keep pace with ever-accelerating health challenges. Complexity births more complexity-chaos while resource demands for enhanced Science and support systems skyrocket. We enter an inescapable vortex, a roiling maelstrom with a troublesome and inevitable conclusion.
Separateness is a black hole with a gravitational pull: we dare not underestimate the dangers of separateness.
Then we play with the language of wordsmiths in our rabid pursuit of separateness, individuality and wealth accumulation. Driven by the ravages of the love of money and shareholders’ return on investment, we become sitting ducks. Alone on a pond, detached from Community, our wellness and mental health is at risk.
Some “rest” homes for the aged are anything but restful. Being put out to pasture (during aging) until we visit the morgue does nothing for our wellbeing and mental health. Purpose and life-meaning during aging, and broader forms of interaction with all age groups, is the need of the aging heart. We need more than bedraggled care aides, in understaffed facilities, with a “yummy” meal and the daily allotment of pills on a cart. Corporate interests brand modern care institutions for the elderly as “homes,” “lodges” and “communities.” These are but one example of care models that are counterproductive to our wellness and mental health.
Meanwhile, some private sector “care home” investors rub their money-soiled hands with glee.
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The veteran or police officer—or other first responders and providers of aid and safety—with PTSD struggles to find housing and meaning after their service to society. They are no longer solaced as part of a band of brothers, or sisters, on a mission. Too often, the rallying cry of “No man left behind!” is in the trash bin after their times of active service.
Remember the wounded who fight for you: some wear uniforms; others do not.
Remember that they made a choice to serve.
Remember their tears and anguish when their service overwhelms even the strong.
Author-editor’s note: For reasons of length, we could not include every valued participant who serves. We know our list could be expanded. “The Rest of The Team” entries are every bit as valuable as those in the graphic.
Know you are not forgotten, and that your work is appreciated be it in Logistics or a 1001 Support Services. Thank you!
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Isolation is a sure pathway to mental health problems. Place a prisoner in solitary confinement and watch many of them go mad. Inject family providers into the rat race of two or more jobs. With little time for meaningful social interaction and family time, watch their wellbeing diminish. Soon enough, we see the pharmacies and doctor’s offices swamped. Detached and faraway looks replace the bright and curious eyes they once had as toddlers. Now, broken and fragmented lives just “exist” to pay bills and somehow do “life.”
Rinse. Repeat.
Until death—physical, emotional or a broken heart and spirit—is the final solace.
The only sure pathway away from this toxic soup that separation births—a loss of Wellness and Mental Health—is through Community. There is a valuable part for modern medicine to play. But it must be symbiotic to Community. For when modern medicine—in its varied forms and disciplines—creates a tone of aloofness, of separateness, it can only birth disease and illness. Medicine cannot afford to sulk in the corner alone and in a council with Science, logic, left-brain bias, and empiricism. It must embrace the intuitive, the spiritual, and the interactions of mind and body.
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The simple and small things have value and beauty.
There is a lot of medical wisdom in the ways of children playing, tail-wagging puppies, or purring cats. A bowl of chicken soup and a shared tear at a Community garden often injects more goodness into the body and mind than cryptic words on a prescription’s note. Ocean air, or fresh mountain breezes, are restorative.
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We must ask for ancient pathways and forgotten or devalued wisdom. New can work with old when the vantage point is correct. Discover those keys and forge a vibrant Community: your Wellness and Mental Health will join you in your Journey.
We must ask for ancient pathways and forgotten or devalued wisdom. New can work with old when the vantage point is correct. Discover those keys and forge a vibrant Community: your Wellness and Mental Health will join you in your Journey.
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