An invitation into collective, generational healing, ft. Serene Thin Elk
How do we rebuild community in diasporic worlds?
The world has never been this d i a s p o r i c. And it feels like a lot of people are struggling with or still learning to situate our senses of belonging.
So many people have been uprooted and forcibly displaced. Many have chosen out of free will to relocate. Many are born into places where we don't have deep ancestral roots. And many don’t have the privilege of feeling like our families and communities with whom we grew up are safe spaces to call home and find healing within.
Also, I don’t think a lot of the ways that community is defined these days are necessarily rooted in land and place. So community is another word that is worth unraveling as well. (Noted, to explore in a future essay!)
But if truly holistic medicine is tied to culture, to community, place, and the land, what does it mean to nurture collective healing and rebuild community in a vastly diasporic world?
This question lies at the heart of my most recent conversation with Serene Thin Elk. As she acknowledges:
“Finding a sense of belonging in community is complex because some people’s trauma comes from being in community. I think that's something that needs to be acknowledged.”
Serene also shares her own story as a source of guidance.
“My sister passed away a couple of months ago, and there are no words to describe the pain of losing a sibling. It's my second sibling. My older brother passed before her, and then she passed.
I think it brought up a lot within me that was repressed. I didn't know that it was a protective mechanism, a way for me to function in my life… So, I have a lot of compassion for myself. That’s how I automatically self-soothe.
However, I learned a great deal after she passed because what happened is that all of it came out at once. I began to have flashbacks, nightmares, and panic attacks, living in terror for weeks at a time, not being able to sleep. And I knew even as I was going through it, I kept getting this message, whether it be from myself, my ancestors, or Creator: ‘You need other people, Serene.’
This is the basic stuff that I say to other people and that I wholeheartedly believe. Yet, I realized in the deepest core of who I was, that I felt unsafe in the world and with even some of the closest people around me. […]
I was great at nurturing others and stepping in and identifying needs, but in some ways, that was a distraction from doing my own work. […]
After having gone through community traumas, traumas with friends, losing people, and always being scared someone I love is gonna pass away early because of addiction — you live your life in a constant state of fear.
That was a sacred teaching that came for me — being vulnerable and saying, ‘You know what? I'm not okay. I can't do this alone.’ […]”
I felt deeply moved by the vulnerability that Serene brought to our conversation. This kind of humility seems incredibly rare — yet so vital, in a world that systemically rewards narcissism and gaslights people for simply being and feeling human.
When I think about how our relational wounds are connected to our broader socio-ecological-cultural crises, I often return to the common saying that “Hurt people hurt people.” And I think we can expand this to look at how people who feel spiritually un-grounded and disoriented relate to the more-than-human world as well.
As Serene points out:
“I think a lot of people who aren't connected to their spirit, values, or their humanity look at the Earth as an object and a resource to control, dominate, and own.
We literally are breathing because of the trees. We are able to stay alive because of the water. We honor those things. We don't look at them as things that we dominate and own…”
The good thing is that this isn’t an unbreakable cycle of harm. Shilpa Jain flipped the saying that “hurt people hurt people” on its head by pointing out that, conversely, "Healing people are healing people — and [creating] systems that are healing people." How beautiful, this inversion that points us towards our possibilities!?
I think this is why I feel called to keep weaving the connections between change at different scales and levels — from the “inner” to the “outer,” from the less visible to the more tangible, from the personal to the political, from the human to the planetary…
In another recent conversation, adrienne maree brown emphasized how relationships are at the foundations of people power. So how we relate to others, and how we community- (as a verb), are critical.
Serene echoes these sentiments as well:
“[…] Building active resistance can be easily broken down if people aren’t aware of their triggers and pain.
Take accountability and work through it. Otherwise, it's a narrative of, ‘That's your fault. You did this to me.’ It's the finger pointing.
So I'm looking at it through a lens of the deep work that we all have to face at some point, even when it's painful, that is really at the root of creating collective change.
Because then you're able to connect to people in healthy ways and share your story. And maybe someone else who hasn't been there yet will remember when so-and-so talked about being not okay and asking for help.
We rise from that in a whole new way. We're shedding something. And then we come forth to be in community in a new way, a healthier way.”
If these sensitive invitations speak to you, I welcome you to dive deeper through my full conversation with Serene Thin Elk (Green Dreamer EP446), who gently guides us to unravel “trauma” in historic, individual, community, and environmental contexts, while beckoning us towards collective, generational healing.
(Tap in to this conversation here or via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any podcast app, and view our transcript and episode resources here.)
“The greatest honor in my work is to be a witness and a presence to generational healing in real-time.” – Serene Thin Elk
About Serene Thin Elk
Serene Thin Elk, MA, LPC-MH, LAC is a L/Dakota clinical addiction and mental health therapist and mother to four beautiful children. She is from the Ihanktonwan and Sicangu Oyate in South Dakota, and her personal and professional passions focus primarily on Indigenous collective healing and educating others about historical traumas and how this translates to present day experiences of Native people.
Invitations into reflection:
What is something at the relational level that brings you some discomfort that you’d like to intentionally sit with more?
What forms of support do you feel like you most need in this present season and place in life? How would you like to weave and call in these webs of care?
Coming soon…
My next conversation with Prentis Hemphill takes us even deeper into the theme of personal and collective healing. We talk about giving ourselves permission to get weird and become strange to the status quo of this world, and so much more!
It has been an honor to be connected via the interwebs in this way, and I look forward to continuing this humbling journey of stretching with you!
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Sending gentle droplets of care <3
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.