Healing & Embodiment
I often think about how much pain people are carrying today.
And yet, many of us are trying to heal in isolation.
Modern life often encourages people to handle things privately, process quietly, and carry struggles alone. Even healing itself can sometimes become deeply individualized — sit alone, cope alone, heal alone.
But in many cultures around the world, healing has never traditionally looked like that.
Healing was collective.
Healing happened through presence and connection.
That is how I personally understand healing.
I believe there is something deeply healing about human beings coming together to create safety, movement, laughter, expression, rhythm, and belonging. When people gather in supportive spaces, something shifts emotionally, physically, and spiritually. People begin regulating together. The nervous system softens. Isolation decreases. Energy moves.
Collective healing acknowledges that pain is often carried not only individually, but communally. Trauma affects families, communities, cultures, and generations. Because of that, healing can also happen collectively — through community support, shared experiences, creativity, movement, storytelling, and connection.
My Afro Yoga classes are intentionally different. They are rooted in movement, music, culture, laughter, and community connection. I intentionally incorporate music that feels familiar and culturally connected to the communities I serve — because for many people, healing feels more accessible when the environment feels recognizable, welcoming, and alive.
For many immigrants and women from collectivist cultures, silence can feel uncomfortable rather than calming. Stillness does not always feel safe. Sitting quietly and separately on individual mats may not reflect the ways many communities naturally connect and express themselves.
In some of my classes, women enter carrying stress, grief, exhaustion, homesickness, trauma, or loneliness. Then music starts playing. Someone laughs. Someone begins dancing. Another woman joins. The room slowly becomes lighter.
Some women remove their outer coverings for the first time that day because the environment feels safe, familiar, and culturally respectful. Women move freely. Some dance. Some sing along quietly to songs from home. Some simply smile and watch for a while before joining in.
And for a moment, many return to themselves.
That is healing too.
Not all healing needs to happen only through talking. Therapy is valuable and important, but healing can also happen through movement, rhythm, creativity, storytelling, nature, music, touch, spirituality, and collective joy.
In many of my Afro Yoga classes, women become playful again before returning to the responsibilities waiting for them outside the room. They breathe deeper. Their posture changes. Their faces soften. They reconnect not only with themselves, but with one another.
That is why collective healing matters to me.
Because I do not believe human beings were meant to carry life entirely alone.
And sometimes, one of the most healing things a person can experience is simply being in a room full of people where they feel safe enough to fully be themselves.
Nuna Gleason teaches Afro yoga and movement classes in South Portland, Maine through the Maine Afro Yoga Project and Nuna Cultural Consulting.
Join a class ✦ | Book Nuna for your organization ✦
