Most of us, at some point, have felt a heaviness about the state of the world; about ecological loss, inequality, the pace of things unraveling.

And we do what people do: push it down, change the subject, just keep on going.

It's not that we don't care, but caring hurts, and there's only so much we can do.

It's not obvious where to put heavy feelings.

The Work That Reconnects is a set of group practices developed by Joanna Macy, starting in the late 1970s, built around a simple and radical premise: that pain for the world is healthy.

Our hurt is not a sign of weakness or pathology.

No, it's a sign of our very connectedness with life and what we discover when we're able to share our pain with others is that it becomes a source of energy rather than paralysis.

Joanna Macy's work affirms that living in a time of ecological and social crisis does something to people, and that something deserves the best of our attention, painful as it may be.

A brief overview of Macy's "Sprial"

Joanna Macy talks about a "Spiral" that moves through four stages.

Note that every session is different and will have different focuses. In some organizational or workplace settings, we might linger a bit more in stages three and four; in more personal "grief-focused" settings, we may linger in stages one or two.

Nonetheless, a review of all four helps give you a picture of what an event might look like:

1. Step 1: "Coming from Gratitude." Coming from gratitude, we start with paying attention to and naming our love for life, however that may look. Grief and love are two sides of the same coin, and love opens us to our hurts.
2. Step 2: "Honoring Our Pain for the World. " Honouring our pain for the world, we create space for people to bring voice to what pains they carry. There are many ways we can do this in a group and there are many griefs we carry. What's important about the "honoring" part of this work is that we do not try to fix, reframe, or soothe this pain nor the sometimes wild expressions of the pain. We witness it. For many people, this is the first time that's happened. This can be both transformative and intense.
3. Step 3: "Seeing with New Eyes." When we're allowed to sit in, sob about, and somehow express our pain for the world—and when we're seen by others in this experience—we are able to see the out with new eyes. Ultimately, our "seeing with new eyes" opens us, both individually and collectively, to new modes of being in our lives that serve a greater vision of collective, planetary well-being.
4. Step 4: Going Forth. The spiral closes with intention-setting — what you'll actually do, and who will support you.

As a spiral, these four steps are not, properly called, "steps"; they are like vistas enjoyed on a garden path. You can revisit them, return to any at any point, and yet somehow, through the journeying, they each inform and are informed by the others and weave together to create a transformative experience.

Going further