Our Kitchen Table Conversations are a virtual forum for those who have participated in our programmes. This is a regular informal touch point to share ongoing challenges and successes, to share feelings, thoughts and ideas.

These conversations are heart-warming – they remind us we are a community, that we can support and cheer each other on, and that ‘group intelligence’ is always more powerful than the smartest individual brain.

The importance of community during collective trauma…

‘Trauma results from experiences that are – or feel – life-threatening, and when there is no escape. The stress is such that the normal fight or flight response of the stress system ‘overheats’ and is thus unable to function. Instead, a freeze and numbing response takes over.’  Julia Vaughan Smith – Coaching and Trauma

We humans are collective creatures. We take this for granted in our lives and only come up against how essential this is for our wellbeing, for our sense of identity, for life being worth living, when being together is denied us. When we cry or laugh others are meant to cry and laugh with us.

While it helps that everyone is enduring the current pandemic together, many will find earlier traumatic memories triggered by the impact of lockdown: the restriction of agency, of movement, of connecting freely with others. Having a safe space to process these impacts is vital to moving beyond fight/flight/freeze.

In addition, we believe it is also vital to our wellbeing to make plans now for a better future; to guard against the loss of what we hold precious and to envision, articulate and put in place the stepping stones to a future we want to inhabit.

We’re not talking 5-point strategic plans but the capacity to recognise that love, joy and beauty are the life-blood of a society and the future world we want to live in. And then we can reflect on how, in small and large ways, we can ensure they become the weft and weave of our rebuilding.