One thing that makes Heart iQ different to many other modalities is that the work is done in a group, where healing is done in connection with others.
Initially, Heart iQ uses group wisdom and the amplified field to support individuals in their awakening process. As people go deeper into the work however, they realise that working on 'themselves' is just the beginning and that a far grander experience awaits them when they are willing to surrender to the collective wisdom that emerges from the group. When this happens, healing isn't just personal, but trans-personal - it becomes a collective portal for change.
Thus Heart iQ isn't just about creating healthy people, but building healthy community.
Many of us crave to be in community yet few healthy examples of functioning communities actually exist. In this blog, we explore community, the importance of being witnessed and what it can be like to explore personal change while supported by others.
We are tribal organisms and being in groups is as critical today for our survival and thrival than it was for our ancestors. Yet, many of us lack the 'social intelligence' to navigate group dynamics leading to conflict and personality clashes. We tend to either merge WITH the group (becoming dependent) or we isolate ourselves, doing it alone becoming too independent. Thus, a good place to begin is the topic of interdependence, the balanced state of connection and sovereignty.
Interdependence is a state of healthy relational dependence where we are able to maintain our sense of self, inner security and sovereignty while simultaneously allowing ourselves to express our needs to others and trusting that the needs of others are safe to receive into our reality.
Safety and interdependence
This first video shares how we all need the ‘safety net’ of community to help us build the internal safety that’s needed to open our Hearts to others.
Hearing a person’s no
The next video expands on the notion of heart-focused community. It is a profound example and demonstration of how we could live life from the Heart.
And the ending is just divine!
How do you think your life would be different if you held the ‘truth’ that you are me, cleverly camouflaged as you? How would you interact differently with the people you encounter in your daily life? How would your family relationships be different if your family were to hold this idea as truth? What about your local community? How would the world be different if everyone held this simple ‘law’ as a tenant to live by?
Allowing yourself to be witnessed
what’s important in Heart IQ™ is not only courageously learning to witness yourself, but also allowing yourself to be witnessed by others in all of who you are. It’s tempting to prefer isolation when you’re not feeling your best. It’s such a strong impulse to pull away from community in order to resolve your pain, fears and messiness on your own, in isolation, and continue believing the judgment that you need to be ‘put together’ and feeling good before you’re able to show up in an acceptable way with others.
Contrary to this conditioning, the truth for all of us is that we NEED to be seen in the expression of those isolated parts by others who we are loving and trusting, and who love and trust us, in order to become more of who we really are.
What to carry into daily life
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Authentic power comes from simply being real. So rather than trying to be better, stronger, smarter, more helpful, more pleasant or profound, or whatever quality you think gives you enough value to be loved - being real means being you and trusting that’s enough.
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We need others to come into our greatest healing potential and expansion.
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In Heart iQ circle work, we explore perceptions, emotional expression, beliefs and boundaries through supported group practice. This is how you learn to feel safer, more authentic and more joyful in the presence of other people. Remember, this is a practice!
Recording notes
On safety and interdependence
A participant asks how to build safety from within rather than relying on others. Christian distinguishes between the feeling of internal safety and the process by which it develops. He says we build that muscle through relationship, testing safety with a trusted circle before we take it out into the world, and describes this as interdependence rather than dependence: "we are interdependent beings... we need each other, that's just the way it is." He offers a personal speculation, not a claim, that future generations may relate to consciousness more communally, and says he sees this circle work as preparing for that possibility.
On consensus and honouring a "no"
In a sound exercise involving around 300 people, one participant hesitates to join. Christian uses the moment to demonstrate consensus: he pauses to explore whether the group can respond to what she needs. It turns out she wanted to participate but needed support first. He frames this as a working example, not a permanent group agreement, of how a community can honour every voice without excluding anyone or forcing a majority decision.
On being witnessed
With a participant struggling to stay with fear rather than checking out, Christian names a second skill alongside self-witnessing: allowing yourself to be witnessed by others in your fear, jealousy or vulnerability. He suggests that people who can access their own feelings in solitude often lose access to those same feelings in a group, and that showing the "messiness" to trusted others, rather than resolving it alone first, is part of how strength is actually built.
A group’s wish to include someone must not remove their choice to leave or decline. Exploring what support might help is an invitation, not a requirement to stay.
Isolation, merging and interdependence
Merging with the group
Becoming dependent on others, losing your own sense of self and sovereignty.
Isolating from the group
Withdrawing to handle pain or fear alone rather than risking being seen.
Interdependence
Maintaining your own sense of self while expressing needs to others and trusting theirs in return.
