There’s something revolutionary about creating a space for people to lay down what burdens them. We can carry our pain like a secret. We learn somewhere along the way that we are to blame for our own hurt, our shame, the feeling that we don’t belong. We bottle these secrets up, push them down, because we don’t have the time or space to look them in the eye or to fall apart. We find ways to cope, drowning our histories in substances or overwork, but we forget how, over time, the past and our efforts to stifle it erode our focus, our ability to be present, and our sense of power and agency in
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