In this latest Lumos Community Chat, Sophie Strand joins Nkem Ndefo for a deep and wide-ranging conversation on healing, chronic illness, and the complexities of community support in times of vulnerability. Together, they explore the intricate narratives that shape our relationship to illness, interdependence, productivity, and collective grief. In this illuminating discussion, Sophie and Nkem challenge conventional ideas of wellness, offering profound insights into how we can rethink healing in a world that often prioritizes functionality over connection.
The Story of Healing Without a Cure
“Is there a story of healing that’s not about wholeness or completion?” – Sophie Strand
Sophie opens up about writing her latest book, where she grapples with healing narratives that don’t culminate in a cure. She challenges the notion that healing must end in wholeness or health as something to be achieved or purchased. “Is there a story of healing that’s not about wholeness or completion?” Sophie asks, encouraging us to rethink health outside of a capitalist framework. As she reached the end of her book, Sophie realized she couldn’t write a happy ending and instead embraced an open-ended narrative. The final chapter, Let Me Be Wrong, invites the possibility of future growth and new conclusions. For her, the concept of the “ever after” is not a final destination but an ongoing process—a space of continuous becoming, curiosity, and unexpected collaborations.
Exploring the Spectrum of Mutualism and Parasitism
“If you take a snapshot of a relationship… it can look like parasitism one day and symbiosis another.” – Sophie Strand
Sophie draws on nature to reflect on the fluid and ever-changing relationships we experience in our own bodies and communities. “There’s no such thing as discrete parasitism or discrete symbiosis,” she shares, highlighting how organisms like fungi and algae collaborate. The same spectrum, Sophie explains, applies to human relationships—whether with illness, community, or even the ecosystems within our bodies. By viewing these connections as dynamic and constantly evolving, she offers a powerful metaphor for how we navigate illness and healing. “If you take a snapshot of a relationship… it can look like parasitism one day and symbiosis another.” For Sophie, it’s the movement and fluctuation that keep these interactions alive, a reminder that interdependence is at the core of healing.
Illness, Community, and the Impulse to Leave
“…our culture is death phobic, decay phobic, and illness phobic. And we are immediately rewarded the minute we are functional again, we are rewarded for leaving behind the people who are still struggling.” – Sophie Strand
In reflecting on her experiences with support groups, Sophie offers a powerful example of how wellness can lead to isolation. “The minute we become functional again, we’re rewarded for leaving behind those still struggling.” She explains how, in support groups, people often disappear once they start to feel better, leaving those who remain in the group even more isolated. This pattern reflects a broader cultural tendency to turn away from vulnerability and illness, reinforcing the divide between those who are “well” and those who continue to struggle.
Challenging the Myth of Self-Sufficiency
“My great suspicion is to be well is to be isolated. To be disabled is to need community. ” – Sophie Strand
Sophie reflects on her experiences with disability and how they’ve revealed the deep need for interdependence. “To be well is to be isolated. To be disabled is to need community,” she observes, pointing out that her survival has been shaped by a network of care—not just from friends and family, but from the wider world around her. In one compelling story, Sophie recalls how a steroid critical to her health was synthesized from yams in South America, a product of colonial extraction. This “entangled ontology” illustrates the ways in which survival, care, and history are all deeply intertwined, reminding us that self-sufficiency is often an illusion.
Reimagining Rest and Productivity
“…to just stay still for a second, to not do, is actually radical. And it shows other people that we can move slower. We can be uncertain. We don’t have to be useful. In fact, our usefulness is destroying the world.” – Sophie Strand
Sophie reframes rest and slowness as vital practices in a world driven by the demands of utility and productivity. “To be still for a moment, to not do, is actually radical,” she says. She highlights how our constant push for usefulness consumes entire ecosystems, both human and natural, and invites us to rethink what it means to be “productive.” By stepping away from the need to always be doing, we can find healing in slowness, uncertainty, and stillness.
Unmetabolized Grief and Collective Healing
“What happens with unmetabolized grief and with a huge portion of the population realizing that they’re completely expendable?” – Sophie Strand
Sophie brings attention to the societal impacts of unaddressed grief, especially in the wake of the pandemic. “What happens with unmetabolized grief?” she asks, comparing today’s response to collective loss with how medieval societies processed the aftermath of the Black Plague. Sophie and Nkem explore the consequences of moving forward without acknowledging trauma, suggesting that true healing can only occur when we face grief together, as a community.
Sophie Strand’s conversation with Nkem Ndefo offers a powerful reframing of healing, not as a destination or a return to productivity, but as an ongoing, collective journey. Their insights challenge us to rethink our relationship with illness, rest, and community, offering a vision of healing that embraces vulnerability and interconnection.
To explore more of this profound conversation, join the Lumos Community, where you’ll gain access to this full chat and many more resources on trauma, healing, and social justice. Your first month is free, giving you the perfect opportunity to dive into this rich, supportive space.
