IPR & the Intuitive Invisibles Network: Why I Joined & Why I’ve Stayed

(my attempt to capture the essence of an extraordinary community)

Ok, ok, it’s September!  Every time another page turns on the calendar, I feel more and more sheepish about how long it’s been that I’ve been intending to publish something here.  Months upon months of me feeling ill-equipped to do it — not only to figure out the “how”, but also the worries of “what if it really sucks?”, or nobody likes it (or even reads it), blah blah blah.  Enough already!  I’m just gonna post this, and then you dear reader can give whatever feedback might help me improve my posts over time.  So here goes:

I’ve been wanting for some time to find ways to describe & share my experiences with the Intuitive Invisibles on the Intuitive Public Radio network. 

It’s been nearly 3 years now since I was invited by Brendan H to join him and his friends/collaborators on Telegram Messenger** (links at bottom).

Now, I can’t find or remember the exact conversation we were having that prompted that invitation; but I do know it was after I’d been struck by Brendan’s breadth of knowledge, understandings and opinions on another platform about the current dominant systems of what are typically called “education”, “health care”, “mental health” and resources for people with “disabilities” — and especially his incisive and insightful criticisms of how woefully inadequate these systems are. 

Sad to say, but I’d unwittingly been a part of that status quo for many years — thanks to a fairly privileged upbringing, and a traditional education including “professional education” leading to a career in what is known as the “health care system”.  I’d always had an inkling that something was missing from the picture; but for the most part, the folks I was interacting with day in & day out were not talking about that.

When I first got to Telegram (a platform I had never heard of before), and began to meet and interact with some of the core people who comprise IPR & the Intuitive network, I was more than a little bit mystified.  So many different ‘chats’, ‘channels’, and conversations about a wide variety of topics, yet all somehow interrelated.  And a whole lot of what I encountered was way over my head (truth be told, a good chunk of it still is!), yet somehow it all “felt” true, and very significant.  This visceral sense of Intuitive Knowing is affirmed and honored there, as I believe it should be in many more spaces.

And much of what I think I felt “calling me in” was the honest conversations about what is really going on in the world, and who benefits — and who does not.   And also some thought-provoking ideas about what is needed to change the status quo — not just in “health care”, but in economics, education, and basically all other areas of life.

Megan Elizabeth Morris (aka Max, or Mack) was and is the main creator of the Intuitive Network, which originated about a decade ago as an online space for “Survivors of Severity” — which comprises various scenarios including sex trafficking, refugee status, many forms of disability, and more… but which also, the more I immerse myself in it, is a place all of us can learn so much about how to bring forth the world we want and need, by listening to those most severely affected by the world we are living in currently.

Since I’m most accustomed to learning about people and ideas through one-on-one conversations, I initially gravitated mostly toward those, and mostly with Megan.  One thing I have been consistently impressed by is her commitment to honorable interactions, often including interactions with or towards people who have done harm.  From my understanding, a major part of the ethos of IPR is the understanding that, while some may inflict harm deliberately & with malicious intent, it is more often the case that people have been programmed to think, react, and interact in certain prescribed ways, resulting in harm being done unwittingly by people who truly thought they (we) were “helping”.  I have been learning how true that is in the health & mental health professions, and it’s been a real eye-opener!

As much as I’ve enjoyed one-on-one chats with various people in the network, it’s also been really enriching to learn how to participate in more of a “group body”, or “shared brain”.   And as I’ve been working more on that, it’s also been helpful for me to recognize the different ways that others might choose to interact.  The sense of shared commitment and shared responsibility for the work being done together has provided me with many different “lenses” through which to understand and think about the issues that are important to us, and how we can most effectively collaborate to create the best possible solutions for those issues.

And now, about 10 years into this evolving network of Care Magicians, there are new and exciting connections and collaborations being forged with many other groups at a lively pace!  More people working together to build a world where all are included, respected, listened to and valued — even/especially the most marginalized or least “understood” members of any given community.  And where the “community body” is seen as worthy of tending, not “just” each “individual”.

All this has definitely enriched my life greatly, both personally and professionally. And as much as I have benefited, it has also been deeply gratifying to be appreciated for my contributions (which oftentimes seem so meager to me, but which Megan and other collaborators assure me are valuable to them). It is my ardent wish that many more people — especially other so-called “professionals” —will join this remarkable community and learn and grow with us.

**So please, if any of the above intrigues you, please do ask me questions!!  And follow Mack’s Memo here on Substack, or at https://intuitive.pub/radio.

And/or join us on Telegram on the main, public IPR pages at https://t.me/IntuitivePublicRadio, and our Share & Discuss page at https://t.me/CommunityIPR.

(Brendan H, who introduced me to the Network, is not yet here on Substack but is very active on Telegram at t.me/brendanxc.  Megan/Max is at t.me/maxmorris.  And I can be found at t.me/kimba1212.)