Toxic Cultures

How to spot them and what to do about it.

Photo: cover story of Toronto Life Magazine

I struggled with using this screen shot of the Toronto Life Cover story about The Meeting House and the abusive history of Bruxy Cavey but I’m not sure why. It is such a clear example of the toxic cultures that need exposing. It also highlights the pain and difficulty of identifying toxicity and knowing what to do about it. The thing is, I wish it was just this one story that would do it. The truth is that just this week new revelations about another toxic leader in a different toxic culture are being uncovered.

I feel sadly confident writing that statement because it is true - at the moment I am writing this there have been new abuse revelations - but also because every week there are new revelations of this kind. 

As someone has said, it isn’t that the abuse is new. It is simply that we are starting to pay more attention to it.

This isn’t simply a case of an excess of abusers out there. That is true, but the problem is much deeper. If the issue were only identifying certain bad apples in the bunch and dealing with them appropriately, that would be a hard but relatively simple task. Unfortunately, the issue is that there have been, and are, toxic cultures which tolerate, hide, and even foster this kind of harm. And those toxic cultures are much more difficult to spot and to deal with.

What’s more, learning to navigate, spot, and resist toxic culture is exhausting. Anyone else feeling exhausted?

Our first course at the Deep and Wide Academy was called Holistic Self-Care, and it was designed to help people learn to love and care for their bodies, souls and spirits in a connected, integrated way. This course has been a powerful help for a number of people.

We recognise, however, that if you have learned some excellent holistic self-care approaches to life but aren't able to identify the toxicity of the culture around you, or have no tools to deal with it, you may always be applying the band-aid but never addressing the deeper wound. 

That’s why we created our new course, Spotting Toxic Cultures and Learning Resilient Practices. It is designed to be taken before, after or even alongside our Holistic Self-Care course.

The course was born out of a social media rant I did a little while ago. I was just so done with this cycle of abuse, cover-up, devastation, victim-blaming, and then retreat back into the status quo. I started wondering what it was that allowed this abuse to run so rampant. And I started noticing patterns in these cultures that created breathing room for repeated abuse - patterns that had been present in many of the organisations and cultures I had participated in. 

Photo by Roger Brown

I believed - and still believe - that we need to dig much deeper into these toxic cultures so that we can spot them more easily, resist and expose them more effectively, and leave them more quickly if need be. 

So this course will focus on five clear signs of toxic cultures, as well as five resilient practices that will help you as you try to deal with them. 

Five Signs of Toxic Culture:

1. Demands Absolute Submission to a Human Authority

2. Fosters False Humility

3. Lives in the Dark

4. Motivates Through Fear

5. Uses Isolation and Silencing to Control the Narrative

Five Resilient Practices

1. Practices the Beauty of Mutual Submission and Proper Authority

2. Finds and Cultivates True Humility

3. Lives in the Light

4. Motivates Through Love

5. Welcomes People Who Don't Agree with Them

The course also includes a bonus teaching on The Spiritual Dynamics of Toxicity.

We think the best way to engage this material is in a group if possible, and ideally in a way that takes on both the toxic culture material and the holistic self-care practices. That is why we are offering both in a specially discounted bundle here.

My deepest hope is that every one of you would find yourselves in safe, inspiring, life-giving, healthy cultures where you can survive and thrive.

I know that won’t just happen on its own though. Let’s fight to make the transformation we want and need to see in the world, for ourselves and for those who will be following in our footsteps.