Toni Collier Says Healing Is a Team Effort

from Our Editors

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Toni Collier

Toni Collier is pushing back on the idea that healing is something we’re supposed to figure out by ourselves. In “Don’t Try This Alone: How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain,” the author and founder of Broken Crayons Still Color looks at what it means to let other people into the messy parts of life.

The book comes out of Collier’s own experience walking through heartbreak, divorce and a season when she realized self-sufficiency wasn’t getting her very far. Instead, friends and community became an important part of moving forward. She uses that experience to talk honestly about vulnerability, trust and learning to recognize the kinds of people who can offer healthy support.

For Collier, community isn’t just practical — it’s modeled throughout Scripture. Pointing to the way Jesus surrounded himself with others, she puts the idea simply: “If Jesus didn’t do it alone, maybe we shouldn’t either.”

Along the way, Collier offers guidance for navigating the nonlinear process of healing, breaking unhealthy patterns and identifying safe relationships. The takeaway isn’t that community makes pain disappear. It’s that difficult seasons were never meant to be carried entirely alone.