International NGO Transcendence Lab has expanded its 'Creating for Healing & Growth' project, an approach designed to help visionary creators share their work with wider audiences while making the process transformative for both creator and reader. According to Education Director John Toomey, the initiative concentrates on Substack writers, who have demonstrated the most success with the protocol.
Unlike typical creator-growth advice focused primarily on tactics and hacks, Creating for Healing & Growth is built on a core premise: building a subscriber base can coincide with meaningful emotional and cognitive growth. The program addresses what the team describes as a modern shortfall—many people living lives that are less emotionally and cognitively evolutionary than they could be—and offers practical, repeatable in-person and online experiences designed to help participants discover the feeling-states that change this.
At the heart of the initiative is a set of six core 'Portals'—gratitude, laughter, awe, group brainstorming, storytelling, and novelty—described by Transcendence Lab as gateways into expanded experience. The Lab's founders use the term 'Portals' to emphasize that these are more than emotions; they involve a complex blend of feelings and thoughts that can be intentionally cultivated in online groups with the help of AI. The Lab has been developing and facilitating these experiences since 2016, with 'vast improvements' following the arrival of widely available AI tools in 2022–2023.
A central question guiding the work is whether human beings have something like an 'RDA'—a Recommended Daily Allowance—for beneficial emotional experiences that have supported mental health for centuries, and whether modern tools such as AI, social platforms, video, and online group gatherings can help people access them more efficiently and consistently. This question has significant implications for how technology might be leveraged not just for productivity or entertainment, but for fundamental human development.
'Most platforms help you broadcast,' says Collaborations Coordinator Amy Chang. 'What we do helps you bond—and it succeeds because so many heart-centered, sensitive, forward-thinking creators are already on Substack, looking for a way to grow alongside others.' This distinction highlights a potential shift in how online platforms could evolve beyond mere content distribution to become spaces for meaningful connection and mutual development.
Teams Director Soani Gunawan noted that one portal-based practice—the 'mini-Hero's Journey'—expanded over time into what became the Hero Award, which ranks at the top of search rankings for that term, even though more than 15 organizations offer a hero award. The success of initiatives like https://theheroaward.substack.com/ demonstrates how these approaches can gain traction in competitive digital spaces.
One participant described the cumulative effect of moving through the portals with a congenial group—either live or via Zoom—as 'like graduation day from a school where you made many friends, learned a lot about others and yourself, and experienced many transformations… you fall in love with being human.' This testimonial suggests the program's potential impact on individual wellbeing and community building in digital environments.
The initiative's importance lies in its potential to reshape how creators approach their work and audience development. By integrating emotional and cognitive growth with practical audience-building strategies, Transcendence Lab offers an alternative to purely transactional approaches to content creation. The use of AI to facilitate these experiences represents an innovative application of technology that could influence how other organizations approach digital community building and personal development programs.
For the creator economy, this approach could signal a shift toward more holistic models of success that value personal transformation alongside audience metrics. For readers and participants, it offers the possibility of more meaningful engagement with content and communities online. As digital platforms continue to dominate communication and community formation, initiatives like Creating for Healing & Growth provide important models for how these spaces might support human flourishing rather than merely serving as distribution channels.
