International NGO Transcendence Lab announced the continued expansion of its 'Creating for Healing & Growth' project, a protocol designed to help imaginative creators share their work while fostering personal transformation. The initiative, detailed in a press release, focuses on Substack writers, who have shown the most success with the approach.
Unlike typical creator-growth advice centered on tactics and hacks, Creating for Healing & Growth is built on the premise that building a subscriber base can coincide with meaningful emotional and cognitive development. Education Director John Toomey stated the program addresses a modern shortfall: many people living lives less emotionally and cognitively evolutionary than possible. It offers practical in-person and online experiences to help participants discover feeling-states that enable change.
At the heart of the initiative are six core 'Portals'—gratitude, laughter, awe, group brainstorming, storytelling, and novelty. Transcendence Lab describes these as gateways into expanded experience, involving a complex blend of feelings and thoughts intentionally cultivated in online groups with AI assistance. The Lab has developed these experiences since 2016, with 'vast improvements' following widespread AI tools in 2022–2023.
A central question guiding the work is whether humans have a 'Recommended Daily Allowance' for beneficial emotional experiences that support mental health, and whether modern tools like AI, social platforms, video, and online gatherings can help access them more efficiently. 'Most platforms help you broadcast,' said 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.'
Teams Director Soani Gunawan noted that one portal-based practice—the 'mini-Hero's Journey'—expanded into the Hero Award, which ranks at the top of search results for that term, despite over 15 organizations offering a hero award. One participant described moving through the portals with a group 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.'
Transcendence Lab is a creator-centered community developing protocols that help people cultivate beneficial feeling-states through social media, online gatherings, and AI. The Lab's work aims to help creators grow their audiences while supporting personal growth, connection, and transformative experiences.
