0
SPEAKER_00
Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
0
SPEAKER_00
Today s guest is Thomas Hubel, an incredible spiritual teacher and the author of the just-released Attuned, Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma and Our World, as well as the book Healing Collective Trauma.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
0
SPEAKER_00
On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we re here.
0
SPEAKER_00
Pulling the Thread is about big questions.
0
SPEAKER_00
Why we do what we do, how we can understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and historical context,
0
SPEAKER_00
the ways in which we might begin to understand ourselves and each other better, and what s required to heal ourselves and our world.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders, those who have laid tracks in their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding to a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming.
0
SPEAKER_00
My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of awareness so that we might all collectively learn and grow.
0
SPEAKER_01
Everything we heal, we mature, we develop in ourselves is never just for ourselves only.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s always also ecosystemically relevant.
0
SPEAKER_01
So if somebody becomes more open, it will affect all the relationships that person has in life.
0
SPEAKER_01
So all the relationships will begin to enjoy
0
SPEAKER_01
or benefit from the fact that I grow, everybody that knows me benefits from my growth because it will nourish all those relationships.
0
SPEAKER_01
So we are always ecosystemic and individual at the same time.
0
SPEAKER_00
So says Thomas Hubel, who I m thrilled to welcome back to Pulling the Thread.
0
SPEAKER_00
Our first conversation, entitled Processing Our Collective Past, I ll link it in the show notes, is one of my favorites to date, although today s conversation doesn t disappoint either.
0
SPEAKER_00
In Thomas s new book, Attuned, Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma and Our World, he explores the idea of being present or creating the internal capacity to host the experiences of others.
0
SPEAKER_00
He mentions this line from Ferris Boustangy, which sums it up.
0
SPEAKER_00
To get in contact with the other, you have to be in contact with yourself.
0
SPEAKER_00
Thomas Hubel is a spiritual teacher, yes, but his particular genius point is holding space for large groups.
0
SPEAKER_00
Groups that can then begin to process and transmute dark, dense, collective energy.
0
SPEAKER_00
Energy that s often held by traumatized culture and places.
0
SPEAKER_00
He has worked all over the world because this stuck energy is everywhere, and when we fail to acknowledge and move it, we re stuck, repeating karmic cycles.
0
SPEAKER_00
In Attuned, Hubel explains what we can all gain from getting in touch with our ability to host the experiences of others.
0
SPEAKER_00
As he writes, when I speak to groups or before an audience at an event, it is not enough that I show up knowing what I wish to say.
0
SPEAKER_00
To be effective, I must be in dialogue with the whole, and therefore aware of the group or the audience as a dynamic system.
0
SPEAKER_00
Only noticing what is happening for me is not enough.
0
SPEAKER_00
I must be able to accurately feel with and adapt to the needs of my listeners.
0
SPEAKER_00
I need to clearly sense my participants  degree of availability and curiosity.
0
SPEAKER_00
I also need to perceive whether and when I am being heard and received, or what else might be needed or present.
0
SPEAKER_00
The clarifying of the relational matrix comes with expanded awareness and offers an acceleration of our coming into relation.
0
SPEAKER_00
This is the leading edge of communication and leadership and it requires deeper awareness of the intersubjective space from all.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now this sounds like something we all need.
0
SPEAKER_00
Let s get to our conversation on how it can happen.
0
SPEAKER_01
Great to see you again, Elise.
0
SPEAKER_01
Hello.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hi.
0
SPEAKER_00
Great to see you too.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was just talking to a friend of mine who s a trauma therapist who had originally sent me your first book and I was like, I m seeing Thomas again and you need to get it tuned in two weeks or whenever it comes.
0
SPEAKER_00
Next week?
0
SPEAKER_00
Any day, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
Soon.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s coming out soon.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s coming out tomorrow.
0
SPEAKER_01
The book s coming out tomorrow.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
0
SPEAKER_00
Amazing.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
All right, so let s dive into it because we could go for a couple hours, and I know we only have one.
0
SPEAKER_00
So first of all, congrats again.
0
SPEAKER_00
I know your primary medium is working in groups of people live and being present with them, but the book does an excellent job of translating a lot of these headier
0
SPEAKER_00
concepts about the way that energy moves in our world and gets stuck and shows up in quote-unquote karmic patterns.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I felt, despite not being a therapist, but obviously sitting in conversation with a lot of people, that it s an incredible invitation to understand how to be with people in a more meaningful, substantive way.
0
SPEAKER_00
Maybe we can start with that quote.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think it s Farah s Bustanji.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully, I m saying that correctly.
0
SPEAKER_00
To get in contact with the other, you have to be in contact with yourself.
0
SPEAKER_00
So maybe let s start with that, how you open the book, which is how you do that, you, Thomas, and then how you show people how to be present.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think for me, it s a mix of like I ve spent
0
SPEAKER_01
30 plus years exploring my own inner world.
0
SPEAKER_01
So that for sure has a big effect.
0
SPEAKER_01
So as you said, we need to be first attuned or in touch with ourselves, connected to ourselves, which is already in itself like a very interesting process because where trauma resides in me,
0
SPEAKER_01
I cannot fully feel myself and I cannot fully feel you.
0
SPEAKER_01
I cannot feel society.
0
SPEAKER_01
I cannot feel nature.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s like some information is missing.
0
SPEAKER_01
So having an introspective practice, meditation, contemplation, yoga, like whatever,
0
SPEAKER_01
Some contemplative practice we call our practice, three sync practice, so that I regularly go inside, I get to know my body, that I see, wow, actually my body is so rich, so much information, I can get to know more and more of my body and that helps me also to consciously experience my body as an instrument that s resonating all the time.
0
SPEAKER_01
Everything I feel about my body is data flow.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know, there s a constant data flow that I feel in my hands.
0
SPEAKER_01
There s data flowing to my brain, back to my hands.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so we are actually all the time in a flow.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then also my emotions, my mind, my capacity to relate to you and feel you right now is also data that my senses transmit to me and then to you.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so like this, we are establishing between us a field of data flow.
0
SPEAKER_01
We call this nervous system synchronization.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I think attunement makes life simply so much richer and so much more, I don t know, deep, full, colorful, also nuanced and also
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, we are also feeling the aspects of life that are painful.
0
SPEAKER_01
We are also feeling those more.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I think also that part of life, or especially that part of life, needs us.
0
SPEAKER_01
But maybe that s something we can talk about later.
0
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, attunement to myself means tuning the instrument.
0
SPEAKER_01
Attuning to you is that between our instruments, music s playing.
0
SPEAKER_01
I think attunement has a lot to do with my data flow,
0
SPEAKER_01
beginning to resonate with your data flow.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s like when you have two cars driving on a highway and they re driving at the same speed, I say sometimes, so then you can actually open the windows and talk because you re matching your speed.
0
SPEAKER_01
I think attunement is a little, not a little bit, it s like that.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so when we feel each other, we actually create data connection that allows us to communicate whatever needs to be communicated.
0
SPEAKER_01
Things that are easy, where we resonate easily, and the things that are also conflicted, contradicting, different, and learn to do that the relationship becomes stronger than the difference or the conflict.
0
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, that s maybe a beginning.
0
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned your three sync process.
0
SPEAKER_00
And you write about this in the book.
0
SPEAKER_00
And there are exercises, very short exercises that people can
1
SPEAKER_02
do.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so much of it feels like a type of body intelligence or somatic sensing, right, which I think we re not taught this, that if you slow down, even for 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and you just start scanning your body, you can sense where you re tight, where you re excited, where you re clenched, the body is full of information.
1
SPEAKER_02
And as you were just saying, that can be a block or
1
SPEAKER_02
a black hole, or you can be running energy well, right, where you re releasing it into the ground, or... Can you talk just briefly about that three sync process?
1
SPEAKER_02
Because so often it s hard to be present with anyone else when you re so internally diverted, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
Like you re internally, without being conscious necessarily, but you re not in your body, or at least I experience a lot of dissociation.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s actually as you said it that when we see there are two major movements.
1
SPEAKER_01
One is stress and high activation shoots energy upwards that we can fight.
1
SPEAKER_01
runaway flight when it s really escalated and we freeze or we faint.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so there are different built-in mechanisms in our autonomous nervous system that we experience.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes when somebody says something, it triggers us.
1
SPEAKER_01
We feel a rush of energy.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s literally stress and emotional content coming up.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then it feels much harder to be grounded, connected, to have space.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the other way is also true that when I become more aware, oh, actually I feel a bit tight in the solar plexus.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel a bit stressed and I pay attention.
1
SPEAKER_01
I embrace my stress.
1
SPEAKER_01
I slow down my exhalation a bit.
1
SPEAKER_01
So then I can learn and it s a training.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s not maybe happening right away, but it s a training that I can more and more regulate my nervous system.
1
SPEAKER_01
Then I feel the opposite movement.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel a movement downwards.
1
SPEAKER_01
It opens the lower part of my body.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel again the ground.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can feel even into the ground.
1
SPEAKER_01
then I feel my body sensations more and a wider range of body sensations.
1
SPEAKER_01
My focus gets wider.
1
SPEAKER_01
I am more able to reflect.
1
SPEAKER_01
We all know, you know, let s say you have a lovely cup of tea or coffee, you re sitting somewhere, it s kind of late afternoon or early evening, you see the lovely light of the sun and you can reflect on your life.
1
SPEAKER_01
Why?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because the nervous system is in the zone
1
SPEAKER_01
where the nervous system creates the best environment for reflection.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I can digest my experiences.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can feel into the things that still linger around in me or circling in me still.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, what was in that conversation?
1
SPEAKER_01
Or why did this go that way?
1
SPEAKER_01
And what should I do?
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I can digest my experience.
1
SPEAKER_01
And when I digest, it s like with physical food, what happens to the food, it gets integrated into the body.
1
SPEAKER_01
So we integrate those experiences and we call that learning.
1
SPEAKER_01
When we do the same thing with trauma, we call that post-traumatic learning.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because the organism learns something through integrating trauma.
1
SPEAKER_01
But also regular experiences that I cannot complete.
1
SPEAKER_01
I had a difficult conversation in a team meeting.
1
SPEAKER_01
I walk away, it s still working in me for some time.
1
SPEAKER_01
But if I take a moment,
1
SPEAKER_01
I ground myself, I feel, oh, I got maybe a bit ashamed, something has been said, and I felt exposed, or I felt scared, or I got a bit angry.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then I stay with the emotion, I can digest it.
1
SPEAKER_01
can see if there s anything, any action or anything that needs to be done, or it simply integrates itself and I learn something.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so, three sync in our practice means I learn to get to know my body and the stress state in my body.
1
SPEAKER_01
I get to know my emotional experience more or
1
SPEAKER_01
Also when I m emotionally overwhelmed and I cannot say what emotion I feel, that numbness or overwhelm is equally important and often gets overridden.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that s worth talking a bit more about.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can notice when I m stressed, my mind is much more active and tight.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like I m thinking more in loops.
1
SPEAKER_01
When I m relaxed and open, my mind is spacious, creative.
1
SPEAKER_01
more reflective, is not so busy.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s very important for people that want to meditate that we cannot quieten the mind in the mind because the reason why we overthink is because we carry stress in the body.
1
SPEAKER_01
So being able to regulate the stress will also make my meditations
1
SPEAKER_01
much more quiet and I think so that s amazing for basically everybody because learning to regulate consciously our nervous system grounding ourselves is so helpful in so many moments in our life.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m Rachel Martin.
1
SPEAKER_00
After hosting Morning Edition for years, I know that the news can wear you down.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we made a new podcast called Wildcard, where a special deck of cards and a whole bunch of fascinating guests help us sort out what makes life meaningful.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s part game show, part existential deep dive, and it is seriously fun.
1
SPEAKER_00
Join me on Wildcard, wherever you get your podcasts, only from NPR.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so many of those stress responses, we learn them, fight, flight, freeze, faint, but they re micro, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
They don t show up in the same way that I think we ve been conditioned to believe.
1
SPEAKER_02
The fight urge doesn t mean that you re actually
1
SPEAKER_02
It means you re having this like surge of anger, rage, impatience, frustration, whatever it is.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I think we miss a lot.
1
SPEAKER_02
They re so much more subtle than I think that we think.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I want to talk – there were so many roads that we re going to go down from that.
1
SPEAKER_02
I want to talk about empathic overwhelm and groundedness because I think, as you say in the book, that s the biggest question, people saying,
1
SPEAKER_02
I m so sensitive, I can t handle everyone else s emotions.
1
SPEAKER_02
Then I want to talk about how energy is contagious and travels and gets stuck and create your collective traumatic ancestral trauma work.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then I do want to talk about, you mentioned the numbing or the people who say, I don t feel anything.
1
SPEAKER_02
and the way that we are like, oh, then there s nothing to see there, but that I think many people listening will say, oh, that s me.
1
SPEAKER_02
My memory is a black box, or I don t know what I feel.
1
SPEAKER_02
So those are three roads.
1
SPEAKER_02
Do you want to pick the order?
1
SPEAKER_02
You want to do which order?
1
SPEAKER_01
Let s stay with numbness for a moment, because I brought it before already.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it seems like an important piece where lots of misunderstandings happen, because
1
SPEAKER_01
Naturally, when I ask myself, what s in my body?
1
SPEAKER_01
How do I feel my body?
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes I feel tight.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes I feel open.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel inner sensations of aliveness in certain parts, maybe not in other parts.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I begin with whatever I find, and then by attuning,
1
SPEAKER_01
listening, I will see that the more I practice, it becomes richer, more refined, I get more access, I can even start to feel my inner organs, how my body is either in a
1
SPEAKER_01
good communication inside, there are certain parts that are more marginalized in my own body, so I can get pretty refined access to my inner experience, which I think is also good for my overall well-being and health, that I m kind of more in tune with myself and I can feel imbalances in my body earlier.
1
SPEAKER_01
Emotionally, it s the same.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like either when I ask myself, what s the current emotion?
1
SPEAKER_01
And I can say, oh, I feel a bit of love.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel a bit of excitement and curiosity.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel a bit of fear or a bit of anger.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I will be able to name it.
1
SPEAKER_01
If there is not immediately or pretty fast a feeling of an emotion that I can name,
1
SPEAKER_01
then many people try to find something.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I would say, no, why?
1
SPEAKER_01
Let s just be with the fact that not feeling, for many of us as children, was such an important mechanism to deal with the overwhelm that we experienced, with the overload.
1
SPEAKER_01
We simply needed to shut it down.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because let s face it, children, I often say to parents, be aware that your children are also your prisoners.
1
SPEAKER_01
Up to a certain age, children cannot walk away.
1
SPEAKER_01
If they re overwhelming situations, very hard for a child to leave the context.
1
SPEAKER_01
So when things are great, then it s anyway great because then my parents, my teachers, my environment gets me and fills me and I can regulate myself
2
SPEAKER_01
I say, oh, this is too much, or I want this, or I don t want this, people hear it and respect it.
2
SPEAKER_01
But for many of us as kids, that didn t happen all the time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whereas for some of us, it didn t happen very often.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so if I cannot regulate myself in relating and sharing what I need, and what is painful, and what is beautiful, and what I like, and what troubles me, then I need to deal with those inner states more and more on my own.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then shutting some of it down actually is better than keeping the disturbance going.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so numbing and absencing, like leaving a bit my body, leaving a bit my emotions, and in traumatic situations, leaving even more and shutting down a part of myself, was super intelligent.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when we cannot say what we feel,
2
SPEAKER_01
Many people think it s a dysfunction, I can t do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And in our work, we always reframe it and we say, you were able to pull out, you were able to shut down, you were able to not feel.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s actually an intelligence that s working here, not something that s not functioning.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so if we depathologize not feeling, when people say, oh, I can t feel my body, I say, okay, great.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let s not try harder.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let s first together notice and respect that maybe in what you re touching right now, not feeling was better than feeling.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that there is like a positive attention to the inner state we find, and not immediately a pathologizing of that inner state, that something must be wrong with me because it seems like everybody else can feel and I can t.
2
SPEAKER_01
Which anyway is not true, but that we see a positive relationship to the process that is happening.
2
SPEAKER_01
also allows us to be more curious and get to know the state that I don t feel my body.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I have seen thousands of people, once we come to that moment of accepting and being curious, change starts to happen by itself.
2
SPEAKER_01
and that process of numbing or in a strong way dissociating in traumatic moments is very intelligent at that moment if it doesn t get reintegrated so it has side effects in our life obviously and so when i ask myself what do i feel and i can t feel and i can say yes i feel that i can t feel which means
2
SPEAKER_01
I respect my inner overwhelm, and I see as compassionate or loving as I can, I relate to that part and say, I feel consciously that I don t feel.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s not an unconscious numbness, it becomes a conscious numbness.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that opens up maybe what s underneath.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I can learn to resource myself and that s very strong.
2
SPEAKER_01
Then I need to maybe train this with a skilled therapist or put it in relation to good friends and bring it into relationships so that I have co-regulation.
2
SPEAKER_01
that the relational network is very important, that I don t stay too much alone with that process.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I just want to point out that we change a bit the notion or the relationship towards certain parts of ourselves.
2
SPEAKER_01
And when we touch overwhelmed parts, of course, I m not overwhelmed often right now in that moment, but I m touching a part of myself that got overwhelmed somewhere, most probably in my developmental
2
SPEAKER_01
time and i m revisiting this and then sometimes if people i don t know if somebody raises their voice i don t know anymore what i feel so because that triggers a part of me that was shuts down in a millisecond because that part is shut down all the time and when the right trigger comes i experience that
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, I feel like sometimes you ll hear people say, essentially, oh, I m just not that sensitive.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then other people who say, like, I m a highly sensitive person, and I m an empath, and I m continually overwhelmed, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
But it feels like people sometimes are desensitized, not sensitive.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you feel like there s sort of a factory setting for all humans in some way in terms of like the baseline and then sometimes it gets dialed up and sometimes it gets dialed down?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I m sure there s differences, but you also get the other, you get the people who are completely dislocated from their sensing organ or their feeling organ
2
SPEAKER_00
And then you get people who are living in a state of perpetual emotional overwhelm.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Can you talk a little bit about that and that lack of maybe groundedness?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I would say that both is true.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think we are not all born with the same level of sensitivity and we don t need to.
2
SPEAKER_01
Some people need for their purpose and their life like a more
2
SPEAKER_01
highly attuned nervous system.
2
SPEAKER_01
Other people need different qualities, so they are born with a different intelligence.
2
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t mean that the one is better than the other.
2
SPEAKER_01
They fit to whoever we are and whatever we want to express in this life.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I think there are differences.
2
SPEAKER_01
And at the same time, what you also said is, I think we re all sensitive beings to start with.
2
SPEAKER_01
Some of us learned to shut down parts of ourselves because that was the best thing to do in the given ecosystem that we call core family, that we call education system, that we call society where we grow up.
2
SPEAKER_01
when we re simply constantly threatened or when we live in a constant fear that relationships will break apart, families will break apart, there s alcoholism, there s racism.
2
SPEAKER_01
Of course we cannot stay in that sensitivity.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s too overwhelming.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we actually stay true to our future development by shutting down certain parts in order not to be constantly triggered.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I think that both is true.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I think
2
SPEAKER_01
Recognizing high sensitivity is important.
2
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes, because we also experienced it that way, if somebody with a very high sensitivity grows up in a family system that notices and is attuned to the high sensitivity, that person can regulate and ground
2
SPEAKER_01
their experience again and again until the nervous system has that wired so strongly that it becomes the way we live.
2
SPEAKER_01
But if somebody with a highly sensitive nervous system and the people around don t get it, it s like when somebody is very sensitive to music,
2
SPEAKER_01
Not everybody hears music in the same way.
2
SPEAKER_01
But for some people, even small disturbances in the music, they are very obvious.
2
SPEAKER_01
And for other people, it s, yeah, it s OK.
2
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t matter to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
And when there is a dysfunctional attunement, or a constant overwhelm, or a constant danger, or a constant disruption in the relational trust,
2
SPEAKER_01
then that s being experienced very strongly.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we actually learn to pull out of our body through the stress, or to shut down and go inwards, or to create a wall.
2
SPEAKER_01
There are different defense mechanisms.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we isolate in order not to be so overwhelmed.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I m often saying, yes, let s honor that there was a lot of overwhelm, but let s also honor that it s like a tree with a big crown and its big roots.
2
SPEAKER_01
Broad roots.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then the tree becomes more stable.
2
SPEAKER_01
We call that grounding.
2
SPEAKER_01
And our body is actually, I believe, soil.
2
SPEAKER_01
Our body is the earth, the planet, its substance.
2
SPEAKER_01
And substance helps us to ground sensitivity.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it feels like we are more held in our body and we can resonate through our body more.
2
SPEAKER_01
And some people feel like everything just goes in directly without having some kind of filtering mechanism.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I have also seen people that came and were very disturbed at the beginning and slowly the grounding and the digestion of some of the overwhelm brought more strength and then more and more we experience our sensitivity again as a blessing.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because just for any therapist or anybody that works with clients or patients or children or teachers, but also everyone as a parent, we need our sensitivity to be able to attune.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when it s in a good balance between growth,
3
SPEAKER_01
grounding, like exhaling, and inhaling, taking data in.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s in a good balance.
3
SPEAKER_01
Our sensitivity is not an overwhelm.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s the blessing we bring to the world to express our gifts.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s also, we learn how to regulate ourselves and live a lifestyle that fits to that sensitivity.
3
SPEAKER_01
without constantly needing to protect ourselves.
3
SPEAKER_00
I often think that we re a bit like, there s certainly a better metaphor, but washing machines, where we are processing, moving what s in us to create an ability to help process or move energy that s also present in the room.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we all know people who are exceptional at this, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like both in the positive and the negative.
3
SPEAKER_00
People who can really bring that vibe down quite quickly, who are really heavy and dense.
3
SPEAKER_00
and then others who sort of enervate a room or just lift it through their presence.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or the people that, the friends that we all have where you can go for a walk and both of you are processing or co-processing and you just leave feeling so relieved.
3
SPEAKER_00
so light, so cleansed is maybe not the right word.
3
SPEAKER_00
But can you talk a little bit about how energy, and I thought you did an exceptional job throughout the book, both in talking about sort of explaining morphic resonance, Rupert Sheldrake s idea, talking about string theory, some of these concepts that can break our brains, all of these theories about how energy moves.
3
SPEAKER_00
in a way that makes it very real that not only are we imprinting on each other and projecting and receiving, but that it sticks around in our environment, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
This stuff is ancestral, cultural, and
3
SPEAKER_00
familial, old, and sometimes we don t always know what it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not attached to any story.
3
SPEAKER_00
So can you talk a bit about this emotional, energetic field that we live in?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Beautiful.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s very complex.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s lots to say.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s see if you can keep it brief enough.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you like it when I ask you three questions nested in another one?
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
So let s start with what you said.
3
SPEAKER_01
Steve Porges, I think, beautifully described in the Polyvagal Theory that basically our autonomous nervous system, the vagal nerve, is deeply relational.
3
SPEAKER_01
We see this as mammals.
3
SPEAKER_01
We see that nourishing our children needs lots of connection.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we call this co-regulation.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the stress of a child can land in the mother or the father in the good sense.
3
SPEAKER_01
We can land in relationship.
3
SPEAKER_01
We feel the stress together.
3
SPEAKER_01
The child can ground itself.
3
SPEAKER_01
So what that wires, if that works well, is
3
SPEAKER_01
when i feel agitated afraid stressed i can go back to a safe space it helps me to ground i internalize a bit of the grounding and develop my own regulation if this works well over a period of time the child s nervous system internalizes regulation by itself so when the child grows up
3
SPEAKER_01
I know when I m agitated, I will always find people to co-regulate with.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can also regulate myself well, but I will find support.
3
SPEAKER_01
Support will help me to ground.
3
SPEAKER_01
I will develop the relational network that will reflect that.
3
SPEAKER_01
For other people that were more alone and they couldn t co-regulate with their parents, they often learned to do it alone and then in life later we also try very hard alone because we didn t learn really that reaching out is safe.
3
SPEAKER_01
Often it was not safe or it was not helpful.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that also has a design effect on how we design our social life later and how much we trust people, how much we see people as resources when we don t feel good, to really that it s actually a win-win to co-regulate with each other.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we also learn to provide that function.
3
SPEAKER_01
So when our friends feel distressed and we listen to them and we feel their stress with them,
3
SPEAKER_01
and we are really there, we are present, we are attuned.
3
SPEAKER_01
Within one, two, three minutes we can see
3
SPEAKER_01
how the stress in the nervous system relaxes.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then we can literally look much better at the facts of what s actually happening in life or what s happening in my company or as a parent or whatever, as the partner in our intimate relationships.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so we gain perspective.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so on that level, co-regulation and that it s built into our nervous system is amazing to know, and it s something, even if it has been hurt to a certain extent,
3
SPEAKER_01
kind of rebuild that function.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s great for us, but it s also great for us to be somebody that can provide it, and in a way request it also from life and ask for it if we need it.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think that s an amazing function in the social ecosystem.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we all build social ecosystems.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that also means, exactly as you said, we all imprint on each other.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it means everything we
3
SPEAKER_01
heal, we mature, we develop in ourselves, is never just for ourselves only.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s always also ecosystemically relevant.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if somebody becomes more open, it will affect all the relationships that person has in life.
3
SPEAKER_01
So all the relationships will begin to enjoy
3
SPEAKER_01
or benefit from the fact that I grow, everybody that knows me benefits from my growth because it will nourish all those relationships.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we are always ecosystemic and individual at the same time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now, because you mentioned things that are lingering around in family systems, we have done a lot of work in our work in the last 20 years where we said, okay, what s individual trauma and development?
3
SPEAKER_01
What s ancestral trauma and development?
3
SPEAKER_01
And what s collective trauma and development?
3
SPEAKER_01
And I call this in the book the IAC work, Individual Ancestral Collective Fluidity.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because that work helps us to liquefy what s a bit stuck, what s frozen, what s less moving, what s not developing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that we see on many levels that intergenerational trauma, so trauma that grandparents
3
SPEAKER_01
passed on partly to the parents, they passed it on to us, maybe we passed it on to our children, that there is a data flow between the generations.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like an echo.
3
SPEAKER_01
So everything that cannot be digested in one generation has an echo to the next generation.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we more and more know that there are epigenetic factors that encode for this.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are, of course, psychological factors.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are social factors.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are more factors.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like different dimensions of the same thing that affect us.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so spending some time
3
SPEAKER_01
I love this because I ve seen so much change happening.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve seen family systems where people literally didn t talk to each other for three decades.
3
SPEAKER_01
Then somebody works on that family intergenerational trauma system, and the same day,
3
SPEAKER_01
a person that they had no contact for three decades calls the same night, or writes an email the same night, or estranged parts of family systems suddenly begin to move, and you feel like a healing process is being set in motion that is not just affecting the person that s doing the work, but it begins to affect fragmented family systems.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I have seen this over and over again, and I think
3
SPEAKER_01
that we see our inner work not just as personal and of course attachment work is very important and we need to do it and there is intergenerational work that affects our attachment work and there s collective work so they re all kind of a system more than separate islands that we need to work on and you said it because whatever is integrated
3
SPEAKER_01
is not lingering around but becomes our perspective.
3
SPEAKER_01
Whatever is not integrated, as Sigmund Freud already said,
3
SPEAKER_01
is part of the repetition compulsion.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we ll create patterns, cyclic movements, to try to resurface again and again, similar intimate relationship dynamics, similar work dynamics, similar dynamics in certain parts of our lives that we call patterns.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the root of the pattern is not the behavior, it s energy that s circling somewhere
4
SPEAKER_01
in the depth of our unconsciousness, once it s being harvested, the pattern stops.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because the pattern is just an effect in life of circular energy flows that cannot release themselves, that are stuck.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I think, exactly as you said, understanding those energy flows more intellectually, emotionally, physically, relationally, ancestrally, spiritually,
4
SPEAKER_01
is amazing and we can t approach it just intellectually.
4
SPEAKER_01
One can write a PhD on attachment trauma but still suffer from the attachment wounds that the person carries because it needs a much deeper sensing.
4
SPEAKER_01
So just knowing who my ancestors are or were
4
SPEAKER_01
is not enough.
4
SPEAKER_01
I need to learn to tune in, to feel, to open my inner world to the data that lives in me today.
4
SPEAKER_01
But there I have seen very powerful transformations in people s lives.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s very promising.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s very confronting.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s this other part, this is near the back of the book.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this feels relevant, I m sure, to family systems and individuals, but also to our culture, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
And throughout the world, we see, as you were talking about these repetitive patterns, when you were talking about Ukraine, for example, I didn t know that about what had happened up until 1900, sort of the famine and genocide that occurred and that
4
SPEAKER_00
same part of the world.
4
SPEAKER_00
And here, you know, in America, I was just in Australia, they re going through many of the same things, not attending to a history of slavery, but certainly attending to a history of genocide and colonialism and murdering first peoples and displacing them.
4
SPEAKER_00
And everyone, we all get so calcified, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So stuck.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so hard
4
SPEAKER_00
to know, because I think it becomes an intellectual process for people of like, well, am I responsible for this?
4
SPEAKER_00
How am I responsible for this, even though I ve certainly benefited from it?
4
SPEAKER_00
And you write really beautifully about this.
4
SPEAKER_00
You write, importantly, we need not agree with or condone the harmful beliefs or behaviors of our ancestors to acknowledge their contributions to our lives.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is a point of considerable conflict for many.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yet deep down, we know the paradoxical truth.
4
SPEAKER_00
Our ancestors gave us life, and that is sacred.
4
SPEAKER_00
As long as we refuse to acknowledge their past moral failures, those past moral failures repeat in the form of our own living struggles and social crises.
4
SPEAKER_00
It is only by choosing to witness and digest our ancestors  crimes that we have power to stop them from being repeated.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you talk about how, you know, this indigenous 14 generational belief system, how we can in this moment heal seven previous generations, seven generations to come by actually attending to what s present instead of pushing it down the field.
4
SPEAKER_00
So how do you hold people in that paradox of gratitude and
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there are so many present emotions, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
But we can t escape them.
4
SPEAKER_00
We can t run as much as we would like to sort of do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s beautiful.
4
SPEAKER_01
As you said it already, like, we make spaces, we, in our work, we create spaces where we
4
SPEAKER_01
begin to be able to hold the paradoxical nature of that and that we don t try to get to the solution.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I m often saying trying to look at how it looks like when it s healed is another form of avoiding what s actually here.
4
SPEAKER_01
Many people say, how long do I need to do this work?
4
SPEAKER_01
Or when will I be done with this?
4
SPEAKER_01
Or when will it be done?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s also not important because it s a way not to relate to what s the next step.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the next step is sometimes, I don t know how to deal with that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Maybe that s the next step.
4
SPEAKER_01
So let s bring confusion, that not knowing, that overwhelm, that rage, that shame, that strong guilt, whatever it is, that fear, let s
4
SPEAKER_01
with this together.
4
SPEAKER_01
Create collective faces that are relational, that have certain precepts how we hold each other in those places.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we begin with what is actually here.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I think about the past of my ancestors, when I think about
4
SPEAKER_01
how colonialism hurt First Nation people, like what s happening now in Australia with the boys.
4
SPEAKER_01
There is very important moments, and we all have something come up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Even if nothing comes up, that is what comes up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because it can t be that when such fundamental human rights questions are being asked,
4
SPEAKER_01
that nothing comes up.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if nothing comes up, then the numbness is the thing we need to see.
4
SPEAKER_01
The distance, the avoidance, that it s everything too much.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, let s honor that it s too much, but let s be with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the entry gate to a deeper process.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as you said, it s seven generations into the future.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s ability to respond.
4
SPEAKER_01
So can I
4
SPEAKER_01
begin to have a connection to the next generations and the reverberation forward in time and backward in time, like how the next generations affect us and we affect them with the way we live.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that for some people is already a big stretch, because it looks like time only flows in one direction.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I wrote a bit about this in the book, like the retro-causality and how time moves not just into one direction, but actually the next generation is already affecting us.
4
SPEAKER_01
The future is affecting us.
4
SPEAKER_01
here already.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the same is responsibility, responding to our ancestors  lives.
4
SPEAKER_01
I have held many workshops where, especially in Germany, between Germany and Jewish people, where
4
SPEAKER_01
Nazi descendants were sitting with Holocaust survivors or their descendants in the same room, and the tremendous amount of guilt, the tremendous amount of pain and fear.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s very strong, but if you have holding spaces, amazing things can happen.
4
SPEAKER_01
amazing restorative processes can happen that restore life.
4
SPEAKER_01
And restore is not that we go back to something we know, it s that we become something together.
4
SPEAKER_01
We don t know what that is.
4
SPEAKER_01
We cannot predict who we re going to become.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s why it s risky, because engaging in the aftereffect of colonialism, we don t know how our society is going to change.
4
SPEAKER_01
When we want more equality, our lives cannot continue the way they are now.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because often there is a lot of fear and guilt, and because we cannot predict that, so the process gets shut down.
4
SPEAKER_01
But we cannot continue like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I think this collective work that we need spaces.
4
SPEAKER_01
We cannot just try to intellectualize that.
4
SPEAKER_01
That doesn t work.
4
SPEAKER_01
We need deeper spaces.
4
SPEAKER_01
We need, I believe, and that s why I m often saying also in my talks, we need to speak to governments.
4
SPEAKER_01
We need
4
SPEAKER_01
an architecture in our society that helps us to integrate the legacy.
4
SPEAKER_01
The U.S.
4
SPEAKER_01
needs an architecture to integrate the legacy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Australia needs that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Europe needs that.
4
SPEAKER_01
The Middle East needs that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everywhere we need that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Asia, Latin America, you know, everywhere you look, you have massive trauma.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think we noticed at a certain time that hospitals are good for people that urgently need care.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we implemented that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think now something new is needed.
4
SPEAKER_01
We need collective healing spaces because that s a tremendous impact on healthcare costs.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a tremendous impact on criminal rates.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a tremendous impact on reducing racism.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a tremendous impact on education, on the way political polarization works.
4
SPEAKER_01
we have to create the architecture that doesn t exist yet in a functional form, like mainstream form, that helps us to ground those legacies skillfully, like facilitated spaces where we can literally look at this together and integrate the legacy because we understand how important it is not to repeat it.
4
SPEAKER_01
We are bound to repeat the unconscious patterns.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then one part of our intellect says, no, but it s not true.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if most of us look at our lives, we will find some repetitive patterns that are persistent, that are still there.
5
SPEAKER_01
that are still working, and many of us did already 20 years of therapy, and people say, I still have that pattern.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s not that they just disappear magically, they need attention.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think, as you said, the war in Ukraine
5
SPEAKER_01
is a sign that we didn t do the work in the last four decades or five decades in Europe that needed to be done in order to prevent this war.
5
SPEAKER_01
I believe it s possible to prevent it, but for that we need to open up the legacies of the famine that was there, of the Second World War, the First World War, big scars that are residing in our unconscious.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, as you said, I think so many of us see this as an intellectual need or a policy need, et cetera, something that we can solve on the mental.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so, of course, all of this is true to some extent.
5
SPEAKER_00
We need equity in our systems and to attend to all of that.
5
SPEAKER_00
really limited, I think.
5
SPEAKER_00
What I see happening, too, is that, and I have this tendency as well, I mean, I wrote a whole book about the cultural conditioning of goodness and how it lands in the bodies of women, causing us to repress and suppress and interject.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everything that we perceive or has been told is bad.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so we end up sort of clinging to this raft of goodness, which we then try to use as a shield against all of this bad feeling, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
And I see this showing up in circular firing squads, particularly in more liberal environments.
5
SPEAKER_00
And this sort of like, are you perfect in your allyship?
5
SPEAKER_00
And then the way that we tear each other down when we re not.
5
SPEAKER_00
But we sort of are using it as a protection, a ballast against
5
SPEAKER_00
attending to what s really present.
5
SPEAKER_00
Men, in my experience, are just like, I m out.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, there s no one s really holding anyone accountable.
5
SPEAKER_00
So like, later, we ll let you guys fight about this.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can be the punching bags for these conversations.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not all men.
5
SPEAKER_00
But that what we need is like a 360
5
SPEAKER_00
Reckoning because the way to that our patriarchal culture is set up where power and money and whatever it is that s at the top of this pyramid scheme.
5
SPEAKER_00
Whiteness.
5
SPEAKER_00
the things that we adulate culturally that I think many of us can recognize and say like, well, that s a fallacy.
5
SPEAKER_00
You might get that.
5
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t deliver you much or anything, or it doesn t save you from all this feeling.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you look at the cultural chaos that s created typically, often,
5
SPEAKER_00
the really destructive, is happening in the hands of a lot of white men, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Deaths of despair, school shootings, suicidality, loneliness.
5
SPEAKER_00
Nobody gets out alive and nobody is emotionally salvaged from this work.
5
SPEAKER_00
If anything, I don t know if I m doing a job of explaining this, but this is like a 360 healing.
5
SPEAKER_00
This isn t just about
5
SPEAKER_00
holding people accountable who have been perpetrating more harm.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s about also understanding that there is a lot of harm in being the person who s harming.
5
SPEAKER_00
Does that make sense to you?
5
SPEAKER_00
That there s like,
5
SPEAKER_00
intense healing needed.
5
SPEAKER_00
It is not the people who are sort of been the oppressive forces in our culture traditionally in some ways need the most healing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe that s backwards, but it seems like that s also what s playing out also because they have the most power to perpetrate or keep these cycles going.
5
SPEAKER_00
Can you help me explain what I m trying to say?
5
SPEAKER_01
First of all, I love that you go into these deep topics and also so eloquently.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel when you speak that you really deeply work this in yourself also and in your work.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that s really beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I agree also with many things that it s not an either or, holding somebody accountable or healing.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s both.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes, because it s so hard to go a bit deeper, to really feel in our bodies and emotions what these kind of things mean and which layers it has in us,
5
SPEAKER_01
it s much easier to bail out somehow and try to get out of it through some kind of mechanism.
5
SPEAKER_01
Also the goodness in some, like there is a projected goodness that creates and behind it there is a kind of a vacuum because we don t actually want to go deep.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we can see that when integrated presence is vulnerable,
5
SPEAKER_01
is willing to learn, is willing to receive, is willing to bow, is willing to stay connected when it s difficult, understood that privilege means I can turn away.
5
SPEAKER_01
and that knowing that I learned to use my privilege to turn to words and to be willing to stay in the fire of learning together, especially when it s about cultural wounds, but also when it s about individual trauma work, that all those qualities, I think we feel the integratedness or the willingness to hold the unintegratedness of our physical, emotional, mental, relational, spiritual,
5
SPEAKER_01
ancestral roots, that all those layers are important.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s not the one or the other, because they re all one.
5
SPEAKER_01
So if I exclude some of it, their solutions, where we are going together, will also be only partial.
5
SPEAKER_01
And those fragmentations will surface anyway again.
5
SPEAKER_01
We can t get out of it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you said that beautifully.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the only way is skillfully in.
5
SPEAKER_01
way skillfully in.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s a process that we cannot predict because whenever we go deeper, the one who goes deeper, whoever that is, changes.
5
SPEAKER_01
We don t stay the same person when we heal, we open up, we integrate something fundamentally.
5
SPEAKER_01
We don t stay the same culture.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we re gonna change in ways that are unpredictable, and that s often scary.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that risk, I think if we use our privilege to take that risk again and again, and if we do that, as I often say, then we become a living prayer.
5
SPEAKER_01
then I m committed to life and I m committed to being here and to work with skillfully, not just I throw myself into overwhelm and then I m just overwhelmed.
5
SPEAKER_01
That doesn t have any meaning because nothing happens, then I just feel pain and I m stuck.
5
SPEAKER_01
But that we do it skillfully and that we create those spaces where we can do that together.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then accountability, restorative actions,
5
SPEAKER_01
social justice and everything that s needed to repair the social fabric in action needs to be done as much as the internal fabric needs to be repaired, relationships need to be repaired, our ancestors need to make peace.
5
SPEAKER_01
and they cannot just make peace.
5
SPEAKER_01
We need to be the ones that own the repercussions of our ancestors  lives and invest the energy that s needed to create a form of peace that we cannot control.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think only then, when we are willing to, in a way, acknowledge the history that happened,
5
SPEAKER_01
so deeply that we begin to rewrite history.
5
SPEAKER_01
Not because we want to change history.
5
SPEAKER_01
Is it often now that we rewrite the history books because we don t want to have anything to do with the past?
5
SPEAKER_01
That s toxic.
5
SPEAKER_01
But when we authentically and relationally go deep and we embrace the truth of what happened and we are willing to stand in that truth, then we also become like a healing force backwards in time.
5
SPEAKER_01
So literally it has an effect on our ancestors  lives, I believe, that through our presence, we literally impact the living system through our own embodiment.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think that changes society now.
5
SPEAKER_01
That stops some of the repetitive patterns, the re-traumatizing patterns.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then it s not, because if it s about what do I have to do in order to repair something that happened in the past,
5
SPEAKER_01
I m not there yet.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, maybe something needs to be done anyway, because it s vital to, you know, create more equality in our society.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if I have to, when we heal, I often say, in the collective trauma work, we often say, imagine there is a book, and the book is
6
SPEAKER_01
partly frozen, like it s in the ice.
6
SPEAKER_01
You see a part of the book, but a part of the book is in ice.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the book contains the remedy that we need, but we can t read the book because it s frozen in ice.
6
SPEAKER_01
So that s why I often say trauma or collective trauma work is the prerequisite.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the more the ice melts, the ethical restoration is a human need.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think deep inside our core, we know that we want, not we have to, but we want to restore the wounds of the past because we see how ecosystemic health cannot happen.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think there is a fundamental impact of what I m saying on our healthcare understanding that public health and individual health cannot happen in an ecosystem that is not healthy.
6
SPEAKER_01
So it affects us literally health-wise, the unrestored collective wounds affect individuals of that ecosystem health-wise.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the reverse is also true.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think coming to a place where I want that reparation, I want the repair to happen, I want the restoration to happen, I want that collective growth.
6
SPEAKER_01
then also something happened, because then it touches the place in me that knows how to respect human rights and each other, and how to create a society that is truly respectful of the essence of who we are.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s not, oh, I have to behave in a certain way.
6
SPEAKER_01
The law, the Tao says, when we, the Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell s translation says this beautifully, it says, when humans, when we live
6
SPEAKER_01
according to the Tao, the law will be written in our hearts.
6
SPEAKER_01
It says the law is inherent to the action in our life.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not an external reminder of how I should live.
6
SPEAKER_01
Once it s externalized, it means that I m dissociated inside.
6
SPEAKER_01
I can t feel life fully.
6
SPEAKER_01
So that s what you said I think is very important.
6
SPEAKER_01
How can we create the spaces that we come to a place where that need gets reawakened and then we will do anything that s needed because we see it s important.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s so beautiful, both that this is encoded in ice, and may we all stay in the fire and help thaw it so we can integrate it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, thank you.
6
SPEAKER_00
I could talk to you for many more hours, and the book s amazing.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow, I just, I love Thomas.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think what he s doing is so important and he s such a gifted facilitator that I hope everyone comes to know him.
6
SPEAKER_00
He writes, continuing to deny historical truths further annihilates survivor groups.
6
SPEAKER_00
It is a terrible re-traumatization.
6
SPEAKER_00
But denial is also an unconscious agreement to cease or regress one s own growth and development.
6
SPEAKER_00
By accepting responsibility, perpetrators of collective trauma on their descendants break away from the conditioned narrative and ultimately disidentify with their former group self-concept.
6
SPEAKER_00
They find a renewed sense of group esteem as they retell their communal narratives with ownership, accountability, truth, and a sense of deeper understanding and inclusion.
6
SPEAKER_00
New meaning and purpose, along with new stories, are created from a position of responsibility to the traumatized, to the culture at large, and to one s own future descendants.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love what he said about this book being frozen in ice.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then this idea of staying in the fire, which to me means recognizing that we re each containers or vessels in some way for processing all of this material in our own lives and in the collective.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that as we continue to do the work to stay in the fire, we turn ourselves into larger and larger containers able to process
6
SPEAKER_00
more, and that it s on each of us to do our part, whatever that may be.
6
SPEAKER_00
For some of us who ve had a lot of personal trauma, that might be our work, that might be what needs to happen, and that is enough.
6
SPEAKER_00
And for others who haven t had that, who ve lived life s privilege and relative ease,
6
SPEAKER_00
Our work is then to attend to this larger cultural responsibility.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it is so deeply uncomfortable.
6
SPEAKER_00
It is so appealing to turn our backs and walk away and to leave it for someone else to attend to.
6
SPEAKER_00
But in Thomas s view and my view as well,
6
SPEAKER_00
We can t do that anymore.
6
SPEAKER_00
We can t continue to kick this down the field.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so we have to stay in the fire, even when it feels like it might consume us.
6
SPEAKER_00
But we have the capacity, I know that we do, or we have the capacity to do what we can.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you liked today s episode, please rate and review and tell a friend.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can find show notes and full transcripts of the episodes at EliseLoonan.com.
6
SPEAKER_00
While there, please sign up for my sub stack.
6
SPEAKER_00
I send a short note every Wednesday about topics that are aligned with this show and a deeper dive most Sundays.
6
SPEAKER_00
Or follow me on Instagram at EliseLoonan.
6
SPEAKER_00
And finally, if you haven t already, please consider picking up a copy of my New York Times bestselling book, On Our Best Behavior, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good, available wherever you get your books.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s an exploration of how women have been conditioned for goodness, men for power, and all the ways we ve been programmed to police ourselves and each other according to these cultural ideas of what it is to be a good woman.
6
SPEAKER_00
I d also like to give a huge thank you to my sponsors who make this show possible.
6
SPEAKER_00
Please support them the way they support this podcast.
6
SPEAKER_00
This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studio.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you enjoyed this episode, please listen, rate, review, and follow Pulling the Thread.
6
SPEAKER_00
Available now for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.
6
SPEAKER_00
I want to give a shout out to Phil Svitek, Lauren Legrasso, Mary-Kate McDonough, Ali Brockman, and the entire Kedans13 team for producing these episodes, and to Valero Deval for my key art.
6
SPEAKER_00
Take care of yourselves.
6
SPEAKER_00
I ll see you next week.