Thomas Hübl - Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds

Table of Contents

Brilliant, compassionate, and practical support for collective healing in a traumatized world.

JACK KORNFIELD, PHD

author of A Path with Heart

Our world is waiting for us to develop into a new way of being on this precious planet we share with one another and with all of nature. Thomas Hbls wise and thought-provoking book invites us into the important step of becoming systems-sensing beings, opening our awareness to the profound interconnections that often are beneath what is visible to the eye. Mystics are sometimes defined as those who believe in the reality of the invisible; in this mind-opening sense, a scientific view inherently is concerned, too, with that which cannot be perceived with our eyes. As a mystic, our experienced guide offers his own experience with feeling into collective trauma and how our cross-generational experiences of overwhelming events can be profoundly impairing our personal and our shared ways of living in the subjective and objective worlds. Drawing on his own extensive, international experiences of helping heal systems trauma, the witnessing of the collective healing process by participants in his innovative workshops, and the insights of many luminaries in the field, Hbl has woven a poetic and profound journey for the reader to consider new ways of both understanding and healing our collectively waiting world to support the cultivation of a new, compassionate, and connected life for us all.

DANIEL J. SIEGEL, MD

New York Times bestselling author of Aware, Mind, Brainstorm, Mindsight, and The Developing Mind; executive director, Mindsight Institute; clinical professor, UCLA School of Medicine

In Healing Collective Trauma, Thomas Hbl identifies the most pressing challenge to humanity. In contrast to the contemporary focus on external sources of challenge such as climate change and famine, we become reacquainted with our history as a self-traumatized species. This history highlights that the greatest challenges to humanity are the products of how we treat each other. Rather than emphasizing the embedded feelings of intergenerational wounds as motivators to achieve, to dominate, and at times to justify retribution, the real task confronting humanity is to successfully resolve these self-perpetuating and self-inflicted injuries. If we can heal these wounds, we will have the opportunity to experience the benefits of becoming a truly connected species and sharing the generative and expansive products of feeling safe and trusting others.

STEPHEN W. PORGES, PHD

author of The Polyvagal Theory

We tend to believe in free will. That it is we who ultimately determine our destinies; that we are the captains of our own ships. However, in experiencing depth therapy and honest reflection, we soon realize that this is an illusion. We discover, rather, that our seemingly independent choices are built upon a shaky foundation. Unbeknownst to us, we may be profoundly influenced by events, not only from families and life events but by circumstances that our ancestors (and their ancestors in turn) have experienced during lifetimes long past. And yet their impact persists outside the realm of our conscious awareness. These lingering ghosts have powerful influences on our emotions, reactions, behaviors, and choices. Some of these ancestral influences have had negative (even traumatic) effects on us, while others are life supporting and life affirming. Addressing ancestral influences may also be a key in transforming hate to compassion and understanding between previously warring factions. These essential factors are often neglected in peacemaking efforts. In this comprehensive book, Thomas Hbl brings in a spiritual and mystical dimension to greatly increase our understanding of these powerful hidden influences and how to heal them. This book is a gift to all those (professional and laypersons) wanting to enrich their lives and find greater freedom in this life.

PETER A. LEVINE, PHD

author of Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma, and Trauma and Memory

Modern mystic Thomas Hbl offers a work so rich it encompasses three domains, any one of which alone would have been fresh and important: He raises the issue of collective trauma from the latest psychological perspectives. He moves seamlessly to explore what he terms subtle processesenergetic, intuitive. He integrates both perspectives, weaving between a precise description of the nervous system and processes of the soul, and he offers specific tools and techniques for healing at both levels. A much-needed, brilliant addition to the literature on trauma.

TERRY REAL

author of I Dont Want to Talk About It and founder of Relational Life Institute

This is a very important book. Many years ago, my clients taught me that parts of them carried what I came to call legacy burdens, which are powerful beliefs and emotions that they absorbed from ancestors or from the culture. I learned how to unburden individuals and wondered if it was possible to do that with large groups. I was thrilled when I learned that Thomas Hbl had been doing so with what he called collective trauma. I believe his work has tremendous potential for bringing harmony and healing to the many polarizations in societies that are unconsciously driven by past traumas. While we have increasingly come to understand the profound impact traumas have on individual lives, we have yet to fully appreciate the impact of historic violence or catastrophe on the paths that groups or societies take. By intuiting, studying, and describing the effects of collective trauma, Hbl clarifies the roots of war and of the disintegration of countries or ethnic groups. He offers a clear method for releasing the burdens of collective trauma en masse, which he has used with large groups in different countries around the world. I am so grateful for this work.

RICHARD C. SCHWARTZ, PHD

creator of the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy and adjunct faculty, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Thomas Hbl offers a wise and textured understanding of the tapestry of collective trauma and how attending to cultural and historical threads heals the very foundation of humanity.

RUTH KING

author of Mindful of Race and founder of the Mindful of Race Institute

Bowing down to the revelation of our emerging Future,

which is calling us...

I t is a great pleasure to commend to you this insightful, wise, and critically important book on healing collective trauma, written by my friend and colleague Thomas Hbl.

For the last forty years, I have had the chance to witness the deep impacts of collective trauma while serving as a third party and negotiation adviser in conflicts and wars around the world, most recently in the Colombian civil war, the Korean nuclear crisis, and the Middle East conflict. I have experienced just how difficult, frustrating, and elusive it can be to bring bloodshed to an end.

The big question I have often asked myself is: Why is peace so challenging when it brings so much benefit, especially given that war inevitably brings great loss to all parties and their societies?

There are many reasons, but surely one of the most central is the underlying collective trauma that remains unaddressed. During the Korean War, millions of people died and millions more were displaced. More than two hundred thousand people were killed in the Colombian civil war and more than seven million were displaced. Even when a semblance of normality returns, the underlying scars remain. With unhealed wounds, there appears to be a drive to keep repeating the same patterns of conflict. Truces or peace agreements are often difficult to sustain.