James A. Houck Jr. Ph.D. - When Ancestors Weep: Healing the Soul from Intergenerational Trauma

Also by James A. Houck, Jr., Ph.D.

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WHEN ANCESTORS
WEEP

Healing the Soul from Intergenerational Trauma

JAMES A. HOUCK, JR., PH.D.

Copyright 2018 James A. Houck, Jr., Ph.D..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover photo taken by Elizabeth E. Houck

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-2213-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2212-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018912527

Abbott Press rev. date: 11/05/2018

DEDICATION

For all of humanity to embrace the value, dignity and worth of those

who have come before us,

those who live with us in the here and now,

and those who will follow us.

So that the people may live!

Contents

How Did We Get Here? The Doctrine
of Discovery

Contemporary Impact of the Doctrine
of Discovery

Sustained History of Forced Migration
of Children

The Soulful Wisdom of Indigenous
Grandmothers

This book follows a basic premise in that throughout history, traumatic events have wounded and immobilized people. Not just in life-threatening or physical ways, but also in psychological, emotional, and indeed, our understanding of who we are as souls. Whenever, and wherever, there have been violent crimes committed against humanity, people are often overcome by horrific physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual suffering. As a result, their assumptions about themselves, others and even God, have been shattered and their internal coping mechanisms have failed. Due to the severity of the trauma, humanitys painful memories, intense feelings, obscure perceptions, interrupted cognitive functions, and maladaptive behaviors, become encapsulated in time. For lack of a better word, people often describe themselves as being stuck , unable to move past traumatic events as they replay them continuously in their mind, body and soul. This feeling of being trapped in linear time can extend to days, months, years, decades and even centuries, as past, present and future generations often bear the scars of once upon a time . Despite the fact that our understanding of the subtle mind, body, and spiritual nuances of trauma has made leaps and bounds over the past several decades, the phenomenon of psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual encapsulation still occurs today. Moreover, although there has been much research done in how, when, where, and why people hold their emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual trauma, precious little has been researched in how trauma truly affects the soul. Perhaps this is due in part to the limitations of western theological and philosophical debates that struggle to define what the soul is? In fact, there appears to be a great deficit in our language regarding how our minds and bodies express the soul, let alone, what to do with it now once we realize we are one? For example, most of the time, people are content to relegate the soul to something we give a nod to during religious services. We live our lives, go to work or school, plan our careers, form relationships, procreate, avoid pain, and engage in pleasure, without much thought of the souluntil the day we are faced with our mortality. It is then, perhaps, we passively rely on the soul to do its job and carry us into the next life. Rarely do we consider how to live our lives as souls, let alone treat one another accordingly.

As a counseling educator, mental health and pastoral professional, I have seen firsthand how trauma encapsulates the soul of wounded people. This insight was not something I was taught in seminary, nor did I learn this in graduate school. In fact, if the soul ever came up in conversation, it was always done so in the third person, often referring to the soul as it. This description is simply not accurate. The soul is not something we have, but instead, the soul is who we are; the purest essence of ourselves that is related to God. Every external sense about ourselves is simply ego window-dressing . Still, in my work with people struggling to make sense of their losses, grief, trauma, after-death communication encounters and near-death experiences, many find it problematic to grasp the belief that souls often become bound to the place where traumatic events have resulted in horrific, physical deaths. Just ask anyone who believes in haunted houses, battlefields, lighthouses, hotels, restaurants and boarding schools. These places often attract thrill seekers and ghost enthusiasts, seeking to confirm tales of sightings of disembodied spirits lurking about, but do nothing to transform the traumatic energy that has ensnared these souls, so they can be released from that place and find peace with God.

On the mental and physical level, traumatized people often describe themselves in the aftermath of tragedies and horrors, as feeling disconnected from not only themselves and others ( depersonalization ), but also feeling disconnected from their surroundings ( derealization ). In fact, if the intensity of the trauma persists and results in the death of the body, the more likely the soul will also experience a disconnection, and thus cry out to be reconnected to the Soul of the Universe , i.e., God. Ironically, this phenomenon has been the one aspect history has always underestimated about the voice of the human soul. For example, humanity has always attempted to silence people, societies and/or nations through orchestrated killings, murders, genocide, starvations, forced assimilations, humiliations, and degradations, often defining people as savages or primitive, backward, unworthy, unlovable, and therefore, disposable. Nevertheless, this phenomenon is not true for everyone. For the majority of people who experience trauma, they can emotionally, physically, and psychologically process their pain, find their souls voice, and heal from the past. Yet, even when traumatic events result in physical deaths, the soul still can be heard. This is because we are energy in the purest sense, and therefore, our souls have a distinct voice of their own. Not even the death of the body can silence the soul because if there is one prominent lesson that comes from the field of physics, besides gravity and inertia , it is that energy can never be destroyed; it can only be transformed, and therein lies humanitys healing.