Ep. 043: Thomas Hübl:

Since 2004, Thomas has led workshops, multi-year training programs and larger events and festivals. He is a regularly featured speaker at conferences and workshops worldwide. He teaches an intensive 2-year study program called Timeless Wisdom Training (TWT), which offers a path for psycho-spiritual development on individual and collective levels. TWT is now in its fifth cohort in Germany and its second cohort in the United States. He regularly offers in-depth, live online courses to a global audience, such as The Mystical Principles of Healing, and Meditate and Mediate (with William Ury).

Through his nonprofit organization, Thomas seeks to facilitate conscious cultural change. Its initiatives include the popular Celebrate Life Festival, a multi-day immersive event which takes place annually in Germany or the U.S. He is also the founder of the nonprofit Pocket Project, which aims to increase awareness and understanding of collective trauma and reduce its effects on our global culture. Over the past fifteen years, Thomas has guided large-scale healing events that have brought together thousands of Germans and Israelis to acknowledge, face, and heal the cultural shadow left by the Holocaust.

Transcript

Susan: So Thomas, it's really an incredible pleasure to have you. I mean, I've known you now for a couple of years. I don't know that well, but I find your presence to be just so incredibly light and smart and deep. And you're not afraid to tackle the difficult stuff. And yet you do it in such an incredibly light and beautiful way. So thank you for joining us on the Peacebuilding Podcast and being part of this conversation.

Thomas: Thank you, Susan, for having me.

Susan: Yeah, I think you probably, you know, I'm going to put your bio on the website. So you don't need to say too much but and I'm sure you answer this question all the time. Let me ask you this way. And that because I asked all my guests this question is, what do you think I don't know if you relate to the term peace builder, but but if you do, you're shaking your head, Yes. And what what do you think planted the seeds in you to be somebody that cared about focusing on building a more peaceful planet?

Thomas: I think there are multiple maybe there are multiple levels in my life that led up to to maybe the peace builder in me. I think one was that when I was 16, I started to work as a volunteer for the Red Cross. And I became a paramedic and then when I was you know, I studied medicine at first and then I…

Susan: Where did you grow up, Thomas? in Austria or Germany?

Thomas: in Austria, Vienna. So I believe like, I put a lot of volunteer work and, and my, you know, service at the Red Cross. So I really loved that and, and then when I had to decide to do military service, so I refused to do military service and I said, Okay, that's not congruent with how I see Health and Society and my work for the Red Cross. I think that was one, definitely one aspect. And then when I was 19, I had suddenly the strong feeling to meditate every day. And I didn't know much about meditation, but I had a very strong inner calling to be quiet for a certain time every day and I did it every day. And, and I believe that gave me some inner dimension of peace over time that was significant. And when I was 26, I left actually my medical studies and I went on a four year meditation retreat.

Susan: What did your parents say?

Thomas: I think my parents were not amused.

Susan: Oh, my beautiful son, he's gonna be a doctor and now he's going off to meditate.

Thomas: Right.. to meditate, what are you doing? And I said, You know, I don't know, but I'm studying and studying something else and I am studying what I today I will call it mystical studies. Or I had a deep learning process within this four years. And it was a tremendously important time of my life. And I think that the meditation process is a whole science I mean, it's much bigger than being quiet once a day for half an hour an hour, but it's it taught me a lot.

Susan: Were you depressed? Or were you just with the call? I don't know. How did you hear the calling you just or were you just overwhelmed by the state of the planet?

Thomas: No, no, none of the above. I loved medicine and I loved the, you know, I was on the track to, you know, to emergency medicine. I wasn't like, it was more like an inner calling to. I felt like Yeah, something pulled me like I knew at the time that I need to be quiet and de-tox my inner world for some time in order to be more synchronized with what's my calling in the world. And it actually turned out to be true because after this for four and a half years, like another like a spiritual teacher that came to town, saw me and then said some things about me and then people started to invite me to do workshops. So after being for four and a half years in a very quiet space most of the time, kind of somewhere in the countryside, I, my life turned around and it's a I started to travel all around the world and this was I think 18 years ago. And and in a way, my current work also my, my process work we developed a whole track of human facilitation like process work and, and then pretty soon after two years or so of my groups that grew pretty fast. I started seeing this what today I call collective trauma eruptions in my group because they have been mainly in Germany at the beginning of the German speaking part of Europe. And then later on I now currently I'm living in Israel and and, and we did a lot of work afterwards in like the Holocaust integration between Germany and Israel and the Jewish people.

Susan: So so let me back you up for a second just because and I know you answer this question a lot, but just preliminary preliminarily, could you give a simple answer of the word trauma and a simple answer of the word collective trauma? What do you mean by those things?

Thomas: Yeah, trauma is what happens in our nervous system or in our bodies and psyches when we are in overwhelming, strongly overwhelming situations, which means that we go into a state of hyper activation or tremendous stress, and at the same time, the nervous system. My understanding has the ability to fragment that one part off like the same as…

Susan: Disassociation is at the same idea…

Thomas: right, right. Disassociation, like the way I would describe it is imagine you have a big screen in your living room and TV screen and you see a crazy scenery and it's very noisy. And then you take the remote control and you mute the scene. So then you see still the crazy scene but without noise. And then you take the TV and you throw it into the ocean. And for some time, you still see the crazy scenery and it gets darker and darker and darker and darker, and then it disappears into the depths of the ocean. It's still going on, but you don't see it anymore. And so the in the trauma area in our nervous system, the strong overwhelm or pain or tension or whatever is happening is still happening there. But without our awareness so the subject, the me like I or the culture is not any more aware of the tremendous pain that drowned in the ocean of individual or collective unconscious. And so I when I saw this in my groups, I suddenly saw Wow, like 50 people at once started to cry, saw horrible images from the Holocaust, the Second World War. And, and so and and it didn't happen only once it happened almost in every group.

Susan: What would the demographics if you if you could say like the ethnicity, the identity group?

Thomas: No it was mostly Europeans like Germans, Austrians. And, and definitely, let's say 70% women and well- educated, interested in inner development, consciousness, spirituality, people that did some therapy already many of them. I attracted mainly people that already had some like we are more senior in their own inner contemplative practice. So it. But what I learned through it is that, like I got to understand through many groups and many processes that we did, and then later on, 2 we also worked on different collective trauma fields like colonialism, racism in the US, and dictatorships or whatever, Spain, Catalonia and different different scars, there are enough around the world. And so I believe that the deep part of peacebuilding is actually like raising our understanding that fragmentation that is unconscious, always creates symptoms on the surface of life, that we cannot just fix by trying to apply good ideas. We have to take care of the underlying fragmentation because it keeps on re-creating itself again and again on the surface. And that's why I believe many programs that are well intended, many ideas that are good, that are being like, put like patches on such fragmented fields will actually not really work and will burn a lot of energy. Many people might be burned out, frustrated and lose their motivation, because the underlying fragmentation is too strong and it recreates fractures and symptoms, social symptoms, individual symptoms, and we I think we need to learn how to take care of all the TVs, the collective TV ocean, that is unseen and, and not to forget, 3 all of us have been born into a collectively traumatized field. That's very important because sometimes, of course, we know that intellectually we know that but it's very hard in our felt experience to represent that in ourselves. And that's why I think often it we lose track of what that actually means for our daily experience.

Susan: So let me jump into myself just using myself as instrument here in my own journey but I am at course many of the women and I'm moving into the the topic of women and the collective trauma of women because it's, oh gosh, I don't know you know, it's, it's heavy. And it's been going on for so many thousands of years and myself my path out of it, not that I'm out of it. But but but I'm out of it, to a great degree, has been one of really releasing the trauma from my body. It's been a it's been an embodied experience. Because, you know, women I'm not going to focus on whether it's true for men too, because it gets too confusing, actually, but, but so much of, you know, for women so much of the trauma is that our it happens with our bodies. you know, and it's and it's a global phenomenon. I think what's interesting compared to other tribes is that women are obviously from different tribes, but we are, we are so the same in so many regards. Like I've been in such large groups of women from around the world and so many of our issues of shame, of codependency, of fear because of patriarchal structures. I don't know if you use that word patriarchy. But you know, I think we have so much fear in our bodies from the ways that we have been controlled and allowed ourselves to be controlled over the last however long patriarchy, I mean, I use that term patriarchy is just like rule of the Father, whatever but it's, it's most countries on earth still have, are predominantly using patriarchal structures. So it's a very large phenomenon. And and so many women are so bought into it still, it was just one of the problems, you know, how much it still lives in us, but but I, I guess what's interesting for me is that it's not a mind thing. I don't feel like I've got I mean, concepts are useful, but really it's been a process at for myself and watching other women. It's really been a process of reintegration with our bodies. So I don't know I'm, I'm curious to know what you like. I'm wondering if you think do you think that #metoo is a trauma eruption?

Thomas: Definitely, I mean, definitely a lot of, I think our time in general is like, like is is it time where we speed up to surfacing of all kinds of collective trauma material. And that's why so many people feel stressed, feel overloaded feel, you know, frustrated, addicted, and like there's so many things that that I think, get bigger because the tremendous amount of information that flows through us, both technologically and spiritually, is creating much more pressure on internal, individual and collective trauma structures. So in a way, yes, I think it's, it's a, it's an attempt, but when symptoms show up, I believe when we use the word trauma, many people think of it as something negative. And I'm not talking about the experience that we go through, of course, this usually painful experiences, but the trauma response in our nervous system. That's the thing that we are working on later through our bodies, our emotions, our relations. That's a very intelligent attempt of life that I believe grew over thousands and thousands of years, how to survive better in a situation of being overwhelmed. I think that's an evolutionary achievement. The only thing is, we are often taking care of the after effects way too late, sometimes even generations later. And, and I think that's the issue.

Susan: but it keeps us you know, so like, I'm thinking of the what's often referred to sometimes as the woman's Holocaust, you know, in Europe in the, the, I think 15th 16th 17th centuries, you know, like, something like 3 to 5 million women were tortured burned at the stake because they were was the quote unquote “Holy Inquisition” of the you know, the Catholic church. And I think that I know for myself and for many women that I talk to you sometimes I think we feel that we still that lives in our bodies on some level, we remember that we remember and that fear, I think keeps a lot of not just that but of there's so much fear that keeps women I mean, my interest Thomas is really inspiring women to step into our leadership, our divinity, our full radiance our moving beyond shame, because the shame has been so, you know, it's such it. I think it's so pervasive really, if you start scratching the surface with women around the globe, you know,

Susan: Yeah, so I'm just super interested in getting some insight into how to how to move beyond all that

Thomas: Right? And and that's why I said what I said before because I believe, first of all, we need a change of our relation to the internal process that we call trauma. And say again, the definition of trauma is not the experience that we went through it's what happened in us in relation to the outer or external experience. So, what is actually our internal experience…

Susan: you mean like the shutdown or the or the disassociation that..

Thomas: all of it the shutdown, the dissociation, the numbering, the disembodiment, the emotional overwhelm and what happens in our emotional and hormonal systems and so on and in our relational networks and in our society, so that once we reframe that internal process, what seems to be a weakness is not a weakness, what seems to be a weakness is a kind of inner internal heroic function. That made totally sense for a five year old child. That made totally sense for a 12 year old girl, when she went through a difficult phase, but looks like a weakness or a difficulty in the grown up’s world, or the grown up’s life. And so, because I believe in the in the integration process, we already approach our own internal process with a lot of self-criticism with a lot of dis-association from from the intelligence that those regulation functions or defense mechanisms in us are. So that's why the reframing is actually a inducing curiosity and, and the willingness to explore that I'm actually exploring my intelligence and the intelligence of the ancestors, that that we were we might carry, still the tendencies of what our ancestors went through, as you said as fears as shame as its kind of low self esteem as ways of relating to men, to other, within social structures. But 5 I believe the first that I see that is very healing is a different understanding of what life is trying to do and what life is trying to do is to heal itself. Symptoms are here for us to recognize something that we don't understand fully usually when we see them. So I have fears that have nothing to do with the current moment but they feel totally real. They feel real enough for me to make decisions that are fear informed and not intuition informed. I might not feel my body because when I feel my body, I encounter a lot of shame or fear or anger. So those functions are defense mechanisms that are very intelligent at the level when they arose. And of course, they look kind of dysfunctional today in my life. And that's why I said before when we when we want to explore symptoms, we are exploring intelligent processes, not problems, although they often feel that way. And I think that's, that's a reframing in the way we look at ourselves, which make many internal processes more accessible.

Susan: A little bit like yeah, you know, I know you know, Terry Real and he said to say, Hello, by the way, I a little bit of the wounded, you know, Wounded Child to adaptive child to functional adult, you know, that model that way of thinking, yeah, yeah. And it sort of sounds like you're saying that about that in some ways, trauma is a very intelligent function like the adaptive child that protected us. And but it doesn't serve us really as evolved human beings, men and women, queer identified whatever we might be it doesn't serve us anymore.

Thomas: right and and the next thing is that we see the trauma I think always causes it dis-synchronization of my mind, my emotions, my body and my relational capacity, which means that what I feel or not feel in my body, in my emotions, and the way I think and speak is often not fully synchronized. And so whenever I meet a trauma area in myself often I have all kinds of explanations and concepts and mental ideas and mental defense functions and you said something very important that your own healing process really went through the body. 6 And I believe trauma healing needs to happen through the body. And in many cases it needs to happen in relation, not alone. It's very hard to heal oneself alone. It's often trying to do it alone is already a symptom of the traumatization itself because trauma happens usually through inappropriate relation. And that's why we try to not get into that same thing again. So we try more on our own. But that's exactly what's not serving us often because we need healthy relation or healthy community in order to create environments where we can really heal together and serve each other in the healing process.

Susan: I want to tell you something I've been really blessed to be part of a women's community the ground zero of which is New York City. It sort of evolved around something called Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts. And it has been an amazing trauma release kind of community. And what's interesting about me too many things that are interesting about it, but and she's not doing those programs right now, but being in a room of 900 women who are releasing anger, grief, and then what's really super interesting because I think Audrey Lord, who is a African-American theorist, who's no longer with us, she said something like about, talked a lot about the erotic power of women and how, how much that's such an incredible, incredibly important source of our power. And what was really interesting in that community is watching women release anger, release grief, and then turn it on, and then connect to the erotic and how empowering that is because I think so much of the shame really has been the way our bodies have been, you know, controlled for reproduction. And and I mean, and then and shamed and whatever but it's, I guess, as it as a trauma healing I think what has been interesting is watching how that had to happen in community and it had to happen. Yeah, just the power of doing doing that kind of thing with large numbers of people and seeing there was one moment when 900 women erupted into this chant of “no more crumbs” “no more crumbs”, but kind of getting their own sense of like, seeing their own not as not as big angry victims because of course, many people go there when they everybody likes to feel like the victim but as getting more empowered and getting more connected to their strength, our strength.

Thomas: And that's why I think that's one example of communities where we come together and we create really a network or a kind of a collective field where we can heal together. And I believe that that's also something that is deeply rooted in the wisdom traditions, like when there is the scene of the Hebraic people, Mount Sinai, and then the voice of God appears not to Moses like to one person but to the community and there is kind of like a group awakening. And, and one of the very important aspects of that is also that everybody afterwards said, like, God spoke to me personally directly to me, my life. So God hasn't been heard as a, as an abstract voice something abstract that is true for everybody. No, it was everybody felt personally seen and personally spoken to. And I think that's a beautiful example for that the most unique you is the deepest aspect of the most non-dual unified or interconnected reality and that the most universal principle is reflected in the most uniqueness and the most unique aspect. And that means that when we when we really support each other in our agency in our you know, like deep healing process that is different for everybody, but we share in communities like similar issues, similar topics, and that says self reinforcing field and and 7 I have seen like, like groups with hundreds and hundreds of people were there was such a group presence. When one person spoke that you can feel hundreds of people sharing the experience of one person through attunement, through presencing, through feeling, to feeling connected. And that's a tremendous healing tool. Like groups when they're with the right ingredients. And when it's when it’s well led this is an amazing resource

Susan: gives you hope that that there can be faster healing. Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you from a mystical perspective? You know, some people would say and you may or may not know how you see this, you know, that whatever. It's a feminine principles, I think really, really did sort of get suppressed by patriarchy over whatever period of time, and now they see many people would say that and then and we're perceived as kind of demonic, and then and the masculine kind of overtook things, and many people would refer to that as some of the problems of what's going on with climate change that the masculine and the feminine principles are out of whack. And that we need to re- balance these principles and I'm, I'm curious how you see this as, as a as a modern as a modern mystic, spiritual teacher. How this how this looks to you?

Thomas: Yeah, I think it's, it's complex. I think that there are multiple factors that are important. But what I truly agree to and I think is very important is that the traumatization that sits in our bodies is like we can compare this fields of absence, or the architecture of absence, that's where we are numb, where we are disassociated, where we are not in touch, we don't feel life. And often we use the thinking to bridge but we cannot feel, and so there's kind of not only this the natural scientific and rational evolution, which is great, but if we use that as a bypass to overcome our difficulties with life that we can’t feel, because many situations when we can feel it and we say, oh, should I do this, should I do this or that is this the right thing or that the right thing. So then, this kind of mental polarization kind of covers up the inner inability to relate. And so, and in a way we can like the embodiment quality is often kind of seen as the feminine aspect of life. And so in a way we could say that the body of the world is hurt and has big scars. And, and that is, I believe one of the root sources of climate change, and, and why because the way we deal with life, the way we care for life, the way we are compassionate, the way we love, the way we kind of are able to represent outer circumstances within our inner world gets reduced through those fields of absence. And so when I'm when I'm naturally in tune with a child, so then I am naturally from inside out, know how to be with the child, because we did this for thousands of years. It's like it's so deeply rooted in our being. But when that process is hurt, and I don't feel my child at times, especially when I get triggered, so then then I say, Oh, it's a difficult moment, but the difficult moment shows like points towards the scar. And I believe that our capacity is a culture like the collective competence building of dealing with these scars and have basic trauma informed knowledge should be part of our kind of collective competence. And so we could say that one of the hurt parts is that, and we hear this very often when people say, oh, human beings are on the planet, not human beings are the planet, we are part of the planet. You know, that's my-- the water and the carbon in my body is the planet. It is the substance of the planet. So that disassociated or this disembodied quality we could say is also and it's not only in women but it's the hurt feminine principle, the embodiment principle that is, that is happening in men and women both ways. But the degree of this embodiment in our world I believe is much higher then we sometimes might assume, when we look at people and below everybody looks like having a body, but the way we inhabit that body the way we are conscious within it the way we can feel it the nervous system is open, pulsing has a healthy rhythm. You know, all this, the emotional expression is fluid. And the regulation between inside and outside is fluid. There are many aspects that are often hurt. And I think this leads, we experience this as a lot of individual and collective suffering and, and 8 I believe that there is a rising quality in our world that the feminine empowerment is a very, very important process at the moment that I think is crucial for, for a balancing in the world. And also that the deeper embodiment is the balancing of our of our spiritual spirit of spiritual force. And we often say in the mystical traditions, we say that every, every energy, every intelligence needs a cup, every water flow, we need a pipe system in our house because if the water doesn't have an appropriate pipe system, it spills all over. And so it's and all the House starts to get rotten, because too much energy without an appropriate structure, and without an appropriate pipe system is kind of overwhelming and burning the system. And I see I think we see in the world that global warming is such a burning of, of the system. And it's also it's also that then, for example our food production system, many systems 9 when we don't feel ourselves, we start to do things that are not in tune with nature. With life. We don't because we we often don't feel nature, and especially in big cities and the lifestyles that we live, we might get more and more disconnected through the trauma and the following lifestyle. from nature, so the caring, and the felt experience and the wisdom that come through felt experience is often reduced and if that happens on a collective level, we create systems that are simply what I will call out of alignment

Susan: it's one of the reasons that I, I we moved, I moved here with my ex husband the same year that I live in an in a rural place, I live very connected. I have a community of beings out there, you know, like that there deer and, and, and, and a lot of different raptors and all kinds of wildlife and bear and but I but we moved here the same year that the planet became more urban than than rural and, and I and I run an Airbnb out of my house in addition to my consulting practice, and I feel like sometimes what I'm doing is I'm actually being a nature translator to people who are starved, really starved for they come here because they really want to connect to the natural world. And I have a question for you, Thomas. For those of you who well it's it has to do with authority in groups and your working with a lot of very large groups and a lot of your groups are women. I mean, there's a probably I don't know what the demographics are, but in the ones that I've been around I know many it probably more than 50% are women and and so for those who don't know, you, listeners, Thomas is a really good looking dude. And and he's, like, Whatever. I'm not gonna embarrass him now maybe if I can, but, but, and this happens with you know, I don't know anybody in authority like but in the case of you with your constituency, how do you navigate the you know, people deferring to you? You how do you navigate making sure that you are there for their evolution and and not enabling their codependence? If you follow me, you know, it's

Thomas: Yeah, that's why that's why I often say that we need a combination of the east and the west, we need a combination of the mystical and the scientific. We need a, like a dialogue of what it means to have a deep contemplative practice creativity, wisdom, practice and life that connects us deeper and deeper to whatever our our source our roots are deep roots inside and the source of the universe. But at the same time, that we create a path that is not bypassing our worldly difficulties, 10 and that means we need to have a path that is developmentally informed, and that can that we can detect, feel, make visible and allow to heal and integrate the regressive parts of ourselves because codependency only arises in the younger part of who we are, it doesn't arise in the mature version of me or you or anybody, because there we are grown ups learning together and learning from each other in different competencies and we can bow in front of each other because you have competencies that I don't have. And maybe I have competencies that you don't have, and then we can learn from each other. And we and I think as long as we know how to go to close down the mountain, and where I bow down and where I pass things on. That creates like a healthy flow of intelligence within the social body. And, and where that doesn't work. And 11 that's also why democracy I believe is being challenged, is where the regressive parts, where my emotional experience is not as old as what my passport says that I am so if there is in this dis-synchronization of my inner world, and we know this when we have relationship arguments when we have similar issues come back again and again and again. And and when we get triggered at work ,at home with our children with society with politics. So then then we see, yeah, I'm not responding, I'm not able to respond, which means I'm not respons-able. I'm not able to respond, I'm reactive. And when I am reactive, I'm, I'm kind of reacting from a younger place inside. And I might, and when the younger I am, the more I project stuff outwards, on to other people on to situations and so on. And I believe every skilled group facilitator needs to have a proper skill set of how to identify all the mechanisms, how those younger aspects play out, and how we can see that as part of the process but be a support in its integration process. And I think that needs that's only possible from a place that is emotionally mature, because every mature, mature Yeah, because every where I've grown up emotionally, I will not get entangled or engage in, in regressive processes, or young processes or codependencies, it's not possible. But where my own experience is unconscious or young, then there is a possibility. So that's why I often say to all the therapists and facilitators that we train or supervise that our own supervision, our own intervision as group facilitators is super important. Because if we run into unconscious zones, we need to have that responsible if somebody cannot respond, we need to have somebody in our life that can help us to learn to respond, that’s responsible. So to be part of a community, to be open to feedback, to be part of intervision or supervision is critical for anybody who runs groups, and in order to keep one's own evolution going and to minimize at least the potential for any kind of entanglement. And I think for people that really commit to that and then also have people in their life that would point to things out. So if I, if I create kind of a network around myself, that will reflect those things back to me. So then I believe it's a responsible way to run groups. And I think every facilitator needs to have such a support system. We cannot, we cannot do it alone. And we are not meant to do it alone. And I think that's a sign of trustworthiness.

Susan: And then taking it back to the whole large social system to Kurt Lewin, the grandfather, social psychology said something like everyone understands authority, but democracy is a learned behavior. And I love that quote, you know, particularly looking at what seems like a lot of regressive behavior at the moment. Thomas going back to collective trauma. You know, you spoke to this, but this is The Peacebuilding Podcast and you have done some really powerful interventions around collective trauma. And because a lot of what we're interested in the podcast is like the how, how do you move forward? How do you? How do you? What are the kinds of interventions that make sense? And so I guess I'm wanting you to speak again, why is healing, if you could summarize, why is healing, collective trauma so critical to creating a more peaceful planet?

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Because ultimately, I believe every conflict is based on hidden trauma and separation because one of the, the most basic trauma symptoms is separation, or our separation, isolation, and distancing or othering. So many conflicts arise out of separation, othering, distancing, and isolation. And, and 12 so and many of the conflicts that we see in the world are actually wounds that break open again, wounds that show up again in in different forms, but that were there before. And so also in my work with William URY that many people might know, it's like that we ran a course together that was called Meditate and Mediate. So it's actually only one letter difference. And both words in a way mean that I'm willing to sit in the middle of when I meditate, and when I mediate, I need to give myself fully to the process and be willing to sit in the middle of the conflict to sit in the middle of whatever is my internal world and process and experience right now. And that contemplative quality creates a bigger perspective. So I believe one element that we need in order to do collective trauma healing is the cultivation of what William calls the balcony. What I will call witnessing consciousness or some trans personal perspective that is at least there to some extent that I can go into an internal place of perspective and witnessing and I'm not fully entangled in the process without being dissociated. And so that's that's one thing. The other is that we detaching

Susan: detaching with love, as they say in the 12 step world, I think the similar kind of concept, right?

Thomas: I'm able to host and witness structures of consciousness while I'm still able to feel them so that they can feel our relation right now. And I can also witness the process of feeling our relation. So there's internal space, there's an internal calm, there's an internal kind of openness that allows that the perception of my senses will be witnessed. When we are triggered, we're often sucked into things. And I think conflicts are very strong versions of that kind of deep identification with the pain and the righteousness and the aggression and whatever all the things that we know. And, and so the other part of healing collective trauma is I believe 13 collective trauma needs a collective healing. And I've seen that groups of people when many people are coming together in order to take care of some of the legacy that we are living in. We there are many viewpoints that create a field of complexity. With hundreds of people in the room, there are hundreds of perspectives. They create a very complex field. If we put in spices like attunement, appropriate relation, compassion, really feeling each other, presencing different aspect like spices or herbs. So then we create a kind of a more coherent field. And that coherent field, I believe has the power to surface undigested material that is part of that given culture, but unconsciously, so a collective body can digest part of the collective past. And so we developed a process that we call CTIP is like a collective trauma integration process, where we can lead people and I saw this many, many times with different whatever collective trauma backgrounds, that that groups go through similar processes. How we digest together bigger chunks of trauma material, than one person alone.

Susan: Could you could you give a specific example without going? You know, I don't know, I don't know if you can do it in a contained way, but a specific thing that I guess you did this to the Pocket Project, is that right?

Thomas: Yeah, we did this. We did this at first with this 15 years ago when it started with this processes in my groups. And then we did it with large scale, process work with up to 1000 people. And then we did it. We did a training for it. And we did it in different countries. 14 But what we do is we bring groups together and from a certain level of relational coherence in the room and willingness of the people to really look at something, usually, first, the collective denial comes up because that material is suppressed. Then a collective release comes up, and then we can listen to different levels of voices that come up with people share in the group. So there are different categories of voices that we identified, that have that express different aspects of the collective trauma that we are looking at. So, it shows us like as if people become the voice of the collective field, and when we listen to it carefully, and we support the voices that that hold a lot of energy, so that are very concentrated. So the group healing process gets amplified.

Susan: So you had like Germans and Jews in large. I mean, of course, Germans could be Jews, but you had non Jewish Germans and, and Jewish Germans in large groups. Is that when dealing with the Holocaust, is that?

Thomas: Yeah, or we had people come to Israel or people from Israel come to Germany? Yes. When then we looked at similar things with whatever Latin America with colonialism between Europe and Latin America or, like racism in the US. And so we saw that that we allow through that kind of group synchronization, information to surface like a little bit when you see in some of the movies, when you see people look on to the water surface, and then they see hidden information or the future information on the water reflected in a way a group becomes like such a magic pool. And when we listen to it together, and we slow down the pace enough to stay present to whatever arises, it becomes a very present, non-blaming. It's a very interesting process that starts to emerge, and it emerges by itself. It's not that we tell a group Okay, now do this. And I'll do that and I'll do that it's something that seems to emerge when the right ingredients are in the room and, and I believe that that's an interesting phenomenon to learn from the process directly about the cultural shadow. And as we do it, we also integrate a part of it. 15 Because I've seen people go through it two or three times, for example, in Germany with the Second World War. And in the second time already, the person was much less affected and much more present and also much more in a way available for other people's processes. So you could really see that going through it once it's like a chimney cleaning, and then your chimney’s simply cleaner. And, and you can be more present to other people going through their own version of the process, and it's that capacity grows. So there is some kind of, you know, healing process.

Susan: Yeah, I mean, it's very much gestalt, I've been heavily gestalt trained, that idea of building awareness. The more you're aware of the “what is” the more the system changes and it sounds like you're creating a container where you're allowing people really to be become aware of all the phenomenon that are connected to that particular trauma. And then, and then people get cleaned out, or whatever you…

Thomas: Yeah, something like that. And, and I believe those processes even if it's yet hard to scientifically evaluate, we cannot say easily OK, now a group of thousand people go through such a process, what's going to be the effect on the country or society or it's hard to measure those things now, I think we will develop over time methods how to measure this better, but I think if we it's like an acupuncture needle if we put acupuncture needles into the collective body, in different places around the world, and people will be more and more interested to in a way that we together, all of us start to take care of our common life, place of our history, the un-integrated history, we have been born into, the tendencies that we see already now scientifically more and more how epigenetic changes really affect our life and how trauma is encoded in the epigenetic environment. 16 And so I believe we see more and more how also collective trauma affects our health. It affects the way you know, I relate and feel my body how much stress that is living in me that I'm not aware of at first, and then more and more I de-tox that stress, I become more whole. I become more connected to my environment. So there is a healing process going on. It also has a positive effect on my literal physical health.

Susan: I grew an inch when I did all this work. This body work, I literally I couldn't believe it I went to three different doctors and they kept telling me you're five foot eight. I said, I'm five foot seven. No, I had actually grown in inch like, whoa. So we're coming to the end of our time. And I, I guess, for women to refer back to that, I mean, I think what I'm taking from what you're saying is, is really the importance of awareness, the importance of building awareness. So that things can for each individual and then for the collective whole can shift. I don't know what would you say?

Thomas: Yeah, I would say that that's true. And that also means, like, what what we spoke about before that the deeper embodiment and the embodied presence is actually filling the holes within our own embodied experience. That makes us naturally be more present, be more felt and seen in the room, be more recognized in our natural authority, have healthy boundaries be like fluid and engaged in moment to moment to moment experience. And so I believe the training that when we get more embodied and we see what would you said at the beginning that there's a mental, emotional, physical and also relational healing process happening, that that really grounds us in a different way so that that we need to work on those things through our body and which is not only body work, but it's it's a deep opening of the way we are plugged in to life. And I think that's that's important. And then I believe we see another maybe That's what you referred to before with patriarchy that we are through a phase of a few generations, I believe, going through a process of transitioning or healing the wounds of power hierarchies. And we are more and more growing into competence based relational hierarchies. It's not we are not going into a world without hierarchies, but we're going into a world of competence based hierarchy that the one of us that has the highest competence in a certain field that is needed right now should be on stage. And the others are happy to listen because we know that the water kind of flows down the mountain, like the competence mountain, and and I think that's a very natural process and the more we heal our wounds of power and fear based hierarchies, we will actually come to a much deeper restoration of relation and much deeper restoration of the primary or the primary, the primary attachment process of children with their parents. Because competence based hierarchies need much higher relational skills, but they are much more empowering, bringing out the motivation, the agency, the voice of each and everybody, and so that we really grow into kind of a human orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra, people that are playing together because they're all motivated, and they need to listen to each other in order to to really grow into like musical excellence. And I believe that's true for us to competence based relational hierarchies need much more relational investment, but I believe they actually will enable us as a human family as humanity to be the orchestra that we can be. Because everybody's naturally motivated and creative within that process.

Susan: So a final question for you and I know if there's anything else you want to say in conclusion, but it's kind of a dark time. I don't know if you feel it like that or not. But I think a lot of people I know for myself living so connected to the natural world, those of us who live in my community, whether they're Republicans or Democrats to use a US, you know, left, right, whatever, everybody sees the impact of climate change here because we're living so close to the natural world and it's happening fast things are happening very fast. And so I don't know I guess I'm what what gives you hope? Do you feel hopeful? Maybe what you just said, I know I heard you say when you were talking to Peter Levine, something like there's something beautiful in store for us. Do you think that's true Thomas?

Thomas: Yeah, I, I think first of all, being connected to the source of life is the only true hope. And then it's not hope, but then it's a kind of like an inner connection to the engine, I would say the engine of life. So that's one ingredient. The other one is that I believe we are seeing, like darkness erupt stronger polarization and climate change and many natural catastrophes. But on the other hand, we also seeing like a strong impact of rising consciousness in the world as well that brings up a lot of collective unconscious stuff that we need to digest because 17 the past doesn't disappear, the past needs to be digested. If we eat too much, we still need to digest it in a way. So it's like our body needs to take care of the residues and the stuff that is stagnant in order to release itself into health. And we need to support that detox process. So what I'm saying is also that because consciousness is rising, we also see more material being pushed up to the surface. And and, and so I believe it's, it's really upon all of us that also climate change, like I often say, we are living in the time of the plagues of Egypt, in the Bible. And what the word what is the metaphorical meaning of those plagues, it says, When something is like a whisper when change is a whisper. It's like far away and it's kind of like on the horizons, something's moving, but we hardly barely pay attention to it. And then, slowly, slowly, that whisper gets louder and comes closer, like in the 10 plagues, until it hits the body. And when that when it hits the body, it's a crisis. But for a long time, it wasn't a crisis. It was a natural invitation to change. And 18 I believe the climate crisis is a stronger and stronger wake up call for us to re examine the way we live. And the systems that we create, some of them heavily out of balance. And I believe it's not that climate change, it's dark. It's the tendencies in us as a collective human family need to be reexamined. And we have to wake up from some of those structures. And it's also what I meant with the collective trauma structures. We have to wake up from what we have been born into because it's so invisible, that the biggest elephant in the room is actually almost it's impossible to grasp it with our senses we can know what happened in the US, what happened in Germany, what happened in China, what happened in Latin America, but it's so hard to feel it because the nature of it is that it's not feelable. And, and so I believe we are, we're forced right now as a global community to address that with the help of technology but also with the potential downfall or trap that technology creates. So if technology collaborates with our absence, so it becomes like an addiction, it becomes all kinds of shadow effects if it collaborates with our unification so it becomes actually a blessing. And and since we are living in a time where we have that collective externalized brain. We, I think we have to use it in a way that, that we're also doing now where we get unified, we explore stuff together that is meaningful, that is good for us. So that unifies us more and creates global learning. And, and so all of it together I believe, is it's, it's a like it like every crisis and every difficulty is a teacher. So I think okay, I have to the teacher.

Susan: I have one more thing about this. And this is personal, I guess, but I come from a pretty affluent background. But I in some ways I you know, because I was a girl I wasn't that privileged myself. That's another story but the men in my background are they're kind of the you know, the industrialists, there, the financiers, they are some of the Masters of the Universe, you know, out there and and I'm looking and they're not exactly the same and I try not to get too political on this podcast but what the heck, you know, watching what's going on in the United States which I don't know how much you're paying attention to that but, but it's interesting looking at that the people that are objecting right now to Trump's impeachment, they tend to all be white. I don't they're all. I think they're all Anglo Saxon, although I don't can't be sure. White Anglo Saxon guys with red ties. They're all the same. And they're not exactly like the men in my family, but they're sort of like that, and it makes you know, and and so for me, I know I have to separate from that. I've had to separate from that long ago and move into a different sphere. But it does make me sad, and it does make me sad that I think what so much often behind that, is people it's about it's about holding on to what Rianne Eisler calls the dominator trance wanting to hold on to access to, to money and to resources and to not share in a global community.

So I guess I, I know, I was saying we were ending and that's sort of a big topic, but maybe there's I'm kind of wanting to release my own sadness about some of those some of those guys, because I actually love them. And but I'm not so some of them I love and some of them I'm like, Oh my god, get them off the stage. Like an unnamed one person in particular in the United States. I'd like to not have him be getting so much. He's not like a family member Donald Trump, but I'd like to get him off the stage. But you know,

Thomas: yeah, I find it interesting how what's the way to be part of fragmentation or splitting and how we can stay truthful to deeper values and deeper values of usually arise from deeper interconnectedness with everything and caring and compassion and love. And so how can we stay true to what we feel deeply in our soul is right, like is in sync with life or is ethically kind of sound. And at the same time, not fall into the trap of becoming part of the transference of fragmentation or splitting. And I think that that, especially if you say like also in the mediation world, I think that deep human challenge, I believe, because sometimes it's so easy to buy into some very obvious splits or, you know, trains that we could jump on. And and, and so I think that's a deep inner mediation also how did I did I feel I'm getting sucked into like a symptom and and how to, to be able to make a step back maybe clarify my own life or process and then come back in a in a more whole version and especially as you said you needed to make a step back from your family. Instead you needed to clarify your own values. So you you healed yourself to a certain degree. And then what's the integration? Like? What's this the synthesis that's that can happen through you, because I believe that every level of development when we go to the next level of development it's a bigger version that includes the former level of development. And then it's a bigger version that includes the former levels of development and like this, we are building bigger and bigger systems. But then the intelligence of the growth gets channeled through all the former levels of development. And so I think that we need some of them some time to really cultivate our own path to detox ourselves to get synchronized with our whatever purpose in life or soul’s mission or intelligence, but then how can be step forward into relation. And it's and sometimes that's, that's, I think, the harder part to step into relation and not shut the door because once we shut the doors shut the intelligence flow. Yeah, that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that we are not confrontational or clear. It's different. Shutting the Door or being very clear, are two different things. And I think that's an interesting edge for many, for many of us, I believe.

Susan: Yeah, I keep trying and I and I'm glad I do notice that many of the men in my family want to read my blog posts for this podcast, so I appreciate that. Anyway, Thomas, I, you know, I really thank you for your time. Is it to write a book on collective trauma? Is it? Yes. And yes, it will be published next fall. Okay. So it hasn't come out yet. I was looking for it. Okay. Okay.

Thomas: Yeah. No, but it's in the publishing process and be published in the fall. Yeah. Wonderful.

Susan: Anything you want to say to say goodbye?

Thomas: No, thank you for having me. And thank you for having this dialogue. And I hope it's a contribution to you and our listeners. So yeah, thank you very much for the invitation.

Susan: Yeah, thank you. And thank you for the work you're doing it's uplifting and and one of the benefits I get from doing this podcast is I get to tune into some really beautiful people and it's been fun tuning into you as I get ready to do this. So thank you a lot.

Thomas: Thank you Susan.