Collective Trauma Work… Mine and Yours

“I don’t think this has much to do with me.”

I heard this from a number of people at the Celebrate Life Festival, a dynamic annual European consciousness event that was held for the first time in the U.S. this summer.

reflection in broken mirror, representing trauma and fragmentation

Racial division, white supremacy, and white privilege were words that we invited into our midst. They dropped into a sea of discomfort that quietly built, even though many of us could not identify with these words…

“It’s not me!”

Continue reading Collective Trauma Work… Mine and Yours

Constellations and “Collective Trauma”

Towards Healing the Shadows in our Culture

by Samvedam Randles, LMHC, Dipl. Psych.

silver lining, a metaphor for trauma therapyThomas Huebl, who has done significant healing work around Holocaust trauma in Europe and Israel, recently sent out an invitation to mental health professionals, scientists and other professionals to explore what can be done to understand and heal collective trauma.

Last month, 150 practitioners answered that call and made the journey from all over the planet (39 countries) to his Pocket Project training in Israel. They brought their knowledge, skills and resources, as well as the traumas that have impacted (and are still impacting) their countries. I was one of them. I’m now back home, and before daily routines claim all of my attention again I want to share a little of the amazing journey that I was immersed in. I feel a new level of peace within, and my understanding has been upgraded a few notches.

What is collective trauma, and why is it critical that we learn to address it?

In The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk explains trauma in simple language. He says that our ability to “stay present” gets hijacked by survival-related emotions and sensations when an incident overwhelms us in ways that we cannot cope with. When the event is more than we can process, we dissociate or go numb. Then, the traumatic charge lands in our physical body, where it can be reawakened by something like a smell, a sound or an image that is associated with the traumatic event, sending us back with a flashback to the traumatic experience.

What happens when trauma gets internalized on a larger scale? Collective trauma, sometimes called cultural trauma, occurs as a result of large-scale events like war, genocide, colonialism or terror attacks. The violence and shock is so overwhelming that the entire culture goes numb, disassociates, or finds other ways to create distance from the truth of it. People may survive and move on with their lives, but the actual feelings associated with the event stay frozen, unintegrated, in the cultural body.

This frozen emotion forms an underlying energy around the culture. Unconsciously, its members then see reality through a lens that is fogged up by this unresolved past. And everyone who is born into the culture thereafter simply assumes that this fogged-up picture is reality.

broken windows, a metaphor for a traumatized psyche

Most Family Constellation facilitators have experienced that moment when a Family Constellation suddenly shifts into a Cultural Constellation. The cultural trauma that impacted the client’s family at some point in history becomes so dominant in the field that it cannot be ignored. It demands to be seen, felt and integrated.

How can this be accomplished?

Who can “host,” or open to such intensity, when the emotion is so overwhelming?

Constellation Work & Collective Trauma – The Boston Marathon Bombing

These questions arose in my own practice as a Constellation facilitator after the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. The Saturday after the bombing, our Boston-area Constellation Learning Group met as usual, but nothing else happened in the usual manner. Continue reading Constellations and “Collective Trauma”

Family Constellation Case Study: The Concussion

by Samvedam Randles, LMHC, Dipl. Psych.

Blue butterfly emerging from cocoon, a metaphor for family constellation for physical illness.Our bodies are wise, and they are also deeply connected to our soul as well as the field that we move in and through. When we receive sudden or unwelcome messages from our bodies in the form of illnesses or accidents, we usually react with shock and annoyance. Most of us just want to get rid of painful symptoms as quickly as possible.

But these events tend to come with teachings and purpose. Constellations are a great tool to understand the learning that might be brought through physical symptoms.

Here is a recent example of listening to physical symptoms in Constellation Work.

One of the senior students in our Constellation Learning Circle, Chloe, suffered a fall on the ice in January and ended up with a concussion that left her quite incapacitated for some time. She had been a busy practitioner with a full private practice, and had to take a break from seeing people after her fall. She simply could not handle any stimulation.

Chloe had been on her own journey of personal growth and change through the constellation work and had been amazed at all the positive changes in her life. As a result of so much change, however, she felt unsure of her identity now. She seemed to be reconsidering much of what she liked (or did not like), even down to the simplest things, like foods she had once dismissed but now found appealing.

In the midst of this unfolding process of re-discovery, Chloe had the accident.

When she still could not fully re-engage in her life three months later, she became nervous and asked if we could do a constellation about this concussion.

I don’t like to disturb movements that are in process, so I felt cautious about setting up a constellation in this case, but I also attuned to Chloe’s anxiety and wanted to be helpful. We talked about what might be the right framework and checked in to see if we had permission to explore.

As I listened deeper, the field opened to a yes, and informed me, as it so often does, about how the constellation needed to be set up. I chose to keep it blind.

In blind constellations, the representatives are not informed about whom they are representing. They receive a piece of paper with the name of their representation, which they then put it in their pockets. They do not get to see what is on the paper. This removes from the constellation dynamic the possibility of interference from mental interpretations, allowing the representatives to completely immerse themselves into the felt sense of the relationships we are exploring.

So I wrote four papers and handed them out to representatives, whom Chloe then placed into our circle:

Continue reading Family Constellation Case Study: The Concussion

Of Blessings and Farewells

Teepees in DC, honoring the ancestors as a lesson for Family Constellation Work
Washington DC, March 10, 2017.

I recently travelled to Washington DC to support my Lakota friends as they marched to protest fracking and the building of a pipeline on their tribal land.

Several years ago, in my study of indigenous ways of healing, I had the fortune to be invited by a Lakota elder to attend their sun dance in South Dakota. Watching the enormous offering of strength, the willingness to shoulder pain, and the incredible generosity of spirit that week really impacted my life.

I had stayed in touch with my Lakota friend after spending the week with his people. Standing by their side for this day of protest felt like a small way of giving back to them. In spite of the snowy coldness of that day, I found my heart being warmed by the ways in which people treated each other at the rally that followed the march.

I am not talking about what was spoken, but rather the attitude underlying the interactions. In tribal societies, the rhythms and stages of life are honored and respected for what they each offer. I felt the beauty of each generation’s contributions to the event.

Honoring All Generations

The enthusiasm and passion of youth was honored, as well as the thoughtful leadership of the tribal councils, culminating in a reading of the tribal declaration. We heard angry voices as well as hopeful ones.

Elders proudly affirmed the youth, who ran the rally. Young ones fondly acknowledged their elders as they focused on keeping our earth cared for so that she, in turn, will care for the next generations. Broad smiles welcomed one of the grandmothers who had traveled all night to bring her warmth and blessings to her people, and the respect for her spread palpably throughout the crowd. She poured her heart into supporting the next generation, passing on the torch with love.

And then, right in front of the White House, all became still when a prayer song called on the Creator to protect our earth, and to bless our people and our planet.

Having been immersed in constellation work for many years, I recognized the right order of things in relationships, and I appreciated that blessings were offered as well as received with such ease. Continue reading Of Blessings and Farewells