What do we know about our ancestors? What do we really know about even our parents? Do we know what they went through during the early stages of their own lives? What emotions and inner beliefs played the leading role in how they met? What did they see in each other that led to our conception? Can we ‘attune’ to them, even if they are gone?
In many cases we know very little. We have an idea of it, but we do not really know. We usually base our ideas about our parents on our experiences with them, on how they interacted with us and others, and on how they organised their lives. And even (or especially!) if we think: “I’m going to do that differently, because this approach doesn’t seem the best to me” or “I’m going to do that differently, because I’m furious about all the pain their approach has caused me”… precisely then there is a good chance that we will repeat patterns. With everything we recognise, or ignore and push away, we often forget that the experiences of our parents and other ancestors are stored in our cells and that whether we believe it or not, we are influenced by those experiences. These are tough, big, sometimes difficult to imagine realities that deserve careful discussion so that we gain more insight into how this works and how we can deal with it.
That is exactly what the book ‘Attuned’ does. Author Thomas Hübl is, in addition to being a writer, also a spiritual teacher and international facilitator of events where he focuses on intergenerational trauma healing and dialogue around oppression, colonialism and racism. He draws on the traditions of modern science, philosophy, theology and indigenous wisdom and rituals. This is a book that requires some prior knowledge for a good understanding, because it is sometimes complicated reading. At the same time, it reads almost like poetry and the meaning of what he writes is moving, comforting and enriching.
The basic premise is that everything and everyone is interconnected and that damaging practices in one place has energetic effects on all other places and organisms in the world:
The nervous system connects us to a complete record, a vast inner library containing all of one’s experiences across a lifetime. In fact, the human nervous system connects us to one another. Through transparent communication practices, we will learn to employ this evolutionary tool for deeper relational intelligence (p. 25, author’s italics).
That is a comprehensive idea. That idea also entails a comprehensive responsibility, because then you can no longer separate the damage you create over there from the situation over here, the pain in others from the pain in yourself – and the healing of the world from the healing you are willing to initiate within yourself.
Each of us has a chance to take part in this vital work, to bring our share of light and healing coherence to a struggling world. (…) By upholding our sacred responsibility to integrate trauma, we, in effect, remove our shares from the collective trauma field, lessoning the overall burden of suffering for others. This is not merely something some of us should do; it is work that all of us who are conscious and capable must do (p. 197, author’s italics).
As in many approaches to healing, Thomas’s work also has a strong emphasis on the importance of ‘embodiment’, awareness around personal experiences of sadness and pain and loneliness. You cannot ‘analyse’ the pain away; healing requires ‘presence’ – being present with your full attention and allowing the pain that is stored in your own cells and in the cells of loved ones, ancestors, acquaintances and distant strangers to penetrate into every fibre of your body. If you do not do this, there will be consequences:
Simply choosing not to know, feel, or reckon with the truth of who we once were is a decision to keep the truth hidden in darkness. (…) [B]y refusing to awaken to the consequence of the ancestor’s choices, we both suffer and perpetuate them. (…) When we carry unacknowledged familial or historical traumas, our ancestors are not in peace. As a result, our living nervous systems – and, therefore, our minds and bodies – cannot maintain a healthy state of flow (p.170, 171).
The result is ultimately illness and social malaise, as Thomas describes in various places in the book. It is therefore important to be aware of your own experiences with grief and loss, so that you can compassionately be conscious with what the other person is going through. This is often called ‘empathy’, but empathy is an exciting topic and requires personal development and awareness. A long quote:
How do I protect myself from taking on other people’s “stuff”? People everywhere seem to be looking for an answer to this puzzling question. In contemporary vernacular, the word empath is often seen as someone who struggles with what we might call “leaky emotional syndrome,” the problem of experiencing other people’s energies and confusing them with their own or simply feeling overwhelmed by others’ emotions. Some people may, in fact, have a higher de-gree of sensitivity, and they may suffer in this way. However, it’s usually not high sensitivity but a lack of groundedness and embodiment that causes the overwhelm – often rooted in attachment injuries. Healing the root trauma creates a more stable sense of embodiment, which allows a person to experience their high sensitivity as a gift rather than a curse. We might think of it like a tree with a very large crown of branches; it needs equally strong roots to stand (p. 91, author’s italics).
The book is an impressive combination of knowledge about physical, mental and spiritual processes. Thomas thus shows in a holistic manner how all these aspects of human existence are related. He sees three fundamental human rights in this context, namely ‘the right of being, the right of becoming (the unfolding of potential), and the right of belonging (the right to build healthy relational bonds and to experience oneself as part of a community)’’ (p. 19). Without respect for these ‘fundamental expressions of the soul’ (p. 19), mutual bonds and social systems, including families and governments, will collapse, according to Thomas.
When we develop the skills associated with ‘relational intelligence’, an interpersonal dynamic is created that stimulates growth:
To heal the past and create greater coherence in the present – and, therefore, more availability to the future – three steps are essential: reflection, digestion, and integration. (…) When this process is allowed to happen, especially in the context of a supportive environment, we often experience positive changes or posttraumatic growth (p. 125,126, author’s italics).
It sometimes feels like an impossible task, with everything going on in the world, to maintain the feeling that you can make a difference, but Thomas has a positive view on this:
Only a small number of us – a critical mass, if you will – is required to engage before a new level of collective coherence becomes established in sympathetic resonance, ringing like a tuning fork across the field, inviting the entire world to join (p. 190 ).
“But the problem is way too big!”, you may shout, “and it is not about me at all, because it is about the planet, ecological problems and climate change. These issues must be solved!” Attention is also being paid to this:
Gus Speth, the American environmental lawyer and former US senior advisor on climate change, has said, “I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, eco-system collapse, and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems, I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apa-thy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation” Speth is right, of course, but it’s important to note that the selfishness, greed, and apathy he mentions are , in truth, only symptoms of the larger problem, which is our unaddressed collective shadow and unhealed collective trauma. It is our willingness to awaken to, experience, and transform these root causes that create the cultural and spiritual transformation Speth prescribes (p. 189, author’s italics).
This is a book where reading once is not enough; this is a treasure chest to which you can return regularly to absorb what is said even more thoroughly and to integrate its wisdom even more deeply. I underlined a lot of things and put lots of comments and emojis in the margins so I can easily find back the valuable passages. It was wonderful to go through the chapters together with colleagues from the ‘book club’ within my Compassionate Inquiry-community and to share with each other what the text evoked. I highly recommend such a review of ‘Attuned,’ as well as much of the other work by Thomas Hübl that can easily be found on the web. Every year he also hosts the online ‘Collective Trauma Summit’ – also a source of valuable insights.