HealingResearch

Sami:
Sami: In my essay I’ve looked at intergenerational transmissions within the Cape Verdean community and how this has affected me. Cabo Verde had a difficult and painful colonial history. It has left deep scars within the Cape Verdean community. The scars can be translated into "Intergenerational traumas". You can see these trauma’s back in the Cape Verdean self-image, alcoholism, sexual abuse, mass migration, colorism, single mothers, educational problems and the emotional distance. Because of these trauma’s I thought of Cape Verde as an complex and overwhelming culture. This is mainly because the "problems" of the Cape Verdeans were magnified, but never the cause. While writing this essay, I looked into that very cause in order to understand the traumas better. It has become very clear that there is a direct link between the dysfunctional history (slavery) and the traumas within the Cape Verdean community. I have also come to the conclusion that I am the end product of the traumas that have been transmitted from generation to generation. With the help of this essay I was able to better map out what those traumas meant for me, but I was also able to trace where they came from. These insights give me more tools to recognize and break through patterns, which leads to 'decolonizing' myself. ''

Eva Luna: ''For me, I’m starting to realize through the writing for this project that in my mind there had always been this distance that I’ve felt to a part of my cultural background. This distance grows from a set of ideas that I’ve been ‘thought’ about how you should be connected with your culture and with your identity: For example through language and embodied appearance.

This made me feel confused and uncomfortable about my own cultural identity because I didn’t fit into all the boxes I thought I should fit into. Through my research I’ve been 'decolonizing' the ideas that have been planted into me about multicultural identity by sharing stories and reading about other individuals with multicultural backgrounds and the theories behind their connection with identity. Through this research I’m finding my own connections with my cultural backgrounds.''

Romy: "My research comes trough the filter of a white Western woman, born and raised here. I grew up in a culture where people, in my opinion, are billitling many problems such as racial inequality, gender studies, mental health issues, still accepting stereotype role-plays and denying stigmas within our society. There is a Dutch statement that says ''wat niet weet wat niet deert’’, which for me summarises how I see the mentality of many people from my culture; with a lack of empathy. A culture filled with taboos, hidden stories and unresolved trauma.

I choose to research the trauma of sexual abuse within Dutch society because I experienced it myself. It is a part of my own personal background and perception on what forms me. But what I think is so beautiful about the subject is that this is an issue that transcends age, race, religion, nationality and class, because of its intersectional level. In the Netherlands has 41%, so almost half of all woman experienced a form of sexual abuse. So to be able as a woman with a Dutch background to talk to woman of all cultural backgrounds within Dutch society helped me to connect on a deeper level and create a better understanding having the same issues. Breaking taboos while talking with each other about its similarities and heal embodied trauma as a whole."

Charretee: Decolonization in relation to my journey required me to accept what I was doing. My healing journey involved the understanding and acceptance of me behaving and portraying myself as something or someone else. This stemmed from the need of validation of others. Not in making the right decisions but more wanting to always be accepted. People and society to see and know that there is more to my than my skin colour. By trying to separate the one thing that was the core of my own identity.

What's your link with healing?

COLLECTIVE HEALING: SHIFTING HISTORICAL PATTERNS THAT DIVIDE US

Decolonizing Creation Processes by Reclaiming Narratives

Our research about collective healing and healing as an act of decolonization.
Healing through sharing stories.

BY SAMI, ROMY, CHARRETEE AND EVA LUNA

WHAT IS INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA?

From our families, we inherit genes, foundational life skills, traditions, knowledge, connections, wisdom, identity, resilience, etc. Sometimes we also inherit behaviour patterns, coping strategies of our parents, grandparents who did not process their trauma. Children learn to be by mimicking the adults around them but when these adults are acting from their own trauma, children pick up patterns and behaviours that become their norm. The first victims of intergenerational trauma in families are the most fragile, i.e. children. They might suffer from anxiety or depression as adults without being able to pinpoint its origin, indeed intergenerational trauma in families is not easily recognised or its impact is minimised. Intergenerational trauma in families often happens in an overarching societal context which offers the setting that facilitates trauma to be passed down (poverty, patriarchy, war, colonialism, slavery, genocide, etc).

Intergenerational trauma can affect a family, a community or a people. Some researchers are finding evidence that mass trauma like the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, the displacement of American Indians and the enslavement of African-Americans, historical trauma of First Nations of Canada, colonialism have intergenerational impacts that are psychological, familial, social, cultural, neurobiological and possibly even genetic as well. Although epigenetics is still a new field of study, scientists want to uncover the roots of pain so that future generations might not be impacted.

In families with a pattern of trauma, there are many secrets, taboos, things that are not allowed to be talked about. Secrets that are kept but live and manifest themselves as poverty, being trapped in cycles of abuse, violence, depression, anxiety, self-sabotage, difficulty in relationships, etc. The individual is born with and into fears and feelings that don’t always belong to them but that shape their life in ways that they are not always conscious of.

Our process

The common interest of our group at the beginning of this whole process was perception. We started talking about the different perceptions we have on life and what influences these perceptions but most importantly how these perceptions influence us. We quickly came to the research question: What influences the I? We decided to all write about very personal experiences we believed influenced our I’s. As we shared these stories with each other we started recognizing issues that we had and talked about this every week. Besides talking to each other we all did our personal research which also overlapped with each other's research. We were talking to people with similar experiences, looked at our own history and memory’s and started putting all these bits of information together.

As we got further in our process Amy mentioned she saw that one thing we all had in common was that our research was healing. After talking about this in our group we figured that we wanted to focus on this collective healing by sharing stories. Because by sharing stories you can get different perspectives on something and start seeing it from another point of view (Micro perspective can change). Besides how the stories of others can influence you and help you understand things better, it can also help to share your own stories. We found that all our stories were stories that aren’t talked about as often, they are kind of taboos. Talking about this with each other and reading about these subjects online gets rid of the uncomfortable taboo feeling and made space for open conversations where we could grow and help each other. We want to keep researching all the common grounds in our healing process to understand this process better. From the things we find out we would like to make a guide/ a manifesto about the healing process and breaking the cycle of the taboos through collective healing.

The importance of healing

Before getting into the importance of healing it is fundamental to know what healing is. Everyone describes healing in their own way or can feel healing through different situations, events or the help of tools to heal. Healing in our understanding or gaining the awareness of realizing the pain within you. By gaining knowledge of the effect of certain trauma’s or experiences. How these situations are embedded in your identity of the self, behaviour or actions. A huge part of the healing journey revolves around emotional and mental healing. The importance of healing lies within taking care of our own well-being to grow as a person. When we as human beings tend to forget to take care of ourselves. Sometimes we are too busy helping or involving ourselves in the lives of others. Neglecting our mental and emotional well-being. It is important to take back your own live. So, what does healing do for you? Healing allows us to regain our strength. It gives us the opportunity to put pieces together in such a way we not only feel stronger, but understand the links or connections between certain experiences. Healing allows us to find peace and survive from the things that are tormenting our mental and emotional health. Healing allows us to define ourselves as survivors, which we all can become a voice of. A voice for the ones who haven’t spoken or don’t have the urge to speak.

Taboo of healing

Our aim is to break the narrative on taboo by normalizing the conversations around it. By getting into conversations about the effectiveness, the importance of healing but also making it normal to heal. By talking to people and reading about similar experiences it takes away the secrets and the 'shame/taboo'. This has a healing effect. Getting rid of these stigmas creates space to understand each other on many different levels and creates the opportunity to not only depend more on each other but increase empathy for each other circumstances.

Target group

Our concept is targeted at each and every one who struggles or conquered their own trauma trough healing. Each and every one who hasn’t found the space or collective to help them through their pains. Every survivor has a different path in their healing process. What works for one may not work for the other, but through our own stories we want to outline the similarities through our experiences, feelings and pain. The journeys will be different and definitely will not be healed overnight. Healing is a process without a timeline. Every action or circumstance benefits the process in their own way.

We want our collective to know and understand that struggling with healing is okay. Sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back. But never consider those moments as a failure. These moments need to be considered as gaining new insights about the process and the recovery.
The changing of perspectives

By listening to each other and sharing experiences we recognize shared feelings and thoughts and this helps to sometimes change perspectives or share different perspectives.

Openness

By being open to listen to other perspectives and not push our own thoughts and ideas on others, we create a place of trust where we can start to heal and listen.

Collective

The collective is very important in this whole process, because it offers support, the opportunity to share experiences and self-recognition in each other's stories which helps us break the cycle through collective healing.

The importance of healing

So, what does self-care really mean? More specifically, what does it mean for those with multiple subjugated identities? It means engaging in decolonized and radical self-care. It means interrogating our deeply engrained patterns and beliefs. It means challenging respectability politics and our role in systems that perpetuate capitalism and materialism. It means understanding how double-consciousness (required for survival) operates to make us hypersensitive to the thoughts and desires of others.

Decolonized radical self-care means unpacking our personal, generational, and historical trauma and the ways our people have survived by seeking proximity to a mythical norm reflective of cultural imperialism and patriarchy. Radical self-care requires a process of redefining one’s goals, one’s values, and, ultimately, one’s selfforoneself. It means disrupting the cycle of socialization. It involves knowing what’s truly in our best interest and not what we've been socialized to believe is in our best interest—but is actually the oppressors’ best interest.

In all of my experience, however, the mode of resistance has only ever worked through collaboration, finding allies and solidarity with others. It is through different kinds of practices and alignments that one can contest some of the conditions within which we are working. This can maintain one’s livelihood and sense of self. And so through alliances and creating kin with others (human/non-human), we maintain and protect ourselves. And ultimately, that care for and with others is also self-care. Once we recognize ourselves, we begin to recognize our positions, and how our positions may be at the expense of others, be those others human or non-human. Once we recognize that we are placed in various systems in ways to keep us moving in place, we stop and then slowly realign our ways of experience, our praxis experiences radical change, one in which we might recognize decolonization as care.

Participants will discover how embracing culture, wholeness and healing, will shift the dialogue from intergenerational trauma to intergenerational resilience.

- To understand the history of colonization and embrace ancestral traditions and cultural values,

- To recognize that decolonization is a healing journey that may involve a number of emotions including grief, anger, growth, and empowerment,

- To support Indigenous peoples and their right to self-determination, economically, politically, socially, and culturally

- To support Indigenous research methodologies and ceremony as valid evidence-based practices

https://compassionaction.ca/2020/02/10/decolonizing-healing-practices/]

Veel jonge activisten gebruiken kruispuntdenken om bondgenootschappen te vormen. Het is belangrijke te beseffen wat voor privileges je hebt. Heteroseksueel, cisgender (het tegenovergestelde van transgender), mentaal en fysiek gezond. Ik vind het heel belangrijk om je te realiseren dat je die privileges hebt en om ze te erkennen. Daarin helpt intersectionaliteit.’

We moeten hard aan de slag, om een eigen taal te blijven ontwikkelen en lessen te trekken uit eigen geschiedenissen. De ambitie van de nieuwe generatie is eindeloos.

(Sacha Hilhorst, 11 januari 2017) https://www.groene.nl/artikel/je-moet-de-onderdrukking-blootleggen

https://howlround.com/decolonizing-creation-processes-reclaiming-narrativesreclamando-nuestras-narrativas

Eros in the library: Considering the aesthetics of knowledge organization

The whole of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is based upon the assumption that it is possible for one person to resolve a prob-lem through talking to another. If this were not the case, then that huge industry that encompasses psychotherapists in their offices honeycombed in crevices, skyscrapers, and unsuspecting terraces of all modern cities in the Western world would collapse, like the Twin Towers, into a heap of miserable rubble. Now I am basing myself on the truth of this assumption: that through communica-tion with another person I am able to solve emotional problems in myself. I am, however, in dark ignorance of why this should be so. The lectures on which this book is based are the first probes into the darkness in the hope of finding the first inklings of an answer to this question. (p2)

Another comes because he has suddenly become terrified of dying; another comes because he has been enormously depressed and friends have counselled her to approach a psychoanalyst. Yet, after a few weeks of conversa-tion with the psychoanalyst, it becomes clear that these are just the “cover story”. None of these people know why they are consulting the psychoanalyst. They produce a reason because it seems a bit absurd to tumble into the consulting-room and say,“Oh, doctor, I am here, but I don’t know why.”There is distress, but at the heart of it is a cloudy darkness. I do not know the wherefore of my distress.So we reach this very odd conclusion: that the core of our dis-tress lies in the fact that we do not know the reason for it. I think this is what we mean when we use that pale, passionless word “problem” to describe my situation when I decide to visit a psy-choanalyst or a psychotherapist. So it begins to look as though the word “problem” may be right after all. (p5)

Now we move on to the next part of our quest. How is it that I am able to resolve this distress through speaking to another? There seems to be some inherent sense here that the act of communicating with another will help to alleviate the distress, which, accord-ing to what we have formulated, means that, in some mysterious way, this communication illuminates the darkness—that if the kernel of the distress lies in our ignorance of its cause, then there seems to be some intuition that talking to another may be able to replace night-time with daylight. How are we to understand this? Is it that the person we speak to will know what we do not know? or is it that the act of communication itself functions as an illumina-tor? I will take these two possibilities in turn.The first hypothesis is that the person I speak to will know what I do not know. I think this is the hypothesis that most of us have tucked away inside us. I go to the dentist because I have a pain in one of my lower molars. I believe that he will know why I am having this pain. He looks at the tooth, takes an X-ray, and tells me that I have a large cavity with decay in it and that it will need a filling. So I am right: he does have knowledge that I do not have and is able through it to remedy the trouble. (p6)

where are we? That the core of the patient’s problem is that we do not know the reason for the distress but we seem to have learned something else: that the imparting of knowledge does not resolve it. This would suggest that it is not the knowledge in itself but, rather, something about the process of acquiring knowledge that is crucial. Again Freud does indicate something about this: “there is no lifting of the repression until the conscious idea, after the resistances have been overcome, has entered into con-nection with the unconscious memory-trace. It is only through the making conscious of the latter itself that success is achieved.” (p8)

Let us move on, then, to the second hypothesis, which posits that the communication itself functions as an agent of illumination. In a paper on symbolism Marion Milner says that if you take a pen-cil and put a mark upon a piece of paper, it begins to “speak back to you”. The very action, emanating from a desire inside, that ends in an external epiphany elaborates the act into something more ful-some and developed. It is like a small seed that remains dry and impenetrable while it lies upon a stone in the sun, but when it is thrust into damp soil it sprouts into a plant with beautiful blue flowers. All this magnificence was in the seed but invisible, impene-trable; but when it is planted into this favourable environment, the largeness and variety congealed within that small hard seed be-comes accessible and visible to the senses. Astronomers tell us that thirteen million years ago there was a small, compact, extremely dense nugget of matter that exploded in the phenomenon that has been named the Big Bang. The huge variety of forms, of distances, of stars, of planets, and the whole vast universe exploded out of that unimaginably dense nugget. Something like this happens when I verbalize a thought or a feeling. As Charlotte Balkanyi (1964) says, verbalization that is the activity just prior to the act of speech is already the gathering of something indistinct into a recognizable form. This is the first movement in the act of communication, but it already suggests that in this initial act something amorphous is fashioned into a unified structure. I think we all know when there is something struggling in us to find a verbal form. The right word won’t quite come. We try this word, that word, but we know that it is not right. The something that is striving to find its way out of the dark into the light has not found the key that will allow it to come into being. I verbalize as the first step in communication. In other words, communication puts a certain demand that I take the rough formless clay and mould it into a pattern. This very act of moulding it into a form enables it to cross over the space from you to me and puts me in possession of something that I did not have. I had it, yet did not have it. (p10)

Historical Trauma & Unresovled grief interventions:
Return to the sacred path

A Healing Conversation : How Healing Happens

Engaging across difference and connecting to “we” not just “me” – Getting beyond our narrow self interest to see ourselves as an inherent part of a larger group, community, society, and earth – and acting from that awareness – is not emphasized or easy to do. How can we facilitate groups in ways that generate a sense of belonging? How can we create group experiences that help us see those who are different not through the lens of a label but as full human beings with many stories, with complex emotions, and unique gifts and aspirations?

Community and connection: healing together – One of the key ways to heal trauma is the experience of being truly heard and seen. When trauma is pushed under the rug, mental and emotional turmoil arises. Bessel van der Kolk writes “Denial of the consequences of trauma can wreak havoc with the social fabric of society.” What can we do to create a strong fabric of community while coming together and acknowledging the traumas? How can we generate a shared understanding and commitment to change so we do not repeat these harmful patterns?

Trauma: the overlooked pattern affecting everything – Yet, even with these promising ways to gather people and generate ideas of how we can make things better, this is not enough. Any initiative to look forward and make positive change takes place in a community or system that has a long history, which we often overlook. The fragmented relationships, broken bonds of community, and lack of trust did not arise out of nowhere. There is a story there. Events of the past created harms and burdens that are often unacknowledged. These unhealed traumas can still be affecting the situation and the people involved…and blocking the potential to shift to a healthier pattern/outcome. Promising processes are emerging to help communities or societies explore and work with history in ways that can enable healing, for example systemic constellation, restorative justice, and truth and reconciliation commissions.

Decolonized, Radical Self-Care

Decolonizing Healing Practices

“Decolonization” is used a lot nowadays, and I think that’s a good thing. People are becoming more aware of the ways in which our lives are predetermined by colonization, and they don’t have to be—we have a choice. We live within a system, of course, but certain things we accept, or we frame things in certain ways in our minds because that’s what we’ve been taught… Realizing you don’t have to see them that way can be really liberating.

Mary Kathryn: I think those people don’t understand storytelling’s role in colonization and colonialism. They’re just really not aware of why they live in the world they live in. American colonialism utilized—and continues to utilize—a very specific form of storytelling that dehumanized different groups of people and characterized the land we live on and with as a commodity, and that’s the narrative and the story that got told. And it’s still told today. We’re still living and breathing and consuming a Manifest Destiny, “go west young man,” “this land is yours” narrative in the United States.

For me, the biggest thing you can do to decolonize the theatre is to put all voices on stage, especially those who have been historically underrepresented or silenced in this country.

The historic silencing of underrepresented voices in this country is no accident. The silence is for a reason, right? Because when you do get to tell your story, you reclaim your power. And that’s very threatening to colonialism and colonization. You can’t exercise power over people if they are defining their own identities and sharing their own stories.

Robert: Yeah, you change the narrative. The narrative is taken back.

Mary Kathryn: Exactly. So, when I hear people talk about decolonizing the theatre, that’s what I immediately go to. Who has been historically silenced, who are we now going to invite to the table and allow to define and share their own stories?

I am convinced that dismantling systems that support patriarchy requires not simply updating, revising, or adding to them, but inhabiting and re-inscribing spaces using techniques and language from outside of those systems. This involves taking the idea of a maker-space/incubator into the entire library, into the stacks themselves to work intimately with the textures of the books and to nurture relationships. We might rethink our ideas about repairing library classifications so that we consider feminist and personal processes that privilege the local, inter- rogate standards, and explicitly foreground the aesthetics of knowledge organ- ization. An intentional and creative engagement with feminist histories and practices in the public space of a library carries great potential for facilitating projects toward new ideas and political discourse.

Bringing the technique of weaving into the very public space of the library, and threading across and within the patriarchal structures that organize that space, could be a political project based in the desire of readers. It gives voice to the perspectives that are otherwise set to the margins in our library classifications, and provides a public forum to display and discuss the ways in which queer and feminist read- ings cut across the lines drawn by the library. It also carries a potential to form a community-based project, where we see the spaces in which readers’ practices intersect with other readers’ tastes. We might find common interests in this common space. This reparative performance may reclaim the library for readers by enacting the desires of many in the library and dramatizing intersectionality through intertextuality and reader relations. The threads enact the relationships across books and readers in a very visible and active way. They can serve as models for all of the possible and invisible threads in every library, in every person’s visit and wanderings. Our intertextual encounters might be thought of as imaginary threads, or desire lines, that refuse or dismantle the disciplinary lines.

https://we.tl/t-jz5fzLEKgE

In relation to the theoretical framework that has been researched and linked to each individual collectively, there has been concluded that the common fears or feelings stemmed from embodied and hidden traumas. Striving for self-acceptance and being seen as whole. Us realizing where and how the feelings and situations came about and how we reflect on the impact it has not only on ourselves but also in sharing with others. Sharing out pains has had a tremendous impact on the involvement of the process of healing. Everyone is guided through or started their own healing process to cope with the trauma’s that they have.

The theoretical framework was not only used as a way to properly articulate the feelings and emotions we were having but resulted to finding and realizing the core aspects of them. How we are daily influenced, impacted and involved with some many aspects, opinions, morals and values of others and ourselves that there even create or contribute to our own perspectives. Having conversations by adding theory to further emphasize what we are experiencing created space for us to talk our own perception to the foreground. As process to heal.

In order to heal from your trauma, you have to talk about it.

- Talking is healing. By sharing your stories, emotions and feelings it creates space for people not to only understand you better, but is used as a method for yourself to reflect on your own behaviour. And secondly

- Knowledge is power. Primarily based and driven by different world views. Each and everyone have been given or has a lens of their own perspectives of reality. How they are shaped and formulated. It shows the true core of how we look at different aspects, ideals, or shape morals and values is fully influenced by your upbringing, personal trauma’s and cultural history.

- Healing is not easy peasy lemon squeezy. It is or can be a painful process of different emotions and feelings to fully analyse your own self.

- Finding recognition in other people or stories by having an open mind. Entering it without assumptions.

- Have a critical view on your own position and identity in relation to the dominant discourse.

Healing forms the foundation of our collective aim. Reclaiming your own power by putting an end to silencing our individual stories. Sharing and caring for others and ourselves helps to fully or better understand the purpose of the trauma that each of us had experienced. How the collectivism and intersectionality of group healing created space and opportunity to set our own strong foundation of how healing together can help others. Where the core lies of different emotions and feelings people have and how you can collectively start conversations and heal through the process of sharing stories.

With the knowledge that has been gained we want to create and provide a guide (book) to create awareness on how to start your own healing process, involve our own stories to emphasize and form different types of situations and feelings. But also share the gained knowledge to inform the articulacy of their feelings.