Peter Levine is a doctor and an expert in how the memory works during times of trauma. Thomas Huebl is a spiritual teacher who specialises in trauma. In this talk, they discuss trauma and spiritual growth.
It is thought that trauma can open people up to spiritual experiences.
Trauma apparently affects the energy in our spines, the kundalini energy, and it can cause it to be activated. Kundalini refers to the life force energy (also known as Chi or Prana). This energy lies dormant at the base of our spine waiting to be activated which can be done through various spiritual practices and techniques, such as meditation or chakra activation or through trauma.
Levine states at 4.30, “Trauma is a disorder of not being able to be in the here and now.”
31.40 “Trauma is about broken connection to self, broken connection to others, broken connection to spirit.”
45.36 “The types of memory that are involved in trauma…cannot be remembered in any sense in the way a declarative memory (memories which can be consciously recalled such as facts and events) is remembered. They are remembered in the body, these are procedural memories (unconscious memories such as skills)…we all are remembering everything that’s ever happened to us and probably everything that’s ever happened to us for generations…but we remember it not as memories, as we normally think of it, but of reaction patterns in our bodies and emotions that just erupt seemingly out of nowhere…and it’s important in working with trauma to know how to meet and to bring those types of unconscious memories into greater and greater consciousness and then they can begin to form into a narrative which is also important in healing.”
At 21.27 they begin to discuss the collective trauma in society. “We are embedded in a society that is fragmented by inter-generational trauma…how do we become aware of how to prevent perpetuating this inter-generational pain that we carry.”
There is a call to behave with compassion for others whenever and wherever possible.
Thomas Huebl says:
25.05 “Unconscious trauma energy is destiny. Destiny is – unconscious energy has no choice, putting people into concentration camps and killing them, that choice has been made already, but it’s not finished, for unconscious energy is destiny, like an unconscious energy runs me because I am not aware of it. So I will take decisions and do things or be addicted to something that is not in my control…we say in the mystical understanding, unconscious energy is destiny, there is no free choice. Free choice comes through consciousness, consciousness allows new possibilities to come in, so in our understanding the past is not what happened yesterday, the past is what stayed from what happened yesterday….the past overshadows my moment, body sensations, emotions and thoughts that have nothing to do with this moment….past has a cycle to repeat itself until it is conscious.”
“When we take this seriously and transfer it now to a collective dimension, it means all the energy that is still frozen in our collective unconscious be it because of slavery and atrocities and racism…holocaust and other dictatorships and worse, that seriously affects our choices, because that’s destiny…the destiny of humanity, not a free choice and we think we have so much free choice…first of all, its good to ask what its free of, secondly, that’s not you, many people that suffer from addictions show that you don’t have the free choice to take the next cigarette or not.”
“If social regulation of trauma would stop, many people…would be psychotic…there is so much energy that is held down because it is better for life to do it that way than in another way.”
“Trauma both connects us and divides us.”
“If we want to live up to our potential, trauma work is crucial…there’s a trans-generational data flow through us.”
The process of healing from trauma ‘updates our software’ and enables us to come to understand ourselves, develop our self-awareness, self-compassion and compassion for others and to live in the here and now.
