The Ancestral Continuum: Unlock the Secrets of Who You Really Are by Natalia O'Sullivan & Nicola Graydon

Author:Natalia O'Sullivan & Nicola Graydon [O'Sullivan, Natalia & Graydon, Nicola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: New Age, Occult, Religion & Spirituality
ISBN: 9781451674576
Google: OB7odxfrFG8C
Amazon: 1451674546
Goodreads: 15803012
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2013-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

Ancestral Continuum 4th 15/11/2012 12:12 Page 133

Healing the Generational Legacy of Trauma

133

her so afraid at night. She drew something that resembled a diving mask with an elephant’s trunk. When the family went back into her family tree, they discovered an ancestor who had been gassed in the last gas attack on Ypres, on 26 April 1915. Coincidentally, or not, the girl had been born on 26 April. Once the event had been spoken about in the family, her nightmares and asthma attacks ended.

In decades of research, Schutzenberger has identified ‘unconscious transgenerational repetitions’ that often manifest around anniversaries. From 1992 to 1994 she experienced a surge of clients suffering symptoms that she believes were the effects of unfinished mourning in the descendants of those who died during the Second World War. The symptoms seemed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary commemorations of war.

Today, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are exposing another generation to the ravages of life-long trauma. Battlefield medical technology saves many who would have died in the past, but multi-deployments and IEDs have exacerbated PTSD symptoms. They call it ‘the war after the war’ and many are defeated by it. In 2010, for the second year in a row, more US troops committed suicide than were killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

In Mozambique, traditional methods of helping individuals and communities ravaged by the fifteen-year-long civil war have proved far more effective than talk therapy as healing tools. At battlefields across the country rituals were done to appease the spirits of the dead who had died far from home and without proper burial rites. These mpfhukwa spirits are thought to be disruptive, even dangerous, if they are not settled in the afterlife.

Crucially, the wounds of combatants were experienced collectively as part of one community, so everyone was involved in helping them let go of the trauma and re-enter civilian life. ‘Trauma healing,’ writes Alcinda Honwana, ‘is perceived as a collective affliction Ancestral Continuum 4th 15/11/2012 12:12 Page 134

134

The Ancestral Continuum

affecting not only individuals but also their relatives, both living and dead. The objective of their cleansing ceremony is not to ignore past trauma, but to acknowledge it symbolically before firmly locking it away and facing the future.’

Dr Edward Tick, himself a victim of transgenerational trauma due to an upbringing with a war-wounded father, is a clinical psycho -

therapist who has begun to use traditional indigenous ways to help veterans in Britain and the US. ‘I saw that war was so horrific, so traumatising, so damaging to every part of the body, mind, heart and spirit, that we needed extensive holistic-based practices for healing it. This wound is far bigger than we can cope with left to our human devices. We need spiritual connection, guidance and support in order to heal. I call my approach “spirituality in community” and it always includes memorials, always includes the recognition of the ancestors and other rituals to heal the past that we are all carrying and, if the dead still exist somewhere, they are still carrying as well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.