← Healing + Human Potential
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- [00:00]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
How might today's global challenges mirror our unresolved trauma?
- [00:04]
Thomas Hübl
The world's accelerating and it seems like everything is getting more crazy. But it's a symptom that says we have to develop something new. The more trauma load we have, the coherence goes down. We see more fragmentation, violence. The higher is the coherence of a community, the more potential can flourish. We co create the world together. If billions of people look at hope, future revelation, enlightenment, then it becomes a property of presence, not of the future. Healing, as we thought, is not going to be the solution for where we are going.
- [00:39]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
I just wanted to first start off with talking about just today's global challenges and the division that we're feeling as a collective consciousness and how that might mirror our unresolved trauma as a society. I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
- [00:55]
Thomas Hübl
When we look at trauma, like most many people think trauma is what happened to me versus the trauma response is what's happening in me in relation to this adverse or difficult circumstances. And when we look at the trauma response, we're actually looking at an intelligent function that protects us more than without it. And of course it has sometimes severe side effects, but the mechanism still is intelligent. But what it does, it splits the content part of our nervous system that is overloaded with pain and stress. Whatever it can compartmentalize, shut it down so the rest of the organism can survive better. And that function of splitting something creates two. Now when we look at society and we look at social trauma, like wars and the holocaust or genocides or whatever, colonialism, so there was a massive, or there is a massive impact of trauma that affects thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people. And the collective psyche has also like a defense mechanism. And so we shut pain down. Like when you take millions of people in concentration camps, or a million people work right now in Iran, or killed in, in three months in, in a channel, in a terrible genocide, there's so much pain in the society, we need to shut the part down so that we can keep on living. And that's intelligent, but from now on we have two. And so I think just understanding that gives us a base to see, wow. When we are so fragmented, when we cannot negotiate immigration, when we cannot negotiate race, when we cannot renegotiate anything in society and we immediately fragment into these parts. Of course there's a lot of trauma at the base of it, but often that's not so visible. So we just see crazy symptoms and we say, okay, why cannot we do better? But I think including that intelligent function and Individually and collectively developing skills how to work with it creatively, then I think a lot can change. But I see this at the base of a lot of fractures and fragmentations that we see right now.
- [03:27]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yeah, and the micro mirrors the macro, so as we can shift it on an individual, but also collective. And I was sharing, I want to stay on the collective level because I don't think many people talk about it that way. And given where we are in the world, I think that would really serve people to start making the links and the connections. I also know that you talk about metacrisis. Can you talk to us about what it is and how understanding, understanding that can help us give context to what might be happening now?
- [03:54]
Thomas Hübl
Yeah. Metacrisis or polycrisis is a term that describes multiple big stress factors or crises that all come together to create like a bigger crisis that we suffer from. And you could say climate change, for example, like political fragmentation, inequality, race. And different crises that are boiling right now in our societies are cumulative. But I think when we look deeper, we see again there is trauma at the base, individually and collectively. But now what we are experiencing is that through the technology that we are using right now, the world's accelerating. While we are having this conversation, the world's getting faster. And so as the world's getting faster, there's more data in a shorter time that needs to run through our nervous systems and through our collective nervous system in order to keep. To live our lives, basically. So I believe that the parts of our nervous system that are integrated and resourced can, can update accordingly and are growing. So their tech and our integrated parts are partners. But trauma is an unupdatable area, individually and collectively. So trauma cannot receive updates. Like you have an app on your phone that never receives an update, so after some time you can throw it away because it doesn't work anymore. And so the trauma in us, I believe, with that fast pace, creates a lot of inflammatory processes inside. Heat, Too much heat and too much. It's the, the, the, the fragmentation of the trauma is even more visible. And so the meta crisis, I believe, is also enhanced because there's a lot of undigested material in the collective. We don't have good skills and tools and architectures right now to take care of it. But the world's accelerating like crazy. And then it seems like everything is getting more crazy, which is, is on the one hand true, but it's a symptom of, or a call that says, listen, we have to develop something new. Healing, as we thought about it until today is not going to be the solution for where we are going. And I think that's why I think collective healing spaces are so important because they hold much more capacity to transform this collective material than many, many one on one sessions, even if they're also important, obviously. But we need something else as well.
- [06:45]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yeah, I agree and I love that we're going to get into that here. And you had shared this idea that climate change is a symptom of a dysregulated society. I think that is such a fascinating statement. Can you unpack that for us?
- [07:00]
Thomas Hübl
When you look at the trauma response, I often say like either trauma is a loan that we take from our own future, we are going through something, through a hardship with an extra boost of energy, but actually we have to pay back interest rates. And so trauma is based on traumatic stress, individually and collectively. What does that mean? I believe this is the essential quality of extractive economies because regulated stress, we all can be stressed at times. We all can have three months of getting projects done and we work a lot and many hours. That's okay. As long as I can regulate myself, that's okay. But where trauma resides in my system, I can't regulate myself. Then I ruminate at night. I need all kinds of ways to relax my system because naturally calming down and through contemplation through nature, whatever doesn't work. So there's over consumption, there's all kinds of over that are filling that gap. And so trauma in our bodies means we extract 5, 10, 20% more resources from the physical body. But what is the physical body? The physical body is nature. The physical body is the planet. We are not just on the planet, we are the planet. My body is soil. And so when I over extract life force and resources from my body, I burn more energy than I need. Let's say we have billions of people around the world that carry some amount of trauma. And some people carry a lot of trauma. So that is extractive economy. Not because we are not intelligent enough, not because we can do better, because that those wounds really hurt. And so the disembodiment that is a result of trauma, the emotional dysregulation, the stress dysregulation, that we have much more stress or we become indifferent and numb and, and are not participating. These are two extreme sides of the of stress. And, and so when that is the basis of how we live on the planet, then the extractive economy as an economical system, but the dysregulation and disembodiment break down a Lot of feedback loops, so we don't feel what's actually regulated. And so we burn more and more of our natural environment. So more and more the planet will look like outside as we look like inside. We just have a copy paste, same as with the Internet. We created the Internet, but what did we create? We created a copy paste of a sculpture that looks like we have a regular Internet and you have a darknet. We have a regular conscious space and we have a huge collective unconscious that we don't even feel. And we copy pasted that outside, created a sculpture so that we can say, oh well, that's humanity inside. And so, but the painful part is that when, when we burn our natural, like the life base, our body, our collective body, the world, then we will suffer more and more and we will have more and more symptoms that are out of control. And that of course, that is a very, that, that, that is a very dangerous situation.
- [10:48]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yeah. And, and life is a mirror. You're saying copy paste. It's like if we can't see it inside, we have to experience it externally so that we can become more conscious. And you talk about history repeating itself. And I'm just curious, what patterns are you seeing showing up today that are repeating itself? And then what do you think is the solution to break free?
- [11:07]
Thomas Hübl
Yeah, what we see, like what we know in our individual life, that we have certain patterns or interactions with people or get triggered by people that are repetitive. We see this collectively to look at wars like, look at Europe, for example, like World War II, big catastrophe, the Holocaust, like Europe was badly damaged and the world was badly damaged. And so we said never again a war in Europe. When we look at it deeper, because I did a lot of work in Europe on the Holocaust and World War II and the split between the east, the former east and the west of Europe and Germany. And when you look at it, millions of people in Russia have been killed by the German army in World War II. The backlash and the revenge hurt many people in the German speaking area, like Germany, Austria. And so there is a natural rift in the collective unconscious. So life continues and. But deep inside, the war didn't stop. That's why I often say peace building is not just having no war, that's the upper layer. It's like the crust of the planet, but inside there is a fluid core that is moving. So the drumbeats of war in family systems continue. They call domestic violence, sexual violence, abuse, all kinds of things that, that is war, but on another level. So modern psychology and trauma work and Family systems work are actually the way how to continue peace building until we disarm the repetition compulsion. Because we look at our past deeply enough so that we can kind of unhook the power of the repetition compulsion. But that's not what happened in Europe, for example. What happened is that like let's look at the future, let's forget the past. But the past, when it's being forgotten, will show up again. And it takes maybe fifty years, hundred years, but it will show up as another war. And the have you see the political fragmentation you the political arguments. A lot of those conversations are not for society. They are not for the highest good of society. There are fights, there are all kinds of dynamics and power structures. They are not for the highest good of the population. The capacity to negotiate new solutions and to like what happens right now in the US with immigration is a very clear example that the immigration history of waves of people coming to the US has not been integrated. I've seen this in my group so many times. And now immigration becomes something or illegal immigration that we cannot even negotiate as various parties so that we find a common solution. And that inability is called political strategies. I don't think this is a political issue. Yeah, the symptom is a political issue, but deeper down it's actually that we didn't really look at what that ruthlessness, the immigration, running away from all kinds of circumstances to go into a better world really did and what growing up as an immigrant in a country really meant for many family systems. I have seen so many people, when we really look at this, how much there's still stored of pain and insecurities and trauma, that once we heal that then the roots actually melt again into the soil. Because trauma healing is regenerative soil or regenerating the soil. That's why I believe the more we heal the collective trauma, the more we will regenerate the literal soil that becomes more and more damaged on the planet and less fertile because we over exhaust it. So the repetition compulsion is we see that, but what we often say is well, we could do better. And I say no, we cannot. That's the point. If we were able to say, listen, when we did it that way, you know, if so many cops and the incremental successes of the climate conferences, the COP20, COP30, no, we cannot do better. But when we own the process and we say maybe there is a reason why we don't do better and we own it and we have some self reflection, then we can do better. But if we tell ourselves this story that we could do better, we could live more sustainably, we could. No, I think we don't have collective tools to integrate the collective pain. And I think the best example is Covid. How many spaces did you see where people came together after two years of global disruption lockdowns? People passed away without their relatives being close, people got fired all over. And did we come together and say listen, we had a collective crisis on the planet, the pandemic. Let's come together in spaces and really learn from this, really integrate what happened and then move on. And it doesn't mean that we need to stop entire life, but that we have spaces to do that. And I think compared to how big was the impact, it's ridiculous how much reflection spaces we had to digest the pandemic. Digestion means integration, means post traumatic learning. And if we did that, consequently we would be in a very different world today.
- [17:09]
Alysina Briga
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- [18:35]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
That's fascinating to think about. Yeah, I do see that people want to move on very quickly. And it's almost like the willingness to stop and to admit, like, this is what my honest truth is. I don't know how to do better or I don't know how to change. And what I'm hearing from that reflection, then you can make a different choice, then you can have a greater next up. But a lot of us, I think people don't do that because sometimes they're afraid that if they go there, they don't know how to get out. And I don't think we've been very equipped with emotional tools in schools or witnessing from our families how to actually process this together. And it's clear that anything we avoid, we create. And so people are just trying to move on. But I can see that anytime, even in our own personal lives, if we're trying to move on and we're not having those clearing conversations, it might. It piles up. And I'm hearing the macro and micro, the reflection of that. And so to do that as a society, I think is, is the next edge, the next level of what I hear you're saying is important. And I would love, because I think a lot of people think about healing individually and there's a place for that. But there's also a lot of collective healing that I'm seeing the value of and what I'm hearing you speak about, and one of the reasons I want to have you on and I just respect your work, is to talk about the collective healing. And so if communities want to practice collective healing or even countries, what are some practices that you find helpful?
- [20:05]
Alysina Briga
Where.
- [20:06]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
How would they even begin to do that? What, what would they need to have available in that environment to heal?
- [20:11]
Thomas Hübl
Oh, beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. And, and yes, yes, yes to everything you said about the integration spaces before. So that's what's beautiful. And yeah, so collective healing, we have, I think we have worked now for 25 years developing, I would call this like a social technology. Like not a tech technology, but a social skill set where we say, okay, collectives can develop collective skills, same as individuals. Individual skill building is like I become a therapist or become a coach or a healer, whatever, so we can have highly trained individuals. But it's like a cross. It's like where the society we call this societal coherence resides that determines in which reality or which experience of society we are and what kind of skills or Capacities we can express collectively. So the higher is the coherence of a community, a group, a country, the more skills and the more potential can flourish. And the more trauma load we have, usually the coherence level goes down. We see more fragmentation, more stagnation, more violence, more, more of this kind of symptoms, more indifference and numbness and absence. So when we think about collective healing, we say, okay, what's important in creating collective containers? The first thing is safety, relative safety. So how can we ensure that we create containers that are relatively safe? Because they're not absolutely safe. Because nobody's absolutely safe in themselves really. But we all bring our insecurities and fears into a space so it's never be safe. It will be relatively safe through agreements, through relational practices, through the acknowledgment that we listen to differences. And, and, and so there are many things. How to build a container and then the relational coher, how we interact with each other. I feel you and I feel your attention. So how you feel me creates a kind of a streaming device. We stream reality through an open data connection. And where there is trauma, like the data connection is stuck. So suddenly our images freeze. And then I relate to you, not because I feel you, I relate to you from my past, the image I have about you. And so that, that is the stagnation that many experience. So we build coherence, which is that flow out of the resources that are given in a certain community or ecosystem. And then we see what's the right amount of resources we need to deal step by step with the trauma load. And as systems become more safe and relationally connected, I've experienced this over and over again in so many different contexts. The collective nervous system wants to detox the material that is invisible in that system. It's like as if suddenly there's the circumstance. Ah, the nervous system wants to let go, but it needs to be safe enough. And if it's safe enough, waves of material can come up. We can digest those, learn, grow more soil, become stronger and more resilient, which allows us to let the next level come up. And if we have in this healing collectives, teams of therapists, highly trained people that know how to work with people that touch really deep trauma in themselves. So they go for one on one treatments, or a series of one on one treatments, and they come back into the container, and like this, we create a flow. And I believe these healing collectives are exactly what we need in this time when so much collective stuff comes up in this meta crisis, because we cannot Heal this. And I think it's also a mistake in the thinking. One on one treatments are important, but they are not designed to do the other job. They can be part of the next level of development. And if we, let's say all over the States we had many of these healing collectives or communities would start to build that kind of resilience, then transformational power of the past that we didn't look at or couldn't look at will be much faster. So it speeds up the healing process and then the society can mature. And the more mature our societies, the more we are able to host our differences. So that will become a positive upward spiral.
- [24:56]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
There's so much I want to dive into about this because there's a place for individual healing and there's a place for collective, there's a place for lineage. I want to talk about all of it, but most people know individual healing. So there's this self reliant person who's like, I'm an island. I don't need anyone else to heal because I'm really scared of being abandoned or rejected or whatever it may be in the bruising in relationship. And then the other side of the pendulum is the codependent, where this, the sales pitch for codependence is I'll help you with your needs and you help me with mine. But we know that doesn't work either. And so for people who are wanting to be interdependent, they want to take care of themselves and be in community. Because at least if it's relational, there are going to be times, let's say a couple, if they're both triggered, they don't always know how to come back to repair. And there are ways to, you know, come back to safety. Safety is the foundation for healing. And I love this mirroring that we're doing micro and macro. But what would you share for people who also want to learn to be in relationship while not losing themselves, while also tending to themselves and being interdependent?
- [26:06]
Thomas Hübl
Yeah, I think that is exactly the right facilitation that is needed. It's not just that healing collectives just happened on, happen on their own. Not yet, maybe later when we have more of that around the world, then it will be easier and easier and that intelligence will start to spread like a cultural trait. But at the moment we are not there yet. So we need to facilitate. Like it needs kind of some herbs or some spices to really let that happen. And so what you just said is very important because some people are reluctant to go in Some people become dependent on those spaces and the facilitation is to notice that and also to become aware that in trauma. So we do a lot of work where we show that when somebody comes closer to any kind of hurt or trauma, which is the basis of, of both of the polarities, is the relational retraction. So the nervous system does not have the capacity in the painful area to combine inside and outside. It doesn't have it.
- [27:16]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yeah, it's like one person says I'm safe when I'm connected in relationship and the other says I'm safe when I leave and I'm not in connection. But they're both a wound and not feeling safe.
- [27:25]
Thomas Hübl
Yeah, exactly. Not feeling safe. And as we see this as facilitators or coaches or therapists, when we see this then, then this, we, we are needed to bridge that a bit and say and bring in some reflections so that we be that the whole system can become aware. Oh wow. Now one element that is important as I, and I'm, I'm just speaking from my experience to building this, that what I have seen is what we do very often we do a lot of this relational work, small breakout, group work and so on. And then again and again when people bring some of their process into the group, I work with them in front of the group. And so when somebody comes for example with the dependent codependent pattern when we work with it, or this self reliant pattern when we make that visible, what's the inner architecture in front of the group? Everybody in the room that has a similar resonance inside will start to resonate with this. So groups are actually very powerful collective healing spaces because the work we do with one person serves immediately many, many others. And then you follow the resonance in the room and you deepen it, deepen it until it's done and then something else comes up. But that serves everybody in the room and it doesn't mean that it magically disappears. What I'm saying is it has a much higher transformational power than sitting in a one on one therapy room somewhere or coaching room. That's what I'm saying. Because the interdependence is being harvested and is not supported. Otherwise we support the separation more and systems I think over a long period of time healed collectively. Also in indigenous wisdom traditions like collective healing is and was always a part of that. And I think in the over individualized west we marginalized that and I think we need to bring some of that back.
- [29:33]
Alysina Briga
I agree.
- [29:33]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
And it feels somewhat vulnerable to do that in Relationship to expose the parts of us that we may feel shame or trauma around. And so. And yet the healing is so the possibility for greater transformation is there and safety, again is the foundation. So when you feel safe to be in those environments where people are facilitating that safety. And then also it works with families. So it could be facilitators, families, countries, organizations. I mean, it. It really is just like almost white labeling. What are the ingredients for transformation? And I, I know that when I've gone to and facilitated large groups of people that are interested in going deep, it can amplify things that I wasn't able to access individually. And when it comes up, then with presence, really meeting the moment and looking at what's. Looking what's waiting to be accepted, that's all that it was needing. And so I do a lot of work inside out, but I've been doing some outside in work, doing in community, just following the impulse of what's wanting to arise and meeting in relationship. There's something really also healing about friends doing it for each other, not just facilitators, because there could be a story that I'm paying for somebody to do this, also being able to do that in connection when you know that this is somebody's free will and their choice to love you through that can. Can touch a healing that isn't available in some of these spaces. But yeah, I just. It's so important what you're speaking to. And just coming back to lineage work, some of this is unconscious and it's not even ours, but we've inherited it through lineage. Have you seen any different flavors in terms of tool sets or ways of working with that, doing more lineage work that you think would be helpful?
- [31:20]
Thomas Hübl
Ancestral or intergenerational trauma work is also a big part of our work. And the. And what I have seen works best is to. I mean, with a lot of that work is to see, okay, our intellect has a great capacity to frame things, but is also part of the Defense Department. And so, like, it's good sometimes. Yeah, exactly. But it keeps the pain unconscious. So sometimes we need to deconstruct it a bit to go deeper. And then we work with the trauma in the body. And then the next step is that ancestry is not just a kind of an intellectual idea that I know who my ancestors are or that I look through my young self at my grandmother. That's also different. Like, it's. How can I. And, and I believe that. And I can't validate that scientifically yet. But. But as it appears to Me in the process work is that our nervous system is not just an individual nervous system. Our nervous system has an individual department, has an ancestral department and has a collective department. So our nervous systems are not that separate as they look sometimes in anatomy classes. And so when we tune in through our body and we get access to the intergenerational nervous system, that's the library where the intergenerational information is stored and integrated history is presence. So when we are what has this conversation right now in us and is resourced and excited and interested is integrated history. There we are present with each other and in the world. So but unintegrated history is the past. So energy and information is frozen in the past. So when my grandmother and my grandfather in Vienna in the 40s or 30s, went through World War II, then some of that information is or was frozen in my intergenerational system. And I needed to go and begin to become aware through sensing exercises to open those parts in my own nervous system system and see what's in there for me to learn. So the unintegrated history is also what we pass down to the next generation. And the resources anyway are our resources. They're anyway flowing. We are not talking about the resources really. We just tap into those in order to heal ourselves. But in life our resources are anyway flowing. And so this kind of attunement practice I feel is very powerful. And then I see, wow, there's my self contact. And then of course I can look at as Thomas at my mother, but I can also as Thomas tune into the generation of my mother and my father. That's a different attunement. It's not looking through my psychological development, it's attuning in a way through a conception. Like I go through my own conception in my nervous system and then open it to the next generation. And if I want to feel it my grandparents generation, then I open my attunement again. And we train this with many people. It's amazing how much information starts to show up when we are just. It's like the right radio station, you know, the receiver and suddenly, wow, information shows up that is not just premeditated. All I know anyway about my grandparents, so but new information shows up and we do this in relational practices often in tria, so that always two people hold the space for one person going deeper. And we see can I sense that? And then we see, wow. The more I become aware of my ancestry, when I sit with people, I begin to feel information in their ancestry because it's A bit more open. So when. When you dig down and you take the soil out around the tree, you see the root system, let's say intergenerational work is we see deeper down the root systems of each other. It's not just a small person. Like, the person has a context. And like this, we become also more sensitive as a collective that ancestry is systemically relevant information that often is unconscious. But if you turn it into conscious information, it's not destiny, but it's choice. It's not that it's bound to happen like this. It's we will have a choice. And I think maturity has a choice. In trauma, we have no choice because the past made the choice.
- [36:23]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yeah. So slowing down to get really present, seeing that there's a choice, I think also seeing it compassionately, because if we're identified or we're judging it, we're stuck with it. And I just want to name this because I think sometimes people get stuck in. When you start getting really present, whether it's within your own, a dyad, small groups or large groups, and stuff starts coming up. I think sometimes people think it's getting worse. And I just want to name. It's just that it's a thawing out. And it could be ancestral, it could be yours. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like ours. And you, we can feel the difference. Or if you haven't really been able to unpack something, maybe it's more lineage work, but not identifying with it either way and having compassion, because it's almost like your system, your nervous system knows that there's safety. And so the things you haven't been able to process are ripe. They're ready to be seen and allowed. And if you are allowing it, you're saying, sensing into it, accepting it is how I would say it, like breathing into it, allowing it within the window of tolerance so that you're not flipping your lid going into hypo or hyper arousal. You're. You're being gentle with yourself to bite size, presencing what's here so you don't get flipped into the past. It does start to digest. It starts to integrate. And I don't think we talk about the importance of joy or pleasure enough in this work. Because sometimes people will come into programs that I do or I'll start talking with them and I. A lot of the times they'll think they need to go into the pain, which, yes, there's courage and willingness to go there. And we want to balance it with joy, with nourishment, like if it's too much in the shadow, we're going to get buried and not be able to get out. And we want to hold it so that we are taking care of ourselves and we know it's too much too fast, otherwise we can re traumatize ourselves. So just being more educated and aware of the value of nourishment and connection and safety, presence, joy, all of that.
- [38:20]
Thomas Hübl
Yeah, 100%. Yes, yes, yes. And I think you're speaking to something very important that this, that joy charges our battery. And so it's very important to find, even if we deal, I mean we dealt with so much collective trauma, we could say, wow, this is some of the deepest pain of humanity and still like finding the things that really bring joy are so important and not a bypass if you do already this work. Because some people are just hunting joy. But I think like what you said is so true. I just want to underline this is very important that we have humor, that we have lightness, that we have joy, we have playfulness and we deal with very difficult aspects of life as well. And so I think that's very important what you just said. So thank you. Here.
- [39:08]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yeah. And the doing the trauma healing, collective healing is in service to greater of liveness. And sometimes people feel guilty for having joy when people around them have gone through a hard time. But that joy is a gift to the world and there is a way to attune to the environment and to meet people and to still give yourself permission because that radiance is a gift to you and to support the collective healing as well. But I would love to hear from you what you feel like modern day society normalizes. That might actually just be a sign of unresolved all trauma.
- [39:40]
Thomas Hübl
Yeah, yeah, many things. I just want to add something because maybe many coaches and therapists and healers are listening to this. I think actually that, that the, the issue with the joy, that one pattern that many of us might have and work out throughout our professional life is, is that we got our place in the family system through supporting or helping.
- [40:18]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yes.
- [40:19]
Thomas Hübl
And that gives us a place. And if that's the case, it's not that it's right or wrong, it's just important that we become aware of it. What's the motivation and what's the cost that that has? If, if my agency is the source or my agency plus a certain percentage of pattern and that pattern has a cost. And I think often not being able to really enjoy is a shadow element of that pattern. And so I think it's Great for us to explore that because I think. And not with the eyes of. Well, it's right or wrong. I shouldn't have that motivation. No, it's given to us, given how we grew up. But it's important that we inquire enough to see how much that plays a role in how we are with clients, how much we step out of our energy sometimes in order to support groups or individual clients. And so because when we are in touch with our core flow and we sit, we work from there, then joy is a natural. Is a natural aspect of it. So I just wanted to add that.
- [41:26]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
No, I love it, I love it. Yeah, we talk about some of that. The come from matters and it was maybe an adaptive safety strategy and we're included in the nourishment and to honor both equally. Really important. Yeah.
- [41:41]
Thomas Hübl
At this time on the planet where science is so predominant as a way of knowing the intellectual capacity that is so amazing to, to find out more about quantum mechanics and quantum computing or whatever high tech and AI is as we said before, also part of a huge shadow. And so when in the trauma, the body mind, like the intellectual, emotional and physical dimensions split. So we, we live in a world where sense making. So my cognition and my sensing and my body awareness are one message is split into to over intellectualization and actually a helicopter mind that is flying on top of nature. And that helicopter mind, I think is a viral. Is a pandemic issue on the planet. So as. As important as our cognitive, cognition and intellectual capacity is if it's synchronized with the heart and with the body, it's amazing, it's a genius. But if it's split off, then it can become dangerous in many ways. And one is it can take many decisions that are not anymore connected to nature and to each other and to our humanity. And that is a big issue. So that that kind of world where we often when we say something, when the word and the energy, like what we experience and what we say is the same, and if it's the same, I send out one message that's coherence. If it's split, I send out tension. No matter if the other person is sensitive enough and gets the tension consciously, it has relational side effects. And so that creates a whole system of patterns. So that's one thing, I think we normalized. The other thing is that many of the collective trauma symptoms look like life. Political arguments, how people talk to each other, what we see like violence in societies, all kinds of symptoms say ah, that's how life is. No, that is how life is partly when it's hurt. And I think to name that is very important because otherwise we normalize it and then it's simply this is it. And then no that we see. Wow. Life has actually two kinds of processes. One is emergent, so resourced life is emergent, is relational, can hold contradiction and has a future. But non emergent processes that might look like one society, these two types, non emergent processes, are repetitive, they are disrelated and they are stuck in the past. So they are repeating themselves without the any future. And that's why I would say when people say yeah, but everything has a future, I say no. The fact that time's moving on doesn't mean that you have a future. You can repeat tomorrow the same things like you did yesterday. That's not the future, that's the repetition of the past. You drive on the highway and you see a sign and then after 10km you see the same sign. That's the repetition. So you're constantly driving and you say but I'm driving. Yeah, but you're not driving anywhere because you do doing the same thing. And so that's one and then another one that I think is very interesting to explore is language. Now everybody talks about large language models. I think we all have been sourced or taught by large language models to adapt the language that we speak. But if life is traumatized and hurt and part of that language is unconscious, we see this as that's how we speak. So once trauma becomes an unconscious symptom in the society, the way we speak normalized it through language. And so like part of the trauma is now encoded in the large language model that we all take our information from, like when we speak. And I think that's very important because when we listen to language, we can hear the part of the language, the sentences that are flow and we can hear the parts of the sentences that encoded trauma. And when we look at this not as it's good or bad, that's another one of the normalizing us. It's good or bad versus no, it's a process. And we will find out what it is when we look deeper. Where is the source of what we call good or bad. And then, and then from there we grow. And so like this, there I think there are many, many more. Like even the flow of resources on the planet and money and I don't know, things that happen in our healthcare system, in our education system, there's so many normalized trauma symptoms that when we look deeper we can really. Because just the awareness of it is already a growth dimension. And then the intervention might give us another growth. So first we need to become aware of it.
- [47:12]
Alysina Briga
Yeah.
- [47:13]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
And compassionate awareness. Because the judgmental awareness traps it. Yeah. And the busyness, the chronic doing, and oftentimes, you know, trauma can have a fuel. You'd be like, I'm never gonna do have that happen again. And then, you know, people, you see this in business or in countries taking over as a way to find power because there's a deep insecurity and fear that's driving it. But you've mentioned AI a few times. Like, and I'm just curious because it's like if AI is mirroring human consciousness and we're just, are we creating something new or just recreating trauma?
- [47:46]
Thomas Hübl
I think we are creating something new in the level of technologically it's new. And I think it, that AI can really support the life base, like the way we live together. AI has a, I often call it a lateral, sideways complexification of life. And so on the one hand we can say, oh, if I combine this glass and this cup, and before I didn't see that I could combine them because I didn't even see that in the same room. And AI has this amazing capacity to create the higher complexity out of the things that already exist. And the recombination of this, that looks like the future. In my understanding at least the future is the emergence out of a deeper alignment with the deepest nature of life, the divine, the sort, whatever, like the download of consciousness. And in that sense, I think the use of how does AI learn by us trying out what does AI do when I do this? And what does AI do? And can I do a website in five seconds and can. So the creativity, I think, is coming through people that are creative with AI. And at least as of now, we don't know what's going to happen in the age of quantum computing. And maybe it's going to change again. But as of now, I think yes, there is something new and great, but all our shadows are included too. Like, what did AI learn from a lot of unconscious stuff that's all over the Internet. And so our best selves and our darkness darkest tendencies are kind of like written or kind of programmed in the, in the substance that AI uses. So I think it's still, it still boils down to that we have to do our work. And I think the more we do our work and we integrate the collective because it's unbelievable, there's so much energy stored in the collective unconscious that when we harvest that energy, we have unlimited amounts of energy available. And if not, then that energy seems like to work against us, which is not true, but it looks like this at least. And when we integrate that also the ethical line of development, because in many racism in the US the Holocaust, genocide in Rwanda, whatever it was colonialism around the world, we didn't get the ethical point yet. Because you can get it only when you integrate the trauma. You get the learning. And before that you can think about the learning, but you don't get it. So you can't live it because you're not embodying it. And so in the massive collective trauma is also the ethical development that helps us to use technologies like AI and quantum computing in a way that is really beneficial for humanity. And if not, then the fracture will lead to another circle of retraumatization, as
- [51:06]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
you said, opportunity to heal. Yeah, yeah. And I know that on the other side of doing deep shadow work is creativity is more aliveness, is more energy. And it's almost like on a. Our subconscious is trying to heal the past because it's still playing out in the present. And as we do that, we're not putting that beach ball down. We don't using all the energy in the pool to hold it down, trying to stuff it. We have all that freed up energy, energy to create, to innovate, to come up with solutions and serve in a bigger way as a result.
- [51:36]
Thomas Hübl
In the traumatic moment, life says well, here and now, in this moment in time and space, in this experience, life is not good for me. So when a child gets hurt or abused in this body, in this experience, life is not good for me. Me. So fragmenting space time, not here, not now is better in whichever form. There are many forms how to not be here and now. But then in the spiritual traditions we. We often say well, not being present is not great, which is not true. Not being present is a mechanism, not a mistake on the, on the spiritual path. So that I'm not there yet. Yet. And but not being present is not here, not now is a. Is a function. And if we can learn how to work with that function, we can come more here and now and heal the duality of life or the split of life and unify life. And, and so there's a difference between hope and trauma is to morrow hope in integration is in my agency now I feel I can contribute to this moment with you in this conversation something. And we co create the world together. And so one very pandemic situation is that if billions of people, partly, at least, look at hope, future, revelation, enlightenment, tomorrow, then we are stuck here. And if we reverse that and we say, oh, trauma heal, collective and individual trauma healing brings the hope back into now, into that sense of co creativity, then it becomes a property of presence, not of the future. And then even enlightenment and revelation is a property of the present moment and not of tomorrow. And I think this is a very, very important part. And we don't want to pathologize the hope tomorrow because in trauma, that's a really important defense mechanism, but in the healing and in the awakening process, it actually needs to change.
- [54:10]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
I've thought this exact same. I love how you articulated this, because I've seen people talk about one friend talk about hope online as something that can rob you of what's available now. And there's truth to that. And people that are deeply depressed or feeling traumatized, hope gives them future, gives them a chance. And so where it's coming from and how we hold it matters. And I love that you articulated that. I think that was so clean. And, you know, we're kind of going into this. You've said that a person doesn't have a soul, but that a soul has a person and kind of coming back to this more holistic, mature, integrated, healed society. I just want to have you unpack that a little bit and how understanding this in a deeper way can support how we live our lives.
- [54:57]
Thomas Hübl
Yeah, that's beautiful. Like, it's a little bit like as if you're in your car and you have the mirror in your car, and the, the mirror says, I have a car, instead of, instead of saying the car has a built in that mirror. And, and it's the same with us. The person says, oh, I have a soul. When the person is the smaller unit of consciousness and the soul is the more expanded consciousness. So if, then the soul has a person. But what does that mean? That means many things. That means, for example, as a, a meditation practitioner, at the beginning of my meditation practice, it looks like I'm meditating. Like it's me doing it. And so I'm doing it. And then eventually, as I deep, if I stay long enough with it, as I deepen, then it looks like, wait a moment. Like, the less I do in meditation, the more I tap into deeper states. And so. And then eventually, as, as the meditation deepens it actually I realize, wow, we have been meditated all along. So meditation is actually something that comes into our life. And it comes into our life as books, as podcasts, as conversations, as Our friends telling us about the yoga retreat or a meditation retreat or whatever, or as a CEO that is so stressed that I want to relax myself. But meditation creeps into our life. And at the first it looks like it's what I do, but then I see, well, it's actually what's coming through me. And then. And when we see this, this difference with the soul, we could also say projects. One day I wake up and I have this amazing idea about, I don't know, a social impact project. And as I develop that social impact project, I can see it as, oh, I develop this, or the social impact project is developing me by doing it. You. It's coming through us. And we have this idea of copyrights, that everything belongs to us versus this stuff is coming through us. And you, more you let it come through you, the more is coming. And if you don't hold on to it as me, then you are free. And so like that flow. And so I think there's a lot in this reverse because otherwise it seems like we are so me centered that sometimes opening up, it's like, wow, it's freedom, it's moving. And that's the same with trauma. When. Trauma, when I feel, oh, that's me. And when I heal and I mean, oh, wow, I'm much more fluid. And I actually felt myself until now. And then life flows more through us. And this is also how the collective consciousness organizes or synchronizes humanity. The more we, we. We tap back into that flow, we are naturally finding our place. That's like, that's amazing. That's also what the Dao Te Ching talks about. That the flow of the dao is exactly this. That the more we let it flow through us, we all magically find our place in life.
- [58:12]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
And that takes maturity and trust and healing and, and, and yeah, and I love the invitation of like, who's meditating? Right? Like, it's like, I'm going to start and I'll. I'm the one meditating. And then it's just like, oh, no, just meditation. No, I'm. That is meditating. Just meditation. I love Michael Beckwith's four stages of consciousness. Things happen to you for you, through you, as you. We did a podcast on that. I just think it's so clean as a framework that I love. And, and yeah, just this deep trust in the intelligence of life, that even the past trauma that's wanting to come up, it's here in service to your freed, to your liberation, meeting it in presence. I. There's so much I want, I'd like. I just am enjoying you so much in this conversation. There's so many other things I want to talk about, but I will leave it with this. Just in closing, I would love to hear if there's anything that we didn't speak of today that you feel like would be important to speak about, that you feel something that's alive to share.
- [59:13]
Thomas Hübl
First of all, I also enjoy the conversation a lot. It's very lovely. And maybe we'll in other, in another context, another one. And I think one thing we, I mean, we touched on it and I think you said it in certain ways and in other ways that this is really doable, like we can do this even if we look at the world at the moment, that it looks like a very painful reality, at least in many places around the world. And for many people, everything feels like it's getting tighter, more fragmented, less together, less resourced. And of course, as you said before, when things are thawing, it looks like it's getting worse. And that's for many people in the healing process. Important to know. At the same time, I have seen so many people change their life, heal, turn situations around that felt so difficult and stuck. We can do this. And I think the more we work together and the more we create also collective spaces where we support each other in growing and in waking up and in integrating our unintegrated past, I think, like so much flourishing can be unleashed. So I'm sure many people that listen to, to your podcast are anyway, already very much on the way and I think that we support each other to say, yes, this is amazing and this is a skill and we grow this. And I think that that's important to hear, especially in this time when many people feel like depressed and lonely and isolated and it's, you know, so much trauma is being created while we work with clients or with small groups, relatively small to the size of the world population. But I, I'm really very hopeful. I think this is a great time especially to be on track and to follow this calling and, and to see that we are working together as a team, even though we don't see this all the time.
- [61:32]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't get highlighted in the news. And I do think suffering has an intelligence and typically right before a breakthrough, a shift in consciousness, it is hard. And sometimes it does have to get hard that detox before people are motivated or willing to really surrender and, or do the work. And so I'm with you. I'm hopeful about it and I do I know on grassroots we are connecting. We're here for the revolution, we're doing the work and we're here to be of service in the world as a result. So I just want to honor you for the work that you're doing, the listeners, you for just doing your own work and being a beneficial presence in the world as a result. We all play a part in this. And so I know my audience is going to want to stay connected. Talk to us about what you're up to and where they can find you.
- [62:21]
Thomas Hübl
Where they can find me. So they can find me on my website, www.thomashubelhuebl.com and so there's all the information about our courses, our summits. We did huge collective trauma summits in the last years. So there's a lot of of material also about this. We interviewed so many hundreds of amazing speakers and then we also working through two nos. 1 is German based, Germany based. This is our pocket project. So we do grassroots projects for collective trauma relief in crisis areas. We work on climate change so we have many different projects. And the other one is the Global Restoration Institute and in Washington D.C. so here we work my co, the co founder Ken Hired and myself, he comes from the, he was in the government of the US and he is also from the Harvard Negotiation Project, 30 year meditator. And we combine conflict resolution and collective trauma work and we work with governments, with diplomats, with all kinds of institutions to reach really also support it both ways. So from the government level and from the grassroots level and to see how we can build a collective drama architecture in the world that is helpful to integrate this massive amount of trauma. So there's a lot so global restoration.org
- [63:51]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
and pocketproject.org I mean wow, thank you for that, for the work that you were doing. We'll put all the links in the show notes below so it's easy for people to find and I look forward to more. I have a feeling we're going to see each other again.
- [64:03]
Thomas Hübl
What a Me too. Me too. Thank you so much.
- [64:06]
Alysina Briga
Yeah, thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world. Starting with yourself. It truly does make a difference. And if this podcast has supported you, one of the most impactful ways to help us reach more people is to simply press the follow button.
- [64:20]
Host (Podcast Interviewer)
It really does help us grow and
- [64:22]
Alysina Briga
we are so grateful. You could also leave a review on Apple or Spot Spotify and take a quick screenshot and upload it at alyssanobriga.com forward/podcast. And as a thank you gift, we'll send you one of the most impactful tools for transforming your fear into freedom so that you can step more fully into your potential. There is so much more magic ahead, and I cannot wait to share it with you. But for now, I just want to say thank you for being a living example of what it means to walk through the world with an open heart of mind. I am so grateful that you're here, and I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. Episode.