471: Coming Together After Trauma – With Dr. Thomas Hubl

Summary

Therapy Chat Episode 471: Coming Together After Trauma – With Dr. Thomas Hübl
Date: February 24, 2025
Host: Laura Reagan, LCSW-C
Guest: Dr. Thomas Hübl

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Laura Reagan welcomes Dr. Thomas Hübl, author and facilitator of global collective trauma healing initiatives, to discuss the path from collective trauma to collective healing. They explore how trauma reverberates through personal, ancestral, and societal layers, the urgent need for new “collective architectures” for healing, and how embodying interdependence can shift us from isolation and repetition of harm into true transformation. The conversation is rich with practical insights, hope, and an honest look at what remains unhealed in both individuals and societies—and what can be done to move forward together.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Dr. Hübl’s Work & The Nature of Collective Trauma

[05:54] – [08:43]

• Dr. Hübl describes his 20+ years of work starting in the German-speaking areas of Europe, addressing second- and third-generation Holocaust trauma and later expanding into colonialism, racism, and other large-scale traumas globally.
• He notes that collective trauma is not just historical or individual, but a "system that we are living in,” and that many of its patterns have become normalized as “how the world is” rather than recognizing them as symptoms of a wounded collective.

  "It's not only a personal experience, but it's actually a system that we are living in…there are other parts that, that's how the world is when it's integrated and healthy." (Dr. Hübl, 08:26)

2. Why Trauma Repeats & the Need for New Healing Infrastructures

[11:22] – [16:31]

• Laura and Thomas discuss how, after major traumas, societies often suppress pain for survival, missing opportunities for true integration.
• Dr. Hübl argues that given what is now known about trauma, not having collective processes or government-supported healing is “not responsible anymore."

  “If you don't want to be part of the repetition compulsion of trauma, I think we have to do something new and we know too much about it.” (Dr. Hübl, 15:35)

• Both stress that individual therapy is necessary, but insufficient for healing wounds carried across generations and groups; collective healing spaces are essential.

3. How Trauma Manifests in Society—Polarization, Disembodiment, and Social Media

[16:32] – [18:20]

• Laura points to social media as both a cause and symptom of division, with algorithms fueling sensationalism and confusion.
• Dr. Hübl likens collective trauma to medical ignorance before germ theory—now that we know how trauma “goes viral” in society, inaction is unethical.

4. Interdependence: Beyond Individualism

[18:20] – [25:45]

• Dr. Hübl explains how trauma shows up in society as “hyper-individualism,” which is actually a trauma symptom: real individuation is replaced by separation.

  "Separation is a trauma symptom...That limits our sense of interrelatedness or interdependence with the system and creates behaviors that are detrimental to collective health." (Dr. Hübl, 21:45)

• He uses the metaphor of nature: we tend to see “nature” as outside ourselves, forgetting our bodies are nature, inseparable from the ecosystem.
• True interdependence is more than an intellectual idea; it’s an embodied experience—our disconnection is often a sign of trauma.

5. The Shadow, Disembodiment, and the Role of Integration

[27:21] – [38:10]

• Laura reflects on Western reluctance to engage with collective shadow (e.g., racism, ongoing cycles of harm), and how denial perpetuates repetition.
• Dr. Hübl shares a metaphor: in trauma, parts of our "city" (our body or society) go dark; processes continue unseen (“people are living with candles”), but outside awareness—this is the shadow.

  “Where the real trauma sits, we can't access ourselves. So that's why many people, when they say it's my trauma, what they're actually saying is my trauma symptoms.” (Dr. Hübl, 31:47)

• Disembodiment enables fake news, polarization, and prevents the feedback loops necessary for collective health.
• The antidote is “melting” these frozen areas, making post-traumatic learning and maturation possible.

6. Collective Healing: Principles & Practical Steps

[38:10] – [47:46]

• Laura asks: how do we actually heal collectively?
• Dr. Hübl suggests three key steps:
  1. Awareness—expand our “healing map” beyond the individual to include ancestral and collective layers (IAC: Individual, Ancestral, Collective).
  2. Creating Safer Spaces—small groups can become “collective architectures” for processing trauma and building capacity for discomfort, integration, and growth.
  3. Slowing Down—trauma compels us to speed up and avoid; healing requires slowing down to metabolize what happened.
• True healing “liquefies” the frozen parts of individuals and societies, releasing new energy and ethical understanding.
• He introduces the idea that even democratic disruptions (current global political instability) can be viewed as part of a detox if adequately facilitated; democracies can become more resilient through this process.

  "We need that ethical advancement. When that's frozen in the past that we don't want to look at, that's an issue...” (Dr. Hübl, 41:52)

7. Hope and Resources

[47:46] – [48:53]

• Despite the grim cycles, Dr. Hübl ends on a hopeful note: societies can detox and grow stronger if provided with supportive healing infrastructures and spaces.
• He shares resources: his books (“Attuned”, “Healing Collective Trauma”), annual Collective Trauma Summit, and the Pocket Project NGO for global trauma healing work.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you don't want to be part of the repetition compulsion of trauma, I think we have to do something new.”
  — Dr. Thomas Hübl, 15:35

• “Separation is a trauma symptom... That limits our sense of interrelatedness or interdependence with the system and creates behaviors that are detrimental to collective health.”
  — Dr. Thomas Hübl, 21:45

• “Where the real trauma sits, we can't access ourselves. So that's why many people, when they say it's my trauma, what they're actually saying is my trauma symptoms.”
  — Dr. Thomas Hübl, 31:47

• "If racism or antisemitism or any other force of violence... is being created, everybody is affected by it. We can't be outside of it. We can try to be outside of it for some time, but it's inevitably crushing societal structures.”
  — Dr. Thomas Hübl, 35:41

• “We can be with each other more where we are and not where we want to be. Because one collective trauma symptom is that we are more concerned with where we want to be than where we are.”
  — Dr. Thomas Hübl, 44:12

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Context: 01:23 – 05:09
• Dr. Hübl’s background and collective trauma explained: 05:47 – 08:43
• Why trauma persists and repeats: 11:22 – 16:31
• Social media, polarization, and trauma as a system: 16:32 – 18:20
• Defining interdependence and its importance: 18:20 – 25:45
• The shadow, disembodiment, and trauma visibility: 30:03 – 38:10
• How can collective healing work in practice?: 38:10 – 47:46
• Practical resources and where to learn more: 48:19 – 48:53

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Further Resources

• Dr. Thomas Hübl’s main website: thomashuebl.com
• Pocket Project (Collective Trauma NGO): pocketproject.org
• Books:
  • “Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma in Our World”
  • “Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds”
• Collective Trauma Summit: collectivetraumasummit.com

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains a deeply compassionate, inquisitive, and hopeful tone. Laura and Thomas avoid jargon, aiming for inclusivity and accessibility. The conversation is straightforward yet profound, repeatedly returning to the central human need for connection, reflection, and collective responsibility.

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In summary:
This episode calls for a paradigm shift: recognizing that trauma is not just individual or historical, but alive in our systems right now. Healing requires moving beyond silence and avoidance, creating new collective infrastructures for reflection, and embracing interdependence as both fact and felt experience. It’s both a diagnostic and a call to action for therapists, helpers, and all who care about the state of humanity.

Transcript

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[Laura Reagan]

Therapy chat podcast episode 471.

[Podcast Intro/Outro Narrator]

This is the therapy chat podcast with Laura Reagan, LCSWC. The information shared in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. And now here's your host, Laura Reagan, lcswc.

[Laura Reagan]

Hi welcome back to Therapy Chat. I'm your host Laura Reagan. Support so many of us are feeling extremely stressed and concerned and terrorized, terrified, traumatized over what's happening in the world right now, particularly in the United States. And it's crucial to use our resilience practices and resourcing as much as possible to help us stay focused, stay out of fear, shock, breeze and shut down. So today I'm replaying my interview with Dr. Thomas Huebel, who is someone who I think shares a really valuable perspective on a bigger picture and how we can come together. Even when things have been so divided, it's possible for people to come back together. Even after wars, even after horrible things have happened, it's possible for people to find a way back to our shared humanity. And while it may not be time for the coming back together, right now we can come together. It's important, I believe, to don't give in to isolation, find your communal spaces, find the people you feel safe with and remember your connection with them. And I hope that this replay episode from last year will give you some encouragement, some remembering remembering what really matters at the deepest level and help you come out of a state of shock or freeze back to being able to connect with. We need this for all of our safety. So as always, thank you for listening. If you need resources if you are a therapist who's feeling overwhelmed with what's going on lately, I invite you to pay attention to my social media channels where particularly on Facebook and Instagram, I share resources that Come along when I find them or contact me through those channels if you would like to have me send you more specific things that may be helpful to you or your clients. We all have a part to play in resisting against the forces that are trying to traumatize and terrorize those of us who want to be peaceful in the world. And coming together is a very important part of it. Making us feel divided is definitely part of the strategy and it's very effective. But don't let that. Don't let that effort succeed. That's a way you can resist. I'm not spending any time on social media right now, but I will be notified when a message comes through. So if you want to get in touch and ask for ways to support your clients, please feel free. I don't have all the answers, but I will definitely try to help as I can and may you do the same. And I'll just end with meta loving kindness. Message from my heart to you. May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be kind to yourself. May you be free from suffering. May all beings be safe. May all beings be happy. May all beings be kind to ourselves. May all beings be free from suffering. Thank you.

Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat. I'm your host, Laura Reagan, and today I'm so happy to be joined by Dr. Thomas Hubel. Thomas, thank you so much for being my guest on Therapy Chat today.

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

Laura, thank you for having me. I feel already very at home in your space, so that's good.

[Laura Reagan]

Oh, thank you. I'm very excited to be talking to you about something that I think we both care very much about, which is collective healing.

And you have a new book on.

That topic called Attuned Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma in Our World, which.

I have right here.

And before we get into our conversation, can we start off with you telling our audience a little more about who you are and what you do?

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

Well, yes, I, I think I started with this work maybe 23 to 25 years ago. And it started off in, in the German speaking part of Europe, like Germany, Austria, Switzerland. And what got. And, and in the groups that I was running then, very soon, of course, the history of the Second World War, Holocaust, I mean, almost every participant had that in their family system somehow. And through these groups that grew pretty fast, I saw this kind of patterns emerge because the similar things happen again and again and again just with different participants. And so then I felt, wow, life is actually showing to me something, showing me something that I need to learn more about. And so that was the beginning of learning like a long journey, like 20 some years of learning about collective trauma. And then we did more work between Germany and Jewish participants or Israel. And we did work on the Holocaust and the Holocaust trauma and survivors from Holocaust lack of concentration camps or the descendants and Nazi descendants. And we had very deep and strong, I mean you can imagine this is a very charged and strong space, but we had amazing space. Like it was almost like when, when we reached a certain depth, there was such a sacredness in the room also and a lot of transformation and healing that happens. And then we begin to do work on colonialism around the world, racism and different, different collective trauma fields around the world. And so we built a lot of projects nos like we do. We did a lot in this 20 some years and, and trained many people and yeah, and so we, that's a short run through this, this work. But the, that trauma is not just the, I mean not just. It's not only a personal experience, but it's actually a system that we are living in that system and we have normalized some of the systemic aspects of, of collective trauma and say this is how the world is when in fact this is how the world is when it's hurt and there are other parts that, that's how the world is when it's integrated and, and healthy. And so. But to, to create that discernment, I think is what life taught me through that time.

[Laura Reagan]

Yes, it's, you know, in my work, in some ways, some of what I've done in my, in my work has been trying to make systemic change. I, I started out working with survivors of sexual violence. So it was like an individual experience that's also a very common experience for groups and used in groups even in ways of harming people as groups and a systemic thing that goes through generations and so. But I haven't done much in collective trauma, like experiences of war or people who've been forced, forced migration, things like that, racism. I care about those things. I just, that hasn't been my work. So it's really valuable to me to, to talk with you about the macro level of the way that we as peoples are impacted by trauma and how we can heal collectively as well. I see so much in my work and I'm a therapist working with people individually and part of movements as well, you know, with the sexual violence work and other movements. But you know, you see the historical context and you, you look at the world right now and see these sort of trends of chaos, violence, political unrest, poverty Deprivation, oppression, that much of it is a result of the effects of colonization and wars, which are part of, you know, the colonization process as well. And so then you have generations upon generations of traumatized people, including the people who were part of the group that was perpetrating the violence and the ones who were victimized in that time, who then are going, you know, the survivors and their descendants are going on and trying to live and trying to mate and reproduce, you know, and from the place of. There's a lot of unresolved pain and hurt, like you said. But, you know, I feel like that we don't. Things don't get resolved, and it just continues to repeat in various ways all. All around the world. And it seems like it's like, why is this happening? But if you look at the systemic picture, you can kind of see how it makes sense.

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

Absolutely. Yeah. I think you said it already beautifully. It's like if we maybe for a certain time, the pain is so big that we need to bury it and that we all know that these defense mechanisms are intelligent to keep us surviving and to maybe after a catastrophe like a war or whatever, any kind of collective trauma, we need some time to just rebuild our. The necessities of life, the most basic needs. But I think in. As you said, we know enough. And that's what I often say now, it's like we know enough about trauma that not having a collective architecture and a mainstream culture around integration of legacies that we have inherited is not responsible anymore. And I think we need to say this very explicitly that because otherwise we are unconsciously enrolled in the repetition compulsion, and, and, and then we. We see that cyclically the same. I mean, we know it in ourselves that patterns show up and they come back again and again. And we know it in our intimate relationships, and we know it in our parenting, maybe that we have similar conversations again and again. So it feels like certain things are developing, and certain things, they are not developing, they're just replaying themselves. And I think if we know that after 400 years of slavery, racism, and. Or after a holocaust or after dictatorship or after, you know, as you said, gender violence, if we don't have an architecture that says, okay, we have a professional architecture that can take care of it, it will take its time. It's not a quick fix, but we have something and that needs to be invented, I believe that doesn't exist yet. That collective healing is a collective endeavor. And I think if. If governments fund that process, it's a sign that it landed enough in the society that this is a need that we need to pay attention to. If not we are going to reproduce this similar pain again. And it looks like always, oh, now we are so technologically advanced and now we developed all kinds of things, this will never happen again. But we look at history, how often it happened again. And I think something new is needed. And that's why I think understanding that these systemic wounds need to be brought into our attention as a collective and we need to have collective healing spaces. And I believe also the skill set to develop how collectives can heal themselves. And I think one on one work is important, definitely. And it's important to be happening in this collective healing containers as well. And because for some people the one on one space is absolutely needed. It's not that it's instead of it, it's with it, but we need something bigger also because we need to address these big wounds. Otherwise we are part of. And you look at the social media landscape now and then you see, wow, there's such a polarization, there's such a. And that polarization seems to be normal. It's like it looks like, okay, that's how it is in social media. But I would say, no, that's not how it is. That's how it is when we are in a regressive, reactive state that is not anymore able to hold a bigger space to, to allow us to reorganize and heal. And, and I think that's what. But the same social media space could also become a healing space. And I think we are, we know many people, most probably together, that use a virtual space as healing spaces. And maybe I have seen in our programs thousands of people in big spaces. And it's becomes a healing space versus a polarizing space and with very delicate topics, but in a different way. And so, yeah, I completely agree with you. If you don't want to be part of the repetition compulsion of trauma, I think we have to do something new and we know too much about it. It's like, okay, if you didn't know that there are bacterias on your hands when you deliver babies, okay, you didn't know. I mean, it's terrible, but you didn't know. And now you know. And now you cannot continue delivering babies without disinfecting your hands or putting gloves. So it seems like in medicine that is something that we, that is clear, but that wasn't always clear. And I think we are in the, on the, on the level where we know now that collective trauma repeats. So if we continue not taking care of it, then it's not, there's something off with us and we have to, we have to do something new. So I think it's a real call for collective action that we need now. And we see that there's so much happening in the world in the so called poly crisis that, that we definitely need that.

[Laura Reagan]

Yeah.

And what you said about social media and like there's two things, the social media and the, the medical germs analogy, it's. With social media, it's kind of like there's a bombardment of information. And very, I'm sure you are aware of this, the way that the algorithms reward the more controversial, more provocative, sensationalized information. So if someone wants to go viral, they can take a, quote, unpopular opinion about something, take that stance, and now they have millions of followers and then they can get money from that. And in the same way people and governments can hold power and get more power by confusing people about who should you trust and who's the real enemy. So, so to speak and all. And then there's like, what side are you on? And it's just so, it's really so harmful. And my social media is cultivated to be like therapists who are sharing, like take a deep breath and things like that. And you know, because I can't, my nervous system can't take this bombardment of horrifying graphic images that, you know, are designed to get me to have a reaction and then want to do something. So it feels like the, you know, the title of your book Attuned. When I think of attunement, I think of nervous system attunement and connection and attachment related to relationships. Let me ask you one of the, the subtitle of your book, Practicing Interdependence to Heal our Trauma in Our World. Can you talk about that concept of interdependence? Most people don't know about that.

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

Yeah, yeah, I think I was, I was looking into. So how, you know, if a person expresses, as you said, for example, if a person expresses a dysregulation in the nervous system, it means we feel either more activated, we feel more stressed, we feel reactive and easily triggered, or we feel more distant, we feel more indifferent, more or numb or shut down. And in the middle there is a fragmentation. So we, we always look through a crack. It's either or. When we look through our trauma and the relationship is not anymore clear, it's compromised. And so then I was looking, okay, so how does trauma show up in our social bodies? And I believe trauma shows up in Our social bodies through a heightened sense of hyper individualism. So the, the individuation in the west has gotten an extra boost. That is not individuation, but is actually is separation. And I believe separation is a trauma symptom. So suddenly you have two. Hyperactivation and hypo create two. So either I'm on a side, I am not anymore in my center, I'm not anymore regulated. I cannot be stressed and relax myself, have a lot to do and sleep well. You know, either there's this or I'm shut down basically and I'm not participating. I become indifferent. And so that's why I think we are saying things like there are humans and the planet. And I have to say, okay, so let's look at where's the difference? So when you walk through the forest and I ask you, where is nature? So many people might be tempted to say, oh, nature is all around me. It's all the beautiful trees and it's the air and it's like, yeah, but what is with you? So you are not nature. What is your body? Your body is. So nature is there and not here. And when we talk about society, where is society? Society is not all the other people. Society is through me because I am also society. But the thing is, we often don't feel like that. We feel there's me and them. We don't feel an interdependent flow of data that actually the biosphere is a huge biocomputer. It's a huge data network. It's a flow of many, many feedback loops that are all the time working to keep a system in balance. Like our system, our body, our nervous system, tried to be in the highest equilibrium that was possible in the given ecosystem that we call family, that we call kindergarten, that we call school, that we call high school, whatever society. So every, every individual, of course, is an individual viewpoint. And their interior system, like the system, like how the nervous system responds to that ecosystem, is trying to keep up the highest balance that is possible. But for many children or when we experience violence, domestic violence, abuse, neglect, whatever, we need to put defense mechanisms in place to keep a certain equilibrium in ourselves going. So that's actually intelligent in the given ecosystem, but it also creates like a separation often. And that's why I think we don't feel the interdependence. We can think about it intellectually and many of us are educated and then we understand intellectually. Of course, if I can only talk to you because of the air in the room, and if the trees wouldn't produce that air. We wouldn't have a conversation. So that's the simple understanding. But I think it goes much deeper that I believe in the thinking even of therapy or of health, of how systems are being created. We often see individuals too separate. So there's me and the ecosystem. And I would say, no, there is you. And you are an individual. And you also are the ecosystem. You're not just part of the ecosystem like a cup that you could put in the cupboard. So, but you are the ecosystem because your body is nature, Your body is planet. My body is planet that has evolved over millions of years for me to be able to talk to you about these things right now. It's not all my, my inventions. It's like life developed over a long time that we can have this conversation through a virtual medium. So I didn't invent all this stuff, you know, like. So it's like we are using the intelligence of millions of years that culminated in this conversation. And, and of course, everything else that's happening on the planet right now. And that's why I think interdependence is so important, because it shows us also when we don't feel interdependent, when we feel more isolated, more alone, we are actually feeling an intelligent man mechanism that helped us to stabilize ourselves, or an ancestral mechanism, because our ancestors also went through trauma and, and so. But that limits our sense of interrelatedness or interdependence with the system. And that creates behaviors that are often detrimental to the collective health. So we are over consuming, we are over entertaining ourselves, we are putting out news that are absolutely detrimental for health. Because I think sensational media is not conducive to, as you said before, it's not conducive to collective health. It just polarizes collective health. And that's. It charges, it turbocharges the collective dysregulation even more. So that's not information, because journalism or also social media is supposed to inform the culture, not fragment culture more. But since we are, we all are kind of, to a certain degree, dysregulated, or many of us. So of course, dysregulation, like stress, goes viral in a dysregulated system, but also presence goes viral in any kind of system. Presence is a way to ground that. And that's why, as I use this in the book, because interdependence is such an important principle to show systemic health, the health of the system. So then we are all, we all feel much more related, more related to the planet, more related to the resources, more related to each other, more related to nature, to the future generations. So that brings out the ability to respond like responsibility. And, and so that's, that's why I think it's, it's a very, very important principle or part of our existence.

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[Laura Reagan]

Thank you for that explanation and description because for myself, I do think, I mean, I've, I've been taught to think systemically, but not to the level that you're talking about at all. I mean, I wasn't like, I, I know that we're connected to nature, or I would say we were. We are a part of nature. And as you were speaking about like the trees making the air, it's like there's a symbiotic relationship and we're in that. It's not that, you know, it's all there and we're just like existing. We couldn't exist. And literally, you know, the magnetic force of the earth is what allows us to walk on a spinning ball. You know, the atmosphere is what allows us to breathe. And, you know, if it gets completely destroyed, it won't be compatible with life. And. Yeah, you know, one thing that you talked about in your book is the shadow. And I feel like what you said about the history of enslavement in the Western culture and, you know, here in the US how people don't like to talk about racism, don't like to think about it. People say that it's over, it's in the past, and yet it's being reenacted. As you said, repetition, compulsion, continuously. It's like there's what we don't want to look at, and then how we continue to do the same thing while denying there's a problem. And so that's exactly what, like you said with trauma, the way it gets repeated. We're destroying the planet and acting like it's okay, there's nothing wrong, continuing to do destructive things to other humans repeatedly, all around the world and just sort of acting like nothing's wrong. And so, like you said, we have a responsibility to do things differently. I guess where I was going to go is that. And I distracted myself. Is that the interdependence concept? I had thought about it more in terms of, you know, we're not dependent on others. We're not independent, completely alone. We. We are interdependent on other beings. But I wasn't really thinking about it in the bigger picture of the whole planet. The. The world is an ecosystem, even though, I mean, I know that, like you said, I know it intellectually, but I'm not, like, thinking and embodying that as much as I could.

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

And that's maybe that's exactly the point, because many of the symptoms, when we talk about social media polarization, I think it's. It's a function of disembodiment because trauma always creates a vacancy in the body. It's like a part of our body is getting reduced. Or you started to talk about the shadow. The shadow is a. Is like when I. The first time I was flying to Kathmandu into the. To the Himalayan mountains. And like, and then I was on the plane and I looked down and I thought, wow, this is a genius explanation of the unconscious. Because you saw in Kathmandu, you know, the first four hours, turning off the electricity in different ways, quarters of the city, and I looked down and I saw this black spot, this dark spot, and it was night, and you couldn't see anything, so it was completely dark. And then I said, oh, you know, it's interesting because I couldn't tell from where I was looking from, if that empty spot is part of the mountain, if there is a city at all, if it's a lake, a forest, or it's a part of a city without electricity because you couldn't see anything. It was very deep in the night. And, and then I thought, well, that's exactly what's happening in our bodies. That when, when trauma hits our, like when the trauma response shuts down, a part of, of the overwhelm, actually that part of the city goes dark. But in that part of the city, people are living with candles, but we can't see that. So there is a process happening. So the shadow is like there are processes happening, there is a population. So that part of my body has processes, but I don't feel it. The self has no awareness of it and then it's not accessible anymore. So where the real trauma sits, we, we can't access ourselves. So that's why many people, when they say it's my trauma, what they actually saying is my trauma symptoms. And, and so when they, when, when we look at, at the collective, we, we see that also that there are patches of absencing in, in our society where we don't feel society. That's why the, the, the feedback loops are not really, not really working. And that's why we, the disembodiment is the base of fake news, of social media polarization of so many, so many things. And also like that we don't feel as we are that system. We are plugged into, into a big supercomputer because the data organization doesn't flow through us. So information doesn't create the form, we don't feel the form that information creates. And so I think that's a very good point that you said right now about the disembodiment as a big source of not feeling the interdependence of the system. And that's why we often ask ourselves, how should I respond? What should I do? And if that comes up in me, then it's not, I think a good process would be to see, oh, if that question comes up means I don't feel what to do, I don't feel how to respond. So I start overthinking. And, and, and that's, that's a compensation. That's not, that's not my regular intelligence as a compensation of what I cannot feel, the relationship is compromised. And, and so that healing or melting the disrelated parts or the disorganized parts that trauma creates and opening that up again will naturally Re invoke a sense of interdependence, a sense of interconnectedness, and then it's not just an intellectual concept. Then it's, yeah, I feel connected. It's like when you feel connected to a person, you know it because you feel it. It's not that you need to write a PhD about connection. When you feel it, you feel it. And when you don't feel it, you don't feel it. But when there is resonance and there's connection and the nervous. The social engagement system is open. You feel how it feels to be in a warm connection. You. We feel when people feel us and when friends listen to us. When we have something that disturbs us and somebody is really there or a therapist is really there versus a therapist is kind of absent. We feel these kind of things. And I think you mentioned a very important part of why interdependence is often not being felt. And that's why we tend to think more separately than we actually are. I think the living system is much more connected. And that also makes sense that if we treat certain people in very disgraceful ways in our societies, we cannot be healthy. There is no separate health. There is an attempt of a system to keep up a certain homeostasis or equilibrium or balance in a balance. But if the system is very hurt, we will also be affected. If we do certain kinds of animal farming and then we cannot be healthy because that's not ethical. We cannot do it that way. And if we do it that way, then the society will not be healthy. We will see many health issues that will be pandemic because of how we produce our food is simply not in alignment with the laws of nature. We can't do it that way. And there are many things like that. So if. If racism or antisemitism or any other force of violence is. Or oppression is being created, everybody is affected by it. We can't be outside of it. We can try to be outside of it for some time, but it's inevitably crushing societal structures. So when we say, oh, it's in the past, we are just part of its ongoing impact. When we say, okay, we have to stop for a moment. And the same is actually with like, with COVID there was a global pandemic. Millions of people were affected. And then it seems like, oh, we just continue. Where is the mechanism to say, hey, wait a moment, let's slow down for a moment. What just happened? Let's just give a moment to, we went through a global crisis. There are so many things that happened from relatives that died to jobs that got lost to companies that closed down, to all kinds of things that happen, all kinds of fragmentation in our society, people fighting each other over vaccines. So let's stop for a moment and say, listen guys, what, what just happened? And do we don't have that culture yet developed that we say, okay, after such an impact, we need to stop and we need to ask ourselves the question, why not? I think we need to, by asking the question, what's actually preventing or inhibiting that very healthy reflection space so that we can integrate the traumatic impact things create and grow and mature. Because I think one consequence of trauma integration is post traumatic learning and maturation, more wisdom. We become the remedy for what actually was the crisis so that it doesn't happen again. And, and if we don't do it, it's going to happen again. And so that's why I think what you said just now is so important for live to being more healthy. We also need to live ethically healthy, healthily.

[Laura Reagan]

Oh my gosh. I know, it's. I just think when you talk about the pandemic, how in some circles it's controversial to even acknowledge that there was a worldwide pandemic. I mean, there's certain ways that some say that, that that didn't even happen or it didn't happen the way it was. We were being told. So I think there's so much confusion and people, people are very afraid. You know what, whatever group you align yourself with and how you identify your world and your worldview, people are reacting to fear and not having the experience of reconnection, reflection. What just happened? What does it mean? What do, what do I feel? What do I need to repair within myself? What does what needs to repair within our connection as people and the world? And so we wanted to really get to the healing part of it. And what is the path? I mean, you've talked about something that doesn't yet exist. A collective process of developing post traumatic growth after generations and generations and generations and thousands of years of trauma as people and hundreds of years more recently with the, you know, advent of, quote, civilization. What. I guess that's some, some thousands too. I'm not a historian, but what do you, what do you see as how we can heal collectively where we are and where we can go?

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

Yeah. First of all, by what we are doing right now, what you're doing with your podcast, what many of our maybe colleagues or friends are doing like to, to create awareness, I think first we need to know, okay, there is an issue and There is an issue that is not. The trauma response is not. I mean, the traumatic event they experience is very difficult. And the trauma response, what literally happens in us, in our nervous systems and bodies, is actually a very intelligent process, protection mechanism. And, and so we are not looking at the dysfunction, we are looking at the function individually, ancestrally, that our ancestors went through something. And what our ancestors went through might have a bigger impact on our lives than we think on multiple levels. And that's why. And then there is the collective dimension. That's why I think, first of all, I think we need to expand the healing map from being so individual focused. We need to be focused on individual issues or attachment issues or developmental psychology when, when it's needed. But that's not the only focus because some of the things are in a bigger space, like, you know, ancestral space, or in a, in a systemic or collective space, that, that, that's a whole, whole landscape. And I think if you see it not as separate parts, but there's actually a fluid landscape. That's why I call this IAC individual, ancestral, collective fluidity or liquefication. So when we heal trauma, we are liquefying life that has been frozen on a certain level. So when trauma impacts an organism or society, there's a frozenness, there's something that gets held. And when we release it, it opens up and it releases information, it releases life energy, and it actually begins a growth process. And that growth process is first of all maturation. And secondly, also like an ethical learning, we see, oh wow, the transgressions of the past, when we integrate those, our ethical refinement, we become better people when we do that. And we need that, we see it now, we need that. And also when we deal with AI or with nanotechnology or with genetic engineering, we need that ethical advancement or development. And when that's frozen in the past that we don't want to look at, that's a problem, that's an issue because then we reproduce the next trauma cycle with the next innovations that we create. And. But we will tell ourselves, no, but now it's not going to happen anymore, but it has to happen because it's a compulsion. And so when, when we, I think that's the first, that there is a more of an awareness building. And then the second step is that we. See, you said something very powerful before, there's so much fear and anxiety. So the remedy for that is that we create safer spaces that we can say, even if there are thousands of groups with different opinions in society, it, it Means that we, we need spaces first, maybe smaller spaces that we create like an architecture that we can be with where we begin to create safer spaces, to really learn how to digest the past in a good way, how to integrate it and how to learn from it, and not just intellectually. And so creating an architecture in society that helps us to digest the past, because that's not a waste of time, that's actually gaining some time because we relieve ourselves of reliving the cycles. You know, it's like you drive on the highway, you see exit, whatever, Manhattan, and after 10 kilometers, Manhattan, Manhattan. And after 100 kilometers, Manhattan. And so you, you keep, you look, it looks like you go forward, but you actually end up in similar places again. And I think many of us know these patterns, these cycles in us, even in our thoughts and our emotions, in our habits, in our. Like, we see these habitual patterns and we see it in our political conversations, we see it in world events. So actually it's a gain of time, even if it seems like we need to slow down for a moment, because trauma is often speeding up. So slowing down brings up more content, more emotions, more experiences, but also more learning. And then we can be with each other more where we are and not where we want to be. Because I think one collective trauma symptom is also that we are more concerned with where we want to be be than where we are. So we spend less time in the present moment with each other, because our mind cannot be here. Because trauma says in the traumatic moment, life here is not good for me. When somebody experiences violence or a child gets neglected or abused, here and now is not good for me. It's very important. Trauma says here and now, it's not good for me. So not here, not now, in that moment is the more intelligent option. But if that becomes a collective agreement, because many of us carry trauma inside, then we create a society that is more concerned with where we are going than where we are. But we can heal only where we are. So we need to slow down for moments to be in the discomfort of the healing process in a good way, in a titrated way, so that we can actually move on more whole or more, more interdependent. And, and I think that's, that's very important. We can, we can create those architectures, we can come together in groups, we can come together in facilitated spaces and begin to create the safety that we can grow. And maybe one last thing is also that, because I think there is another process happening also that democracies actually are Safer spaces than, I don't know, dictatorships, for example, and, or autocratic spaces. So that what we, what a good group facilitator knows. When you establish a certain level of harmony or coherence in a group, often it looks like then the next mess is coming because more, there's more safety that the nervous system can relate to. Release more of the past so it looks a little bit more disrupted. And then people say, oh, we lost something. And I think when you look at society at the moment, it looks like many democracies are very challenged at the moment. And I think that there is actually a detox process happening, but we don't have the right facilitation to really facilitate that process as a growth potential. Like there's some this, the system wants to detox itself to create even more resilience as a democracy because democracies are a growth, a development for more freedom, for more connectedness, for more voices that can be heard and can be respected and for more human rights to be enabled and, and I think we need to support that more movement to integrate what looks like disruptions to create more base, to create more base, more, more safety so that the democracy can actually flourish even more into what it can become. And I think that's also some a process that's happening at the moment.

[Laura Reagan]

I hope so. Thank you for that hopeful thought at the end because again the chaos and confusion can really even make things less clear. What's really going on. Well, I know we have to wrap up. I'm so grateful for the time that you have shared with me today and with our audience and you tell us where people can find all of the amazing things that you're doing for the benefit of interdependence.

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

Yeah, yeah, of course. Thank you. Like my main website, Thomas Hubel Hubbell is h u e b l.com Thomas h u e b l.com main website I think our Collective Trauma Summit every year is a great resource. Free talks, many great people and speakers and maybe our NGO pocketproject.org is our NGO. We do a lot of collective trauma work through the ngo. And yeah, I think these are the main resources and the two books, Healing Collective Trauma and the Tunes.

[Laura Reagan]

Thomas, thank you so much for spending time with us today on Therapy Chat.

[Dr. Thomas Hübl]

Thank you, Laura. I enjoyed it very deeply. The conversation. It was a very beautiful conversation. Thank you.

[Laura Reagan]

Thank you.

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Thank you for listening to Therapy Chat with your host, Laura Reagan, LCSWC. For more information, please visit therapychatpodcast.com.