Participants explored their personal relations with their activist work and reflected on the influence of collective trauma structures.
From approximately 100 applicants we chose the final 38 from a combination of factors: professional standing (we wanted to have participants who had followed an activist career) and professional diversity (from large INGOs to smaller ones, from informal volunteering to social businesses), geographical distribution (mainly Europe and Northern America, one participant from Kenya), gender and age. We also considered whether people had any previous experience with inner work and preferred the ones who had. <br />
We started out with a group of 38 participants and completed with 28 participants. We met for 11 group sessions from February till December 2024. Participants also formed triads to meet once a month between the sessions. We always sent them a summary of the last session as well as some homework, i.e. reflection questions to be explored in the triads.<br />
We devoted the first sessions to building a trustful and open atmosphere in the lab by starting with a grounding guided meditation. We usually proceed by giving an orientation: what have we done so far and what is our intention for this session? We facilitated a number of exchanges in triads to have everyone share and reflect openly. As facilitators we tried to role model the qualities of vulnerability and clarity, curiosity and not-knowing. In order to resource participants we spent some time exploring their personal biographical motivations for their later activist work.
We decided to include the topic of collective trauma fairly late in our lab (session 8 of 11), as we felt that it should come up more by itself, stemming from the reflections of the activists themselves. We then introduced the topic with a short impulse, defining and describing individual, intergenerational and collective trauma. We then role-modeled the answer to the question: how has collective trauma influenced the culture I grew up in and how has it impacted my own activist work? by speaking about our own entanglement in trauma-influenced systems. After that we gave participants the opportunity to reflect the connections for themselves in triads and later in the plenum.
We had participants reflect how their own motivation for activist work was being shaped by pains and dysfunctionalities they experienced themselves in their childhood. They explored the role of systemic forces such as patriarchy and colonialism on their own mindsets, motivation and work. It was quite easy for participants to see how these collective trauma fields had influenced the topic area they were working in. In contrast it took some time for them to deeply understand their own entanglement in these fields; that they are not working from the outside to change the system, but that they themselves are shaped by it and shape it in turn.
We didn’t include the ancestral perspective in the lab
After reflecting in triads, we always came back to the larger group and collected voices. Sometimes we would just let them stand for themselves. Other times we would meta-reflect on a statement or perspective, trying to give orientation and making broader sense of the individual insights.
In general it proved to be very rewarding for participants to reflect on their own motivation for their work in a deeper way and to share with like-minded people their pressures, pains and frustrations. We heard many participants saying how meaningful and relieving it was for them to have a safe space where they could openly share their concerns and doubts, as well as the exhaustion and sometimes hopelessness they experienced.
Participants certainly gained the insight that they are part of the problem they are trying to solve and not apart from it. They also gained a better understanding of the dilemma they find themselves in; that it was often not a “problem to be solved”, but a “dilemma to be worked through”. They also gained a better understanding of the important role collective trauma plays in their fields of activity (and in their own lives). There were a number of very enthusiastic participants who would have liked to continue with the lab, but as we didn’t know that such a possibility was offered by the Pocket Project we didn’t pursue it.
It was very touching to experience for ourselves and witness in the participants how deeply interconnected motivation and pain are and how helpful and healing it is to see these two movements together. As this is the point where I am most deeply touched and where my own unfolding and healing can take place.
I became much more aware of the entanglement between activism and the motivation of activists on the one side and collective trauma on the other. I also experienced my need to "force the process", exert pressure to shift something in the group. And I became aware of my tendency to cover my vulnerability with structure and competence.
Embracing power with over power over is such a healing paradigm shift.
The processes we started in this lab are about the most important direction that activists can take to make change that is grounded and whole rather than polarizing and short-term. I had to deal with personal confrontations after the lab and was able to do it with honesty in a relational context. I really want to continue and deepen the process (...) for at least one more lab, better yet, in an ongoing way. It's critical in this time of civilizational reckoning to develop skills like this!
Crisis Trauma Relief
Trauma-Informed Practice
Collective Trauma Integration
Community of Practice
Raising Awareness
Overview
What we do
Who we are
Підпишіться на наші інформаційні листи. Допоможіть нам зцілювати колективну травму та зменшувати негативні ефекти для нашої глобальної культури.
Joana Breidenbach 
English