We invited participants to join us on a journey of refining our inner listening and our capacity to host and integrate diverse ideas with equanimity, in order to allow healing and innovative movements. We aimed to shed light on: • The loss of connection to ourselves, our community, nature, and the wider world • The loss of a common vision • What's needed to sustain or return to alignment with our core values • The individual and interpersonal conflicts underlying polarisation • Unconscious or unspoken assumptions and agreements • Confusion between spiritual and regressive states
Members of the Findhorn Community (local and extended) who: - Can commit to attending all 12 monthly meetings - Are keen to go through a deep personal and collective exploration - Have or want to strengthen the capacity for introspection and the capacity to discern between personal, interpersonal, and collective issues.
Our first and ongoing aim was to foster a coherent container by synchronizing body, emotions, and mind with nature and spirit; in the understanding that coherence supports undigested material to emerge and be processed. We stated the intention to presence the events that shaped our community, inviting absent information to emerge and observing where we’ve departed from our core values, or where these have been distorted or misinterpreted. To conclude our journey, we planned to make space for transpersonal witnessing, reflection, and integration of the process, for noticing impulses for transformative action, and for distilling a prototype for doing similar work in other communities.We started with a group of 24 participants and completed with 17. We met for 12 modules from January to December 2024 and we had 10 Integration/practice sessions in-between modules.
We tried to listen to and make space for the different needs for safety, confidentiality, radical transparency and sharing openly. Lots of learning and discerning between the collective and individual needs. We met many strong unique voices each wanting different levels of openness, spaciousness, depth, safety and styles of participation and leadership. Both in the group and in the team, the timing & pacing of depth was a challenge, some needed it lighter, and some felt it was not deep enough. So, for the first modules we struggled to settle into a synchronized and resourceful place. The meditations in our sessions, the years of practice that participants were already bringing, and meeting in person for an informal dinner, helped to find Synchronising and Resourcing. Also some people met in self organized triads between modules which helped to digest the content and created strong bonds, and this was reflected in the big group, providing an extra dimension of coherence.
After building some initial coherence we invited participants to name “difficult” topics, and this was received with mixed reactions, some stating strongly that this was too much for our group. We then needed to focus again on building a safe vessel. Over the following modules we slowly started building a Timeline, bringing to light events and patterns both from ancient history and from within the history of the community to a more transparent and compassionate understanding. We had a Scribe artist/storyteller draw the timeline while we read it. This was a huge eye opener into the story behind the narrative, and into the interconnectedness of the personal, ancestral and collective dimensions. This process felt like a significant coming together, and recognition of our common ground.
The diversity of places of origin, privilege, and rank of our participants made this a significantly complex and rich exploration. Both in our Lab and practice sessions participants got to share personal stories where they recognised family, society, cultural influences and impacts that helped shape and inform our understanding of collective trauma. The earned safety of our vessel allowed some participants to share from a vulnerable place and benefit from the loving and caring presence of the group. Themes included displacement, poverty, separation, mistrust, power abuse, patriarchy, challenges of mothers and children not receiving adequate support, and challenges of belonging and finding their place, some participants feeling a strong sense of connection while others a sense of disconnection.
Ancestral trauma naturally emerged for some participants who felt strong resonances between their own ancestral trauma and the collective trauma of the community.
Learning in more detail about the history of the founders of Findhorn Ecovillage offered many layers of insight and healing for participants, often revealing important (for many of us unknown) facts. Integrating this new perspective was a deep process for many of us that still feels open and very alive. The overlay of collective, ancestral and personal trauma became more obvious. What emerged showed again the different ways and capacities of processing of the participants, and put us one more time in the situation that for some the process was too strong, while for others it was not deep enough, or even not making sense.
As our journey continued many started to find and be able to express more clearly what they were upset about, and started to see beyond polarized viewpoints. The importance of presencing, versus judging and complaining about issues “out there” seemed to become more apparent for many. As these insights arose, some began to become more comfortable with the process. All this became apparent in the many opportunities for interaction we offered: during the modules, in the integration sessions, and via written feedback.
- We have the sense some participants experienced deep insights and healing.
- New connections and friendships emerged.
- Many participants gained more awareness about the complexity and interconnectedness of collective trauma layers, and the impact and specific patterns these create inside each one of us.
- These insights brought a deeper honoring and curiosity about the past, personal, ancestral and collective (both from the community and the land and region)
- With this, some participants also started to give value to embarking in more “difficult” conversations, which may involve their own implication and vulnerability, not bypassing difficulties with “spiritual” ideas.
- We feel it also became apparent the importance of having the appropriate framing and support for engaging in these conversations.
- The community being a hot trauma field, it was heartening to see that some found inspiration to move beyond alive personal conflicts.
- At the end of our journey we offered space for participants to express what they would love to see manifest, skills that they could offer, and support they would like to have. Half of the participants shared many creative ideas and impulses, and they are starting to meet on their own initiative with the intention of continuing our exploration. We find this is a great achievement, that speaks about the value they got from this work, and we find it is especially meaningful given the diverse backgrounds and interests of the participants.
"My triad was very helpful. We met weekly for almost the entire year. It helped me to not feel alone in all that I was going through. The facilitators did a wonderful job of holding the group and guiding us through layers of processing. Most of the participants were not familiar with Thomas Hubl's work and it took time for many to feel safe with sharing in the group. It was satisfying to experience the changes in the group field as the individuals began to soften, open, and trust."
"It gives me joy to be with people who are called to be here, so many different perspectives to take in. How I looked at our history was really only my view on it. I feel open to taking in others."
"The Trauma Lab was a journey into greater awareness around the impact of trauma - on the present relationships within the group, on the surrounding community and more generally. Looking at the Trauma Timeline of the community was very important, relevant and impactful. This work needs to continue to really harvest the greatest benefits."
"My experience had many layers that I moved through as the lab progressed, the most important insight and change of perspective has been acknowledging that the personal, ancestral and collective traumas are all connected and what I see inside is what I see outside."
"The facilitators' wisdom and gentleness. The integration sessions between meetings. My triad experience."
"That a group of people who are very upset about what has happened can begin to hear and feel themselves and each other in ways all of us never thought possible. That looking at our understanding of history, culture, trauma, circumstance, motivation in a "new way" is possible. That we are not alone. That big hurts and angers can be felt together and begin to be transformed......the coherence, honesty, capacity of the group leaders is absolutely pivotal to what happens in the group."
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Giselle Charbonnier 
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