Winter is setting in and it’s the perfect time to expand your genealogical and military research and writing education. From now through 31 December 2023, I have special offers for you.
Take 20% off these classes. Use discount code: WINTER23
Introduction to Genogram
Why Was Grandma So Mean
Exploring Family Patterns and Stories
Ancestral Time Travel: Timeline
My Doughboy’s Story
Explore those classes and purchase in the Webinar section of the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School. https://www.ancestralsoulswisdomschool.com/webinars
Take $50 off these programs. Use discount code: WINTER50
Honoring Our Heroes – 6 military webinars + coaching session
Genetic Memories – 4 family pattern and ancestral healing webinars + coaching session
Explore these two classes on the main Store page at the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School. https://www.ancestralsoulswisdomschool.com/store
Do you need some reference books or an activity to do with your children or grandchildren?
Pick up a copy of my newest book, Research a Veteran Journal & Workbook.
You can also explore all my military research and writing books, genealogy books, Ancestral Healing Journals and Notebooks on the Books Page at the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School. All books are available on Amazon. https://www.ancestralsoulswisdomschool.com/jenniferholik-books
New genealogy, family pattern, and military articles on Substack! Are you looking for new content, new ideas, new ways to expand your genealogical skills or research, subscribe to my free substack and receive new articles every month. https://jenniferholik.substack.com/
inherited trauma
The Gift of War
Most people agree that war is hell. When we talk about war, it’s normally from the perspective of all the bad things, wrongs and harm done, pain and anguish endured, along with the death and destruction that took place.
We rarely discuss openly the effects war had on our veterans. It’s even rarer we talk about the effects war had on a veteran’s family, collateral relatives, and descendants.
Does anything good ever come from war?
Have you ever asked that question? Have you explored that perspective when looking at your family’s military experience? When you examine their beliefs, behaviors, patterns, and your own life? I think it does. I believe when we can connect deeply with our ancestors and their experiences during and after war, including the civilians at home, we can heal deep parts of ourselves. We can learn more about ourselves and our families. We can forgive, release, and heal.
My grandpa Joseph Holik served in the USNR in the Armed Guard during WWII. When I started my genealogical research in 1996, I heard elaborate stories about his Naval experience. At that time I had no idea how to military research and was basically obtaining as much information from family as I could.
Fast forward to 2010 when I started investigating my family’s military history, beginning with those who died in service. Grandpa survived the war but came home mentally damaged. I had a lot of questions but no records for a few more years. When I received the records, I realized the stories I had heard were lies. It took me several more years to understand why the stories may have been told.
Families who had veterans return with mental or physical disabilities often carried a lot of shame, grief, sadness, anger, hate, and other low vibrational energies. Based on books and studies I’ve read about returning WWII veterans, the propaganda was to move on, create a new life and forget the past. Keeping the war experience a secret was common for many families around the world, especially when there may have been a lot of judgment in the case of veterans with mental disabilities.
Ancestral Communication Goes Deeper
In 2012 I moved out and got a divorce and began communicating with my ancestors in new ways. They appeared through dreams, channeled writing, whispers, colors, and people’s conversations. I began having conversations beyond the veil with my Grandma Libbie, Joseph’s wife as I navigated the new reality of being a single mom. I began noticing parallels between her life and mine that I documented but didn’t give much other thought to until 2019. Joseph also began channeling into my writing and hanging around my house. Over the years his energy shifted many times as he went from being scared and angry to more peaceful. Then in 2019 I completed my first genogram and discovered the many ways I was living Joe & Libbie’s lives with my then Dutch husband. To say I shocked is an understatement.
So many things began to make sense in my life and relationship. So many emotions began to arise that have taken me four years to process. Healing is like peeling an onion and we can only do one layer at a time. I could feel so much pain from my grandparent’s experience. I could identify so many beliefs, behaviors, and patterns that were passed down through their boys to me to my own boys. I could painfully see how I took on their unfinished business and unfulfilled dreams as I tried to live them out with the Dutch husband.
Layer by layer I moved through these things. I also took a very humble look at myself and the energies from which I was functioning and living. Co-dependency (which most of humanity lives), over-giver, people pleaser, over-explainer, always being “on” and “ready” to tackle anything, terrible sleeper, PTSD triggers, and on and on and on. I began studying inherited trauma and somatic healing so I could save myself and heal the triggers so my body would start calming down. When the relationship with the Dutch man ended and then he died, even greater awareness and healing came through.
The Gifts of War
When I look at my Grandpa Joe’s life and war experience, I see how difficult it was for him to have first left his family to go fight. I can imagine how difficult it must have been for him to be afraid of what was happening during the war. To perhaps not understand what was happening to his mind. From his channeled messages I know how confused he was at times. How scared he was his family wouldn’t recognize him or need him when he returned. In many ways I’ve had experiences that brought up the same emotions. I sense in many ways we have walked similar paths. Seeing him as more than a “crazy man” or “war hero” but as a human with all that entails has been vital to my healing. Too often we tell stories about our veterans and call them a hero without actually looking at the effects of war on them or their families. We pretend by labeling them a hero that it fixes all the trauma and pain and we don’t have to be responsible and look at it. I think we need to look at it.
When I look at Grandma Libbie’s life and see so many parallels, I understand who she must have been during those years and beyond as she raised her boys without a father in the home. Libbie channeled in many times and also came through in meditation and energy healing sessions to encourage me to have the love she never had, live the life she didn’t get to live, and be happy. I took that on in addition to all the other energies I unconsciously took on to heal for our family and it wore me down. There are some days I am surprised I’m still standing after all the healing that has happened in my lineage. I know many of you reading this can also relate.
So can war provide us with gifts? Yes. At least that’s been my experience when I look at the whole picture after all these years of research and doing my personal and ancestral healing. I have been able to identify family beliefs, behaviors, and patterns along with the inherited trauma I carry. I have been able to shift through many emotions and perspectives about who my ancestors were, who I am and continue to be. I have witnessed the energetic shifts in my ancestors, especially these grandparents, in positive ways. Our ancestors do heal on the other side. I have been able to level up in my life, work, and relationships. I have also been able to acknowledge the good that came from the pain and trauma.
What have you noticed are your gifts of war? How has your family’s military service shaped and changed your life or that of your ancestral lineage? What life lessons can you share to help others?
Explore your family’s WWI or WWII history
Are you ready to explore your family’s WWI or WWII history? Book a free phone consult today or email me at info@wwiirwc.com.
© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center
War Trauma Assessment
Have you ever considered how much of your family’s war trauma you carry? Would you mind taking a few minutes to help me better understand what war trauma you carry?
I created a short War Trauma Assessment to discover what other families experienced in the U.S. and abroad as a result of World War II. I invite you to complete the assessment to help me with some research and I’ll use the results to create new content on the blog and my social media channels. You may even see a new class pop up in October for Family History Month!
Thanks for your help! Please share the link with a friend who might be interested in participating too!
© 2022 WWII Research & Writing Center
Book Review: Emotional Inheritance
The last few years I have read so many books and studied with many teachers in the areas of inherited trauma, collective trauma, ancestral healing and it never ceases to amaze me how deep we can go with these topics.
I read a book Emotional Inheritance. It’s a short book, larger print, quick read, but extremely powerful, especially if you are doing your personal and ancestral healing work. Healing is like peeling an onion, layer by layer. Each layer we move through sends us deeper into ourselves, our lineage, our traumas both personal and inherited. This book, like many others I have read, can be consumed more than once and you will always learn or see something new. You will always heal a new layer of yourself.
Galit was born in Israel, grew up there, then later immigrated to the U.S. and she lives and works in New York City. Of course she, like every inherited trauma author, talks about epigenetic studies and the Holocaust. She also provides case studies of clients with other presenting issues that link back to family secrets, family patterns, dead siblings, or choices that were made and covered up. She even hits upon what I discovered in 2019, that we can be living and recreating parts of our ancestors traumas, wishes, unfulfilled hopes & dreams, and pain in our own lives and relationships. I certainly did this with the Dutch husband. I was repeating patterns and trying to fulfill dreams for my WWII grandparents. However, when I understood what I was living out and that it was not mine, but connected, that I chose to take it on to heal, I started diving in and doing deeper healing work to unplug and release myself from it all. To heal the bloodline.
Galit also covers topics of immigration and what was expected in a new country, often the removal and hiding of who someone was and where they came from. She highlights Israel and the Jewish identity that was created after the Six-Day War, which then required anyone immigrating, to give up their old identity, language, customs, and become something new, whether they wanted to or not. Galit had a lot to say and explain about Israel and the Jews post-WWII that I think everyone should learn about and sit with. Remember, if you look at immigrants to America – we more or less forced them to integrate, hide their former selves, give up their languages so they would fit in. We see this pattern in most countries as a rule for becoming a resident or naturalized citizen – give up your identity and forget everything about the past.
Is that really necessary? What we ignore, hold secret, shove down deep, still shows up and will repeat until healed. Why is it so bad that each individual on this planet is just that – an individual? Why do we have to give up who we are to fit a mold for a country we choose to live in? Deep questions to consider.
I have a few other thoughts on this book in the video below. I’d love to know if you read this book and what your thoughts are. Please share in the comments.
Be sure to watch the video of some thoughts after you read this article.
Are You Ready to Start Writing and Researching?
I would love to help you research and write the stories of your family members from World War I – Vietnam. If you are ready to start a research or writing project, email me at info@wwiirwc.com and let’s set up a free phone consultation. I’m excited to help you bring your family’s military history to life and preserve it for generations.
© 2022 WWII Research & Writing Center
Genogram & Facilitation Sessions Available
We ALL carry trauma from our parents, grandparents, and back through our lineage whether it is conscious or unconscious. We ALL repeat patterns, usually negative or toxic, or have repeated experiences of trauma at certain ages, or perpetuate beliefs, behaviors, and patterns that do not serve our highest good for a full, abundant life. Are you ready to look at this for yourself and your family? To bring to the light what has been hidden or kept secret, or what has fully been known but keep repeating?
Did you know…
Over their lifetimes, our ancestors experienced many things, both positive and negative (think traumatic). The things they did not process and integrate became “normal” beliefs, behaviors, and patterns within the family. Those “normal” beliefs, behaviors, and patterns get passed down through the DNA and we live by many of them on a subconscious level. Did you also know that even when you reject a family member (never speak of them, pretend they do not exist), you can still unconsciously and energetically repeat their patterns and sometimes crimes? Did you know sometimes the past sneaks up on you and out of nowhere you go into a panic attack which is so decontextualized you have no idea why you are having this reaction?
Have you wondered…
Why you have this feeling or keep hearing certain phrases in your head that make no sense? Phrases like, ‘I’m not enough.’ ‘I’m not worthy.’ ‘I’ll lose everything.’ ‘ I’ll let someone down & it will be my fault.’ ‘I’ll hurt or kill someone.’ ‘I’ll be destroyed.’ Perhaps they belong to someone else, someone long gone.
Have you wondered why you get triggered over the smallest things when there “should not” be a reason for it? Could this be linked to a childhood or birth trauma or belong to a parent or grandparent? Did you unconsciously take this on to heal or help them? Why there is a panic attack every time you….cross a bridge, go near a large body of water, are around certain people in or in certain situations?
Have you ever wondered what else your genealogical and military research documents and stories contain that is not obvious through the records? Did you know those records contains a lot more clues about your family triumphs and traumas than you realize?
Are you ready to explore these things and find answers and closure?
I’m Ready to Explore My Family History!
If you are ready to explore your family history in a deeper way, learn more about Genogram Sessions and Facilitation Sessions at the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School and schedule your session today! I can help you identify the trauma and repeating events and patterns in your family history so you can process and integrate it so it no longer repeats or is passed down through the generations.
Are you ready to heal the past?
Are You Ready to Start Writing and Researching?
If you are ready to start a research or writing project, email me at info@wwiirwc.com and let’s set up a free phone consultation. I’m excited to help you bring your family’s military history to life and preserve it for generations.
If you want even more military and ancestral healing content, follow me on TikTok. I share a lot of additional tips there.
© 2022 WWII Research & Writing Center
From Shock to Understanding
Have you ever discovered things in your genealogy or military research that shocked you into awareness and understanding? Maybe it even helped you release a long-held family pattern that was weighing you down.
Have you been forced to hide your gifts, intuition, knowings about your family because you had to fit in? Because the family secret could never be shared so it remained in the dark, largely ignored, but STILL affected people? Even the unspoken can harm us.
Are you ready to bring all those taboo, censored, secret subjects into the light? The darkness exists so we can heal and shine more of our light in the world.
In order for people to truly commit to change, often it takes something shocking or unexpected to get us to change, move in the direction of healing, and to let go of what is destructive, abusive, negative, unkind in our lives.
Over the years, my genealogy and military research has brought me to my knees at times because of what I’ve discovered for myself or a client. When the fog of emotions cleared and I sat with things, great healing occurred for me, the client, the dead. The most shocking thing I discovered was in late 2019 as I mapped out my WWII grandparent’s experiences. I was living their life (unconsciously) with a Dutch man I had married. I had taken on their trauma and pain to heal them and myself.
There were other times that I traveled Europe with some of my military ancestors who died in service. Together we completed unfinished business and they guided me to meet people I needed to meet in this life. They also helped me have experiences and fun I never would have had if I skipped the journey.
Are you ready for a transformation? Are you ready for some shock and awe?
Are you ready to look at where you and your family has been functioning from? Explore their beliefs, behaviors and patterns? I’m not offering ongoing support through monthly workshops, tools, worksheets, and resources to help you do just this at the Ancestral Cafe!
What Will We Explore Each Month?
Each month we will explore one aspect of genealogy or military research, what we can discover beyond names, dates, and places, and work with healing the past.
Each month you will receive new tools and resources to help you identify those ancestral beliefs, behaviors, and patterns that are both blessings and burdens.
You will receive coaching and energy healing to remove patterns and blocks.
Explore some of the 2022 workshop topics and the two bonus classes.
You will leave each workshop with a new perspective on your research, family stories, and personal stories. You will see things in your records that you couldn’t see before. You might begin writing your stories which can be incredibly healing, especially when shared with family.
Will you join me then on 8 January 2022 to kick off the new year and start charting a new path for yourself, your research, and your ancestors? Join the membership program today and take advantage of the Bonus materials.
If you have questions, please email me at jennifer@ancestralsouls.com.
I look forward to walking the path of healing and discovery with you in 2022.
© 2021 WWII Research & Writing Center
Black Friday Specials!
Welcome to my Black Friday Sale for Ancestral Souls Wisdom School! I’m happy to share some fabulous offers with you.
Your Family’s War Journey Offer
I’m excited to open registration for my signature masterclass Your Family’s War Journey. This class will transform your genealogy & military research & your life. You will walk away viewing your research, family, and self in a brand new light. Most participants reported having released old family blocks and patterns that were holding them back. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we all heal. This is my favorite class to teach (so far!)
Class begin Saturday 8 January 2022. If you would like to choose this program, take $75 off the cost using discount code: BFYFWJ21. This code expires 29 November. If you have questions about this masterclass or wonder if it is for you, please email me at jennifer@ancestralsouls.com and we can discuss. One huge benefit of this course is you get a private coaching/facilitation session with me!
Join the Ancestral Cafe Membership Program
I am so excited to launch my new membership program. I get to share with members a lot of new tools and resources to find information about their ancestors and themselves. I will help you navigate your personal and ancestral lineage healing. You will learn how to identify personal & ancestral beliefs, behaviors, & patterns & how to release them.
Live class meets the 2nd Saturday of the month at 10:00 a.m. CST. Q&A class meets 3rd Tuesday of the month at 12:00 p.m. CST.
The first live class begins 8 January 2022. Bonus materials open upon subscription to the membership program. There is no discount for this program but you get early bird notice. Learn more about the 2022 programs and bonuses and subscribe today.
Discounts on December Classes
Explore:
Introduction to Genograms and take $5 off the price using Discount code: BFGEN21 . This code expires 29 November 2021.
Self-Care for the Holidays. Take $5 off this class using Discount Code: BFSCH21. This code expires 29 November 2021.
Discount on Chakra Clearing & Balancing Session
Would you like a Chakra Balancing & Clearing session before the holiday craziness or after your holiday events are over to just rebalance? Purchase your session today (must be used by 7 January 2022) and take $50 off using Discount code: BFCHAKRA21.
This offer expires 29 November 2021.
Please let me know if you have any questions about these offers or the classes.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Jennifer
Book Review: The Things They’ve Seen
I recently discovered an account on Instagram @iwitnesshistory.This account is run by a man named Daniel Burghard, who recently published a book called The Things They’ve Seen. Reflections on WWII and the Cold War by German Eyewitnesses.
This book interested me because I am seeking resources on how Europeans did or did not process the war and the trauma they endured. Observing how the world has behaved since March 2020, it has become very clear to me where countries , cultures, or individuals, are holding on to trauma and are unable to see through what is happening. To be able to more clearly see what is happening in our world, we need to do our inner healing work. Layer by layer release the trauma we hold and that which we have inherited from our parents, grandparents, and ancestral lineage.
This book opened me up to history I did not know. My study of World War II ends with the end of the war. I never studied the Cold War beyond what I might have learned in school. My primary focus for the last 11 years has mostly been researching and telling the stories of American service members. In that I am an expert. In what each country did or did not do to rebuild, process and heal in Europe after the war, my knowledge is lacking. However, many books and resources and people are showing up to help me fill in those gaps.
Why is this book important?
The book begins addressing some of the history of World War II and the Cold War. What I greatly appreciated seeing was that Daniel addressed the fact that everyone likely had PTSD. These two wars were a collective trauma that still impacts us today. This paragraph really drives it home….
The horrors and struggles of WWII, followed by the tension and destruction of the Cold War, left permanent marks on those living through it all. It impacted their decisions. Their hopes and ambitions. Many lost homes, went hungry, watched family members pass away or disappear without a trace. The scars left were carried for decades, often in a culture that frowned upon or even prohibited, discussion or acknowledgement of the pain felt, instead expecting people to “get on with it.”
Having lived in Europe/Chicago back and forth since 2016, I have witnessed this cultural “get on with it do not talk about it”. I’ve spoken to children of those who survived the war and they often say their parents, barely, or would not, talk about the experiences. However, as an empath and medium, many of those parents would show up to make sure I understood their pain, especially when their children were closed off and in denial of it.
When we look at European countries after the war, the propaganda was basically be quiet, do not talk about it, hide your pain, and rebuild. We see the same in America but here we did not suffer as greatly as the rest of the world. Our country was not divided by a wall and not destroyed (yes there was Pearl Harbor) during the war. We did not have to rebuild in the same way. Isn’t it time we each look at our ancestral traumas, especially as they relate to war and tell our stories? Look at our pain and begin to heal?
Daniel interviewed eight people and their stories are in this book. He spent time with them witnessing their lives, pain, trauma, and healing. Many of these people lived in East Germany when the Wall was built. Ask yourself, especially if you are an American – what was life like in Communist countries after WWII? Ask yourself if you still had family that lived in those countries. Ask yourself if you have ever bothered to learn more about that part of your family’s history. Even if you do not know the people there, we are all connected. Their history still affects us.
I learned things I did not know and quite frankly, could have lived without knowing. However, I am not here to ignore the past, I am here to face it and help heal it. Case in point, the “Wolf Children”. Fatherless German children who banded together to survive when the Russians moved in and pillaged, raped and killed their mothers. I can’t even begin to imagine what that life was like or how those children grew up to have healthy lives and relationship after all the trauma they endured. This book may open you up to new areas of study.
The book talks of families destroyed during both wars. Families separated by a Wall. Those living in East Germany were under so much control that their lives were really not their own. I could see similar things happening today as what happened during WWII and the Cold War. Freedoms slowly taken away. Propaganda and psychological manipulation and control until you don’t even realize who you are anymore or what you believe in.
One story that impacted me was about a woman who participated in the propaganda and politics of East Germany. She believed in the cause – until one day she woke up and realized she was being controlled and had few choices. Then she realized she contributed to this level of population and mind control.
What does one do with this knowledge that you contributed to something that harmed so many? Whether you are a civilian politician or a soldier “following orders”. How do you reconcile that and release it so you can heal yourself and contribute in better ways, kinder ways to society? Sadly we know from all wars that most people involved, soldier or civilian, remained silent until they were older. Their hidden war was passed down to their children, grandchildren, and so on. We call it inherited trauma.
This book is rich and deep on so many levels. Each story I read I marked up, wrote comments in the margins and tabbed pages. It will make you question your own history and likely dig into your ancestors’ history in a new way. As someone who did not grow up in a Communist Country, I count my blessings my grandparents, parents, and I did not have to endure what the citizens of those countries did. Had my ancestors not immigrated from Bohemia/Czechoslovakia before World War II, who knows what kind of lives they would have had.
I invite you to read The Things They’ve Seen and witness these extraordinary people who survived incredible experiences. You might be surprised at how they all feel about the experience today. I left the book feeling they had each found some peace and healing, even after enduring so much.
Bonus invite: Go interview your family members and ask about World War II or any topic. Capture those stories before they are lost.
If you would like to explore your stories, sign up for my course, Exploring Family Patterns and Stories. It might just change how you look at yourself and your family.
© 2021 WWII Research & Writing Center
Why We Need to Look Back
“If you see the city as a body, what happens to the body is a trauma. What people tend to do when they have a very serious trauma is to turn their back on it. The people from Rotterdam did not look back in history. Don’t think about the past, they said, look at the future.”
~ Wim Pijbes
The quote above comes from a NY Times article, From Rotterdam, Many Left for a New Life, published in 2018. I kept a copy of this article and specific quotes from it because Wim’s words spoke so well to the trauma and loss that occurred both to people and families who chose to immigrate and those who were killed in World War II or survived. It also speaks to the trauma a place endured and the energy it still may carry if not healed. Places are also things that need healing.
Rotterdam was bombed in 1940 and almost nothing remains from that time as the city was rebuilt. Many cities across Europe had similar stories of emigration of people to ports of departure. Stories of displaced persons because of both World War I and World War II.
Yet the programming and propaganda was always ” Don’t think about the past, look at the future.” Basically shut down. Be silent. Keep the secrets. Hide your trauma and pain (which often resulted in abuse of those the person loved). Rebuild. Have a family. Move forward. There were also few to no tools to help people process the enormity of what they had experienced. All of this undigested trauma passed down to their descendants. WE carry their unfinished business, trauma, grief, guilt, shame, anger, and so much more that creates negative patterns and situations in our lives.
We CAN identify and heal this.
When we look at ourselves today, the lives we lead, the beliefs, behaviors, and patterns we carry, this can be traced back to any number of family or collective trauma events. Not just war. Immigration. Migration. Financial collapses in the world. Change of political or religious leaders. Silencing of those who went against the narrative, which is also happening today because we did not learn in World War II and stand up and fight as a unified force then.
As I sit here contemplating this NY Times article again and writing, I think of my own connections to Rotterdam and many other places in Europe. My Czech family emigrated out of a few ports, Rotterdam being one of them. I have visited Hotel New York several times since 2016 and spent a couple nights there. Hotel New York was the building through which emigrants departed. Quite honestly, it feels like I have some major healing work to do around Rotterdam, family, immigration, and war trauma. I wonder what patterns and issues I will discover when I dive into this exploration.
As our world continues to shift since March 2020, it is important we all look back. That we explore our family patterns and question everything. Question why our family is the way they are. Question why we carry behaviors, beliefs, and patterns we do and make choices that sometimes are not for our highest good or best interest. Question why we allow what we do in our personal and professional lives and in our realities. Question when and why we submit to peer pressure of any kind. Question what we are here to be, do, learn, and ask for support in this.
We can all heal the past as we heal ourselves. We can stop the insanity that is happening on the planet, one by one, layer by layer.
If you would like help with this, I offer many military research classes, classes on identifying and healing family patterns, and chakra balancing and energy healing sessions. You can learn more about me, my work, my connection to Europe, the World Wars, and my services at the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School. I invite you to journey with me and heal.
Be sure to join the mailing list to stay in touch and receive news and discounts on classes.
© 2021 WWII Research & Writing Center
How Did World War II Affect You?
Over a decade ago I began researching my family’s World War I and World War II stories, most of which involved death or some kind of war wound. About the same time I began researching all branches of the military and exploring records for both wars with a focus on the WWII Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF).
The more I researched and wrote books about my family or the research strategies, I realized the work was changing me. Changing me on an emotional, mental, and spiritual level. I guess in some ways a physical level as exercise was a great outlet to release pent up emotions I picked up as an empath and medium as I read files.
When I was in a relationship with a European man, I also inherited his family’s war trauma. His mother in particular suffered greatly and while she lived, never healed. You will find as you do this work, not only your bloodline ancestors show up for healing, but ancestors of those whom you are in relationship with (lover, friend, etc.). It has also been my experience that the ancestors of my clients and colleagues also show up. The ancestors seek out those they know can help them. You are allowed to say no and send them away. Or send them away for now.
Over time I began to see patterns in my family, this man’s family, and as I was living back and forth between Chicago and the Netherlands and traveling a lot to battlefields, cemeteries, museums, and speaking with many people in Europe about their family’s war experiences, I learned a lot about European collective war trauma and patterns.
Patterns of beliefs, behaviors, and trauma. Patterns of silence and secrets. I heard stories about some of my family members that were completely false, as proven by the military records, yet were told to protect the dead. Stories that were told to protect the living. Stories that in the end, harmed everyone including the descendants like me. Stories that led to a lot of unanswered questions – especially, ‘Would you have married him or her, if the war had not happened?’
The World Wars affected everyone whether they served in combat, behind the lines, on the home front, or were civilians living through the hell or waiting at home. Veterans were told to stay silent on so many things that happened. Many veterans and civilians could not reconcile what they were forced to do or chose to do to stay alive and therefore could not share their experiences. The common emotions surrounding them were shame, anger, hatred, guilt and survivor’s guilt, grief, a sense of loss of so many things. Many people, especially in Europe and the Pacific, made choices to survive and keep their children alive, that they likely had some regrets about later. Many women were publicly shamed or harmed because of choices they made to stay alive. Their descendants and all of humanity carry these things.
All of humanity carries the sins & patterns of the fathers along with the unresolved & unintegrated traumas. Now is the time to heal.
~ Jennifer holik
Whether a veteran had physical war wounds or not, every veteran came home changed. Every veteran had some kind of mental issues to heal due to the war, even if they were somewhat hidden or held in secret. Every civilian who lived overseas where the combat was happening was affected. The silence and secrets permeated the energy in families and communities. The propaganda in the U.S. and Europe was to start life again. Rebuild. Start a family. Get a job. Go to school. Assimilate in the new country you chose or were forced to live in. Forget the past. Live for those who died. Never Forget.
Yet as we come to the grandchildren or great grandchildren or even 2x great grandchildren of World War II veterans and families, we find WE are suffering from our ancestors’ unresolved and unintegrated traumas. WE are suffering from PTSD and inherited trauma. WE are carrying the patterns that were destructive in their lives, often on an unconscious level. WE have the tools and resources today to heal and release the past and move out of the destructive patterns.
If you would like to learn more, hear my story, and learn how to identify these patterns and heal, registration is open for Saturday 9 October’s Family’s War Secrets webinar. In this webinar you are granted access to the first part of the process I teach with the replay from the What’s Wrong With Daddy? class I taught in September. Through both of these classes you will learn new tools to identify what your family endured, whether war or any other traumas. You will learn how to identify the patterns that are (often) unconsciously running your life, relationships, work, and choices. You will also learn ways to heal these patterns.
Register today to save your spot. I also invite you to explore all my Family History Month 2021 military research webinars.
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