WWII Research & Writing Center

Recent Articles

Article Archive

Article Categories

mental health

Grief In Military & Genealogy Research

by Leave a Comment

Grief is a topic we tend to avoid in life and especially in genealogy and military research. Why? Because it is messy and you can’t document it with a paper trail.

However, grief can sneak up on us as we do this work and dive deeper into our ancestors’ experiences and compare them with our own. Family patterns and traumas emerge and if we do not bring these things to the light and allow them to heal, they can get stuck inside us and create blocks and dis-ease.

Grief is a topic we explore in my master class, Your Family’s War Journey. Would you like to explore this and other topics? Learn more on the registration page which has two informational videos and a lot of extra details.

Class starts 25 January 2021. Are you ready to journey with me?

© 2021 World War II Research and Writing Center

Your Family’s War Journey Master Class

by Leave a Comment

Start your journey to the past and transform your life…

Journey with Jennifer as your travel guide, through your family’s history, their military stories, and your own story. On this journey you will read a life-changing book.

Together with a core group of people, we will discuss issues and emotions around the themes of war, religion, women’s themes, spirituality, family, stories, patterns, trauma, inherited trauma, racism, LGBTQ, caregiver issues, secrets, shame, guilt, PTSD, and many other topics that come from the book, my questions, and your experiences.

We will discuss various ways to heal the issues that arise through this deep research and writing we do and with what emerges in our personal lives.

You will explore your family’s history and dive into who you are with this knowledge. You will even begin to write your own stories.

We will use the book “Reconciliation with War” by Janelle Kaye and Charles Willshire as a foundation to transformation. You are required to purchase the book. Details are in the confirmation email you receive upon registration.

While this book focuses on the WWII experience, the themes and exercises discussed apply to any war, any ancestral pattern or trauma, and every family. You will be able to take this knowledge and apply to many aspects of your personal life and ancestral lineage healing practice.

Learn more extensive details and watch another video about course themes on the registration page.

© 2021 World War II Research and Writing Center

You Are Not Alone – Helping Clients Process Research Findings

by Leave a Comment

How do we process the shocking, surprising, traumatic results that can come from our DNA research, family history or military research? Where do we go for help? What resources are available to professionals and researchers?

Take my hand and I will walk with you through this.

Two big, important things have happened since the start of 2017 and 2018. First, in 2017, the people asking to work with me have changed. Those that choose to hire me and those that take my classes or just have conversations with me. No longer do most want the facts, but they have deeper questions, family secrets and lies, trauma, things tied to their lineage, inherited trauma, and other things they hope family and military research will help them sort out.

Second, in early 2018 I was launched into full caregiver mode with my overseas husband which forced me to explore a lot of resources around PTSD, grief, loss, trauma, and other things tied to this, to save myself in this new reality. As I moved through that personally, I realized many of my clients and those who take my master class also deal with these issues. Additionally, no where in the genealogy or military communities is there support for clients (or professionals) – no education, no discussions – no books to guide us.

Now as 2019 edges closer to the end, I am aware that it is time to start discussions with both professionals and clients/researchers about the impact research has on them – whether they work with a professional or not – research can provide shocking results. It is also time to develop resources to help clients with these results.

Starting the Conversation

On Monday 18 November 2019, I am holding the first Zoom conversation with professionals to discuss what types of issues have come to us. How we have guided clients through them and provided resources or referrals to professionals. What resources we use for continuing education so we can better support clients.

Also, I will be exploring how we, as professionals, take care of ourselves as we do this important work. I realized, as I searched for caregiver resources to help me through my personal struggle, that professionals deal with similar issues as caregivers. I had never before considered the similar impact of the work I do on my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health as compared to the impact of caregiving on those areas of my life. Though on some level if you think about it, professional researchers who help clients are in some ways being a caregiver. We hold space for our clients. We help them with the research and results. We are a support for them in so many ways.

This excellent TedTalk, How to Manage Compassion Fatigue in Caregiving, Patricia Smith starts her talk with a story about a Vietnam Chaplain who supported those recently off the front lines by listening to their stories. She explains how he developed PTSD and compassion fatigue through his work and energetically taking on the soldiers’ issues, concerns, fears, etc.

When I listened to her talk, it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted and I finally understood so many things about myself both personally and professionally. Then I began seeking out additional resources for professionals working with those experiencing or researching the past and trauma.

If you are interested in joining a future conversation with PROFESSIONALS or RESEARCHERS about these topics, please email me at the address at the end of this article and let me know. I will be scheduling a second professionals call after Thanksgiving and starting researcher calls soon.

Creating Resources for Clients

One target for the conversations is to help those involved create resources for their clients so they are not left out in the cold with research knowledge and shock with nowhere to turn.

Another target is for me personally to develop journaling exercises, research plan guidance, webinars and workshops, and resource materials specifically for clients who require this level of assistance.

In the last year I have had a few clients who I had to discuss some shocking, life changing research results with. Results that changed their families, changed how they viewed their parents, their father or mother’s military service, their relationship with their parents, and made them question who they (the client) is now that they know these details. All of my clients with whom I’ve had to share shocking results cannot go ask questions of those they researched because they have passed on. We can however, process and heal these things and move forward in healthy ways.

I am also in the process of creating some other resources along this vein for the general public. A woman in my WWII Education Facebook group asked me if I had anything to help her and others process what they learned as they researched; journaling prompts to help them go deeper into the results and family stories; and resources to take things further – whether that is through ancestral healing courses, energy healing, spiritual healing, professional mental health services, or other professional services.

What’s Next?

I’m not sure exactly the road these conversations will take. I am committed to continuing these conversations and creating additional resources to help professionals and researchers with these extremely important topics. I am always searching for additional education for myself, which I can then use to help others. If you know of opportunities or have taken classes, read books, or know of articles or other support resources, I would love to hear about them. Please share with our readers in the comments.

Learn how I can help you

Are you ready to learn the bigger picture of your family member’s military service? There are many ways we can help you with research – we offer full service history research, we can help with evaluating what you have to prepare a research plan for you to do some of it yourself, we can help you write the stories. Just email us at the address below to schedule a free phone consult to discuss options.

Want to travel in your service member’s footsteps? We are a firm with not only hands-on document experience but also travel experience and can connect you with a guide or suggest places to stay and visit. We are taking new clients and can help you find the answers and tell a deeper story about your family member. Email us at info@wwiirwc.com to set up your free phone consultation today to discuss project options, fees, and time.

© 2019 World War II Research and Writing Center

Veterans, PTSD, and Grief Study

by Leave a Comment

“While there has been abundant research quantifying war’s psychological impact, much of it has focused on PTSD, depression, and substance or alcohol abuse associated with combat exposure, there has been limited focus on grief among veterans.”

Pauline Lubens

UCI Studies Grief in Veterans

In World War I we heard the term SHELL SHOCK. In World War II we heard COMBAT FATIGUE. After Vietnam we didn’t hear much new unless it was in regard to how many Americans viewed returning veterans in a negative light. Then by the 1980s we had PTSD to label veterans suffering from a variety of illnesses that were previously undiagnosed or ignored.

PTSD trickles down through our DNA into future generations. Growing up in a household where PTSD exists can create this in children and other family members. Any traumatic situation we find ourselves in can create PTSD symptoms.

With all the studies on PTSD and veterans, one primary component, especially when we look at veteran suicide is GRIEF. Yet, grief has not been studied until recently. Grief also creates issues for not only the veteran but the family and friends close to the veteran.

Unresolved, unacknowledged grief over what someone did in combat, or did not do, who they lost, survivor’s guilt and sadness of being the only one left, and many other ways veterans hold grief all contribute to their state of mind, the life they live, the joy (or lack of )they feel. This unresolved grief also affects those closest to them.

Finally, the University of California Irvine conducted a study on grief in veterans. You can read about it here. It is interesting what they discovered and how it deeply affects veterans, even separately from any PTSD they may have or had, and how it affects families.

A radio interview was done with the Ph.D. student who conducted the study and several listeners called in to contribute to the conversation, including a female Graves Registration Service soldier. The interview is powerful and full of many themes I feel we should all be exploring with our own families – even if we have to go back to our WWII or Korean War veterans to ask questions and look for family patterns. Grief is something passed down also.

Exploring Grief in Your Family History

In our society we are taught/trained/told to buck up, shove things inside, deal with it and move on, or solve a problem, when we talk about grief. We are given 2-3 days of leave from our jobs if someone in the family dies. Apparently all we need is 2-3 days to deal with arrangements, grieve, forget and move on. Our western society has not done a good job helping people to learn how to grieve, or explain why it is important to do so.

I invite you to explore the times and places in your life and family history where there was an opportunity to grieve and instead you pushed it away or did not fully deal with it. Consider the cost of that to yourself, your health, your family life, your history. How did your family veterans handle grief? How did their spouses and children? How do you? How can you begin to change this?

Grief Resources

Do you need a resource to help you? I am taking a couple of courses with Shauna Janz through Sacred Grief. I am finding these grieving courses extremely helpful. I encourage you to check them out. I wrote an article about her Healing Conversations class here.

The website What’s Your Grief is also full of resources and articles. Have you explored this site?

Can I help you with your research?

Are you ready to learn the bigger picture of your family member’s military service? Email us at info@wwiirwc.com to set up your free phone consultation today to discuss project options, fees, and time. You can also sign-up for our free newsletter and receive the Start Writing Your Military Story Today free!

Are you following Jennifer and all her work on all her social media sites? Click the link to learn more and find different content.

© 2019 World War II Research and Writing Center

Release of Your Family’s War Journey Self-Paced Master Class

by Leave a Comment

I am excited to announce the launch of the self-paced version of my wildly successful master class, Your Family‘s War Journey: A Transformational Master Class.

It is vital to understand that while this course uses a book based on a WWII combat veteran’s experience and his daughter’s escape and healing journey, the themes, lessons, questions, resources, and discussions apply to any war and every family.

This class enriched and transformed my World War II family research quest in ways I could not have imagined. Jennifer Holik is a gifted facilitator who helped me to unearth memories, make unexpected connections between past and present, and clarify the direction of my WWII project. Her extensive knowledge and rare intuition, along with the well-organized curriculum, created a warm and productive virtual environment for learning and sharing insights with a wonderful group of participants. As I move forward, I plan to make frequent use of the generous amount of helpful materials that the course makes available to view or download following the sessions. I highly recommend this class to all who are drawn to discovering and understanding how war and its aftermath have affected them and their loved ones. ~~ Janet B. July 2019 course participant

Would you like to learn more about this self-paced master class? Visit the course page on Finding the Answers Journey to read all the details about what participants receive, what is expected, read testimonials from prior students, and get registered today!

Your Family’s War Journey Masterclass with Jennifer Holik was the perfect way for me to understand the context and importance of my lifelong desire to write about my uncle’s World War II service and to get me writing! The tools and technologies were state of the art, and I can say that having successfully taught graduate classes for 20 years in nationally accredited programs. Maybe best of all is Jennifer’s insight, encouragement, and vast store of connections to pursue answers. I would encourage anyone with a WWII story to pursue, to get on board here! ~~ Barbara Smith, Ph.D. April 2019 course participant

Not sure if this course is for you….email me at info@wwiirwc.com with your questions! I look forward to helping you change your life through this incredible course.

© 2019 World War II Research and Writing Center