Hello and welcome to the Compassion in Therapy training series. I'm Kaylee Isaacs, the founder of the AWAKE Network, and I'll be your host for this session. I'm delighted to be here today with Eduardo Duran to talk about intergenerational healing, historical trauma, and moral injury.
Dr. Duran is a Vietnam veteran who started his academic training after being discharged from the U.S. Navy. He worked in indigenous communities most of his professional life. Clinical work in communities has informed his theoretical and clinical approaches to psychotherapy.
His work is informed by traditional teachings from indigenous elders that continue to unfold into an ongoing hybrid model to address individual and collective soul wounding. Early on, he was providing community psychological interventions when an indigenous woman elder approached him and told him that he needed to write and publish what she heard him speak about. That meeting with the elder has resulted in several books, including Native American Post-Colonial Psychology, Healing the Soul Wound, Buddha in Red Face, and Quantum Coyote Dreams, The Black World. Thank you so much for being here with us, Dr. Duran. Well, thank you so much for having me.
An honor to be speaking to all the people that will be listening to this and offering merit for all of that. To start, I wanted to ask you, in your work, you speak about historical trauma and intergenerational trauma as the soul wound. Could you help us to define the soul wound and why this is an important subject to talk about when working with individuals who've experienced trauma?
You know, the word soul wound came out of the work itself. Actually, all of it came out of the clinical day-to-day work that I was doing at the time. I mean, I was... I happened to be an intern with a community consortium. It was a Native community.
And, of course, I went in there with my Western learned psychotherapies and research methods. And very quickly I found out that these were just not working, but they were not acceptable. You know, it was actually an insult to the community to just be putting Western methodologies on them.
So out of desperation and not knowing what to do, I tried to allow then the community to speak for itself. And again, that wasn't an easy task. And the way the idea of intergenerational trauma emerged was out of the clinical work. And at the time, my office was a truck.
It was a government RV that was parked in the mountains. And that's where I was supposed to be developing this program. And this is where people started coming to see me.
And this is where I started failing at doing psychotherapy because I was using behavioral interventions and cognitive interventions and all that. And basically people kept saying, don't talk to us that way. And during that time, there was a phenomenon that I started experiencing, which...
I can speak about and hopefully people won't think it's too far off the grid, but I started experiencing that when I was in the presence of people telling me about what their traumas, what their pains were, you know, what their wounding was. I was having the experience that there was someone else in the truck office with us, and this would only happen when there were people present telling me about their issues. And very quickly I started thinking that something was wrong with me because this experience was very splitting to where I thought there was somebody else there. Of course, there was nobody else that I could see.
And so in time, there were some people that I was able to approach and ask them about that. And the teaching that came back is that the reason you're experiencing that is because they are there. And again, in a Western psychology, when somebody tells you they're there and nobody's there, you know, what do you do with that, especially as an intern, just starting out, just out of the military.
But also at the same time, I was doing a needs assessment for the community. In the needs assessment, the initial one was completely rejected also. And what came back from elders from the tribal council was that none of the diagnostic categories that I was that I had written about none of those were the problem which was confusing to me because I could see that these were the problems I could see it with my own eyes and so I started thinking that maybe there was a serious system of denial going on with the community because they said that's not the problem So they sent me back, said, go do it again.
And so, you know, I had submitted some questionnaires to find out what the community was thinking. And a couple of weeks later, you know, a stack of the questionnaire surveys came back and they were all blank. And so when I asked the community health workers, well, did you give these surveys to the community? They said, yes.
And this is where the community, I really, now I'm really glad that they were honest with me. And basically the word that came back was, the reason they're not filled out is because, what gives you the right to go around asking us a bunch of stupid questions? That was the community's take on my, what I thought at that moment to be this brilliant questionnaire that was going to uncover all the ills of the community. And so now I don't have a survey, I don't have therapeutic methods, I'm basically left with nothing.
And it was also around this time, when I'm having this phenomenon experiencing, that one of the people I was involved with said, well, what you need to do is you need to go up into the mountains and consult the spirits. That's the only way you're going to understand what's going on here. And of course, how do you do that? I mean, I did not have Consulting Spirits 101 in my graduate coursework, so I have no idea how to do this, but that was a task. And so I go up there and I walk around the trees and nothing happens.
And so it's when in talking to also some of the elders about the phenomenon of experiencing someone in the office and because they're there, that the teaching that a lot of indigenous people from all over the world have is that everything we do affects seven generations. And the teaching also was that these seven generations are not linear in one direction. They're also linear in what we would call a backwards direction. And so therefore, 14 generations are involved in the moment that the healing, you know, psychotherapy is supposed to be happening.
And it was then that I was told that what I was experiencing, this phenomena of other entities being in the office with us was the ancestors of the patients being spiritually involved in the session as well as the unborn ones from seven generations from now. So now that I had that, what do you do with that within a western construct? I mean because that just sounds crazy.
I mean just from the get-go. But then when I started talking to the patients about what I was being told, finally, the word came back, finally you're getting it, meaning I'm finally understanding what is needed in the community. And so now I have something to report back to the powers that be.
And this is where I was told that all of the diagnostic categories that I had written about and told them about, they did exist, but what was really driving those... was an underlying spiritual and soul wounding. And that soul wounding is intergenerational. It happened three, four, five, six, seven generations before.
And the communities that I was working with, between the year 1870 and 1900, 80% of all the people had been exterminated. So there's complete tribes that no longer existed. And then they let me know that...
if there is depression, alcoholism, suicide, ideation, the cancers, the diabetes, yeah, those are real. But what's fueling that is the underlying soul wounding. And so that's where soul wounding emerged.
And of course, then intergenerational trauma and historical trauma are terms. And I think now the latest that I read from APA is racialized trauma, I think is what they're calling it. But that's kind of the genesis. We didn't have a term for it at the time. This was a long time ago.
And we were just clinically, I was just trying to see what developed without having any foundation for any of this. And so, you know, luckily, once I started understanding and speaking about it, then help came from other elders and then from some of the people in the psychological community, you know, via the Jungian psychology. We're able to kind of get an understanding as to what was going on. So sorry, long answer, but I think EIA needs that foundation so that folks can really see how this happened.
And it was a very difficult, scary time for me personally as an oncoming clinician, as an intern, you know, that really didn't know anything about the Western psychology and didn't know any. much about the traditional indigenous psychology either. And so I was just basically day to day trying to invent this.
And it was a, like I said, it was a very anxiety laden time in my personal process. Thank you for laying that background and your story for us. So in your perception, with some of these just ongoing epidemic mental health issues that are happening, anxiety, depression, addiction.
What's your view of the role of the soul wound in that in a larger sense? Well, I really believe that in the world at large and later on in my career, in my journey, clinical journey, I was able to travel to other parts of the world where unbeknownst to me, they were saying, they were inviting me to come to their part of the world, saying, well, we're experiencing historical trauma also. And some of these were European countries that I really didn't suspect.
But then when you look at the history of generation after generation, I mean, it's happening right now. When you look at Ukraine and Russia, there's a soul wounding that is happening as we speak this very minute. And And within the traditional indigenous teachings is that when human beings are traumatized, since we are the earth, there's no separation between us and the earth.
The earth is also traumatized. So the healing needs to be of not just the human beings walking on the earth, but also of the earth itself. And as long as our earth continues to be traumatized, I think it's going to be very difficult for the collective soul wound, because that's what it is.
It's a collective soul wound that needs to be healed. And if we don't address it at that level, it's just going to continue. And unfortunately, we have the capacity now to just obliterate everything.
And we're just a breath away from that almost every moment. And so I really believe that... whoever hears this where in other parts of the world that they take this seriously because we continue to create soul wounding and very little on the healing side of that can you speak a little bit to sort of the the western psychological approach of diagnosis and sometimes leaning towards pathologizing and how that differs from what you're sharing how there might be a different approach available Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question because also, and during the clinical work, this is what emerged, is that there is a very deeply rooted linguistic piece to the diagnostic process. And in the English language, which is what most of, you know, in America anyway, in Canada and other places of the world, the English language is predisposed to objectify things. Because, you know, we use nouns and verbs and, you know, in order to understand our world.
And we even use it in our research methodologies, you know, subject-object, use it in psychotherapy, you know, subject-object. There's studies done using that language. And so what happens is that then it objectifies the world.
And once you objectify the world, then it solidifies it. Even though it's not solid, but our ego interprets it as being real. So when we tell somebody, you are a major depressive disorder, you're an alcoholic, or you're a diabetic, it has that idea of solidifying the diagnosis, and so now it becomes a...
You become it. And so then it's very difficult to undo that if you become it because it's like telling a chair not to be a chair. Once we identify it as a chair, it just doesn't work.
On the indigenous side of things, most indigenous languages, and I've asked a lot of people from different parts of the world about how their language conceptualizes the world. 100% of the people I've asked have told me that the way their language operates is by understanding the world through what we would call in English verbs. So everything's in movement. And so instead of saying you are a major depressive disorder, which solidifies it, then what I try to do, again, using the English language is to... make that less solid and by using probabilistic language and saying things like maybe The spirit of sadness is visiting you or maybe the spirit of alcohol is visiting you Which gives it an idea of movement and so if it's in movement that means that it can shape-shift and become something else and This even goes to like even the person, you know saying there's a woman over there.
There's a man over there Well, it really solidifies that. But if you say womaning is happening, well, that can happen anywhere, or manning can happen anywhere. So it gives to the patient, not just the indigenous patient, because I've tried this with people who are not indigenous, and they really appreciated the idea of not being named, because what this brings also into the indigenous mind is that a naming ceremony is happening when we diagnose people.
So when you say, you know, you're an anxiety disorder, well, that's giving them a name. And if you come from that tradition, then that becomes you. And then it's very difficult to undo that.
But if you see it as energy and movement, well, that energy is already shape-shifting, even as we speak of it, because it's not standing still. And as we all know now through the physicists, quantum physics is that the universe is actually wired that way. It's a perpetual movement and motion and non-static. And so I really think that not just for indigenous people, but I think that people from all walks of life, all cultures could benefit by understanding that they are not the diagnosis and to be able to understand it as movement of energy.
that can be dealt with with movement of energy by interfering with that energy. You can move it and make it something else. And so that's where transformation is possible then, because then depression can become something else.
And the other part of that in the diagnostic of Western is that in a Western medical model, the idea is to get rid of things. So if you have whatever diagnosis you have, the task is to get rid of it. Well, within indigenous teachings, that makes no sense because it goes against natural law, because natural law says you can't create or destroy energy or matter.
And so the best that we can do then is to transform it. And in some of the other traditions, you know, like in the Chinese tradition, for instance, the idea of the dragon, it's unthinkable to slay the dragon because that is the very life force itself. that'll carry us through our journey. And so it's unthinkable to slay the depression, because it's that very energy that if we transform it, can then be used to heal the soul wound of the world.
So that's kind of my understanding, you know, through the teachings of a lot of my elders, a lot of people who are a lot holier than I am, and that's how they talk. And so I... Over the years using it in therapy, that's been very useful for people who've had therapy before. It's a real gift to give them that because now they have the ability to transform and not to be fighting with whatever the diagnosis is.
Thank you. This feels related to the subject you speak about with when approaching difficulties, making them relative. Or making them relatives.
Could you speak a little to that as well? Yeah, and one of the protocols to use, let's say, with depression or whatever the diagnostic category X is, usually I ask the patient if they're willing. I say one way of dealing with this is by making a relative out of it. And how do you do that?
Well, how do you make a relative when you meet a human being that you don't know? Well, you identify yourself, and then you talk a little bit about yourself, then they talk about themselves, and then somewhere in there, there's a gift. And so the protocol is to say, well, here's the spirit of sadness, you know, depression. Identify yourself to it, and then you tell it your name, and then say, tell it your parents'name, your grandparents'.
great-grandparents, as far back as you can go. And then you ask the entity, the energy, well, what is your name? And what are your parents'name?
What are your grandparents'name? As far back as it can go. And then once you finish that conversation and you give it a gift.
And within indigenous world, the gift that is used in these types of situations is usually tobacco. Tobacco is soap. purpose here was to carry our prayers and thoughts into the mystery. And so once we leave it the gift, but you know, you can leave food, water, whatever gift, it's the intent more important than the actual thing.
And so the natural law says then that the entity cannot not respond to this, it has to respond. And So either in a dream or a synchronistic event or somewhere along their lives in the next few days or so, they'll have a realization as to what this is, what this relationship to the diagnosis is. And so then it becomes more interesting versus trying to get rid of it, then they try to get to know it more. And so then there's an interest that happens because...
wow, I didn't realize that this thing was actually going to show me something. So it's a matter of learning from the process of being related to this energy called the diagnosis in the Western world. There's aspects of that that remind me of the internal family systems approach, which we're featuring in this event with Dick Schwartz as well, where you're getting to know parts of yourself that seem like they might be obstacles or enemies.
And yeah. understanding them so they can turn into allies. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Padmasambhava, that was the method he used to convert Tibet.
Instead of getting rid of the demons, because there were so many of them, he couldn't, in one lifetime, he couldn't do it. He enlisted them to be allies, and then within one lifetime, he was able to convert all the Tibetans, which, you know, the rest is history. Right.
So it has really good face validity using that research jargon, you know, as far as the method itself. I mean, Padmasambhava, I mean, talk about good face validity. You can't go any higher than that.
I mean, he goes higher than Jung or Freud or any of those guys. Yeah. So another question I have is, as we're speaking about the soul wound, you've also spoken about this other term of...
soul guilt. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about the difference between the two and also how they relate and how you relate with them in the process of healing. Yeah, soul guilt.
And it's actually the backdrop of that. And very recently, the VA has acknowledged that, but they're calling it moral injury. And in moral injury, soul guilt occurs when one violates One of the original instructions as to how to be a human being walking on the earth, if we violate that process, especially through violence, because that's usually the big violation is through violence.
When we do violence on another human being or on the earth or on any sentient being, there's a part of us that knows that is not okay, it's not correct. And so it's that part then that develops guilt. And a lot of times the victim themselves experience guilt, even though they themselves haven't done anything wrong. And the other part of soul guilt can also come from not being able to stop something.
And so we, you know, we have a lot of moral injury from the pandemic, for instance. A lot of providers, a lot of health professionals feel a lot of guilt because they couldn't save everybody. And they weren't able to do whatever the magic thought that, you know, we were supposed to do during that time.
So it could have also that aspect of it. And my understanding, and this is just my... theory, unless somebody else has written it since I started talking about it, is that when you have trauma, you know, known as PTSD, again, using the diagnosis, I know, but it's the spirit of trauma, let's say the spirit of PTSD, and we're working on it, but I don't believe that it's possible to have PTSD without moral injury somewhere in there. either as a victim or as a perpetrator, something happened here. And so we start working on the PTSD and what happens, you know, using kind of a hydraulic model here just for visual purposes.
So once we empty the container of PTSD and here's the energy of moral injury, then the moral injury will refill the PTSD. And so now PTSD's is spinning again, now moral injury has a vacuum. So now PTSD feeds the moral injury. And it's this back and forth, you know, playing of energy that happens in the individual.
And that's why I believe, and the reason I talk about it, is because in the time that we're going to talk here today, in the 70 minutes or so, another veteran will have committed suicide. And I believe that one of the reasons, and probably the reason that they do that, is because this interplay between moral injury and PTSD isn't being addressed, and then it becomes hopeless. Because if they keep working on just the PTSD and doing all their due diligence, doing all the therapies, taking all the medication, and they still feel terrible, well, at some point you feel this is not ever going to work. And the way to end it then would be to end yourself.
And so I really believe that at the core of a lot of this is that suffering that happens by the, and again, it's just energy. But one has that guilt to it, and the other one has the trauma of either being perpetrator or victim. And so it goes back and forth.
And, you know, and I can. You know, safely say and truthfully say that in my own person working on myself over the years with PTSD moral injury, that I have experienced the movement of that injury in that way, and that's why I can speak to it. And when I do, when veterans hear this, a lot of the reactions is finally somebody knows what's going on, because they know something is happening. but it's just not being addressed by the regular diagnostic process.
And slowly, now the VA is coming on to dealing with moral injury. But again, it's being dealt with as just a diagnostic category and not as energetic. And when somebody decides to take their life, I mean, that's very energetic, you know, because now you're moving, you're transforming your whole self into...
and through the unknown. And it's very unfortunate. So I really hope that that makes sense. And so hopefully if it makes sense to you, and hopefully it'll make sense to whoever's hearing this, because I think that is really, really critical to understand that piece of it.
I think my next question is related to how does it relate when someone has an acute trauma in their lifetime, where they might have PTSD? or sort of moral injury versus this sort of intergenerational soul wounding and soul guilt. Yeah, then that becomes even more complicated because you're dealing with the present injury to them. But in my work, and I've done a lot of that because a lot of the communities I was working with were experiencing historical trauma, but then they were also experiencing present-day trauma. And the way to get an understanding is because it's so difficult for them to heal, it's good to put it into some perspective so they know why it's difficult.
And saying, well, the reason it's so difficult is because we're not only healing what happened to you, but we're also trying to heal what happened to your great-great-grandma. And so that... is compounding the pain that you're feeling. And then also making the person or helping them realize that if they do heal themselves, either from their personal trauma and also the historical trauma, they're also healing their ancestors.
And so then that becomes a great motivator because who doesn't want to heal their great-great-grandma? And not only that, you're also healing your great, great, great grandchild who's not even here yet. And again, the person could be at the last throes of dealing with life because of their pain.
But when you let them know that their healing is interconnected to 14 generations and how powerful they are in the present moment, then that... gives a whole different perspective for the patient to heal themselves. And one of the exercises that I like to give is, speaking of family therapy, is the genogram, where you have the parents here, and then you put grandparents, great-grandparents, and of course children, and then even theoretical children who aren't there. So you can say, well, so-and-so, maybe one of your kids is going to have three kids, and the other one's going to have two kids. And you can make a family tree to go down four or five generations.
And then you can circle some child in the fifth generation. And then I ask the patient, you get to decide how this person lives. And this is somebody you'll never see with these eyes, but you'll see with your spiritual eyes. So do you want them to have the... the spirit of depression, the spirit of suicide, the spirit of alcoholism.
And you can help them heal that right now by healing yourself. And so that becomes a powerful existential moment for that person to be healing five generations from now and into the future. But then also saying your great-great-grandma and your great-great-grandpa are watching in the session right now.
And as soon as you heal... they can also heal and move on into whatever you get to do there. And so, again, you know, very powerful moment for the patient to experience that. And so then it makes it more realistic for them to want to heal their personal trauma also. Because a lot of times that personal trauma came from the historical trauma, you know.
And a lot of this in the Native communities happened through the boarding schools, where great-great-grandparents were involved in the boarding schools. A lot of abuse, terrible, a lot of people died there. And so that spirit of violence from the boarding schools themselves are causing the violence in the present-day situation.
And that's another way that I try to let them see. that they're not defective for having the problems that they have. Because when we use just diagnoses, it's real easy for the individual to say, I am really messed up to have all of these issues.
I mean, this is impossible. But when we start tracing it and naming it as the other part, depending on the community, for instance, with the boarding schools, I say, well, that could be the spirit of... you know, Captain Pratt that is troubling you, that is causing the violence in your life. And of course, Pratt was the individual who designed the boarding schools here and in Canada. And the motto was, kill the Indian, save the man.
And so once people realize that this energy is filtering down through the generations, they realize that they themselves are not defective. They just have this issue. that needs to be shape-shifted into something else. And it's a very, that's why I call a lot of the therapy that I do, I call it liberation therapy, liberation psychology, because it liberates the person from thinking they're a defective human being because of the culture they come from.
Because if we just use diagnostic categories and the patient has like 10 diagnoses, Well, it's real easy to think I'm really messed up. And again, using that jargon, I am, you know, it solidifies it. And it's really hard to get out of that. And, and so then, you know, there's other options like Addictions, which is a slow suicide or just overt suicide. So when the perspective's really focused on an individual who's suffering and all of their symptoms being labeled as these diagnoses, it really can be shame increasing.
And then as that expands and you're expanding someone's awareness and understanding all the factors that are influencing them in their family and in their history. It seems that it brings in a natural sense of both self-compassion and compassion for what one's ancestors had to go through. Well, exactly. Yeah.
And it's compassion to the unborn ones, because now through your suffering, which suffering is the essence of developing compassion, and now you can become a compassionate person. And eventually the compassion can grow to where you're going to have compassion on Captain Pratt himself. I don't ask that right away, of course. This requires, you know, a lot of self-understanding, a lot of insight in spiritual and psychological development. But there comes a point where that's the last thing that might be holding you back is Captain Pratt is alive and well still in your family system.
And so, like, you know, when I'd be seeing a family, if there was child abuse, let's say, you know, Yeah, you're responsible for it as a parent, but also I would say maybe you're just channeling Captain Pratt. And it's not taking away the responsibility, but it's like, whoa, wait a minute. And nobody wants to be Captain Pratt. I mean, that's the worst thing you can call somebody.
And so if you're being used by Captain Pratt, who's been dead for over 100 years, well, now is the time. to heal yourself and heal the generations and of course on down the line then we also need to uh help and pray for captain pratt so that he can be awakened in the spirit world if you know however that works but again that requires uh a bigger buddha mind to put it in that context i mean because that's beyond my pay grade and i don't expect a traumatized patient you know to to do that anytime soon and nor do i bring it up until they're well along the path and i might just say you know not today not tomorrow but someday maybe you can think about forgiving him and of course the initial response there's no way you know i hate you know all that so you won't you know but once you forgive him then both of you can go on your way so if forgiveness becomes in a part of the uh of the task But that's huge. That's asking a lot. So it sounds like the genogram has been a powerful tool for you to really bring this perspective in and work with clients.
And could you share a little bit more about how you do that? Is it usually in session over a period of time or how do you usually introduce that? Well, just a piece of paper because I like. for the person to themselves to draw the circles and the squares or whatever they use to designate different people and to, again, make the theoretical generations, you know, who are not here yet, but then they can go as far back as they can.
And of course, they know, you know, for instance, let's say somebody, you know, had a patient that was very violent and in a way that to get to it was by asking simple questions like, where did you learn how to do that? And so she said, well, my parents did that. And where did they learn how to do it?
Well, their parents. And so, you know, they went up the generations to where at one point I asked a very insulting question. I said, so it looks like it might be part of your tribal tradition to do that to hurt children, which of course I knew it wasn't, but I knew that they were going to really react to that.
no way. And so then they told me what their tribal traditions were, which of course have to do, you know, with kindness, generosity, compassion, caring. I said, well, then something must have happened. So then I would ask the question, were your great, great, great grandparents in boarding school?
And it would be like a light would go on. So now they knew where that energy, that spirit of violence, as I call it, did not belong to them. any of your ancestors.
It just went through them. And now you get to shape-shift it, transform it so it doesn't get passed on. And, you know, and then we can do the X's. on the genogram and say, well, here's, let's say, your great-great-granddaughter whom you haven't seen, you won't see with these eyes. What do you want for her?
And of course, they're going to want all of the good things that their community and culture has to offer. So the only way to give her that is by healing yourself in the here and now. But then also your great-great-grandma who's looking at you.
she's waiting for you to heal yourself also. And that's really, really useful in the moment, especially when somebody's been so traumatized and they have at least three generations that they know of, grandparents, parents, themselves, then their children, four generations that are really dysfunctional. It's really easy to be hopeless and think nothing can be done here. And, you know, through the process of simple psychotherapy, to be able to shapeshift and liberate them from feeling that way and realizing that, yes, I can do this. And I don't have to become president or anything like that to change it.
I just have to change myself and heal myself, which is the only one that you can do anyway in the first place. And so then makes it. very doable versus impossible. Because some of the people I've seen, I myself thought it was impossible. I thought, there's no way this person's going to get it because it is so much substance, you know, alcohol, so much violence.
How can they possibly ever? But then mysteriously, through this process and then through dreams, I use a lot of dreams in the process also. And in the dreams is where ancestors appear also, and also the unborn ones appear in dreams. And so it makes it more real. You shared so much, by the way, you shared that about the question I'm about to ask.
But it seems like when people are touching in with this larger understanding of so much suffering and also their own responsibility feeling, oh, I have an impact on my great granddaughter. Does that sometimes bring up further sense of shame or hopelessness? And how do you sort of resource them in that process so that that's something that can be faced?
Well, again, if the shame emerges saying, well, the spirit of shame is visiting you, and it's really useless if you leave it just a shame. And so again, by shapeshifting shame into another energy, saying now that shame we can transform it into, it can be a helper for you. So you enlisted like Padmasambhava did, and let's call shame this little demon.
So now we shapeshift the demon into being a helper by making a relative out of it and saying, well, you're not being very helpful right now. Maybe if we change this, because shame doesn't go anywhere, right? It just takes us further into the abyss. And by making a relative out of shame and seeing what that transforms into, which is usually some sort of hope and a brighter day. And so, again, each aspect of it, and of course, you know, this could take 10 sessions to even do the last five minutes that we talked about.
It's a slow process that, again, is guided by the dreams and by some of the other inner work that they're doing. And, you know, if they're deep in the throes of addiction, then dealing with that also. How do we deal with the spirit of alcohol or the spirit of cocaine or whatever is in the mix to try to also befriend those energies?
Are there ways that you invite or encourage the dreams or the attention to dreams? Actually, even before I see the patient for the first time, I say, if you dream anything, try to remember it or record it somehow and bring it in the first time. And of course, a lot of times people will tell me, well, I don't dream.
And then I start, again, the relationship to the dream time. I say, well, the dream time is like a person, you know, it's an entity. And if you want something from a person, you've got to relate to them and you've got to give them a gift. So again, now... I say you identify yourself to the dream and give it a gift and then mysteriously they start remembering dreams and but a lot of times you know something sort of humorous happens where if they have a dream they don't like they blame me for having the dream because because you give me that dreamless no no i don't have that kind of power i mean that's coming from your own psyche from your own soul depending on where they're at Culturally, spiritually, I use whatever jargon fits best.
And usually with indigenous people, it's spirit usually works because the belief is that everything has spirit. So say that dream comes from the dream time, from the spirit, comes from the mystery, and it's a gift. And so even if it's a dream you don't like, you need to give something back. You need to say thank you because it's manners. You know, you have to have etiquette.
So go back to the dream and give it a tobacco offering, and it'll continue to nurture you with more dreams that will explain that dream even. And so now they have a relationship to their inner psychology that goes with them long after they leave me. And so that's the other part of that, because we all dream all the time, but we don't have a relationship with it.
And so by having that relationship, then they carry their inner... healer their inner therapist their inner buddha whatever you want to call it with them and that's the one that they can really rely on because it's coming from the depths and it's not coming from an external therapist it's coming from them are there other aspects uh besides the genogram that you you do with clients to sort of encourage that um both the awareness of the the past generations and future generations and also this this relationship with their own internal space beyond the therapy yeah because now you're dreaming with the ancestors see the the ancestors are also involved in your dreams and they know what you need to dream and so they'll give you the whatever dream you need for whatever and sometimes the dreams are as mundane as you know i was Working with this one guy once that really needed to improve his diet, you know, he had issues around that. And I was really struggling, how am I going to bring it up because I don't want to offend him. And next session he came in and he had a dream where somebody told him you need to do this. So then my task was just to let's do the nuts and bolts.
How are you going to do this? And so it became real easy because I wasn't. telling him to do anything is coming from him or from his ancestors. And again, that's where the genogram is really important because it's interconnecting you to, like I said, 14 generations. And that's why when I talk to Native audiences, I say, you know, we're talking about healing across 14 generations.
And even if you don't know seven generations before, then people become interested. And then now online you can find out all kinds of stuff. You can find out who was your great-great-great-grandpa or grandma.
And now you're connecting with them at a whole other level because you even get to find out what they did, who they were, and all that. So again, the genogram is to connect you to who you are, but across... all of these generations that eventually is all of humankind, right? And you spoke a little bit about making offerings to the dreams. And I'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about the importance or the potential of offering in general when relating with ancestors and future generations.
Well, it's, you know, in most indigenous traditions, it's a matter of etiquette, and it's just something that you do. And also in the Buddhist tradition, I mean, you know, you've probably seen pictures of the, or videos of the Dalai Lama. He'll be walking in a crowd, and somebody will present a bowl of wheat or something, and he'll take it and he'll throw it.
And so indigenous people from all over the world. use that as relating to to the mystery with the mystery that is us also and by giving an offering now the mysterious aspect of that energy takes that and it'll respond to you. Just like when you give a human being a gift, there's usually a thank you or something happens with that.
And so the intent is to, again, bless the energy, but also to give it something for something it's given you, like the dream. And very few people, I mean, when I ask people to do that, especially indigenous people, they're like, oh my gosh, I should know that. Because that's...
just how it's supposed to work. And so basically, you know, it's telling them something they already know. They just need to be reminded of it.
And I think it would behoove all cultures to do this. You know, imagine what would happen to our world if in the next week, everybody gave an offering to the Dreamtime. I mean, I don't know, the Dreamtime might do something totally amazing. And that collective would shape-shift into something else. And so I'm really hoping that that's the intent behind saying these words, is that people will do some of these simple, very simple exercises that don't cost anything and just start acknowledging the mysterious, which is around us all the time.
I mean, you wake up in the morning. grateful for that. You can leave an offering for that. You know, when you eat, I mean, a lot of people say grace, but they don't know why they're doing that.
You know, again, it's sacramentalizing the energy of food and transforming it into something else. And so that's kind of, and Jung actually, he wrote, I forget, volume 15, I think, which is a huge volume, about 600 pages. And he calls it the symbolic life. And basically, it takes 600 pages to say what I just said.
But Carl Jung, you know, really believed that way also. I mean, he lived his life in a symbolic way. And that's why when he came here and met with Native people, they had a relationship because he knew how to do that. And they knew that he knew how to do that. And so it was really different for him.
And as we're coming to close to the end of our time, I was hoping you could speak a little bit to this idea of the wounded healer and why the psychology of the therapist or mental health professional or healer is so important. Yeah, that is of utmost importance. And the whole idea of the wounded healer, you know, the archetype, because it is an energy that is cross-cultural.
I mean, all cultures have it. Where in order for the healer to become a healer, you have to be wounded. It's kind of what I said earlier.
In order to develop compassion, you have to suffer. And there's no roundabout way of doing that. And the way I understand it is that when the healer's been wounded and healed their wounds, when they're in front of the patient, what happens is that the psyche, the spirit of the patient recognizes the wounds in the healer.
And so what that does is activates the healer in the patient because compassion, you know, when we see suffering, it elicits compassion right away, whether we know it or not. So when the patient sees the wounds in the healer, even though there's scars and already healed, now the healer is active in the patient. And now the therapy, the healing becomes a lot easier because the patient is healing themselves or that archetype of the wounded healer is healing them and that's why in ancient greece the whole idea of the ascalepios you know who who walked around and very wounded well the idea was that he himself he wasn't you know like a magical healer is the magic happened within the patient themselves And so hopefully therapists will work on healing themselves so that the patient can then activate their own inner healer and heal themselves also.
But most therapists, I think, have been wounded, and it's important that we heal that because we don't want an open wound that hasn't been healed to have the patient then try to heal us because that's not... good manners. You know, the patient is giving us the offering to help them activate their inner healer.
And the way to do that is by healing ourselves. And it's an ongoing process. I mean, no one's perfectly healed, but, you know, we work on it.
And to close, what is your view of the role of compassion in healing in general, and especially healing from trauma? You know, compassion is something that, you know, I've spent a lot of time contemplating and trying. Compassion is an energy. I believe this is a powerful energy that actually is one of the cataclysmic forces that created the whole universe. And so when suffering creates compassion, you know, when we deal with suffering in a...
in a positive way, you know, that this is part of life and life is suffering, and then we move beyond it, then compassion arises from that. And Thich Nhat Hanh said it best. I mean, he just said it straight out. He said, suffering, you know, is the compost.
of enlightenment. And to me compassion, and using the physics term here, compassion is the wormhole to awakening. And so you could sit day and night doing vipassana, doing whatever meditation, it's all good, but if you don't, uh, compassion doesn't arise, the chances are you're gonna break through into that realm of the Buddhas.
And I really, really believe that it's through compassion that is the path. But it's a powerful force that I can't even begin to comprehend because it created everything that is. And so how can my finite mind begin to understand compassion?
But I do know it's real and in suffering. And that's why a lot of Native ceremonies involve suffering on purpose. Because it's through that suffering that it's known compassion will emerge from that. And it's profound, it's huge, and I think only the omniscient mind of a Buddha can possibly begin to understand the actual compassion. But that's kind of my take on it.
I know a long answer, but you could talk for days and still not get to it. So thank you so much, Dr. Duran, for your time and sharing with us today. And is there anything else for any of the healers, mental health professionals that are listening that you'd like to share as we close, if you had any closing words?
Well, I encourage all of them to start listening to their dreams and to start trying to understand, working with me and other people, this essence, this... entity of compassion and how we can best relate to it so that we can heal the world's soul wound because our world as a whole has been wounded and we need to do that. And as healers, therapists, that's what the word means. I really think it's important.
And even when we're working towards healing one human being, realizing we're also healing the earth when we do that. And it's important to understand that the earth remembers all this. And the image for that is the Buddha, right as the morning star is about to arise, and he's been attacked by all these entities all night. And the final test was doubt.
And Mara asked him, who do you think you are to deserve awakening? And he points to the earth. He says, well, the earth is my witness. Well, the earth can't be a witness unless the earth is conscious. And the Buddha knew that.
The earth is conscious. And the earth knew that he knew the earth was conscious. So it was consciousness.
And as soon as he said that, it all opened up and awakening happened. And so that's how powerful, you know, the awareness of earth in the present moment, in the body of the client. the patient is we're healing the collective the whole earth and to have that intention i think could really really bring results because we really need it so no pressure to heal the whole earth and all sentient beings so you know that should take a couple of weeks may it be so yes yeah well thank you so much dr duran for the beauty and clarity of everything that you shared with us today.
Well, thank you for doing it and for giving me opportunity to remind myself of these things because sometimes I forget also and talking about it reminds me and I appreciate you doing that. So blessings to you and all of yours. Okay.
Thank you.