Juanita’s Blog

Healing The Inter-Generational Trauma Of War

November 10, 2022 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

When I was 16, my parents decided to take my three sisters and I on a 6 week camping trip throughout Europe one summer. They had just sold their dairy cattle. My Dad found a way to ship a van to Europe and then make his money back by selling it afterwards. My parents borrowed camping gear from extended family in the Netherlands. It was an incredible trip where we saw and stayed in places that left a mark from the northern most part of Scotland to the Coliseum in Rome. We camped in downtown London at Tent City, next to railroad tracks in Rome, in places with views of the Alps and Loch Ness.

The most serious destination we visited was Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany. After smiling for all of those other photos, we did not smile in this place. It was a place of tremendous pain and sadness.

Remembrance Day

With Remembrance Day coming up, I’ve been thinking about how most of our lives have been shaped in some way by family members who’ve experienced War. Certainly many with a connection to the Ukraine, Russia, Hong Kong or Afghanistan are just a few places that are currently living this experience.

Whether it be this generation or previous generations, I think we’d be hard-pressed to find someone without a connection to war. I’ve been reflecting on both the experience of those in wars, their surrounding family and friends, and also the impact of those wars experiences on future generations.

One of my Family Stories

In my family and extended family, the pain of war was too much for them to acknowledge Rememberance Day in a way that acknowledged their own losses. As a kid I don’t remember connecting to any emotion about Rememberance Day, often just another thing like church that left me feeling bored. Like many kids, I didn’t have a lot of interest in asking my parents about their history and connection to war. They didn’t talk about it either. Rememberance Day felt like it was for other people.

Over the past few months, I’ve been doing some learning and reflecting on inter-generational trauma. There are some things in myself that I instinctively have felt that I carry that are not fully my own. This led me to explore some of my own family lineage. I started with my maternal lineage and that led me back to Dachau.

Incredibly, my mother had books about her maternal genealogy, all in Dutch from the 1600s until after WWII. All of them were in Dutch, and google translate made it incredibly easy to translate the parts I wanted to read.

For the first time I really connected to my great-grandfather who was a police chief and war-resistor during WWII and was betrayed and then shot. My great-uncle was also a war-resistor who got caught and spent the bulk of the war in various concentrations camps before dying in Dachau a few months shy of the end of the war in 1945. He was 28 and left behind a family who loved him and a fiancee.

My grandparents and their two young boys moved to Canada shortly after the war and then had my mother here in Canada.

If I actually stop and really connect to those words I’ve written, I can’t help but feel my own sadness about my family’s experience at that time. I can only imagine the ways they all tried to cope with that much sorrow.

And this is just one of my 4 family threads – who all have a connection to war.

Deep Sorrow

The book Bitter-sweet by Susan Cain recently crossed my path. She shares how acknowledging sorrow and longing can make us whole.

I can’t help but imagine what it must have been like for all of my extended-family to have to process that experience in the 1940s. I think of my my great-uncle Marcelis who spent years in concentration camps. I think of their surviving family members and those who stayed in the Netherlands, and those who left everyone behind for another country very far away.

I’ve been noticing more of what parts dripped down into future generations. Indeed Susan Cain talks about science of epi-genetics in her book and that past trauma has been documented in impacting the genes of future generations to carry some of these wounds. Fortunately, epi-genetics has shown that as people heal, they can shift their genes too.

The Process of Healing

In reflecting on my extended family and their experience, I have found that talking about it with my mother and family, and also meeting myself and these ancestors (via meditation) with loving-kindness have been important parts towards for my own healing.

It’s really not rocket-science: Acknowledge past pains. Feel them. Be kind during this process. And then ultimately shift to the present moment and realize that those things don’t need to be carried anymore.

Yet as the saying goes, “What is simple is not necessarily easy”.

One of the challenging parts in this process, is that there can be no agenda or timeline for how fast the process goes. For Susan Cain, she was able to heal from her inter-generational trauma by going through the process above by writing her book Bitter-sweet. That took time.

North American Cultural Values

If you live in North-America, you’re also entrenched with multiple cultural values including self-sufficiency, efficiency, “effortless perfection” and a “tyranny of positivity”.

Self-sufficiency admires the person who does something all by them-self without help from others. Efficiency admires people who heal quickly and on a time-line.

Effortless Perfection is the pressure to appear like a winner without needing to try (a term coined at Duke University in 2003). We can see this demand for effortless perfection in so many places from motherhood to being a student. Susan Cain talks about the Tyranny of Positivity and how this has taught people to suppress their emotions and put on a mask of smiles at all times.

When we meet people who struggle to heal from great trauma – they can be left behind and judged for not putting in enough effort to heal. I read a thoughtful critique on Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor and psychiatrist who wrote the book “Man’s Search for Meaning”. He brought the duality of both inspiring many people to heal but also not giving room for those who couldn’t heal from their trauma. This excerpt is from an online Jewish Magazine called Tablet.

“Frankl avoided the many painful cases of Holocaust survivors who were unable to reconcile themselves to their past torment. He focused only on those who achieved an optimistic, forward-looking life, people like himself, who could be inspirational examples for the rest of humanity. But Frankl’s ‘tragic optimism,’ as he called it, turned away from the true pain of the Holocaust, which is the fact that it cannot be made into a source of moral inspiration…Such a reality can never be a source of satisfying life lessons.”

David Mikics

What would it be like to start freeing ourselves from timelines and cultural demands to “get over things”?

Freeing myself from a timeline to acknowledge, feel the impact, and heal from of the inter-generational trauma of war in my family has been tough. I generally have that nagging voice of “Damn, you’ve got a great life with so much goodness, how can you be stuck in old pain?”

Susan Cain gives a beautiful story in her book about her time in a grief group. What do we do with our own story after hearing someone’s story that seems much worse than our own? This is a dialogue between her grief group leader, Simcha, and her own internal thoughts.

“Simcha: ‘Are you thinking that ‘she had a four-tissue story and I only have a two-tissue story’?

Susan: Yes … I’m relieved to see others laughing with relief at Simcha’s question. I wish that I didn’t have to tell my story at all; it feels so thin compared to Maureen’s. But refusing to speak feels wrong, ungenerous.” Cain (p. 255-56)

Support From Others

North-American culture really values it when you can do things all by yourself. Healing Inter-generational trauma is not one of those things best done by yourself.

The process often requires some support from others – whether that be therapy, close friends or family who can be fully present with this pain, body-work, psycho-somatic release, energy work, exercise or many combinations of these things.

If you’re open to sound-healing, here’s a link for Unwinding Ancestral Tangles by Laurie Thorp, one of my former teachers at Barbara Brennan School of Healing.

Ultimately, healing requires a process of being met with softness and kindness and a holding of the duality of both the joys in one’s life and the pain too.

This Remembrance day, I hope you get to spend that moment at 11:11 to reconnect to your own family lineage connected to war. It is a beautiful way to connect to your ancestors and also acknowledge yourself.

References

Cain, S. (2022). Bitter-sweet: How sorrow and longing make us whole. Random House

Mikics, D. (2020, Sept 10). The Lie of Viktor Frankl. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/viktor-frankl

How Do Spiritual Leaders Deal With Their Anger?

October 17, 2022 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

Years ago I googled, “Dalai Lama Angry”. I was in a state of honestly wondering what spiritual leaders do with their anger. I was tired of being in spiritual and psychotherapy communities that by-passed their anger. In the spiritual world I rolled my eyes every time I read some trite advice about “letting it go” or “opening your heart”. In the psychotherapy world I felt anger when models said “anger is a secondary emotion” or “you just need to shift your thoughts to change your emotion”.

Um, anger can actually be a very accurate response to a situation – anger can sometimes be incredibly healthy. Too often the anger gets the focus and not the problem underneath.

I remember feeling relief as I watched a Youtube video of the Dalai Lama lashing out towards someone. Part of me felt relieved at seeing such a strong Spiritual Leader having such a human moment.

Shifting The Stigma About Anger

I have been thrilled to see a slight opening in dialogue about anger emerge from spiritual leaders.

Here are few!

Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield is a leader in the Buddhist meditation world. He was interviewed by Tim Ferriss in June. Here’s a link to their conversation: How to Overcome Apathy and Find Beautiful Purpose.

Jack tells a great story about returning from a few years in retreat in a monastery and finding himself struggling with his anger as he started to be around people (right?!!). He shares that for him, he realized that he had a strong discomfort and judgment towards his own anger. He did some body-based psychotherapy to help him process his anger and learn new ways to be present with it. He doesn’t share his ongoing journey with anger, but I love that he shares that he needed something different than meditation to help him.

Tim then shares how the process of therapeutically expressing anger, generally just makes him more angry and more stuck in his anger. Jack gives him some ideas from a Buddhist approach.

Dan Harris

First of all, Dan would likely hate be called a spiritual leader. He is a news anchor who had a panic attack on live television and that was the impetus to start exploring meditation. He is wonderful for anyone who is more cynical about spirituality, and he has a great sense of humour.

Recently he gave a Ted Talk: The Benefits of Not Being a Jerk Towards Yourself. This one is short and sweet (13:39). Dan shares about his cringing hesitation to try being kinder to himself and his journey to get there. After practising meditation for years, he decided to do a 360 review (a corporate type of performance evaluation). He was noted as being arrogant, rude, and a diva. He then set out to change this and shares the multitude of things he tried and that a (spoiler alert) silent meditation retreat with a a loving-kindness approach towards himself, was a big piece in helping him shift. He realized that if he was nicer to himself, he was then able to be nicer to others. After his second 360 review, he shares his transformation.

Joe Dispenza

I’m new to the Joe Dispenza world, and his work is often interpreted as by-passing sadness, anger, grief, and the more challenging emotions. Here’s a great article he wrote trying to dispel that understanding: Emotions Are Not Your Enemy. He doesn’t share at all about his own journey with anger, but he tries to normalize the process of feeling emotions and highlights his work is often beneficial for anyone who finds that they are stuck in those emotions and past experiences. If you’re a new subscriber and missed my most recent post that includes him – here’s the link to learn more My Crush On Physics.

And More?

If you’ve seen a spiritual leader share about their own journey with anger, please share that with me, I’d love to hear more.

And if you’re curious to explore anger a little more, I seem to write at least one post a year about his topic, so here are a couple of them.

Reconciling The Death Of Queen Elizabeth With The National Day For Truth And Reconciliation

September 30, 2022 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

On September 30th, Canada instituted a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This is a day for Canadians to acknowledge the truth of residential schools and the long-term impact on Indigenous children, families, and communities.

On September 8th, Queen Elizabeth II died, and a public holiday was also given on September 19 to acknowledge her death.

So in summary, we acknowledge colonialism on one day and then 10 days later, the impact that the monarchy, the government, and White people have played in the genocide of Indigenous people in Canada’s history.

Needless to say, the timing is interesting. The timing has given space for a variety of emotions to arise. I’ve had a variety of conversations about this topic, so I thought I’d attempt to write about it.

Duality

Often in therapy, there is a goal of being able to hold space for mixed emotions. Every person will hold a variety of emotions towards their parents and how they parented them. Often times, people get stuck in believing that we can only hold positive or negative emotions towards a parent, when in reality, we’re more complex than that.

On one end of the spectrum, children of abusive parents may have mixed emotions of anger and love towards an abusive parent. Often a person will feel shame that they have any love towards that parent.

On the other end of the spectrum, children who say the phrase, “I had a great childhood”, often minimize any conflictual emotions they experience towards a parent or are completely unaware of any. They may learn to not feel any negative emotions at all or feel shame about their negative emotions.

When we don’t acknowledge or we try to push away our negative emotions, it comes out sideways in our lives with anxiety, depression, and irritability, addiction and many other ways. It also impedes our ability to truly hold space for others who are feeling these emotions too.

How This Connects To The Queen

It is important to acknowledge the feelings of love and grief that you may have about the Queen’s passing. Many people have stories of meeting her, having a connection to their heritage, or to an aspect of her personal life. If you’ve watched the Crown, you may have some empathy and awe towards her as she navigates the responsibility of being Queen at such a young age. Your feelings of love and connection are valid and deserve your attention.

You also may have feelings of apathy or anger towards the Queen and the damage the monarchy has inflicted on so many people. I’ve watched season one of The Crown and it was painful to watch how she betrayed her sister, her husband, and ultimately herself. These feelings are also valid and deserve your attention.

The addition of having to swing from two opposing holidays of grieving the Queen to acknowledging the monarchy’s impact on the Indigenous community within a short time span can be a lot to absorb.

White Privilege

If you felt a lot of love for the Queen, you may not be able to switch to reflecting about the harm the monarchy has caused in the span of 10 days. So don’t. We are not emotional light bulbs that can switch to the relevant emotion of the day.

BUT, put some time in your calendar at some point to take the time to reflect on reconciliation with Indigenous people in Canada or whichever country you live in.

If you’re a White Canadian, when it comes to supporting Indigenous communities, we often fall into the trap of looking at our leaders in government and the monarchy and say a version of, “They were such great parents! They did their best in the time they lived with what they had”.

Or we can get defensive and say, “I had no idea these things were happening, so it’s not my fault”.

As a White Canadian, I have the privilege of being apathetic towards the government and the monarchy if I’d like to because racism isn’t a daily impact on my personal life.

My invitation to my White audience, is to consider opening the door to see if you can hold space to connect to what was happening while we live(d) our protected lives. Can we acknowledge the impact of what it must’ve been like for Indigenous people to be here in Canada for the past few centuries? Can we acknowledge the impact of residential schools that were here until 1996? Can we acknowledge the ongoing racism that still occurs in our communities?

Hamilton (The City)

If you live in Ontario, we have Municipal elections happening in October. This is a great place to explore looking at leaders that embody anti-racist platforms. In my city of Hamilton we have the Hamilton Anti-Racist Resource Centre – where you can learn about ways to support our community. The school boards have also been learning and trying to implement more anti-racist policies.

Where could you put more energy into being an anti-racist in your community? You don’t have to do it all, it’s about starting to make intentional change.

In the next few months I’ll be sharing a few anti-racist books that crossed my path that you may want to explore. If you have any books or resources that you love, please share!

As always – thanks for reading and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

My Crush On Physics

September 15, 2022 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

When I was in high school, I loved physics. I was at the exciting point in time where physicists were discovering that light was both a particle and wave. It was also when Stephen Hawking published A Brief History of Time and the concept of black holes wowed me.

Unfortunately, as much as I liked physics, I never did very well in those classes. My brain could never really understand it in the way I wanted to no matter how I tried.

When I went to the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, part of their marketing was to highlight that Barbara Brennan was a Nasa physicist. And yes, I was impressed and curious how this woman bridged her scientific background into become a master energy healer and teacher.

Over time many people have tried to bridge this gap with books and teachings – Bruce Lipton, Lynne McTaggart, and Dean Radin were some of the first authors I came across. And again, I would read their books and understand parts of it – but I would reach a point in the book were it got pretty fuzzy.

My husband studied physics in university and he recently recommended a podcast about quantum physics. Once again, I eagerly listened to it, and you know what – I didn’t understand all of it, but I did understand parts of it. And as fuzzy as it is in my brain, I still find it all quite exciting.

The podcast was Tim Ferriss interviewing Donald Hoffman – The Case Against Reality, Beyond SpaceTime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism and More.

I mean – the Case against Reality? beyond SpaceTime? Rethinking Death? – All things I’m interested in. The long-story-short that I got from this episode is that the Newtonian model of physics is limited. Our material world and it’s laws are only one part of our reality. In terms of light being both a particle and a wave – the same can be said for everything including ourselves.

If you’ve ever had an energy healing, had connection to the spirit world, or had weird things happen in your life that defy material-based logic, this will be of no surprise to you. Most people I meet have at least one mysterious experience in their life, not defined by logic, that is often said in a hushed tone of not wanting to be judged for talking about their experience out loud. Naming our energetic parts as real is not a way to get rid of the mystery, but to add some validity and clarity to the complexity of being in a human on earth in this space and time. Our brain and it’s function of deduction and understanding is only one aspect of ourselves.

Dr. Joe Dispenza

More than one person in my life has mentioned the name of Joe Dispenza. I kept him in the back of my brain as someone to learn more about. Out of curiosity, I decided to read his most recent book Becoming Supernatural.

And you know what I loved? He explained quantum physics in a way that my brain understood.

Side Note: For all of you science people, my husband has pointed out that while his descriptions make sense, Dispenza is explaining theories more as facts, so take that into account. Yet at the same time he has a beautiful way of taking science-speak and putting it into terms most of us can understand.

The exciting part of acknowledging ourselves as both “a particle and a wave” or both matter and energy, is that it gives us more than one way to heal in our lives and shift our lives into what we want them to be.

Joe Dispenza has had incredible success in helping people overcome serious health issues in their lives with his approach.

Counselling & Energy Healing

I have loved combining both talk therapy and energy healing. Sometimes we need to understand ourselves and our patterns in lives so that we can make conscious changes. Other times, we benefit from having a hand with this by balancing, clearing, and recharging our energy field. Energy healing offers support, clarity, and energizes and solidifies the intentions you have in your life. I find that everyone thrives with a different combination, and that this combination changes over time and situation. I have seen people make and maintain big and small shifts in their lives with this combination.

Guided Meditation

Recently, I have been enjoying Joe Dispenza’s Morning Meditation and his Chakra Blessing Meditation. He has quite a variety of meditations to choose from on YouTube. If he’s not your style, I encourage you to try out other meditations that have an uplifting and/or supportive quality. If you haven’t meditated, or haven’t meditated in a while, guided meditation is nice way to ease into regular meditation.

Avoiding The Spiritual Bypass

Bringing energy healing into therapy offers a person an element of grace on their journey that is beyond their contributions of effort or will. There are always stories of people who have spiritual epiphanies without seemingly having to make any changes in their lives. At this point in time, I have not experienced that to be the norm. More often than not I see the effort to “bright-side” or always be positive and never acknowledge anger or shame or grief (for fear of bringing more of that into one’s life), as spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing is a mask that covers the pain and true feelings that lie underneath.

I see Joe Dispenza’s work as matching very well with the psychotherapy model of Internal Family Systems. Joe Dispenza helps people, “raise their vibration” to joy, love, and higher frequencies”. Internal Family Systems helps people connect to “Self” – the part of ourselves that acts more as a witness to our thoughts and opens space to consider a different story behind our old patterns and then hold space for the wounds and the heavier emotions we feel, so that they can finally move and clear.

In my work using Internal Family Systems therapy, I have seen people heal old patterns.

Either way, both methods require time and commitment to strengthening these parts of ourselves that can be in a “higher vibration” so that a person than can also hold space for all the shadow parts, old patterns and emotions connected to old wounds. Too often in the spiritual world, I have witnessed a fear of acknowledging anger, pain and shame. These are not emotions to be feared – they are often quite valuable and have served a purpose. AND these parts of yourselves are not the full picture of who you are and what you bring.

Also both methods hold an element of grace around timing. There is no sweet spot or amount of time or energy that guarantees a specific result. However, the energy put into shifting old patterns will not be for nothing – they will help you interact with life with more vitality and less heaviness.

Whew!

Alright, that was a lot. If you’ve done any of Joe Dispenza’s work, I’d love to hear about it. And if you’re a physics nerd or have a physics crush like I do..I see you 🙂

A Message Of Hope

June 14, 2022 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

I don’t know about you, but every once in awhile I dip into the news or reflect on the turbulent weather we’ve had, and I start to worry. There’s always a part of me that wants to have a pulse on what’s happening in the world, and then a part that feels depressed and overwhelmed and considers a glass of wine and some deep sighs.

At the same time, I’ve been reading and watching things and having conversations that remind me to notice the positive shifts happening in our world. If you follow someone (on social media) that inspires you or you’ve read or watch something that’s inspiring, please share!

#PrideMonth

We’ve got a long way to go and at the same time we’ve come so far! It’s been so exciting to see more movies and shows that are more inclusive. I’m still waiting for a queer version of Love is Blind – it’s overdue!

One of the sweetest shows I’ve watched is Heartstopper on Netflix. Thanks to one of my sisters for recommending it. The show follows two teenagers – Nick and Charlie – and their romance. It’s very much a heart-opener.

On the Insta, I will read anything by Roxane Gay. She is an incredible writer – both her books and her articles bring depth, clarity, and insight to a variety of topics. If you haven’t read her perspective on the Will Smith/Chris Rock debacle – it’s a must read. Why Jada Pinkett Smith Shouldn’t Have To ‘Take A Joke’ (and neither should you)

A Shift In Perspective

If you’re looking for ways to hold space for a different perspective beyond doom for our world or for changing any sticky patterns in your life, here are few people who are committed to helping people do just that. These three women inspire me in my job and in life.

Martha Beck: She recently wrote the book The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self. She offers a multitude of exercises to process what is happening in the world or yourself, and ways to shift them. She demonstrates how making shifts in yourself really does help makes shifts in the world. I love how she shows that this is a process – we don’t need to demand big changes in ourselves overnight – it’s about starting (or continuing) the process.
Sharon McMahon – she’s an American having conversations with both democrats and republicans about big issues in the USA. Whenever I find someone who has managed to connect with both sides, I lean in and get curious. She has a podcast and she has a lot of great material on Instagram. I love how she encourages people to reach out and thank or praise people in public office who are doing good things.
Byron Katie: Multiple people refer to her as an enlightened being on this earth. She is a master of helping people change their stuck perspectives. You can find her at The Work.

Conversations

Another thing that I’ve noticed over the past few months are the more inclusive conversations. Parents asking their kids, “what do you want to wear” for grad? versus assuming it’ll be a dress or a suit. Men apologizing after they notice their comments or actions were sexist. People stepping up and taking action to make their neighbourhoods or work-places a more inclusive space. People stepping up for the environment in their communities and life.

I think it’s really important to notice these things in our lives and continue to take action both in shifting our own perspectives and speaking up in our family and community. All of these things matter, and none of our actions or words are too small to start making a difference.

Summer

It’s summer-time here, so over the next few months I might be sending out a post, or I might not. I’m going to leave it to the fates that be lol. Whatever season it is where you are, I hope you have some down-time over the next few months and that you find music, food, people, and situations that are nourishing and inspiring to your spirit.

I promise, I’ll be back in September – and as always, thanks for reading! And I always love reading anything you want to share.

Psychics & Life After Life

June 1, 2022 by Juanita Lepage Leave a Comment

One of the fun parts of being an energy healer and psychotherapist, is that I often get to talk to people about experiences beyond the 5 senses. My experience as an energy healer often shows to people that I’m open to a world beyond what is logical, mind-centred, or limited to what we can see right in front of us.

Almost everyone has had an experience in their life that defies current logic, but it’s not always safe to share that information. I love it when people share about their experiences with spiritual guides, visits to psychics, using tarot cards or situations they’ve been in that defy logic. I’ve certainly had many of those types of experiences too.

I remember seeing the late Sylvia Browne, a popular psychic, in Vancouver years ago. She said she had close to an 80% accuracy rate. She answered questions from the audience and it was fun to be in a space with so many other people who were curious about this world too.

Recently on Netflix (I feel like I’m always using this phrase lol), I enjoyed watching the Medium Tyler Henry connect to loved ones who have died. His accuracy is incredible. He is so light-hearted and kind with every person he meets. He also shares his struggles with being a Medium for himself or family members he’s close to. If you’ve lost a loved you (including pets) that you were close to or didn’t get closure with, I highly recommend this series.

On the heels of that show, I was introduced to a book by medical doctor Raymond Moody Jr. called Life after Life.

Raymond has collected hundreds of stories of near death experiences. He shares many of them in this book with all the commonalities. While of course life after death isn’t something that can be scientifically proven, he acknowledges that he’s been convinced by the number of stories that have been shared with him. For anyone nervous about death, this is a wonderful highly recommended read. I certainly felt a lot of peace after reading this book.

Have you been to a psychic? How did that experience go for you?

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