Collective traumas affect body and psyche, even in the second, third and fourth generations. If internal balance is not restored after a traumatic experience, the body holds the energy and chemical charge, with a great deal of effort in order to not lose "control". Over time, the effort progressively increases the degree of involuntary tension of muscles and connective tissues. Chronic pain and (self-)destructive behaviors, among many other symptoms, are some of the ways in which the traces of trauma manifest themselves in our lives. The effort to forget what happened and to move on anchors the memory of the experience itself and of what we did to protect ourselves against its traumatic impact even more in the body. The children feel it and respond to it, even if they do not know or cannot name what it is they are feeling and responding to. The same happens with their children, and grandchildren, ...

We explore the sensations of the body in the present moment in the context of the history of our country and family in order to be able to leave the emotional charge with who it belongs to, so that we can take care of what is really within our reach, in order to create peace, at least in the part of the world that we occupy with our body.

Workshop participants explore their patterns through the daily movements of breathing, lying down, sitting, standing, walking and communicating, individually, in guided sequences and in explorations in pairs, small groups and in the whole group. The theoretical part of the workshop provides the necessary information to understand the mechanisms of trauma and the patterns that are generated around it and to discover how they manifest themselves in the relationship between the body and the Earth's gravitational field.

Depending on how we occupy space with the body and what relationship we maintain with the coordinates of the Earth's gravitational field, it supplies us with an energy that gives us a feeling of elevation and ease in movement, a feeling of living and moving in unison with a greater force. In this way we have the energy and support to be able to face even the most painful memories. A misalignment produces discomfort and, in the long run, dysfunction and disease.

The tension that is generated when we live in conflict with gravity traps the flow of sensations in repetitive patterns that prevent us from clearly perceiving what is really happening. Then, the tissues that make up the body are imbued with unresolved emotional contents of the past that remain stored just below the threshold of consciousness from which they inform the vision of oneself, of life and of the world. Thus, the trauma is repeated in one way or another.

The psyche seems to guards the trauma until we are mature enough, or have enough distance to it, for us to be able to attend to the traumatic residues instead of repeating traumatic dynamics. It transmits them from generation to generation so that children and grandchildren can attend to the traces of the traumas of their parents and grandparents, who did not have the opportunities to do so that we have today. By taking into account the origin of the trauma, it begins to be feasible to leave it where it belongs and reorient one's own behavior and attitude towards life and the group in a way that is more consistent with the requirements of the present moment. By addressing the collective traumas of wars, totalitarian regimes, terrorism, exploitation and abuses through their manifestations in the individual life of each person, we contribute to sustainable change not only in one's own life but also in the collective and promote peaceful coexistence. Every person counts.

Reflections on the subject in the blog "DFA Somatic Pattern Recognition": Why do human beings repeat things we were sure we would do differently from how our predecessors did them?

The format of the workshop provides experiences and knowledge that provide additional value for professionals in physical and mental health, education, art, the business world, sports and many others, but does not require any previous training. An essential requirement is the willingness to develop a certain degree of sensitivity that allows us to perceive sensations in the body, whether pleasant or painful, and to learn to manage them in order to be able to attend, in an effective way, to the parts of the person caught in the conflict with the greater force fields of the world. The workshop will provide the tools to develop this sensitivity, even if the person has invested a lot of energy in desensitizing themselves and does not know how to perceive their body.