Indo people say to me: “In our family history, there is so much suffering, so much trauma. It’s a cesspool I don’t want to delve into. I don’t want to identify with that ancestral trauma, I want to live my own life freely.”
Some stories you may have heard once before. Perhaps you have buried them deep in your subconscious. But you know they are there. Other stories you may suspect, or you have filled in the gaps yourself.
What exactly happened in the past may never be fully recovered. Yet, these events are more relevant than you might want to admit. Family traumas can live on within us. You inherit them from your parents, your grandparents, or even further back. Research shows that trauma can be passed down epigenetically.
You may not experience this inheritance as the literal painful events of the past, but you might notice that certain situations make you anxious or angry. Or that there are some things you simply cannot talk about. Or that parts of your body feel locked away from you. Maybe you see a certain way of interacting within your family, or a pattern of avoidance.
Untold Stories
Indo people have gone through a lot. At the same time, so much has never been spoken about. The “Indo silence” is a culture of avoidance, adaptation, and moving forward. Here in the Netherlands, this silence was a way to survive. Sometimes, I think it belongs to a certain generation. Now that I have traveled to Asia more often to teach there, I notice that the reluctance to pass down painful stories is also part of Asian culture.
I am free and I do not have to survive. I do not want to carry the burden or pain of my ancestors weighing down on me. I don’t need to know the stories of the past in detail, but I do want to understand how they continue to affect me.
When I was about 34, I told my then-girlfriend: “When I hear this language, it’s as if my tongue wants to speak it. My tongue could do it, but my mind cannot.” We were in Amsterdam, on Zeedijk, and in the Chinese shops, I heard Mandarin being spoken.
A few months later, an aunt told my mother: “You do know that his grandmother was Chinese, right?” She was referring to my grandmother, my father’s mother.
But no one had ever told me that before, not even my father. Later, when I asked him: “Dad, is it true that your mother was a Chinese woman?” he answered, “Ah yes, Chinese, she was Javanese-Chinese,” waving his hand dismissively.
There are no photos of her. She had three children. When she married, she was given a different European name in her passport so that, on paper, in the former Dutch East Indies, she appeared more “white” than she actually was. Being white meant higher status on the social ladder there.
Meditation as an Inner Journey
Meditation is a vehicle that allows me to travel deep within myself. I become still, and my breath helps me stay in the present moment. I observe my thoughts and emotions as if I am mapping out my mind: “This part of myself I recognize. Here, I have never been before.”
I discover places within me that feel uncomfortable. I learn that my emotions feel real, but I do not have to identify with them. I am not my thoughts; I am not controlled by my emotions.
Some people meditate only when things are going well. They check in to see if they can relax, and if the circumstances are perfect, they enjoy the peace that meditation can bring. But if you sit for longer and more often, you have to find a way to deal with fatigue, stress, illness, or grief. Not only the light, but also ordinary everyday events as well as the darker shadow sides deserve a place in meditation.
Sometimes, you only recognize the weight of previous generations when you turn deeply inward. If you want to break unhelpful patterns, you first have to recognize their cost. Only then can you let them go or transform them.
Time Traveling in Retreat
For several years now, I have been leading a “next-level” mindfulness retreat with Susan Bögels. To heal deeply, we travel back to the roots of our suffering. These are often the less pleasant events from our childhood or youth that have shaped us.
Susan calls this time traveling. It requires all your mindfulness skills to stay present. We engage in conversations with the child parts within us that we still carry. We recognize the internalized parental voices that reprimand or demand. And, of course, silence has also become an internalized part of us, the avoident.
It is a five-day retreat, and in the end, we arrive at the stories of our parents and ancestors. One exercise involves visualizing that we are walking hand in hand with our grandparents.
Meeting My Ancestors
I never knew my grandparents. The only grandmother I did know, my mother’s mother, passed away when I was six. She is the only one I have personal memories of. My other grandparents were already gone.
When I first did this exercise during the retreat, visualizing myself walking hand in hand with my grandparents, my mind was blank. I felt nothing. But as I returned to the exercise more often, it became a tangible experience. Eventually, I met them in the visualization, and they took me by the hand.
What I have learned over time is that you are allowed to fill in your memories yourself. A family photo or a story can help you create a more complete picture. This has helped me develop a different narrative. I notice that I no longer repeat stories of pain or loss over and over again, but that I allow the situation to reach a more healing conclusion. In recent years, I have learned how to shape the unknown stories of my family.
To a Timeless Place
I have traveled through Indonesia several times, the first time in 1992. It is often said that you should not return to places where you had wonderful experiences before. I, too, have changed and grown older. The Indonesia of my earlier travels no longer exists. The land my ancestors knew is also a different country now.
There is a saying that you cannot step into the same river twice. But when I travel to the land of my ancestors to visit them, I arrive at a timeless place. In my meditation, I can go there. It is a place that lives within me, and at the same time, a place I can long for. Or is it them that I miss?
When I travel back, it begins as a sensory experience, I walk barefoot, and it feels as if I am stepping onto an island. A sandy path leads to a green place, a small village. I smell the scents, and when I hear the sound of the gamelan, I know where I am.
I hear voices. I am seen and acknowledged. There, near the mountain, my ancestors live in their community. There are many of them, surrounded by their contemporaries. On the wings of a bird, I can fly back to an ancient time… There is struggle, there is illness and entanglement… Some of them frighten me, others speak to me sternly…
There is one ancestor, he startles me because he is disguised in a black robe with a red mask. He is small. I ask others who he is. Is he a boy or an old man? They tell me: “He is 19 plus 9 years old.” “What a strange answer.” I think: “Plus 9, or plus 29, or 39… it could be anything.” He is an old man who hides his true age. Everyone fears him.
There are men and women. My mother is there too, or is it my mother in one of her past lives?
The land where my ancestors once lived no longer exists. The journeys they undertook happened in a past era. Now, they reside in a timeless place. A place where they are happy when I visit. Because they miss me.
From the village, I want to climb the mountain. From the mountain, I can oversee the landscape. I walk upward. They smile at me and wish me a good journey. The old woman my mother once was has prepared food for my journey. Above the trees, I find my spot and continue to meditate. The mountain beneath me rumbles. I am sitting on a volcano. I turn deeper inward. When I rise, I am home again, and I know where I come from.
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