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How did traveling to northern Ireland change my view of war, terrorism, and the childhood trauma that results from it? This is the first of a 5 part series that will look at who I met there, what I learned, and how it impacted my professional and personal “story” and what it means for me now.

In June of this year, I traveled to northern Ireland. It was a short trip. I was only gone 10 days. Ten days that revolutionized my understanding of dignity, and how to transform childhood trauma into love-fueled action. This trip was different. Read on to find out why.

As a former elementary school teacher, my international travel had been limited to July and August, when part of that time was spent as a tourist in international cities, learning about history as a tourist, not as a participant.

This trip was indeed different. In June, it meant that I was traveling alone (my teacher friends still at work), and as a retreat, it meant that there were no “bus time” deadlines in the early morning. I was able to stay put, and only venture off site for 3 days. This was a new experience and daunting for me, being used to the FOMO (fear of missing out) of the usual tourist get-up-and-go mentality. What would I miss by being at a retreat, rather than on a tourist itinerary?

As a child growing up in the 1970’s, northern Ireland and “The Troubles” as those who lived there called it, was a very real news event. Being an introverted young Catholic girl, attending a Catholic school for most of my youth, and having generational Catholic roots, it was confusing for me to hear about the bombings, terrorism and conflict within this Christian country. How could people who say they are Christian be killing each other over religion? Being young, and impressionable, somehow this stayed with me, and created in me a longing to understand it.

50 years later, I met Gareth Higgins, and attended his retreat in northern Ireland.

My 5 part blog series will tell you more about who I met there, what I learned, and how people who lived with “The Troubles” and through childhood war-trauma are transforming their world today with non-violent peace activism. Rather than using religion as a measure of worth, they are using worth and dignity as a measure of humanity.

Let’s find out.

On my first evening in northern Ireland, jet lagged and 35 hours awake, I sat in a circle of 21 retreat participants, and I was asked, “How did you learn about the retreat?” Being the lone Canadian there, of course, this was a good and apt question.

“Awwww….down a rabbit hole,” I responded. And it was exactly that, something that just happened, however, not by chance, but by divinity.

First of all, I am a fan of Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk. I’ve read several of Rohr’s books, and have made one of his quotes the center of how I live and why I do hypnotherapy,
“Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.”

This prolific author and mystic founded the “Centre for Action and Contemplation” in New Mexico in 1987. One of CAC’s primary core faculty members, Brian McLaren, interviewed Gareth Higgins in 2023 for his podcast called, “Learning How to See”. In their 7 part series, Gareth and Brian discuss the 7 Stories (as Gareth called them) of how we create and pattern stories that lead us towards and away from a future of love and equity. I was enthralled with the ideas they presented, and of course, Gareth’s amazing Irish accent.

Further down the rabbit hole…. I learned about Gareth Higgins, and of course, loving to travel as I do, about his retreats back in his homeland of northern Ireland. I was hooked, line and sinker. As a professional educator, healer, and a naturally curious human, I signed up and was off to the land of St. Patrick to learn the truth, from the people who lived there and lived through it, what The Troubles were really like. OK, more importantly, their stories of their truths.

I’ve been to countries with histories of war. In 2012, to Uganda. 2023 to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Auschwitz, Poland. Northern Ireland, I believed, would be one more trip to learn a version of the truth that a TV or radio may have missed out. I was paradoxically wrong and right at the same time as truth is always in the eyes of the beholder, and the story from their past that guides their path.

In this first blog post, I will tell you about Gareth Higgins’ story, as he retold it to us, and in my own way, use his words, to explain as best I can how he is using his-story to transform his story.

Gareth says, “Humans default to non-magic words, rather than kind words”. Historic colonialism in northern Ireland set the stage for the most recent of its violent troubles that began in the 1960’s. Canadians know and have their own stories of colonialism, and how Indigenous people here today are still working through events of colonialism to create a new story for their own lives and their children’s lives. It wasn’t pretty there because of colonialism, and isn’t pretty here. However, Gareth advocates, “We should only be held responsible for what we know and the injustices we perpetrate.” Amen.

Gareth began the story of The Troubles in reverse, rather than leading with what is and was wrong with his birth place, he led with what is working now, through the lens of ethnicity and culture. Gareth says that today, the northern Irish are merely “Snarky,” and “Snarkiness is better than the 1968-94 ‘killing each other’ mentality.”

What’s going right: There has been a 25-year peace treaty enforced in northern Ireland, and part of the Oath of Office for every elected representative is the declaration of “peaceful means to change”. No more bureaucrats with their own agendas. Peace first, above all else.

There is a human rights and “Equality Commission” dedicated to ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard politically. Winner does not take it all. Every political position, from the Prime Minister down, that is, every electoral candidate is ranked on the ballot. Rather than an X for your favourite candidate, voting means 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on. Those with the highest number of votes win, representation is not by population like in Canada. Instead, every area in northern Ireland has equal opportunity and representation.

Now, a wee bit of history. In 1171, Henry II of England supported the landlords of northern Ireland rather than the poor working tenants of the land. Ireland was under British rule already at that point, with the landlords being English colonists, and the tenant workers being Irish peasants. When in poverty, hunger, and despair the tenants protested in an uprising, Henry II sent troops from England to quell their discontent. This background is important, as it created an almost thousand year dislike and suspicion of England.

OK, they already disliked England, and later, in the 1570’s, King Henry VIII of England rejected the Catholic Church and broke sanction, rejecting Catholicism. In order to divorce his first wife, and marry another, he needed to create his own religion, and thus the Church of England was born. His first betrayal to the Irish was converting the Lord’s Prayer from the local tongue of Irish, to English. Mistrust again.

For the next 300 years, until about 1914, history was built around the hills of northern Ireland. It was hard for the British to occupy these lands because of the geography. The British military were unable to plant colonization there, and although Scotland was also Protestant and only 12 miles away by sea, England never gained a foothold in the north of Ireland. Although England believed they “ruled” Ireland, in the words of Irish Nobel Prize Peace activist John Hume, “You can’t eat a flag”. The poor got poorer and the rich richer. And the northern Irish became more disenfranchised.

The poorest of the poor in northern Ireland were mainly Catholic, and although they were neighbors and friends, with houses next to each other, Protestants and Catholics there knew who was what on Sundays, when everyone went to their respective churches. Funerals, baptisms, weddings continued. Friends were friends, neighbours were neighbours.

Until 1914, when tensions began to bubble. Two years later was the “Easter Uprising”, where the British executed revolution leaders, and then the “Irish War of Independence” in the early 1920’s which later resulted in two Irelands – the Republic of Ireland in the South, and Northern Ireland in the northeast.

Aligning themselves with the United Kingdom, the Protestants in Northern Ireland were enjoying the better jobs, and more chances for advancement. At this point, Belfast was also enjoying the benefits of the port, and the industrial economy of the North was flourishing. The Protestant majority was not interested in aligning themselves with the mainly Catholic Irish Republic, which would remove their privilege. In the meantime, the Catholic in Northern Ireland wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. As well, there was an increase in police brutality and secularism from Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) towards the Catholic-nationalist minority. Things were heating up.

In 1968, a small civil rights movement, led by Catholics, was attacked by Protestants. This escalated “The Troubles”. A family owned pub was bombed by Catholic terrorists, an IRA bomb killed 11 at a Remembrance Day memorial service, Bloody Friday in 1972 saw horrors as a series of bombings ripped through Belfast. Soon walls were erected dividing communities. British soldiers guarded the crossings to get through the walls to the other side of the neighbourhoods. Protestants were divided from Catholics.

These walls and many more terrorist acts impacted the young and impressionable Gareth Higgins, creating his-story of a fear-based childhood. Nothing and no one was safe. Trust no one. His family later moved out of Belfast city, into a safer suburb, but the fears remained. Later, as an adult he moved to America. It was only through continued work on his emotional health, and of course, a change in his belief system, that he was to come to terms with who he was and what he stood for.

So, what did Gareth teach me? A Canadian, with no history of war in my lifetime, or of terrorism?

Firstly, he said to imagine you only have a finite number of words in your lifetime. Ask yourselves, “What is the most helpful way I can tell this story?” “What would my most trusted advisor say?” “What is my most transferable speech?” In essence, your highest level of storytelling matters!

Secondly, try to imagine something better. Ask yourself, “How do I get there?” and then work towards that.

Thirdly, the principles of storytelling tell us, “When we run out of words, we turn to violence or passivity.”  This is profound, as Gareth says that statistically, we in modern society today are using 60% less vocabulary than in the past because of capitalism and technology.  “How can I sell this product? What’s the best headline to grab attention? Why speak when you can text?  Why read when you can watch?”  Ugh, a teacher’s nightmare, and as well, a recipe of miscommunication and the resulting conflict.

Gareth says, “ ‘Believe’, is one of the most uninteresting verbs”. That is to say, what you believe or disbelieve isn’t part of the solution. Belief is based on the stories we have been told. Where and how you live your life needs to be based on core values. It’s time to discover your core values.

Next, remember that, “I don’t need to be talking all the time.” Stories need to be heard. This frames understanding and acceptance. No need for correction. Just listen.

Lastly, stories need to have a common good, a cosmic understanding of, “Did the characters exist before and after the timeline of the story?” Darn right they did and will.

We all have a pre-story, a his-and-her-story, that created the reasoning for our tender beliefs. And this isn’t to say they are incorrect. Only to say that we all hold stories from our past. What part of your past is being told? What was the agenda of the person who told you to believe this or that? Often fear is the basis of belief. As Gareth says, “The world seems terrifying. Whether your fear is about violence, shame, illness, money, meaning, or the collapse of certainty, you are not alone. Yet the power of the fear we feel depends on the story we tell about fear. Fight, flee, or freeze: are these the only options?”

Gareth Higgins wrote his book called “How Not to be Afraid” and in it, explored seven common fears. Then he tells of “Seven ways to Live when Everything seems Terrifying”. This his-story of his life in northern Ireland, told in a transformational way, teaches us how to live in a way that tells the best part of the story first; the triumphs, not the terrors. Being a good storyteller creates a new vision, using the past to create a new story for the future.

Today, Gareth Higgins writes books, and holds retreats, festivals, and gatherings throughout the USA and in northern Ireland. He podcasts about how movies can be meaningful. He publishes an online magazine called The Porch which features non-fictional accounts of human meaning through storytelling. He has crazy-inspiring-interesting friends throughout the world.

In my next few blogs, I’ll relate about others who joined us on the retreat, and turned my travel into transformation: poets and musicians, entrepreneurs and peace activists, philosophers and healers and pastors, and food bankers who transformed into restaurateurs. Here was a plethora of deep thinkers, and I was and still am grateful to have been included in their midst.

Till next time, I remain,
In the spirit of healing,
Fran

Fran Caudron

B. Ed. M. Rel.,
Cert. Hypnotherapist

Fran is an experienced 34 year elementary school teacher in northern Alberta, Canada. In her weekly vlog “Hopenning”, she interviews authors and healers who promote hope and inner spirit healing.
Today, Fran thrives by creating an attitude and environment of gratitude, resilience, and forgiveness. She teaches pre-service teachers from Indigenous and other backgrounds in a University of Alberta on-line classroom, while promoting recovery through her work with the 12 steps. She specializes in helping to heal childhood trauma by using hypnotherapy. Tending her flowers, vegetables, and her inner child with good music and great friends, she continues her own emotional healing.
Website: www.InHealTherapy.com