[Music]
good evening ladies and gentlemen so
once we come together to explore what it
means to stay human in the digital age I
believe you are ready into it that there
is a potential that we want and that
means I believe that in human history we
saw already what it means not to stay
human so if you have a look what are the
terms that we could put and agree on
when we say staying human so maybe we
can agree on that the world is a warm
place that there is love is compassion
there’s honesty there is connection and
what does it mean not to stay human
maybe it means that the world becomes a
cold place maybe it means that we are
less connected or disconnected dishonest
violent uncaring so these symptoms that
I mentioned right now I believe many of
them have a common denominator and
that’s trauma so we are living in a
world where we see an amazing explosion
of the development of Technology and and
that certainly brings a lot of
breakthroughs and benefits to our life
that is clear and at the same time I
believe the increase of speed and
complexity of data can create an
enormous pressure onto our nervous
systems and so when we I believe when we
don’t take the trauma factor in account
and we use and develop technology I
believe he could end up in an
unsustainable development and so a
nervous system that is integrated and
healthy can transform that pressure into
development and evolution but when we
already experience trauma and we are
overwhelmed I believe that increase of
speed and complexity of
I can create enormous side-effects like
heightened levels of anxiety heightened
levels of stress disembodiment and
disconnect so when when we see for
example the World Wide Web we the news
feeds sends lots of trauma news around
the world
and so when when there is already
pre-existing trauma in us when we hear
and see those trauma events I believe
many of us cannot fully digest that
information and you just look in your
own life and all the information that
you are being exposed to that you
consume do you feel that you can still
feel and digest what you experience do
you feel that your body is still
synchronized with the speed of data that
your mind consumes so what is trauma
trauma is not the event that we
experience but trauma is the response of
our nervous system to an overwhelming
situation and trauma is actually a very
intelligent function because trauma has
been developed through a thousands of
years of human evolution in order to
help us to survive better to stay in a
place of action and choice in in
overwhelming situations trauma goes
usually in hand-in-hand with two
symptoms two major symptoms one is that
our nervous system goes into a state of
hyper activation so there’s a lot of
stress and at the same time we shut down
parts of our bodies our emotions and our
mental and relational capacities and
this leads to a numbing and also to a
relational disconnect and disembodiment
so when we think of trauma we might
think of Shock Trauma when somebody has
a car accident or when there’s violence
or shooting but there is another very
widespread
level of trauma and that’s attachment
trauma so the human attachment process
is a very sophisticated but also fragile
process and it can be hurt so the ASA
study the adverse childhood experience
study it’s a long-term study on
childhood experiences shows that more
than 50% of the children of this country
actually experienced at least one like
one adverse childhood experience 20% of
our children had to so when physical
emotional neglect abuse domestic
violence divorce and many others so this
has severe side effects attachment
trauma leads to it attention deficiency
physical and mental disorders it leads
to heightened addiction rates substance
abuse and nowadays of course the abuse
of the use of technology so when there
is another very important level of
trauma I believe and it’s collective
trauma so collective trauma happens when
a country’s it were or when there is a
genocide or when their slavery racism or
big natural catastrophes maybe and I
believe that’s a very important aspect
of trauma because I believe most of us
in one way or the other have been born
into the aftermath of a collective
trauma and neuro epigenetics professor
Isabelle man’s way of the University in
Zurich found out in her mice experiments
that traumatized mice pass on trauma to
the next generation through epigenetic
changes and that means that the next
generations of mice
display the same trauma symptoms without
ever going through a trauma themselves
so this might mean that many of us
suffer in a way individual issues and
symptoms that are actually part of a
collective trauma field so in science
there is still a debate whether trauma
is being passed on genetically or
epigenetically or not but what I have
seen in the work with thousands of
people all around the world and with big
collective trauma processes I’m
absolutely certain that it’s true so
what are the consequences of trauma
first of all trauma hurts our capacity
to relate because it is often
inflicted through inappropriate relation
so it hurts our capacity to relate to
ourselves and to self-regulate also our
societal regulation functions and our
baseline stress levels are higher and we
feel more over reactive in situations
and we burn out faster and trauma also
hurts a human beings time space and
rhythm coherence so this goes out of
balance and we are more disembodied and
more numb and the important thing is I
believe that trauma is an invisible
guest so trauma is visible only through
its symptoms and I believe that trauma
can be can stay deeply buried in our
bodies in our nervous systems
you know psyches and stay there for
decades so what is the potential that we
have today I believe the cure for trauma
consists out of different factors so the
first factor is that we simply become
more aware first of all that we become
aware how massive the extent of trauma
is another Society and secondly that we
learn to read simple trauma symptoms the
second point is
that we improve our relational
capacities because trauma is very often
inflicted through inappropriate relation
the cure for trauma is for appropriate
relation so we can in a way train our
capacity to relate to deeply listen to
feel each other when we communicate and
to increase our relational presence
actually neurosciences in the polyvagal
theory that the frontal part of our
central nervous system the frontal part
of our vagal nervous system is actually
deeply relational it means that when we
hold and embrace our children when we
deeply listen to our children of another
human being this part of our nervous
system actually helps to KO and down
regulate stress we all know this when
people deeply listen to us and really
care so that’s what every parent does
with with their child and so that’s why
a relation is actually deeply healing
and the other point is that our nervous
system is like a wireless through our
body and when we allow our nervous
system to really attune to another
nervous system we create a coherent
field and that coherent relational field
is a data connection and so when we
communicate we first establish an
appropriate data connection and then
whatever we say is being received
properly the third point is inner
awareness or presence that’s something
that we can train we can practice
meditation contemplation yoga tai chi
mindfulness and other practices in order
to really train our nervous system to
rest in deeper states of presence and
then we have the digital revelation so
through the World Wide Web
I believe we created an external
manifestation of our inner architect
so we created a global brain and because
of the global brain we have a new
perspective and new consciousness onto
humanity and the world and because of
that I believe that the digital
restoration is not possible that means
if we use technology to help us to
integrate trauma we have a very powerful
partner and so when we use use
technology and develop technology and at
the same time we are trauma-informed and
we take this trauma factor in account I
believe we can literally restore trauma
in the world and this means that we can
navigate the digital age with awareness
and relatedness and what that means is
that we can extend our capacity to
relate when we write an email when we
send a text message when we post on
social media that these people are not
out there but that we really relate to
the people and feel them as if they were
in the room with us and I believe this
again creates the fact that we that the
cyber space becomes a warm intimate and
related Internet so that technology
actually becomes the extension of our
capacity to relate and because relation
is the number one factor in curing
trauma
I believe in technologies our partner we
cannot only integrate individual
traumatization but also our collective
traumas in the world thank you [Applause]
good evening ladies and gentlemen so
once we come together to explore what it
means to stay human in the digital age I
believe you are ready into it that there
is a potential that we want and that
means I believe that in human history we
saw already what it means not to stay
human so if you have a look what are the
terms that we could put and agree on
when we say staying human so maybe we
can agree on that the world is a warm
place that there is love is compassion
there’s honesty there is connection and
what does it mean not to stay human
maybe it means that the world becomes a
cold place maybe it means that we are
less connected or disconnected dishonest
violent uncaring so these symptoms that
I mentioned right now I believe many of
them have a common denominator and
that’s trauma so we are living in a
world where we see an amazing explosion
of the development of Technology and and
that certainly brings a lot of
breakthroughs and benefits to our life
that is clear and at the same time I
believe the increase of speed and
complexity of data can create an
enormous pressure onto our nervous
systems and so when we I believe when we
don’t take the trauma factor in account
and we use and develop technology I
believe he could end up in an
unsustainable development and so a
nervous system that is integrated and
healthy can transform that pressure into
development and evolution but when we
already experience trauma and we are
overwhelmed I believe that increase of
speed and complexity of
I can create enormous side-effects like
heightened levels of anxiety heightened
levels of stress disembodiment and
disconnect so when when we see for
example the World Wide Web we the news
feeds sends lots of trauma news around
the world
and so when when there is already
pre-existing trauma in us when we hear
and see those trauma events I believe
many of us cannot fully digest that
information and you just look in your
own life and all the information that
you are being exposed to that you
consume do you feel that you can still
feel and digest what you experience do
you feel that your body is still
synchronized with the speed of data that
your mind consumes so what is trauma
trauma is not the event that we
experience but trauma is the response of
our nervous system to an overwhelming
situation and trauma is actually a very
intelligent function because trauma has
been developed through a thousands of
years of human evolution in order to
help us to survive better to stay in a
place of action and choice in in
overwhelming situations trauma goes
usually in hand-in-hand with two
symptoms two major symptoms one is that
our nervous system goes into a state of
hyper activation so there’s a lot of
stress and at the same time we shut down
parts of our bodies our emotions and our
mental and relational capacities and
this leads to a numbing and also to a
relational disconnect and disembodiment
so when we think of trauma we might
think of Shock Trauma when somebody has
a car accident or when there’s violence
or shooting but there is another very
widespread
level of trauma and that’s attachment
trauma so the human attachment process
is a very sophisticated but also fragile
process and it can be hurt so the ASA
study the adverse childhood experience
study it’s a long-term study on
childhood experiences shows that more
than 50% of the children of this country
actually experienced at least one like
one adverse childhood experience 20% of
our children had to so when physical
emotional neglect abuse domestic
violence divorce and many others so this
has severe side effects attachment
trauma leads to it attention deficiency
physical and mental disorders it leads
to heightened addiction rates substance
abuse and nowadays of course the abuse
of the use of technology so when there
is another very important level of
trauma I believe and it’s collective
trauma so collective trauma happens when
a country’s it were or when there is a
genocide or when their slavery racism or
big natural catastrophes maybe and I
believe that’s a very important aspect
of trauma because I believe most of us
in one way or the other have been born
into the aftermath of a collective
trauma and neuro epigenetics professor
Isabelle man’s way of the University in
Zurich found out in her mice experiments
that traumatized mice pass on trauma to
the next generation through epigenetic
changes and that means that the next
generations of mice
display the same trauma symptoms without
ever going through a trauma themselves
so this might mean that many of us
suffer in a way individual issues and
symptoms that are actually part of a
collective trauma field so in science
there is still a debate whether trauma
is being passed on genetically or
epigenetically or not but what I have
seen in the work with thousands of
people all around the world and with big
collective trauma processes I’m
absolutely certain that it’s true so
what are the consequences of trauma
first of all trauma hurts our capacity
to relate because it is often
inflicted through inappropriate relation
so it hurts our capacity to relate to
ourselves and to self-regulate also our
societal regulation functions and our
baseline stress levels are higher and we
feel more over reactive in situations
and we burn out faster and trauma also
hurts a human beings time space and
rhythm coherence so this goes out of
balance and we are more disembodied and
more numb and the important thing is I
believe that trauma is an invisible
guest so trauma is visible only through
its symptoms and I believe that trauma
can be can stay deeply buried in our
bodies in our nervous systems
you know psyches and stay there for
decades so what is the potential that we
have today I believe the cure for trauma
consists out of different factors so the
first factor is that we simply become
more aware first of all that we become
aware how massive the extent of trauma
is another Society and secondly that we
learn to read simple trauma symptoms the
second point is
that we improve our relational
capacities because trauma is very often
inflicted through inappropriate relation
the cure for trauma is for appropriate
relation so we can in a way train our
capacity to relate to deeply listen to
feel each other when we communicate and
to increase our relational presence
actually neurosciences in the polyvagal
theory that the frontal part of our
central nervous system the frontal part
of our vagal nervous system is actually
deeply relational it means that when we
hold and embrace our children when we
deeply listen to our children of another
human being this part of our nervous
system actually helps to KO and down
regulate stress we all know this when
people deeply listen to us and really
care so that’s what every parent does
with with their child and so that’s why
a relation is actually deeply healing
and the other point is that our nervous
system is like a wireless through our
body and when we allow our nervous
system to really attune to another
nervous system we create a coherent
field and that coherent relational field
is a data connection and so when we
communicate we first establish an
appropriate data connection and then
whatever we say is being received
properly the third point is inner
awareness or presence that’s something
that we can train we can practice
meditation contemplation yoga tai chi
mindfulness and other practices in order
to really train our nervous system to
rest in deeper states of presence and
then we have the digital revelation so
through the World Wide Web
I believe we created an external
manifestation of our inner architect
so we created a global brain and because
of the global brain we have a new
perspective and new consciousness onto
humanity and the world and because of
that I believe that the digital
restoration is not possible that means
if we use technology to help us to
integrate trauma we have a very powerful
partner and so when we use use
technology and develop technology and at
the same time we are trauma-informed and
we take this trauma factor in account I
believe we can literally restore trauma
in the world and this means that we can
navigate the digital age with awareness
and relatedness and what that means is
that we can extend our capacity to
relate when we write an email when we
send a text message when we post on
social media that these people are not
out there but that we really relate to
the people and feel them as if they were
in the room with us and I believe this
again creates the fact that we that the
cyber space becomes a warm intimate and
related Internet so that technology
actually becomes the extension of our
capacity to relate and because relation
is the number one factor in curing
trauma
I believe in technologies our partner we
cannot only integrate individual
traumatization but also our collective
traumas in the world thank you [Applause]
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