Ancestral Communication Part 4: The Dutch Mother in-law
War. Culture. Trauma. Fear. Guilt. Shame. Forgiveness.
No one tells you when you start a spiritual journey, that not only your ancestors may show up to guide you and ask for assistance in their healing journeys, but the ancestors of those you are in relationship with may also appear. This can be especially true in intimate relationships. My late Dutch husband Johan’s mother was one of these souls. Her name was Johanna and beyond the veil she was still in a lot of pain.
Once I began my conscious soul journey and the military work I was doing for my own research and books and for clients, other people’s ancestors appeared in my life on a daily basis. It did not matter if I was researching and writing at a coffee shop or working at home, they would be there to talk to me.
The intensity of these souls was normally mild to medium, although there were times when a single soul or group of souls would show up and bring me to my knees. At times it literally was a physical bringing me to my knees kind of grief, pain, sadness, etc.
Normally the energies of the souls that showed up were light and airy and these souls had a message to pass. They had a lesson for me to learn and share. They often gave me a nudge to look for information somewhere, speak with someone, or guide me to a social media outlet to connect with an expert.
Only once in a while would a heavier energy appear, like the time I researched a client’s Chicago Italian gangster genealogy. The evening I dove into this area, those energies and souls invaded my home. I stopped the research and cleared the energy. I never returned to that particular research. Thankfully I was juggling about 10 different genealogy, military, archival, and photographic projects for that client and this wasn’t a huge priority, so it was never discussed again.
On rare occasions, a soul or group would show up with incredibly sad or angry energy, or a mix of low vibrational energies. Energies that made me feel as if I could die of their grief and pain. This happened at Dachau when I visited in 2015. I had a similar experience once at the ABMC Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten, which had always been a peaceful place to visit. And once with Johanna, who died before I met Johan, during a visit to a Rotterdam World War II Museum.
World War II
My late in-laws, Johanna and Johan Sr., were from Schiedam, near Rotterdam, The Netherlands. They lived through the May 1940 bombing of Rotterdam by the Germans. Based on family lore, during the German occupation of the Netherlands, Johanna’s sister was in a relationship with a German soldier. Johanna, her father’s favorite child, did not approve of this relationship. Johanna’s father told her that she could leave the home if she did not agree with the relationship. He allegedly had no problem with it. At some point between the ages of 15-19 (1940 – 1944), Johanna moved in with Johan Sr., and his family.
During the war in the Netherlands, the Germans held razzias. A razzia was when the Germans rounded up men to take them to work as forced laborers in Germany. Johan Sr. did what he could to avoid being rounded up but unfortunately at the age of 20 he was captured in the Rotterdam razzia in November 1944.
Johan Sr. was taken to Schüttorf, Germany, just the other side of the Dutch border from Enschede. He remained there until spring 1945 when he was released and slowly began making his way home.
Johanna remained in Schiedam and survived the Dutch Hunger Winter because the north of the country wasn’t liberated until May 1945. The south of the country was liberated in the fall of 1944.
In 1951, Johanna married this young man. I have always wondered if the two would have married if the war had not happened. I’m sure many people ask this question of their wartime ancestors. The war, no matter where you lived, sparked quick passion, the fear of death, fear of missing out on love, fear of being alone through a traumatic event. Fear of not knowing or experiencing certain things if you died during the war. Fear of not having someone take care of you if you were wounded. And many other fears.
Trauma Bonds
There can be a layer of trauma attached to those who married in Europe during or after the war, especially if you went through the trauma together. How many times has that story played out in movies where two people meet during a traumatic event and end up together? I have a sense that Johan Sr., and Johanna endured so much together that in some ways it just made sense to marry. They already knew each other, their traumas, their war time experiences, and their life stories.
Of course I could be wrong about this, but in a meditation in 2020, Johanna came through to say she wouldn’t have married him. Choices for people were not the same after the war. How do you live with a family through the war, even if you were already dating or good friends, and then decide later to be with someone else. Women had fewer choices back then and Johanna indicated she felt hers were very limited since she had no family of her own anymore.
Unfortunately, like so many others around the world at this time who didn’t have tools to process the trauma, Johan and Johanna passed these experiences and traumas to their children. I sensed the traumas and patterns Johan inherited, particularly the need for someone to care for him. Some of that responsibility was laid on someone else’s shoulders. This I learned was one reason why he chose me as a partner. I used to be an overgiver with some self-worth attached to how much I could care for others and give them all my time, energy, and attention, at the cost to myself.
Trauma bonds people together as there is normally no time to process until well after the event. Or in this case, the war. As I write this article more than a year after Johan died, I can clearly see he and I were trauma bonded from almost the start because of his two cancer diagnoses. We repeated a trauma bond pattern. This is a huge awareness for me as I had previously identified our relationship as a karmic relationship. Trauma bonding adds another layer of complexity and understanding to my journey.
In Europe, people moved from bombings, fear, hunger, starvation, restrictions, deprivation, never knowing what was coming next and would it be worse, to the aftermath of war. Rebuilding. Searching for missing loved ones, food, and often, a place to live. For those who were in forced labor or camps, the trek home often took months or years, if they had a place they could return to or even a country. In some cases, especially for women, there was always the possibility of rape or abuse by those in charge after hostilities ended.
Both Johanna and Johan Sr. had their wartime hardships. I assume each processed and dealt with them differently. I know this because both of them appeared when I did healing on Johan when he was sick. Their energy was completely different. Also, after Johan died, his deceased father brought him to one of my energy healing sessions before helping him move on to the next phase of his transition after death. His father’s energy was always as it was. Calm and humorous.
Family Lore Leads to More Questions
Johan told me his mother told her stories of biking or walking to the country to find food during the Hunger Winter. Once she dove into a ditch to avoid being killed when planes came over the area. Johan said he was young when he heard this story and asked his mother what kind of plane it was and she got angry and shut down. No more storytime.
Living in the suburb of a bombed out city, which had a Jewish history that was erased after the war, it makes sense Johanna and Johan Sr., suffered some trauma from their war experiences.
The question that can never be fully answered is just how much suffering did they endure?
What were Johan Sr. and Johanna’s beliefs about the war, the Jews, and the Germans? The only thing Johan ever told me was that his father would never buy a German car after the war. When asked about a possible holiday in Germany, his father responded that he had already had one there and never needed to return.
The Dutch tell a story of how everyone was oppressed, how bad the war was for them. This was a story told to me by Johan and many Dutch friends. This was a story I bought into for many years. However, after reading a book, Ajax, The Dutch, and the War, my perspective shifted and many new questions arose.
According to the author, the Dutch rarely acknowledged or commemorated their liberation and rarely made a big deal out of specific war anniversaries until the movie, Band of Brothers, came out around the year 2000. The impact of that movie led many Europeans to start re-enacting groups. It was at the same time the Dutch narrative began about their collective behavior during the war changed to tell how “good” and “honorable” they were and how they appreciated their liberators. Then the commemorations began happening consistently and more monuments and memorials were created around the country.
Also according to the author, those who lived in the cities, including the Jews, had a more difficult and traumatic war experience than those who lived in rural areas. Although this changed in the fall of 1944 when the Allies began moving through and everyone was affected in deeper ways. Fighting, bombings, destruction and deaths increased in the north which was not liberated until May 1945. The south of the Netherlands was liberated in the fall of 1944.
This shift in my perspective of the Dutch experience in war opened up a lot of new possibilities for me to explore as far as how culture and narrative affect future generations and tourists. It also invited me to question what other war narratives I’d bought into and which were actually based in fact rather than changing a country or culture’s appearance to the outside world.
She Just Appears
When Johan and I were together in Amstelveen where we lived, sometimes his mother Johanna would just appear while we were watching television or hanging out. Those moments were not intense but usually a brief space for her to pass some message. Many of the times when she would appear, she was asking me to make sure he knew she was sorry. Always apologizing for what she did to him, laid on his shoulders, expected of him. None of what this meant was every explained to me but he seemed to understand his mother loved him deeply.
From what Johan shared about his mother, their lives were good but his mother could be controlling and manipulative. If we look at her war experience only, it is easier to understand why. There were no tools after the war to process anything that happened. The trauma was then passed through the family. Johan and his sister both chose to have no children. Their lines end with them which may be a good thing. The trauma ends with them in this life instead of being passed to children. However, if not dealt with in this life, they get to deal with it in another life.
Energy Healing
As an energy worker, I used to do energy healing on Johan. Traditional medicine was not working to heal his cancer and infections so we tried energy healing. I think he just humored me because the reality was, he never believed he could heal unless a doctor made it happen. It never did. During some of these healing sessions, Johanna would show up.
She also showed up during some of my personal healing sessions, particularly the ones I had just before I flew to Europe each time. When she appeared it was often in an anxious energy and she would beg for assistance from me. She needed her son to know she was sorry. She needed to drop her guilt for laying on his shoulders all she did. He was different as a child but had no emotional or spiritual support. Through two of his wives he had opportunities to transform and he chose not to. His mother carried a lot of guilt about this and other things left unsaid.
Rotterdam 2018 – the 1940-1945 World War II Museum
There was one instance in Rotterdam, when Johanna appeared, that really turned me inside out and upside down. In 2018 we visited the 1940-1945 World War II Museum and watched a film on the bombing of Rotterdam. While the film played I was very aware Johanna with me, pushing in with an extremely intense emotional energy. It was so intense I started crying as I watched the film and she began speaking. She needed her son to know how sorry she was, how guilty she felt about their relationship. She still carried a lot of war trauma that was never processed and integrated. Her pain was my pain. Her emotions became my tears. My body began to physically feel ill. It was all I could do to not allow my tears to turn into full body sobs, drop to the floor and curl up into a fetal position. She felt that powerful that day.
When the film was over, I told Johan what happened and what she said. He gave me some space to move the energy through and then we walked the rest of the museum. It took me over an hour to release all of her energy. Even after we left the museum and walked along the canals, my soul wanted to flee my body. Apparently my body had absored too much of her and the pain. It was clear I needed to set stronger boundaries and protection.
Even after Johan and my forced separation in March 2020, Johanna came to speak with me through guided writing or meditation. It is not my responsibility (a huge lesson I had to learn), to help every soul that shows up. I’m allowed to have boundaries and say no. To free myself of her energy and pain, I did some energy healing and told her she was no longer allowed in my space. I was no longer willing to help her. She had to go to her son while he was still alive and hope he would listen.
Johanna did honor my request. The boundaries I set must have been strong because in my energy healing session after Johan’s death, she was not there. At least not close. She appeared behind a crystal wall far away, which is exactly where I put her.
Life Lessons
Questions to which I have no answer, are which past lives I knew Johanna, what our relationship was, and what karma we were working out. The marriage I had, brought in a lot of past life connections so it is likely she and I had things to work out. It is also possible her son and I were living out some of her personal and ancestral patterns. It is not important to know the answer to the question or dwell in that energy. In my experience, if another lesson needs to be learned, it will appear in exactly the right moment.
One of the biggest lessons I learned from the communication and experiences with Johanna was boundaries. Boundaries and spiritual protection are vital. I learned that my boundaries were somewhat weak. It was also an opportunity to look back and realize I had some stronger boundaries before I met her son. The soul experiences I had with him wore me down while at the same time teaching me valuable lessons.
Spiritual protection was a lesson that was reinforced through my experiences with my mother in-law. Normally I was good at wrapping myself in light and energies to protect me from and transmute negative and low vibrational energies and psychic attacks. Learning new tools to protect myself was required. Wrapping myself daily in a bubble of high vibrational white light and unconditional love has helped with my boundaries and energetic protection.
It’s important to remember that when we form a partnership with someone, whether friends, co-workers, or intimate relationships, we open ourselves to interact with their ancestors and people in their lives, whether we know them in this life or not. Sometimes that also comes with living people our partner knows, even if we don’t. Past life connections can be strong, fierce, and traumatic when they show up. We might not understand them or know how to proceed. Space to process is essential, even when things are moving quickly. It is vital we take time to process the experiences.
This was not something I did, realized I needed to do, or had space to do until 2020. I spent from late 2015 until 2020 in a state of constant stress with no room to process the enormity of what had shown up and taken place. That stress lessened in one way from 2020-2023 but other things took its place. Now in 2023 I feel very grounded and greatly healed.
Finally, throughout this journey I also learned to research other cultures from various perspectives. It is not wise to buy the country narrative or the narrative told by its residents as total truth. I believe we should be questioning everything we hear, see, or observe.
What relationships have you had or have you identifed an ancestor had that were trauma bonds? How did you heal? What did you learn?
Connect With Your Ancestors
If you’d like help connecting to your ancestors or even paying closer attention to which ancestors or spirit guides are showing up and how they are showing up, pick up a copy of my book, Ancestral Codes. A 90-Day Journal. Let me know what you think of it.
