I had a huge ah-ha moment this month. Well more than one and they were focused on my writing. Sometimes we really do need to be quiet and listen so the guidance can come through. We must also be willing to get out of our own way, throw out the old, and start new (no matter how many pages we already wrote!)

I was doing what I always did

Writing for me, since 2010, has been healing. Meditative. It has provided guidance from my ancestors and spirit guides. It allowed me to process a lot of emotions and release a lot of pain. Writing gave me a space to share my knowledge about genealogy research and 20th century military research and writing. It used to flow and the creative energy was intense and fun and fabulous. Then it all began to change. I began to change.

From 2016 until 2020, my life was being created on two continents (North America and Europe), with a very ill (then) husband on one continent, kids and a business at home on the other continent. Add more stress and exhaustion...

Many of the clients who work with me over the last few years have sought deeper answers. They come to the research consultation with family stories, secrets, perhaps lies they discovered. They come with questions wondering who really was my father or mother? Sometimes the research itself provides secrets that were hidden for decades, or answers that change the perception a client has on their family member or even, themselves. This can cause grief, a sense of loss, sense of abandonment, trigger PTSD, and many other things.

Research Services

We offer many research and writing services. Each project is customized for the client because each client has different needs.

• Locate, analyze, and interpret World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam records across all branches for military personnel, including individual soldier records, company records, and unit records.
• Reconstruct service history, placing pieces of your service member’s puzzle together, even when the records...

Are you ready to take your genealogy and military research to a new depth?

This class will change how you research and write!

What class participants said……

The course and the book have really amplified my sensitivity to various memories from the past. Another coincidence from yesterday was a conversation with the woman sitting next to me at the courthouse while we were filling out our surveys. We connected because we both have daughters getting married in four weeks. She has her own counseling business. I asked her if they handle PTSD. She said yes and that K-9 therapy was one of the methods working for them. Interesting! Her comment to me about PTSD was that it affected more than just the victim and it could last for years….stuff we have been talking about.  ~~ Phil

Journey with Jennifer as your travel guide, through your family’s history, their WWII story, and your own story. On this journey you will read a life-changing book.

Together with a...

Are you interested in writing your family or military story? What about your memoir? Would you like to take your writing to a deeper level to create a more meaningful story? I offer one-on-one writing coaching and facilitation in which we explore what you are writing, your research, your questions and observations, and look at the deeper issues that surface.

What can I help you with?

• See where you are blocked and help remove those blocks.
• See what is written between the lines in your spoken or written stories, and the documents with which you are working.
• Define and map out threads of a story and information in your mind or notes to create a writing project plan and book outline.
• Refine your writing project from concept to draft to finished product.
• Review research prior to writing the draft. Suggest additional sources if there are gaps.
• Organize materials and photos.
• Edit your book.

Would we be a good fit to work together?

To determine if we are a good fit to work together, we...

This week I invite you to explore through journaling, your story. How did you get to this place in your life? What lessons did you learn?

Where did you choose what was light and where the energy flowed?  Where did you NOT do this?

Through journaling we can look at the lessons we've learned, how far we've come, and acknowledge how amazing and different and special we are. There are no mistakes - everything we have done has helped move us along our path.

I'd love to hear from you if you are journaling or using the Caregiver Journal or the workbook from last week's free workshop. How are the tools helping you shift your life and stay out of the negative energy?

© 2019 Jennifer Holik Finding the Answers Journey

Johan and I traveled to the Dutch/German border near Aachen and spent a few days exploring WWII history and contemplating family history. I did a lot of writing on this trip. Musings. Questions. Concerns. Joyful things. All of this was captured in my journal.

One thing that keeps showing up the longer I am in Europe on this trip is that history keeps repeating itself. We are not doing enough to stop this.

Distraction

War is a distraction. Conflict is a distraction. These things keep us from the more important things in this life and reality. Yet, we continue to create them on a daily basis.

Every. Single. One. Of. Us.

I'm guilty of this. Sometimes when things are going really well there is a part of me waiting for the other shoe to drop. I might unconsciously find one thing to nag my husband about and create a conflict - small or large. Over the last year I try to be more aware of this and clear whatever is causing it. Yet there are times when I fail.

What would change in our lives,...

The last year of my life has had beautiful moments (I got married in a Town Hall built in the 1600s in the Netherlands) and not so beautiful moments (think doctor and hospital visits with numerous tests for my husband.) My husband was diagnosed with two kinds of cancer in early 2016. One was treated and gone. The other in a non-active state. This year, other issues showed up and it took 10 months to get answers. Over the last four to five months I realized I was a caregiver.

This isn't my first time being a caregiver. I did it for short periods for my ex-husband when he was treated for cancer, and one of our twins. Those were short periods of intense caregiving. It was different than this period of caregiving and in some ways I felt I had it 'all together' then and now, not so much.

Considering my husband has been relatively healthy since treatment ended, I never labeled myself as a caregiver. Never really saw myself in that role for him, especially since we live on two different...

We all have a story inside of us. Usually more than one.

As I write this I am sitting in an Amsterdam hospital while my husband receives treatment. We will be here all day and several more days this week. To pass my time while he sleeps I am writing in my journal with my beloved fountain pens.

I am trying to Find the Answers to my life.  

Have you stopped to consider how often we try to Find the Answers to our ancestor’s lives, yet we do not often stop to find them for our own? You could say I’ve been seeking them my entire life. The journey really became more challenging and emotional several years ago when I fully embraced the questions in my life and purposefully and consciously started to Find the Answers.

That journey led me to Europe and more specifically, the Netherlands. Little did I know the life I would create here, with all its joys and struggles, would help me Find the Answers to so many pieces of my life and the past.

I do a lot of journaling and have...

In June 2018 I spent some time in Naarden-Vesting, Netherlands. I was in a major transition in life and created this video on the books I was reading at the time.

As I prepare for another journey and am in the beginning of another major transition, the books, both fiction and non-fiction are showing up to help me navigate my new life.

What are you reading that is helping you change your universe? Our readers would love to know. Please post in the comments.

© 2018 Jennifer Holik

I’ve spent more than 20 years in the fields of genealogy/family history and military history with a focus the last decade on World War I and World War II. I taught myself a lot where genealogy was concerned, and attended classes and conferences. I participated in the community’s professional genealogy education. Throughout everything I studied or read, the focus was on names, dates, places, sometimes historical context, but never on exploring the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual side of family.

When I began researching in-depth both world wars, which led me to teach and write books on how to research any branch, there was no one to teach me what to do. No one in the country had written educational materials. Yes there were two very outdated books on barely researching Army service, but beyond that nothing existed. The few people who were starting to lecture on this were not going beyond the basics of “all the records burned and here are some online...