It's Not Yours to Carry - How Ancestral Healing Can Change Our World

The majority of people I talk to don't really understand the work that I do. This isn't surprising, because most people don't really understand ancestral trauma. Most people I talk to either don't think they're carrying any generational trauma, or they aren't quite sure what it is. My intent isn't to scare you into thinking you're cursed or doomed, rather the opposite -- I want to create more awareness about ancestral trauma and how it might be impacting you and your life in order to empower you to see it, heal it, and find freedom from it -- for yourself and the generations that will follow you. It must start with awareness, because we can't heal something we don't even know exists or understand how it's affecting us. 

Ancestral trauma isn't a new concept or a fad. In fact, you can find it mentioned several times in the Old Testament of the Bible (Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). But in my experience, it's something most people aren't super familiar with. Usually when I tell people I help my clients heal ancestral trauma, they initially respond with looks of confusion, and then, "Do you mean like abuse? Devastation? Death?"

Well, yes... and... trauma is so much more. When people hear the word trauma, they most often think of major traumatic events: tragic deaths, natural disasters, physical and sexual abuse, just to name a few. But the reality is that trauma is so much more, and often includes things that sometimes go unnoticed or aren't talked about as much: mental and emotional abuse, any kind of loss - the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of a relationship, miscarriages, abortions, the loss of a home, the loss of a dream - disease, dysfunction, being excluded from a family or even feeling like you don't belong, religious trauma, financial loss, unacknowledged emotions, unmet emotional needs, feelings and emotions that don't feel safe or worthy of sharing and ultimately get shoved down or compartmentalized, not being fully seen, heard or understood. This isn't even a complete list, so hopefully you can see that trauma takes many different shapes and forms. 

It's not the occurrence of the events themselves that's passed on from generation to generation. If that was the case, we would be doomed, as at least one of the traumas I've mentioned above happens to all of us eventually. Loss and heartache is part of the human experience. Instead, it's the way these traumas are acknowledged (or not), felt (or ignored) and processed (or ignored) that determines whether it will be passed on to future generations. 

The reason we are carrying the trauma of our ancestors is largely because, up until now, the generations that have preceded us have not collectively acknowledged or dealt with trauma. This isn't to blame the ancestors, but instead to understand how and why trauma cycles through the generations. We are just now coming into an era where it's slowly becoming safer and more acceptable to talk about our emotions, where we can hold space for others to talk about their difficult life experienced and traumas, rather than shaming them for it, where therapy and healing is encouraged and celebrated, instead of stigmatized. For those who came before us, it was very much the opposite. In previous generations, expressing emotions was weak and shameful. There was no time and space for it, and instead of being felt and released, the feelings that result from life's traumas were avoided, swept under the rug. Therapy certainly wasn't as prevalent, and furthermore, going to therapy often resulted in being stigmatized as unstable or even insane. And for those who went, it was not talked about because of the shame associated with it. There was no help for grief. There was no one to walk along side you when you experienced difficult emotions. And because of all of this, trauma, by and large, was left unresolved. 

The reality is that trauma, grief and loss, and all the feelings associated with it don't just go away. It always comes out in some shape or form, and when we don't have the space or resources to acknowledge it and process it, it often comes out sideways, and in ways that are harmful to us and those closest to us. 

So how are these experiences and traumas passed on from one generation to the next? It happens through nature and nurture, passed on in our genes and through our lived experiences. 

The nurture piece is, I believe, a little easier to understand. If, as a child, you had a parent (or parents) who didn't hold a lot of space for your emotions -- i.e., got upset with you when you cried, punished you for getting angry, or even told you when to smile and when to stop crying -- then this sent a message that expressing your emotions freely wasn't safe, and as an adult, you probably don't feel completely comfortable and open showing or even experiencing your emotions, and it's likely impacted, to a degree, how you parent your children and how you handle their emotions too. Do you see how it can be passed on through our lived experiences and how we're parented influences how we parent?

So what about the nature component? How does that work? If you haven't heard about the experiment with the mice and the cherry blossoms, I'd like to share it with you because it's probably the best example of how traumas are passed down genetically from generation to generation. 

Scientists ran an experiment with a controlled group of male mice in which the scientists exposed the group of mice to a cherry blossom scent and simultaneously shocking them with mild electric shocks. After ten days of this treatment, the scientists continued to expose the mice to the scent, but this time without the shocks, and even without the shocks, the mice were on edge and in fear, just from the exposure of the scent. Now this is a basic Pavolian conditioning and response, but what's really interesting is what happened in the generations that followed. The conditioned mice mated, but never met their offspring, yet the children of these mice exhibited the identical fear-based response to the scent of cherry blossoms, without any shock at all. The scientists then observed the third generation (the grandchildren of the original mice), and they too exhibited the same fear-based response to the cherry blossom scent. This experiment shows exactly how the effects of trauma can be passed onto us genetically, even when we have absolutely no exposure to the original traumatic event. 

So whether we've inherited generational trauma through nature or by how we were nurtured, how do we even know what it is and how it's affecting us? If I'm the third-generation mouse who didn't even know my grandfather or his lived experience, how on earth would I know why I have a visceral reaction to the scent of cherry blossoms, and how would I know that it's inherited ancestral trauma? 

The short and maybe not-so-helpful answer is that you might not know. Like with those 3rd generation mice, it could show up as this awful, internal feeling that you don't know the origin of. Many times the "not knowing" is exactly  how you know where to start. From my own personal experience, what brought me into the world of ancestral healing was this feeling of being stuck. I was stuck in a toxic, miserable relationship pattern, and no amount of self-help books, therapy or the sheer desire to get out of the relationship was helping me actually take the necessary action to break the pattern and get out. I was stuck. And now, years later, the clients I serve all come to me with similar experiences. It might not be a relationship, but they all feel stuck. They all feel like something in their life isn't working, whether it's cycles of stress they can't seem to escape, dysfunctional or unhappy relationships, being stuck in a career that's sucking the life out of them, stuck in cycles of addiction, unhealthy thought patterns, emotional avoidance, financial ruts, physical ailments, or other life experiences that are consistently taking up space in their psyche and absolutely draining their energy, and no matter what they do, they just can't shake it or find freedom from it. More often than not, these places of stuckness and life-sucking experiences have taken root somewhere in their family tree. 

In my own healing experience, the answers were all there in the roots of my ancestry. I, along with many other healers and scholars of ancestral trauma, believe that these patterns continue to repeat through family systems because our ancestors deeply desire freedom from these traumas for the whole family system, and the only way to get our attention in order to heal it is through these difficult, and often painful experiences of feeling stuck. The freedom that comes through acknowledging and healing the wounds we're carrying is, in my experience, extremely freeing. And I also like to believe that it's been healing for my ancestors who came before me, as well as my future ancestors. 

For me, healing ancestral wounds opened up a whole new world of freedom, one in which I no longer needed to look outside of myself for answers or for comfort. I also stopped projecting my pain outwards, blaming everyone else for how I felt and for the things that caused me to stumble. I suddenly had a deep understanding of how to nurture myself, care for myself, show up for myself and live my life authentically. And as I began to live in this new way, my relationships shifted dramatically. I was able to be more vulnerable, I was able to connect more deeply and authentically. Almost every relationship that mattered to me became stronger and more meaningful. And I felt like I was really living, fully awake and aware, in the most beautiful way, for the first time. I also felt, then and now, more deeply connected to life and everything around me, including a deep connection to my ancestors. 

When I look at the pain and suffering in our world, I can't help but bring it back to relationships. So many of us are deeply disconnected from each other. We're divided, polarized, stuck in "us versus them" mentalities. What I see are wounded people, projecting their pain outwards, completely unaware of where the pain originates. I wonder what the world would be like if the masses could wake up, release the pain they're carrying that's passed through their families for generations, and find freedom from that pain. What would it look like if the masses could go within, find this personal sense of power and love, and remember how deeply connected we all are? Personally, I remain hopeful. From my perspective, I see more people waking up than ever before. More and more people are becoming conscious of generational trauma, and they're saying "enough". They're stepping up to break the cycles and claiming their freedom from pain that is isn't theirs to carry, and they're finding happiness and peace in the life that comes in the aftermath of ancestral healing. What if the solution to a future of hope, happiness, peace and freedom - for you and for humanity - was as simple as acknowledging and releasing the pain of the past?