Understanding Generational Trauma & Ending The Cycle

Generational Trauma is emotional, psychological, and passed down through families, not just through stories, but through patterns, beliefs, coping behaviours, and even the body's stress responses.

We don't inherit the events–we inherit the survival adaptations created in response to those events. In simpler terms, what wasn't healed in one generation often shows up as stress, fear, or patterns in future generations.

When a parent lives in chronic fear or stress, their nervous system is often stuck in fight or flight, freeze or fawn, and children learn safety by mirroring. A parent who is alway bracing for danger teaches a child that the world isn't safe. Even without words, the child's body learns: "Stay alert." This becomes felt memory, instead of a conscious memory. As a result our behavioural and emotional patterns are affected.

Trauma changes how we cope, love, and communicate. Some examples of these are:

• Emotional shutdown ---> emotionally unavailable parenting

• Hyper- Independence ---> "I must do everything alone"

• People-pleasing ---> safety through approval

• Anger or Control ---> Safety through dominance

Children internalize these as normal, even when painful. This alters their belief systems and the stories we tell ourselves. Unhealed trauma creates inherited beleifs. For example, hearing "we don't talk about feelings" or "Your feelings don't matter" can lead to the belief that emotions don't matter and therefore don't play a role in our day to day lives. Even though its evident they tend to run the show most of the time. A child that learns love has to be earned, grows into a people pleasing adult. A teen who is treated as lazy for needing rest, grows up as the burnt out adult who is overworking themselves into the ground. And children who grow around people who are afraid of being vulnerable, they learn that vulnerbility is dangerous. Growing up as adults with trust issues, despite there never being a misuse of their trust. These beliefs shape our identity and life choices long before we learn to start questioning them.

Severe or prolonged stress can influence how certain genes express, particularly those related to the stress hormone, cortisol. This doesn't mean trauma is destiny, instead that the body may be more sensitive to stress – until safety and regulations are restored. Healing experinces can also change gene expression. Resilience is just as transmissible as trauma.

What Generational Trauma often looks like:

• " I don't know why I feel anxious – nothing bad happened to me."

• "I overreact and then often feel ashamed"

• "I attracted the same relationship as my parents."

• "I feel responsible for everyone else's emotions."

• "I'm exhausted even when life is calm."

Generational Trauma isn't a sudden reason to blame or hate your parents, but to see them with compasion. They to are carrying trauma, they have been for much longer, they did their best. Society wasn't ready to talk about healing back then, now we know better. We must forgive and heal so that our children can grow without the same generational baggage holding them down. When healing generational trauma avoid blaming your parents or ancestors, you are simply the generation that noticed it. It's tough understanding trauma you carry that isn't your own. How do you heal from Trauma that never happened to you? It is possible, don't use it as an excuse to stay stuck. This trauma isn't something that must be relived in detail. It's about honouring the survival of your ancestors, while choosing something different now.

Generational Trauma heals through safety, not force. Key elements to healing this form of trauma include:

• Nervous system regulation (calm before insight),

• Compassionate awareness (no shaming),

• New embodied experiences of safety,

• Choice replacing automatic reactions. (this step takes time be gentle with yourself), and

• Reconnecting with the body, breath, and present moment when things feel intense. Choosing to react differently.

Healing doesn't erase the past – it teaches the body that the danger is no longer there.

Helping the body and nervous system feel safe enough to release old survival patterns:

Below are several ways this can happen–many of which are free and accessible:

1. Nervous System Regulation (This step sets the foundation of your healing journey). Before insight or change can happen, the nervous system needs moments of calm and safety. Some practices you can do on your own that don't cost anything are:

   
   

   1. Slow, deep breathing (longer inhales and longer exhales repeat 4-7-8 technique. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds with a forced woosh sound)

   2. Placing a hand on your chest or belly to create a sense of grounding.

   3. Sitting in silence without forcing thoughts away.

These small practices done consistently tell the body "I am safe right now".

2. Reiki can support healing by helping the body shift out of constant stress and into rest and regualtion. Rather than "fixing" the trauma Reiki works by:

   
   

   1. encouraging deep relaxation,

   2. supports the body's natural ability to rebalance,

   3. Offers a non-verbal sense of safety and presence

   4. Helps you reconnect with your body gently, without needing to relive past experiences

This can be especcially helpful for those who struggle to relax or feel safe in their body. Reiki is one supportive option, but is not a requirement for healing – there are other options available as well.

3. Sound & Vibration Therapy has been used for centuries and is found across many different cultures around the world. Some free or low cost options include:

   
   

   1. Listening to calming music or nature sounds,

   2. Humming or toning (the vibration stimulates the vagus nerve)

   3. Singing quietly to yourself, or

   4. Using simple frequency or sound meditations available online.

Sounds can help the nervous system reset without needing words.

4. Reconnecting with nature is highly regulating and always available. Nature is our most powerful and accible of healing modailities out there. There are many simple ways to reconnect with nature:

   
   

   1. Walking barefoot on the grass or earth,

   2. Sitting near water (rivers, lakes, oceans, even rain)

   3. Watching the trees move in the wind,

   4. Spending time with animals, or

   5. Gardening or touching plants.

      
      

Nature naturally brings the nervous system into rhythm and balance, reminding the body what safety feels like again.

5. Healing happens more effectively when we learn to observe our own patterns without shame. (" I know better now"). This can look like:

   1. Noticing emotional reactions instead of suppressing them,

   2. Naming feelings gently ("Something in me feels tense")

   3. Recognizing that reactions once served a purpose that is no longer needed,

   4. Replacing self-criticism with curiosity to learn and grow.

These steps alone can interrupt generational patterns. One of the deepest wounds of trauma is the loss of choice. Healing restores choice by letting us move at our own pace, offering options to choose from that feel right for our individual needs. Giving us the opportunity to start trusting our bodies again. There is no right way to heal – only what feels safe and supportive. Healing doesn't come from doing more or trying harder. It comes from creating enough safety for your body to let go of what it's been holding. There are many path to that safety – and you're allowed to chooser what feels right for you. This healing approach matters because:

• It centres empowerment, not dependency

• Respects individual readiness

• Honours both science and lived experience, and

• Above all else put's your wellbeing above any modality

When healing is forced or we do too much all at once we risk pushing beyond the healing "window of tolerance". The window of tolerance is the optimal zone in which the nervous system can experience a range of activations while staying regulated. Inside this window, the body can process stress and return to its baseline. Outside this window, the nervous system shifts into survival mode. Healing happens by working within this window of tolerance, not by pushing beyond it. When the nervous system is overwhelmed, it doesn't integrate healing. It protects us. Progress happens when we gradually expand the capacity of this window, this happens when we touch into activation, then return to regulation, over and over again. Each time this cycle completes, the window expands slightly. As the window expands, the nervous system can tolerate more activation before becoming overwhelmed. This is how regulation improves over time, not all at once.