Episode 4: Become the Healer: Intergenerational Trauma 1 of 3

[00:00:10] Welcome to my podcast, Become the Healer. Together, we’ll explore an integrated healing approach and journeys through ancient healing modalities. Mindset shifts, scientific evidence, inspiring story and practical tips empowering us to heal our lives, get unstuck from toxic patterns and expand consciousness, raising our energetic vibration, and healing the planet from within.

[00:00:40] Hello, and welcome to this episode of Become the Healer, where we’ll be revealing how intergenerational trauma has a grip on all of us. I’m going to be Doing this topic of intergenerational trauma in three separate episodes. Please listen to all of them and in order.

[00:01:01] Yeah. Okay. So, in this first episode, we’re exploring what intergenerational trauma is, and surprisingly, how we all inherit it to some degree and the amazing sabotaging symptoms that we have because of it. It’s quite fascinating. I’m surprised no one has really realized the effects of this as yet. So, in the second episode, we talk to Penny, who is a healing facilitator in a First nations community in Canada, and the insight she has on healing intergenerational trauma. Absolutely fascinating. And finally, in the third episode, I want to explore those healing modalities from my own perspective and from the research to see what we can put in place to heal intergenerational trauma in our own lives, not in the entire world, but just focusing on you becoming the healer of your life. Right. Healing your own intergenerational trauma.

[00:02:08] So, what is intergenerational trauma? Well, it’s a term used in psychology that suggests how traumatic events can be passed down from one generation to another.

[00:02:22] So the experiences of our ancestors can have a lasting impact on our own mental health and emotional well Being.

[00:02:33] Understanding intergenerational trauma helps shed the light on why certain patterns that we have of behavior or psychological issues or anything, these patterns of our families and why they persist. Could it be intergenerational trauma? And then what do we do about it? Right.

[00:02:55] Okay. So, one of the first articles to discuss the concept of intergenerational trauma was in 1966, when a Canadian psychiatrist and his colleagues observed that children of the Holocaust survivors often experience psychological distress, even in their adult years.

[00:03:18] Another research on the same topic was researching teenagers who were the offspring of Holocaust survivors. They had different stress hormones than their peers, predisposing them to anxiety disorders. So survivors of the Holocaust has inherited anxiety disorders?

[00:03:46] That’s just one example. Let’s keep going. Yeah, because when I consider my own patterns and my own family lineage.

[00:03:56] My grandparents on my mother’s side were in Holland during the German War.

[00:04:02] My grandfather had to hide under the floorboards from the Nazis so he wouldn’t be inscripted to fight in the war. Right.

[00:04:13] I, interestingly enough, have inherited patterns of anxiety and not feeling safe.

[00:04:23] Right? Yeah. Okay, this is interesting, isn’t it? And I’m sure that as you’re listening to the podcast, you’re wondering why you’ve inherited in your own family and whether it’s the cause of your symptoms, of your issues.

[00:04:39] It’s a possibility. Let’s continue.

[00:04:42] Okay. So I first came across this term during my degree in counseling and psychology. It’s often used in journal articles as a blanketed term to understand why Indigenous people, like First nations people in Canada and Australia, are facing problems, why they have problems. So it’s just used in that term why Indigenous people have problems. It’s used intergenerational trauma.

[00:05:09] But when we look at this, we all have ancestors.

[00:05:15] So I believe we all experience intergenerational trauma to varying degrees.

[00:05:21] Now, everyone experiences it differently according to the resilience and to the level of. Let’s say the ancestors may have resolved some of the issue, but you only carry some of it. And whether your ancestors, let’s say the war times from ten years ago, but the ancestors over those ten years have slowly absolved or resolved some of that, and you only carry a portion of it. So there’s a lot of different criteria, for instance, that would affect how much you carry and the experiences you have. So I believe we all carry it. When you think about it as humans, we all have ancestors.

[00:06:05] So it’s likely that some of them have experienced some dark times, such as war, genocide, starvation, that it happens around the world. People are starving. Or one of your ancestors, were they starving? What about loss of business, sexual abuse, infidelity, or betrayal of any kind or any other forms of trauma?

[00:06:29] So, to better understand this, let’s consider for a moment the number of ancestors we have over just ten generations.

[00:06:38] Each person has two parents, right? I mean, you can’t argue that you need two parents to be born. So then you have four grandparents, eight grandparents, and so on until after ten generations, we have a staggering 1024 direct ancestors.

[00:06:59] Okay, over 1000 people. It’s likely that some of them have experienced traumatic events in their lives.

[00:07:07] There’s a lot of dark times in Earth’s history. We’ve got Viking invasions, winch hunts, stolen children, forced displacements, and so much more. You can just Google and see what comes up.

[00:07:25] So, how do we inherit this emotional trauma, and how can it affect us today? Like, right now? How is it affecting you right now? How does it affect me right now? I mean, I can see it in my family patterns.

[00:07:40] I have those patterns of anxiety. I have patterns in relationships.

[00:07:47] Do you suffer from it? It would contemplate for a minute, and if so, how can we heal from it? If you and me are both suffering and all my listeners have intergenerational trauma, how can we heal?

[00:08:01] I want to explore this with you and see if we can find the answer. Okay? But first of all, how do we inherit intergenerational trauma? Okay, so, the research says the idea behind the term is that the pain, stress, and unresolved issues experienced by our ancestors, in particular, we look at that, it’s, again the unresolved issue. It’s the same as what’s said in German new medicine, that these can be passed down to us through learned behaviors, belief systems, family dynamics, and cultural practices.

[00:08:44] For example, if someone’s grandparents experienced war related trauma, depending on the level of that and their resilience at the time and whether they had a support system, et cetera, right.

[00:09:00] It can create a family belief influenced by fear and survival instincts.

[00:09:09] Fear and survival instincts. A family belief. Right.

[00:09:15] So, family beliefs are passed down through the family lineage. We know this, and oftentimes we don’t question them because we just believe them to be true. Like, what our family believes to be true is something that I would believe to be true unless we start challenging in it, and then we can say, no, I don’t believe this to be true. So, let’s reflect on this for a moment, though.

[00:09:41] What type of mental health issues could be caused by a hidden belief influenced by fear and survival issues, could this person have a constant sense of impending danger, making it so they can’t relax or even socialize?

[00:10:02] They feel uncomfortable going outside.

[00:10:07] They might even have these symptoms, and they don’t know why. Right. So they just struggle with mental health issues.

[00:10:16] I believe it comes from intergenerational trauma, and we just haven’t learned how to identify or heal it yet.

[00:10:25] But what about PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, where a person has reoccurring flashbacks or nightmares? They don’t understand what’s happening to them and why. Right.

[00:10:39] But it’s also suggested in the research that beliefs influenced by fear and survival instincts can cause depression, feelings of hopelessness, and overall just feeling down.

[00:10:53] So, if any one of us has ancestors that were experiencing war times and have a belief system that’s influenced by fear and survival instincts. We could have any of these symptoms, and we can’t seem to fix them. Right? They just haunt us for the rest of our lives.

[00:11:17] Okay, so let’s refer back to another one of my episodes on Become the Healer podcast, the one on the personal template. Now, if you haven’t listened to that one, I highly recommend going to listen to this podcast on the personal template. It’s an important mindset shift to successfully become the healer of your life.

[00:11:46] Okay, so we’re putting some pieces of the puzzle together.

[00:11:50] Intergenerational trauma is patterns that’s passed down through the family lineage to us.

[00:11:57] When we’re children, we learn these patterns through observing the behaviors of our parents, what they tell us, what they tell us to think or how to behave, or what to feel in certain situations.

[00:12:10] These patterns are developed as a child. Right? We have patterns of thinking, feeling, behavior. I’d call this collection of patterns a personal template for living, which dictates how we live our lives.

[00:12:26] So we can see this intergenerational trauma is passed down to us, creating this personal template for living.

[00:12:35] Okay, so we can ponder on this for a minute. Let’s just reflect if this is true, that if intergenerational trauma can cause something like depressive traits in the family, because I’ve had depression and feelings of hopelessness in my lifetime, then it would mean that I need to look into my energies, into the personal template to find any unresolved intergenerational trauma. Yeah.

[00:13:05] What do you think?

[00:13:07] Absolutely. I think it’s definite to me.

[00:13:12] This is it. This is one of the keys to healing that no one has found yet.

[00:13:17] Oh, my goodness. Seriously, if you’re feeling just excited as me at this revelation, I’ve been carrying this for like two years now. I’m just bursting to tell it to everybody. So I’m so glad I’m doing a podcast. If you feel just excited as me about this find, please share this podcast on all your social media.

[00:13:42] Tell people that this is the key to healing their lives. This is the missing link that everyone’s missing. There’s so many people doing things like emotion code or emotional freedom therapies or all these other. Like, we’ve got so much, but no one’s looking into intergenerational trauma and how to heal it. Okay? But there’s so much more, so much more to this topic. It’s so complex.

[00:14:10] The layers that we have, that we’re carrying from all those ancestors. Ten generations. It’s 1024.

[00:14:20] Whoa. Mind blowing trauma can shape family narratives and belief systems, influencing how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. It plays a role on our levels of happiness, confidence, motivation, everything.

[00:14:37] It affects how we feel in the world. It affects how you’re feeling today, right now.

[00:14:45] It affects how we feel about ourselves.

[00:14:49] It plays a huge, important role.

[00:14:53] I think this is a major mindset shift, and I’m very grateful you’re on this journey with me, honestly, because throughout the podcast, we’re going to look at so many different healing modalities on how to heal, and you got to know why you’re using them. So this episode is a mindset shift. So you feel motivated, dedicated to healing, because you go, wow, now I know I’m doing these techniques, right?

[00:15:20] Okay. So what’s more I’m getting excited about this, is that if we look closely at the patterns of narcissism, we can see a correlation with intergenerational trauma.

[00:15:36] What this means is that if we can learn to heal intergenerational trauma on deeper levels, we can eradicate narcissism from the planet.

[00:15:51] Oh, my. Okay, that’s a bit much, isn’t it?

[00:15:55] But honestly, I do believe that acknowledging the existence and potential impact of intergenerational trauma is crucial in order to break the cycle of suffering for everyone around the world.

[00:16:10] And you know what I’m going to say next?

[00:16:13] Healing the planet from within.

[00:16:18] I’m going to say that one more time, and I want you to say it with me. Healing the planet from within.

[00:16:26] And I hope you had a smile on your face while you were saying that, because I sure did. I’m in high vibes with this mission. Okay.

[00:16:35] I believe we all experience intergenerational trauma to varying degrees.

[00:16:41] I’m hoping that you’re pondering about this right now. You’re reflecting on it and maybe even convinced. But don’t set that into a solid belief. Right? Don’t do that yet. Okay? We don’t want any more beliefs stopping and sabotaging us. We just go, yeah. Okay. Let’s experiment. Let’s explore what’s possible.

[00:16:59] So, hence, by understanding the context in which our ancestors lived.

[00:17:05] Oh, boy. How are we going to do that? There’s so many of them. Right? But if we can even contemplate more times, business problems, infidelity, whatever, and recognize their experiences and how they resonate with us today, how they create the energetic vibrations we’re current carrying and the lessons we’re learning this lifetime, we can begin to heal and work towards creating a healthier future for ourselves. And future generations.

[00:17:42] It’s important to note, really important, that you know this right now, that even though we may have inherited our ancestors trauma, it does not mean we’re stuck with it. Once we can see it and identify it, we can heal it.

[00:17:58] But how can we heal it? Well, this is something that we’re going to explore in the third episode. We’re going to look at various tools and techniques that will help you dive into this. And in fact, that’s a really juicy good episode because I’m even going to take you on a guided visual meditation.

[00:18:18] So with any luck, you’ll get some indication about something that your ancestors are carrying that you’ve inherited. You might get a visual or a feeling, and you can write it down while we’re doing the process. Right. And then once you can see it, we’ll work to heal it. It’s super exciting. It’s a very, very powerful episode.

[00:18:42] So in the next episode, number two on Become the Healer podcast and this topic, intergenerational trauma, I’m interviewing Penny and we have a really good discussion. She is a healing facilitator on a First nations reserve in Canada, and what she has to say about the healing process is amazing, right? And then after that, we’re having a third and final episode about intergenerational trauma where we’ll discuss healing modalities and techniques that may or may not work to heal the depth of this issue where we’re going to explore, that’s what we’re all about here on Become the healer is we’re looking at and exploring everything in relation to how we can heal our own lives, how we can improve our lives, expand consciousness, and raise our level of vibration. Because I believe that if everyone in the world had this knowledge, tools and techniques, that we would be healing the planet from within.

[00:19:54] Yeah, I know, right? So thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I’ve really enjoyed having your company.

[00:20:03] I couldn’t continue with this podcast without your support.

[00:20:07] I have a big, big mission to take this podcast around the world and explore different communities around the world, ones that are in longevity and talk to healers, just expand our knowledge on the topic entirely. It’s going to be absolutely fascinating and I’m excited you’re on this journey with me. So please make sure that you subscribe and support and follow on all social media. But right now I’m going to pass you on to my outro. I keep saying that, please subscribe, but I know my outro has got the same, says the same thing. So I’m just excited for you to join me. Okay, thank you again. Enjoy the rest of your day and many blessings.

[00:20:52] Thank you for listening to my podcast, Become the Healer. I’m super grateful to have you as part of this community. You are awesome.

[00:21:02] And before we go, I want to remind you about two exciting things that you don’t want to miss out on. First and foremost, if you haven’t already, please make sure to hit that subscribe button. By doing so, you’ll never miss out on one of these juicy, good episodes and even stay up to date with upcoming events. Trust me, you don’t want to miss out on a single moment of what’s coming up. But wait, there’s more. Also, head over to my YouTube channel called Healing the Planet from within and also hit that subscribe button. That way you can enjoy all the fantastic content including traveling to sacred places and fun behind the scenes moments. Subscribing is super easy. It takes one click and would mean the world to me. So go ahead and make sure you’re part of this incredible community, both on my podcast and YouTube channel. And finally, wander over to my website, HealingthePlanet from within and become part of our healing community by downloading the worksheets and making inspiring comments on the podcast episodes. It’s super, super great to have you with us in this community. Thank you so much for joining me on this amazing journey. Your support means the world to me because this is truly my biggest passion in life. Look forward to connecting with you on another episode or even in person.