It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

When we reject our parents, we can’t see the ways in which we’re similar. The behaviors become disowned in us and are often projected onto the people around us. Conversely, we can attract friends, romantic partners, or business associates who display the very behaviors we reject, allowing us myriad opportunities to recognize and heal the dynamic.

Sleeping inside each of them were fragments of traumas too great to be resolved in one generation.

When a child takes on a parent’s burden—whether consciously or unconsciously—he or she misses out on the experience of being given to, and can have difficulty receiving from relationships later in life. A child who takes care of a parent often forges a lifelong pattern of overextension and creates a blueprint for habitually feeling overwhelmed.

the traumas we inherit or experience firsthand can not only create a legacy of distress, but also forge a legacy of strength and resilience that can be felt for generations to come.

Our complaints, symptoms, and problems can function as signposts pointing us in the direction of something that’s still unresolved. They can help bring something to light that we cannot see or connect us with something or someone we, or our family, have rejected. When we stop and explore them, what’s unresolved can rise to the surface, adding a new

Sometimes, the heart must break in order to open.

In our fear and anxiety, we often try to control our environment to feel safe.

In this innocent place, perhaps we imagined that we could alleviate their unhappiness by fixing or sharing it. If we too carried it, they wouldn’t have to carry it alone.

As my story illustrates, early interruptions to the mother-child bond can originate long before we’re ever conceived. The effects can remain in our unconscious and live in our body as somatic memories that can be triggered by events reminiscent of rejection or abandonment. When this happens, we can feel entirely out of sync with ourselves. Our thou