Andrea Petrut | Inherited Generational Effects of War and Famine

Two World Wars and famine affected  Andrea’s ancestors in Romania, but Andrea herself also experienced the effects from those events.  One of the most apparent effects came through beliefs about wealth.  One family branch says buy land so you always have a way to provide for your family.  Another branch says saving is pointless, enjoy your money while you have it.  Andrea shares how awareness and curiosity helped her identify those beliefs and choose what beliefs she would make part of her future.

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Transcript

Andrea Petrut | Inherited Generational Effects of War and Famine

Heather: Hi, Andrea. Thanks for joining me on my podcast today. 

Andrea: Thank you, Heather. It's a great pleasure to be with you. 

Heather: Would you start by introducing yourself a little bit, please? 

Andrea: Yes, my name is Andrea Petrut. This is my real Noma Romanian name in English. Could be Andrea Petru one version. and I come from Romania where I lived since I was born for 36 years. And then I moved to Canada in 2017. I'm currently living in Toronto. With my husband, he's the one. Uh, I came here for 

Heather: Okay. 

Andrea: and we'll live together with our three children, my two boys from a former marriage and a child with him.

I am an intuitive life and relationship coach. And I love working with, people with deep healing and transformation, which also means understanding our relationship with our ancestors. And that's why I love your show and I wanted to be here with you. 

Heather: Well, thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about your family in Romania? 

Andrea: Yeah. My father is a construction engineer. He's 70 something, 76 I think is, oh yeah. he actually, he's not 76. dad. I'm sorry. my mom was born in 1946. My dad in 1948. And I, I love them very, very much actually. The reason why I love my ancestors is my dad, because when him and I would sit in the kitchen, he would share stories about his grandparents, whatever he could remember.

And I would just, you know, listen, listen and ask some questions if I needed more clarity and I heard these stories on and on, on and on. And that's what helped me connect with them. On my mother's side, my mom died when I was 11 and she could not share these stories. So the only one I could speak about was my grandfather, her mother, and then my cousins and whoever was still alive to be able to share.

So this is how I put back some pieces of the puzzle on my mother's side. I discovered that I have her grandfather who was adopted by a family, like a family of landlords or bourgeois. It seems that he had Jewish blood. And my grandmother came actually from Ukraine, a part that was in Romania, but now it's part of Ukraine. I don't know exactly how and when, but long time ago, cause she was born in 1917 if I remember well, and he, he was born in nine, almost 10 years, before in 1906. Somehow she crossed the border and she got into the village or where he was and they got together. So I have this kind of, heritage there. On my father's side, they are all from Romania with one thing that I thought would be a difference, but it's not. And I say this because they come from the center of the country, they moved to Southeast, where is my hometown.

And I learned that my father lived with his father, mother, his siblings, two sisters and a brother. And also they had a grandmother and the grandmother had what I thought was the husband, but he was not. And there was also an uncle. Now the a husband I'm talking about, he was Greek. And I thought I have Greek blood, but we are not blood related.

And I say this because my name Andrea is given by my father thinking that Andreas in Greek means courage, bravery, manhood. And he said, that's gonna be my daughter's name, Andrea with one E. In Romanian, by the way, it's double E. So I see like two big branches. Just because one of them has my maternal grandmother and grandfather who are not pure Romanians, you know, and the other ones are.

Heather: Okay. Would you share a story about one of your ancestors that is meaningful to you and maybe help us understand what kind of life they had living in Romania in the mid-1900s? 

Andrea: Oh, now I remember now what I heard that my maternal grandfather, Nicholas in English, he was a tall man and he had integrity and nice posture and everything, and he loved to ride horses. He took care of land. He was a great merchant and a great, I would say manager, uh, and, in modern times. Than He was able to take care of a real estate and make sure everything is fine.

What I noticed is that that experience that he had in those times helped him always, always make money no matter what happened. Cause we had communism. So we had the, second world after the second world war. What I remember. We had famine, communism, 1989 the revolution came and then we tried to learn how, what democracy is. Well in any kind of time, whether it was famine or not my grandfather and grandmother always could do something and they were, they were okay. Their family did not starve. That idea of a grandfather riding horses being so, kind, I don't know. I cannot say that about him. What I can say that I assume, from what I heard, that he was charming. And it's something that, although he was old, like, I really love my grandfather the way he looked and the energy that was around him and his personality.

And the most surprising way about him is that he did not go to school. If he had four classes, I think that's a miracle. He could not even write properly, but he had a brilliant mind and a sense for commerce and for managing. And although I don't know details of how he did it somehow I see it in my family that it was transmitted through younger generations.

And I love that. I used to tell people, oh, I didn't have a business, owner or entrepreneur in my family, but then I was like, wait, it's my grandfather. He was a bourgeois, but then everything transformed and he still kept his skills and abilities and he had his own businesses anyway.

Heather: So as you said, that area of the world has had a lot of war and famine and how have you seen those things affect your family and the effects that have come down generations from that? 

Andrea: I think both branches had similar issues. What is most obvious for me now, thinking of a question, is that scarcity, the scarcity beliefs in the subconscious. On my grandmother, the maternal grandparents is the idea that you gotta have assets. You gotta have land so you can survive, support your family no matter what. This was one thing they always had assets, which is not the same thing on my father's side. They had nothing. And they really went through horrible times. So on my mother's side, this, the idea of the merchant of the entrepreneur have assets have some land so you can grow, have a garden, so you can make wine and sell it.

So have bees so you can sell your honey. Like they always had something like that all the time. They managed, even when my grandfather was in jail. Because they had something they could bring in he was treated, I would never say fairly, but I would say he was treated kindly not horribly.

So on one side is having assets, on the other side is savings. My grandmother had this habit of always saving, even if there was not much to save , you know, like barely making it, but somehow she managed to save. The problem is, and this is the subconscious limiting belief that I noticed with me, remembering the moments and the history is that before 1989, when she saved money, they had a value. After 1989 in Romania thanks to the change, inflation, no value. So let assume that it was us dollars. She had thousands of us dollars in her account, and then she showed me Andrea, it's only 1.25 dollars. That shocked me. And it really was so deep that I, I realized I have to work to heal that, that stuff and shift those beliefs around that, cause one side I have "buy assets" and on the other side, "don't save because it won't have value." 

 And another thing about my grandmother. Cause she, I say about my grandmother because she's the one who worked with money and she saved in the bank and she also put money in a jar. So my uncle doesn't steal them. And that those are other limiting beliefs that I notice. And then money under the mattress, it is true. Grandparents do keep money the mattress. She did. She surely did, but in her case it was not to say it was not to, allow my uncle to take money from her. So she tried to make sure that she still, her family still has some money and he doesn't take all, all of it away.

And I, keep saying about money because this is a big thing for me. It really affected me in, in many ways. How it affected me is I loved spending and I did not wanna save. And that's not a good thing. I loved having money, but it's like having holes in our hands. Scarcity again, appeared on my father's side this time, meaning that they had no assets, they had no ways of supporting themselves being self-sustainable and how they made it through the second world war. Like, and I think in between 45 and 47, there was famine. So in order to make it through, they actually went back to their own roots in the center part center center, west of Romania, where the situation was not as bad.

They managed. And when things went back, okay after the war, then they went, to their home, which was actually ruined. My father and one of my aunts told me that they slept on a door, like literally a door of the house was put in away so they could sleep on it. One of the walls was supported the walls of the house was supported by, I don't know what, because it would fall. Like horrible times. They always have to choose, you know, the mother, my grandmother would not eat properly so she could feed.

So again, a lot of scarcity and this idea of we are poor. It really affected all of us in the family. And one thing with the war here, cause you asked me and my grandparents went through two types of wars, world war one and world war II. Well, I don't know about the, the first one, but the second one I've noticed one of my aunts she is really fearful. Like she has lots of fears. She goes into panic very fast. She forgive me Aunt if you ever know I said this , but she really cannot live a normal life. She's the oldest. And she was there when all the traumas happened. We talked and I told her, look, I think from what you told me, that you have been affected all your life, your health has been affected the way you engage with people and life and everything has affected.

In her case, it feels like she enclosed herself in a small life only because she did not dare to take care of her more to respect herself more, to do certain things. My lesson, I don't wanna have that life. So I learned that those have been passed on to me and I need to shift that those fears and it was a lot of work.

Heather: What is something or a little bit of how you worked to shift those inherited beliefs and examples from your family? 

Andrea: The first thing was awareness. Hearing some stories and talking to my relatives who share that story to understand consciously what happened and see what's their opinion, how we, we look at it. Awareness is the first thing being aware of what happened. And looking at your own life and see, uh, if you see the patterns, do you see anything related to scarcity? Do you think anything related to spending, like, in my case, I say that's the analysis in my case.

And I did see that. And unfortunately, It was not always a quick fix, you know, cause there are layers. I discovered that well subconscious is a very deep world and the awareness and consciousness is the superficial level. Then you go deeper and deeper and deeper. And I think you also work with this too, cuz you talk about relationships on your website and we have relationships with everything.

So I had to think of relationship with my father, mother with all the living members in my own life and then think of their relationships. Uh, and those times like, you know, the family tree, I did it, or you can do it also in, and looking at this perspective, what has affected each family member that I know. And the most important that I've seen is the first three lines of ancestors, this, they are the most important thing. 

Heather: Hmm. That's a good point. Yeah. I definitely like what you're saying about focus on those three generations before you, and really go deep into their relationships as well. I often see in the people that I work with in genealogy, that they're just trying to follow those lines back. But if you really wanna understand yourself and why you are the way you are, you really need to understand those first few generations and what happened to them? what happened to their siblings? Because if their siblings had some things happen to them, that affected them as well. And the parents and aunt. It's just so important to slow down and think about those relationships, think about things that are going on in their communities or in the world. And how did that affect them? Because they pass those things on the next generation and you get part of it too. 

Andrea: Yes. I totally agree with that. You know what else helped me, Heather, I think this would, this would be a bit surprising in a way. I'm writing my spiritual memoir and I have to go back in time and see, my own history, history of my family. And I discovered that even tools we would not think would help us like writing a book also are shifting something and are diving deeper into things we haven't thought about that, help us heal, transform, honor our ancestors and really understand their lessons. 

For me it brought a lot of curiosity and wonder, despite the things that I heard in my family that were not okay. For instance, on my, uh, maternal grandmother's side, they were seven siblings. She was the only survivor. The rest died in different circumstances. And one of them one of her siblings was horribly treated by the stepfather He was, beaten the head. You know, at first, when you hear things like that, whatever happened in the family, you're like, oh my God, how could they do this?

On the other hand if you just take a step back and you are looking from a different perspective, like you said before, about what happened in the community in those times? Well, in that part of the country, people were living at a countryside. They didn't have much education. They didn't think about how to raise their kids. They didn't think about out like us now, conscious parenting, emotional training.

Don't yell at your child. Don't do this, don't do that. I mean, we cannot. First of all we can't judge like you and I were were talking about earlier. We can judge, but why judge? Let's first show compassion and look with new eyes at a generation or generations that did not have what we have now. Did not have the consciousness awareness, education, tools, possibilities, opportunities, and the peace we have now. How can we expect, plus let's not forget we don't know, at least I don't know, who was a healthy, a mentally healthy person and who was not. Even nowadays, we discovered just through an MRI that, oh, you know, your colos is not completely developed and you haven't, you didn't know you lived all your life with some things. And everybody was saying, you, you have a problem or that, but nobody knew what. So if we need time and tools to discover something, surely they were going through some things we don't know. And showing compassion brings our wisdom to the surface.

Heather: And with that wisdom, how do we, and I mean, you're kind of already started and you're doing this, but how do you take what you from the past and use it to impact the future? 

Andrea: First ask yourself, what do you like and what you don't like about your past and the past of your family? When you find out the second question that I realized we need to ask is what can we change? Cause if you didn't like that, a war was going on. I, well, the first thing we can change is keep the peace, but you cannot, if something happens and there's still a war you cannot do anything if you know. So it's just think about your power. What you like, what you don't like, what can you change out of this and how do you wanna change it? What would you like to live? What kind of life? What kind of environment? What do you wanna offer to yourself, your spouse, your children, your friends, your community?

And once you have that clarity put on paper, one side. What I don't want anymore, one side, what I do want, then look at what you don't want and ask yourself, what are those stories that affected me? Or what are those beliefs or whatever, is it there that makes that thing still exist or that could, be passed on and then stop that by making the shift, making the switch.

Maybe it's a bad choice that somebody made and you're learning and you're like, okay. So in order to have a beautiful harmonious relationship with my spouse, I need, let me see, what do I need? Maybe I need more humor. They didn't have humor those days. Okay. I can try that or anything else. So just pick what, what worked for them and keep it and what didn't work for them, you try something else. 

And this reminds me of what my father said, and he said this, Andrea, you know, making the same mistakes on and on, on and on. It's stupid. Save your time. Save energy, save anything by learning from us. Your relatives, your friends, coworkers, bosses, anyone in your life just learn from us so you don't do the same mistakes. This way you always go further as a generation. You're always at least one step ahead, maybe even more, and you can fulfill more dreams. So this is one way to change. And he was right. He was totally right. And another thing he said from what you hear from us, from what you see here in your family, take what you wanna keep and leave out the rest. Make your own. And I took it to the heart. I did, like he said some things I repeated, but I realized over time. So this is how I would say, take that process to, to filter out and then change it.

Heather: And like you said earlier, really that's all based in awareness and being curious about your ancestors and going and looking into their lives, seeing what you can learn about them, which also tells you about yourself so that you have that power to choose what you want in the future. I mean, you can do it without it, but it's a real big help to actually be able to see what got passed down and it's just more empowering that way rather than kind of looking in the dark to find out what you want or don't want. 

Andrea: Yes. And what stirred me up in your words right now is, is that at appreciation, love, respect for what they have passed on good or bad. Because everything they went through, every decision, everything they have done is a lesson for us. Anything, whether we like it or not, we can take it as a lesson. We can transform it into wisdom for us and future generations.

And for those people who cannot find, you know, there are adopted people. And I remember Buffy and Marie, the famous singer, she talks in her autobiography that she was adopted and she still doesn't know who, who are her parents. Right. And I thought, well, how can people like that feel a connection and, and learn from their, their stories?

Well, In my opinion. And please say what you think about this. They are in our blood. They are in our DNA. I don't think we are cut off from our ancestors. We consciously don't know who they are. We don't have the paperwork. Forget about the bureaucracy. Just listen, because in your body, like my teacher, Tanya Taylor Stein from somatic writing said it, they are, the stories are in your body and we can learn through different tools, how to listen to our bodies and get those stories out. So that's another way listening to ourselves. Our body is because the stories are right within us.

Heather: That is true. Well, Thank you so much, Andrea, for sharing your thoughts and your family experiences with us.

Andrea: Thank you for having me. It was really, really a great joy.