Breaking Generational Trauma

In this powerful episode of Mystic Mom, we focus on generational trauma and how parents can break cycles to create healthier experiences for their child. We'll dive into what generational trauma is and the spiritual responsibility we have to break cycles! 

Transcript

  Welcome to Mystic Mom, where we dive into the extraordinary spiritual bonds between parent and child. I'm your host, Christy, and today's episode is all about breaking generational trauma. 

What is trauma? Trauma is the result of being exposed to an incident or a series of events that are emotionally disturbing or life threatening. An example would be if you grew up in a household where there was abuse going on or domestic violence. In these situations, as a child, you don't have control over the situation, and it is terrifying and unstable.

So you would develop an emotional response to these events. The response may be shutting down, feeling fearful all the time, or being hyper vigilant. When we experience trauma, we go into fight or flight. Fight is when we may become explosive, aggressive, try to fight off the threat, or assert our own power.

Flight is when we may shut down, flee from the situation. Flight can also look like denial, and avoidance. Other symptoms of trauma include having flashbacks, meaning where you feel like the event is happening again, or you have the feeling of what you were feeling when these events happened. An emotional flashback is when Let's say you're in a safe environment as an adult and out of nowhere feel panic, scared, and your body feels like it's in danger in a similar way that you felt when the traumatic experience happened.

You may also experience nightmares. A lot of kids who experience trauma may have a bedwetting problem, nightmares, separation anxiety. Things of that sort.  A trauma response is actually meant to try to help us in a way cope and deal with what we experienced. So the flashbacks that come, the feelings, it's a way of trying to understand what happened.

It happens on an unconscious level where we may try to make sense of what is going on or we may obsess or overthink it as a way of trying to prepare ourselves and protect ourselves moving forward from future threats.  There are many different types of traumatic experiences, from sexual assault, physical assault, to neglect.

Neglect is if you weren't taken care of as a child, or if you had a parent that maybe struggled with addiction, and you weren't taken care of in a way that you were supposed to be taken care of, either physically or emotionally. This creates a trauma response. When we speak about generational trauma, we are looking at a pattern of traumatic dynamics that occurred not only in our childhood, but that our parents experienced and maybe our grandparents experienced.

When we look at our family tree of these situations, usually we are able to see a pattern.  This may be a pattern of addiction or absentee fathers or emotionally unavailable mothers. It could be across the spectrum of anything. But when we look at it, we could usually see that it is a pattern that was repeated again and again.

It may even be a pattern of mental illness, poverty, unstable households, or a pattern that is harder to see, such as perfectionistic standards, expectations, emotionally manipulative relationships, etc. Some of these patterns are sometimes self inflicted, and some of them are situational, in circumstances that the generations before us were stuck in. 

We see patterns repeat because a lot of times, we repeat what we know. So, if we were taught that the way to resolve conflict is to get physically aggressive with each other, because that's what our parents showed us, that's not what we're taught. we may repeat that pattern. I don't believe that anyone consciously chooses to repeat abusive behaviors or traumatic dynamics.

It comes from a place of a lack of healing and not addressing the real issue.  So when we talk about breaking generational trauma, it really involves the the trauma breaker to do their own healing around what they experienced. This may mean going to therapy, self help books, and really healing from their own childhood experiences so they don't unconsciously repeat these patterns with their own children.

This is one of the transformative areas of becoming a parent because nothing triggers our childhood more than when we have our own children. And  Reminds us of what our own childhood was like, how our parents respond to us, and can stir up our own trust issues and insecurities that we haven't felt in a very long time,  if we are in a place of minimizing our childhood experiences, thinking, It wasn't so bad because I had a roof over my head, or I had food on my table.

So it didn't really matter if my mom would get very drunk and fight with me, or if I was worried if dad would remember to pick me up from basketball practice.  Those things really didn't impact me, is a way of thinking, which is, in a sense, a type of minimization.  Which can be the trauma response, because it may be too painful to look at how that really felt.

Tch. Now, once we are aware of the pattern, it doesn't just go away, it takes active work and rewiring to change the way that we do things. On a physical level, it is about changing the way that we are interacting with our families and our children. So if we were hit as a kid for not listening or not behaving, it is then finding alternative ways of discipline with your own kids.

Often the cycle breaker may feel a sense of resentment towards their parents or grandparents because it puts a lot of work on the cycle breaker to make the change. It is easier to repeat patterns even if they're damaging than to be the one to change. It's also upsetting to think that our parents, our grandparents, great grandparents had the opportunity to make a change, to break the cycle.

And they didn't. Whether it was because they chose not to or their circumstances really didn't allow them to change it, there are many different situations. But we may still feel angry that we have to be the ones to do the healing, to do the work. And we also may grieve and feel sadness that we could have had a different experience if those before us did differently.

This goes into the spiritual aspect of breaking generational trauma.  I believe that whenever we are born into a lifetime, we have an opportunity to change things. We have an opportunity to change things for the families that we are born into, and also an opportunity to change things for the next generation after us. 

Just how we didn't deserve certain things growing up, our children don't deserve to have the same thing happen to them. We owe it to them to do the work, to do the healing, and to make changes. Because it doesn't only change them and their life, but it then breaks a cycle where it does. That you are not only helping your own children, you are helping every generation after that.

The benefit of breaking a cycle is not only for our kids, but also for ourselves. That we get to experience parenting and motherhood or fatherhood in a very different way. Because with that healing, comes a healthier relationship. And I like to think that our children, Picking us for this lifetime shows that they believe in us in some way.

They believe that we are the ones that can help them, that can change things, that can give them the support that they need and the experiences that they need to become exactly Who they are meant to be in this lifetime. So think about your own experiences and the patterns from your childhood that you do want to repeat.

The ones that felt very loving and freeing and empowering and to repeat those patterns and the ones that hurt you or the ones that you felt took you away from who you truly are. Break that cycle.  If you've struggled with trauma and stress and abuse, find a trauma informed therapist that could help with your healing.

Finding support in our healing is so important. You don't have to go through healing alone. So, until next time, love, heal, and live Mystic Mom.