Growing Up With Family Conflict with Tenya Eickenberg

What happens when the environment you grow up in leaves emotional patterns that follow you well into adulthood?

Tenya Eickenberg shares the story of growing up in a military family where frequent moves, family conflict, and a mother struggling with mental illness shaped her early life.

Tenya describes childhood experiences that included relocating across countries, separation from siblings, and living in a household marked by tension and unpredictability. As she entered adolescence, those early experiences showed up in ways she didn’t fully understand at the time — people-pleasing, hiding parts of herself, and searching for stability in relationships.

After becoming a young mother, Tenya focused on raising her children and creating a different environment for her family. But years later, once her children left home, unresolved emotions resurfaced as anxiety and depression.

That turning point eventually led her to therapy, a diagnosis of complex PTSD, and an exploration of holistic emotional healing practices.

Key Takeaways

• How frequent moves during childhood can shape a person’s ability to adapt while also affecting their sense of stability and belonging.
• How growing up in a household affected by mental illness and conflict can influence the roles children take on within a family.
• How early family experiences can lead people to develop coping behaviours such as accommodating others or keeping parts of themselves hidden.
• Why people sometimes try to create a different environment for their own children than the one they experienced growing up.
• How unresolved experiences from earlier life can surface years later as anxiety or depression, particularly during major life transitions.
• How seeking professional support can help identify underlying patterns and open the door to different approaches to emotional healing.

About: Tenya Eickenberg is an energy healer, certified self-care coach, and host of The Metamorphosis Project Podcast. After navigating her own experiences with anxiety and depression, she began exploring holistic approaches focused on emotional wellbeing and energy work. Today she supports individuals and groups through private sessions, healing circles, and her Design Your Existence programs. Through her work and podcast, Tenya shares conversations and tools that encourage emotional awareness, self-care, and personal growth. She is currently writing a book titled Self-Care Is a Frequency.

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