Breaking Generational Trauma: How to Heal Ancestral Patterns and Stop the Cycle

Breaking Generational Trauma: How to Heal Ancestral Patterns and Stop the Cycle 

What if the anxiety, patterns, and emotional reactions you carry… aren’t entirely yours?

In this deeply personal and powerful episode of Star Women Rising, Melinda explores the concept of “breath lines”—the emotional and energetic patterns passed down through generations—and what it really means to be the one who breaks the cycle. 

If you’ve ever felt like:

•  You’re stuck in repeating family patterns 
•  You’re carrying emotional weight that doesn’t make sense 
•  You’re the “calm one,” the fixer, or the one everyone leans on 
•  You’re exhausted from trying to hold everything together 

…you may be the cycle breaker in your lineage.

This episode dives into:

•  What generational trauma and ancestral patterns actually look like in real life 
•  How to recognize emotional “distortions” passed through families 
•  The role of the breath line anchor—and why it feels so heavy 
•  Why you don’t have to fix everyone to heal the pattern 
•  How breathwork can help regulate your nervous system and break emotional cycles 
•  The power of awareness, detachment, and holding your own inner coherence 

Melinda shares raw insight into what it feels like to stand in the middle of family chaos and choose a different path—without losing yourself in the process.

Because healing doesn’t start by fixing others…
 It starts by asking: “Is this mine to carry?”

✨ If you’re ready to release what isn’t yours and step into a new way of being, this episode will meet you exactly where you are.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Star Women Rising, where cosmic roots meet earthly power. I'm Melinda and together we'll awaken the fire within and above, exploring intuition, soul wisdom, and the ancient truths written in the stars. This isn't about escaping the world. It's about remembering who you are and rising stronger in it. Star Women Rising is part of the Chicology Podcast Collective, Real Women, Real Stories Rising Together. Let's begin. Welcome back. Hope everybody's doing well. It's been a crazy week for me, but that's not that's not unusual. There's always seems to be some sort of buffoonery happening in my world, but it's not always bad. So I hope everybody's everybody's healthy and happy and moving through. Today I want to talk about breath lines and healing the invisible inheritance. I think I've mentioned before, I've kind of noticed where maybe ancestral things are coming up. You know, I can kind of look around my family and there's these ancestral issues. I think a lot of people are experiencing that. And maybe you might be even one of those people who is like, yeah, I think I'm here to break that. The ancestral patterns, the whatever you want to call it, your breath lines. Call it a breath line because the first thing when you're born, you you take a breath, and the last thing when you leave is your breath. So I feel like that is a common, a common experience these days. And and maybe it always has been. I'm just completely aware of this. Oh, I think I'm I think I'm here to to break that. And it doesn't uh it's not like this heroic thing. It's not like, oh, I I'm the chosen one. It it is it is far from it. It is almost like this. Are you kidding? Like, why? Why why do I have to be the one to do this? Because it it comes at you from every angle, and it's it's a bit brutal, and it's incredibly difficult and it's exhausting. But I think I'm not the only one on this planet right now that is in that position, and maybe the key is is being aware of it. So, so let's just get right into it. So, what is a breathline? The simple definition when I use the term breath line is it's the emotional and energetic thread passed through families. It's your, you know, certain, you may have certain behaviors, you may have certain, you may have certain traits. I mean, there these are things that are passed down, they could be genetic, they could also be behaviors, right? I'm I've sort of been aware of how behaviors are kind of passed down. Now I don't know how that relates genetically, but there's certainly behaviors are passed down. And it matters because it matters because, you know, you can you can look at just let's keep it simple. Your parents, your there's there are probably these aspects of your parents that are very savvy, very keen, that are really good, these really good solid qualities. And then there are probably these aspects that are maybe not so savory, that are maybe a little more difficult. So we can't, you know, our our breath lines carry both. Our lineage carries both. It's not, you know, if if you're paying attention, it's not like and so and hey, I'm not gonna lie, maybe there are some that is just rough. I I know there are some really, really rough people out there. But for the most part, we can probably say that, you know, our lineage, our breath lines carry some really good qualities and maybe some some distortions, right? Some things that are just a little bit twisted, a little bit unsavory. Uh and it could be minor and it could be it could be major, it could be really serious stuff. We want to focus on how to recognize and heal generational distortions. Because let me tell you, I have been uh I feel like I've been in the midst of this for several years now, and just recognizing that that's probably what's happening, but battling and grappling with how is how do you do that? How do you do that? So let's talk a little bit about distortion. It's unresolved emotional patterns that are passed down, and if you really pay attention, you can probably see them in yourself, you can see them probably in your parents, and you can probably see them in your children. And look, I I want to be clear here. You're it's you're talking about your lineage, right? So if you have children and you are trying to clear your breath lines, you are you are doing it for your lineage. So you can't necessarily do it for your spouse's lineage or your baby daddy's lineage or your baby mama's lineage or whatever the case. This this is your your lineage. But what you can do in clearing this is you can clear the path for your children, those who come after you, to do this or to to clear that other side. I hope that makes sense. But you're you're really just focusing on your your breath line. So an example is oh, anxiety runs in our family, or you know silence. People are silent, there's things that come up and nobody steps up, or whatever the case, a short temper. You might if everybody in your family, on your lineage, your your dad's dad, and whatever, they're all short-tempered kind of people. These are unresolved emotional patterns that are passed down. Like I said, I think there is this genetic aspect of things, but most of it is like these emotional patterns, patterns of silence or overreaction, unexplained tension between family members. I don't know that I've ever really seen any of that in my lineage. I think most of it is explained for me. I like I have a good idea of where the tension comes from, but maybe not everybody has that experience where you can you can actually pin down where the tension is. So, but silence overreaction, unexplained tension between family members. They're not just behaviors, they are breath line echoes. So they're, you know, they're just cut these emotional behaviors that are that are just being passed on. And and you could think of it like if you are, if you're short fused and you have children, and and then next thing you know, your child becomes short-fused because they've learned to be short-fused. Not not because that's what they are, it's because that's what they've learned. So these are these echoes that get passed on through generations. And how they work is they're like invisible threads, right? And like I said, you can kind of think of it, these threads, maybe it's learned, maybe it's there's a genetic aspect. And these invisible threads carry memory, they carry emotion, they carry either coherence or chaos. You can feel them in family gatherings, how you react to certain people or the vibe of a home. You know, I I can think back growing up and look at some of like my friends and their families, and they had very chaotic families, like just a lot going on. And I I'm acutely aware of that, you know, even as a kid, like, man, they really have a lot going on. And honestly, in my own family, there was a tremendous amount of chaos. But oddly, I think my parents were able to shelter me. I can only speak to me because there was a lot of chaos in my own family, but we were also maybe kind of like this little shelter from the the big chaos. We had our own internal chaos, and then we were kind of sheltered from the really big chaos that was also going on outside of our family. There was a lot of chaotic craziness. And where did that come from? Where did that come from? And I think there I saw some families that were like, man, they just they just seem to flow. I even as an adult, it's like you these families, it just seems like they don't have a whole lot of craziness going on. And of course, you could say, well, you never know what's happening behind closed doors. Not a lot of just they seem like they flow. Their kids are good, well-mannered. They, you know, they just don't seem to have a lot of drama. And I'm sure they have their share of it, but it they just seem to not be sucked into all of that. So if you even looking at it that way, you know, these families that carry a lot of chaos, families that seem to be not so chaotic, maybe they have their share of it, but they they manage it well. It's, you know, you can think of this as these ancestral, this lineage um baggage, essentially. So how do you recognize uh distortion in your breath line? You know, how do you recognize if you're carrying something that is really not yours to carry? If you find uh repeating emotional patterns, uh, have you ever said, oh, I am, I am never gonna be like that? And you're a kid, I'm I'm never gonna be like you, or even thought it. You may not have said it out loud because you might have got slapped. If you're if you're from my generation, you'd have probably got your ass beat if you said something like that. But you maybe have thought about, yeah, I'm not gonna be like that. I'm gonna do things differently. That's uh you're recognizing a pattern. But what happens is nine times out of ten, you say you're not gonna be like that. And then on some level, even if you're not completely like that, on some level, you carry some of that over, right? You carry some of that over. Do you feel drained around certain people, certain family members? Do they absolutely drain you? Or unexplained emotional reactions. I can't really think of anyone in my family that I did that I felt drained around or reacted to emotionally, like growing up. I know that my my mother's mother, I never felt like she liked me very much. I just that was just she just always seemed to have some sort of something towards me. I I did feel that, but I can't really I I I know my dad's mother I was very close to and I felt very comforted and safe with her. She was like my heart, but I can't really think of anyone that that I felt drain or had emotional reactions toward. But if you have any of these things going on in your family, ask yourself, is this mine or am I carrying someone else's breath line? Am I carrying somebody else's emotional echoes? Am I carrying some ancestral trauma that is not mine? If you have any of those kind of unexplained reactions, then there's a good chance you're dealing with some ancestral lineage stuff. And let me say again, I am not a therapist, I am not qualified to diagnose or give advice on medical or health stuff. This is my own personal experience. Just sharing. So if you feel like you, if you've got stuff coming up that is heavy and burdensome, please go take care of it, you know, with a professional. Just getting my experience because I felt I feel like I am absolutely in the throes of this very topic of managing probably eons and eons of family drama, trauma, whatever you want to call it. And this brings me to the breath line anchor, which is you're you're the person who is likely uh holding the the mental capacity, the emotional capacity to recognize it. Like I said, I've I've looked around and kind of go, wow, why why am I the one dealing with this? And it comes from every angle. If you find yourself in the midst of a tornado in your family, that it's coming at you from every angle, your parents, your children, uh, if you still have grandparents around, or you know, you very well may be the one who is the breath line anchor in your family. And the breath line anchor, it's the person who holds a coherence in the family. You're the person who has enough clarity or enough consciousness. And when I say consciousness, I really mean an awareness to see what is going on, to recognize the patterns in your family. You can probably see some of them in yourself and why you've responded to things over your lifetime. You can probably see them in your children. Like, why is my child repeating my mother or father's story? I mean sometimes it's it's brutally obvious. Like why, why is why am I looking at my mother and she is morphing into my grandmother? And maybe it's the worst qualities of my grandmother. Or and these are just these are like hypothetical, like if you find yourself in this experience, then you are likely the person who holds the coherence in your family, and you are the one who has the ability to bring everything back into coherence in your family. You're not forced to do it. This is it's not like you you've been tasked with it and it you're forced to do it. You have a choice, and it is not an easy thing to do. So it's there's probably people out there that are like, yeah, no, I'm done. I'm not doing this. And I think maybe this is one of the reasons why you have a lot of families that are kind of in disarray right now. I I'm finding that's that's pretty common. You're not forced to do it, but you're aware of it, you're the person who can do it. That's that's the best way I can explain it. I like I said, it, it's not an easy, it's not an easy experience, but for me, I I don't want this for my grandchildren. Like I don't want these repeating patterns for my grandchildren. So I'm doing what I need to do to manage that. You also, you might also be an anchor if you are people come to you for calm. Um, and it's not always your family members. There are people who may come to you and say, Man, I just feel really good in your presence. And you may think to yourself, Well, that's that's strange because I feel like I'm all over the place, right? I feel like I am a hot mess, but you're telling me that you feel calm around me. You also feel responsible for keeping the peace. I think I've mentioned before, I gave up peacekeeping for Lent years ago because it's like it was a lot, but I I felt I felt this responsibility to to try to keep peace, but it almost it it came to a a detriment at a certain point. But I I just wanted everybody to be happy. I wanted everybody to get along. So I was I was definitely the peacekeeper in my family. I'm trying to see both sides, I'm trying to balance, I'm trying to constantly rework my thought processes around things just to just to keep it together, you know. You know, your kids are being challenging, but you're constantly trying to figure out ways to work with them. To you want them to be happy, but you still want them to express themselves and those types of things. And it became actually exhausting, but but it was definitely showing me that I had the capacity to do it. It was just probably the way I was the way I was trying to do it was what was wearing me out. And also, if you notice patterns that other people don't, like I started really becoming aware, I've podcasted on this of patterns like, oh my god, are we going down this road again? Like, stop the madness. Like, how do I get off this wheel of the same story repeating over and over and over again? And then getting to the point where I said, I can't, I cannot do this anymore. I cannot participate in this pattern. And it was a very unpopular choice, but I just couldn't do it anymore. And so if you recognize the patterns and you're even participating in them, then I'm here to tell you, you may very well be the anchor in your family. But so we'll get to the good part. Um, when we talk about healing ancestral trauma, healing that breath line. Here's the good news you don't have to fix everyone, you do not have to fix anybody. And that's that's been the biggest lesson. And I'm still learning it. Like you you want to fix, right? You want peace, you want to fix, you want everybody to be happy. Let me help you with this. Let's get you here. Let's what do you need to be better? What do you, you know, doesn't work, it doesn't work, and you it's not your job to fix anyone. You heal by holding your own coherence, you stand in your own coherence, you can see what's going on, you can reflect about what you're experiencing. You're not jumping in to it, you're not jumping back into the pattern, you're not jumping in to fix anything, you're just witnessing, and you're witnessing with a clarity. This is this is what I'm learning for myself. It could be different for other people, but you know, holding that that sort of witness role of watching this play out and not not trying to intervene, not getting involved. And what I've learned is I can also sort of see both sides of things, like hold two truths of truths about situations. You know, like I said, somebody could be a total asshole, but they could also be a very giving person that's that's holding two truths about them. So I just I've learned I don't have to fix them. I don't have to fix them, I don't have to get involved. I can witness and breathe. I breathe, I find myself breathing a lot when these emotional waves hit me about certain things, people's behaviors or people's attitudes or whatever. I just instead of engaging, I usually find myself breathing. I think we a lot of times automatically want to jump back at somebody and we want to, we want to engage and we want to puff our chest and we want to prove that we're right. I've really stepped back from doing that and just watching how my own body behaves in these situations, watching uh how my breath behaves, your breath becomes shallow. Do you go into fight or flight when you have a confrontation or somebody says something that really chaps your ass and you wanna, do you want to go at them, you know, jump on their chest and eat their lungs out, like you, these responses that you may have had in the past that you step back from and and witness in your own body and in your own mind what is playing out, the thought processes that you're engaging in. Uh, and just modeling calmness and not control. And here's where I struggle, man. I will tell you, I've never I have always been not the calm one in a crisis. I've told my family a million times, if there's a crisis, you do not want me involved, you do not want to look to me, you know. But part of that was my nervous system was shot. My nervous system has been shot, and I've had to do a lot of work to get to a place where I just don't feel fried anymore. I've mentioned I've dealt with some health issues and and just a lot of it getting my nervous system in check. And maybe we'll we'll talk about that at some point because I think a lot of people's nervous systems are fried and we we go to default. We we have default emotions, default behaviors. So maybe at some point we'll get into that because being a calm presence is really important, but it's really it's really important for yourself. But other people will kind of pick up on that. A simple breath practice for healing, and I'm telling you, it's it's really shocking how much this helps. Um, inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for six, and pause for two. It's a very simple breath practice that can help you reset. When I I started doing the breath work, it hasn't really been that long ago, probably a few months ago. Um I mean, I I think when doing yoga, they talk about breath, but this is kind of a different level of breath work and using breath work to reset your nervous system. And it's kind of funny because right after I sort of started getting introduced to this, I watched a a video and the monks, the walk across America, Walk for Peace monks. One of the monks was dealing with a woman who was very distraught, and he was talking to her. One of the things he was teaching her was to breathe. And I thought, oh, okay, this is this is my confirmation. So I hope I hope this tough. Is somebody out there because I think a lot of us are absolutely in our own lives dealing dealing with generational trauma, generational baggage that is not ours, recognizing it as such, but not really knowing where to go with it's certainly it's not really easy. And if you are that anchor, if you are that one that is awake in the madness, you're the one looking around, going, oh my God, what is going on here? Who are these people who raised me? Who are these children that I raised? Why do I feel like I am in the middle of it all, but not really in it? It's a it's a strange, it's a strange place to be, but you may be one of those people. And I'm telling you, there's there's a way through it. And I'm still, don't get, I have not made it through. I'm still walking through it. I'm still, but I'm finding some tools that are very, very helpful. Breathe. Breathe. Be the witness. For me, I don't engage. I see behaviors and I'm like, yeah, that's a pattern. I see that pattern. I am not engaging you. I breathe. I spent a lot of time by myself. I spent a lot of time walking away, which wasn't, you know, I was always ready for a fight. I was always ready to be confrontational about, you know, you tell me this, you know, I'll show you kind of kind of thing. I I have really spent a lot of time walking away and breathing and keeping my center. It becomes imperative. And then what's really strange is things start to shift. You start to notice these shifts. And not just not just in people, but in the world around you, things really do start to shift. So you're you're not trapped by your breath line. You are not trapped by your ancestral trauma or crazy, you know, you're you don't have to continue. You don't have to continue that breath line. And if you have children and you have grandchildren, I think a lot of us know like you don't want that. You don't want that. You want better, you want better for your kids, you want better for your grandkids, you want better for yourself. But you can actually, by doing this, you can heal it way back. You can you can release stuff way back so that what comes after you is no longer dealing with these emotional issues, this baggage. So you're not trapped by it. You can transform it. And healing begins with your awareness. If you are one of those people out there that is acutely aware that things are very strange in your in your families, you are likely um you're likely that person who has the ability, the capacity to transform it and breathe. You gotta breathe. Healing, you you it's imperative that you breathe through this. Find a way, find a way to breathe through it. And final thought, breathe what's yours, release what is not. Man, this is this is really, this is again, I I mentioned it before. When you start getting rid of what is not yours to hold, it does become easier. It becomes a lot easier. You realize, oh, you know, I'm not I'm not being tasked with something that is unbearable for me. Like I don't really have a lot of stuff going on. When I let go of everybody else's garbage, I guess I shouldn't call it garbage, it's probably not nice, but really some of it is. But when I let go of everybody else's stuff, trying to fix people or or keep the peace or maintain happiness or good vibes only and love and light and all that. When I stopped doing that, then you know, it was really clear that my task is manageable. And if all I have to do is be aware and breathe, well, that's pretty easy. That's pretty easy. The tricky part becomes your mind. Your mind wants to make something out of everything. And, you know, thank you, mind. I know you're trying to protect me. I know you want what's best for me, but I'm okay. You know, you're you don't have to fight your mind. Your mind is really doing what it's designed to do. You don't have to fight it, but just acknowledge, you know, just trying to trying to help me out. But if all you have to do is breathe and be aware of what you're looking at, then it's it's actually pretty manageable. So yeah, if you if you find yourself being one of those people, you are not alone. Breathe what is yours, let go of what is not. And I say that a lot. I hold only what is mine to hold. I release what is not mine to hold. Get in that practice, get in that practice, say it. Say it when you wake up, say it in the middle of the day, say it before you go to bed. It's a powerful mantra. Okay, you guys, thank you for joining me here on Star Woman Rising. If today's conversation stirred something in you, trust it. That's your fire awakening. This podcast is part of the Chicology Collective where women everywhere are reclaiming their voice, their power, and their light. Be sure to subscribe, share this with a soul sister, and explore more shows under Chicology because we rise higher when we rise together. Until next time, keep reaching for the stars and rooting deep in your power.