Start Healing Ancestral Trauma Quickly and Easily in Under 10 Minutes
Has anyone ever told you that you have your mother's eyes or your father's nose? Perhaps you've heard similarities go deeper, "you have your father's temper."
But what if someone told you, "you have your grandmother's grief"? That would be weird, right?
But on second thought, maybe not.
In 2020, when so many people were getting sick, I had an experience that healed me from a sickness I didn't even know I had.
It was spring, and my intuition told me to take a break from social media. I had been struggling to be consistent on social for a while. A break might help me figure out what route to take. Or so I thought.
The messages and the healing I received when I stopped thinking about winning the social media game were priceless. And spoiler alert, they had absolutely nothing to do with social media!
We spend so much time with ourselves, but how often do we truly observe ourselves? Our being is speaking to us at all times. Not in words but through our gestures, emotions, and other ways that are hard to pin down using logic. If we're glued to a screen all day-—watching others, we'll miss the messages our body sends us.
So there I was, chugging away at the mountain of computer work I like to give myself, when I sighed. That was nothing out of the ordinary. I sighed often. So often, my ex took note of it long before I did and would ask, "Oh yeah, babe?!" There'd be follow-up questions like, "Is it really that bad?"
I was so caught up in my life that I never stopped and looked into what was causing me to emote this way.
Until, of course, that fateful day in 2020.
This time, I sighed, and I took note.
It was such a minor occurrence, yet I was immediately overwhelmed with the understanding that this happens quite often.
Too often.
I blurted out, "what is that?!?"
Ask, and You Shall Receive
I've often asked questions into the ether when I'm home alone. The only difference was that this time, I got a response…and in real-time.
But before I tell you what I heard, I want to tell you why I heard it.
In the weeks leading up to this event, I got a message through my dreams that asked me to donate to a good cause. I heeded the message.
Fast forward to when I got the answer to my question. I recognized that it was a tremendous gift, so I followed up by asking why I had the privilege of receiving such a profound gift.
The answer was clear. I had done as I was told and had helped out a charitable organization.
I want to get that out of the way because what I'm about to share will likely have you opening new tabs, doing Olympics in your head, and googling like crazy. And you will probably pass up this vital part of the story.
Break the Cycle
The answer I received to the question "what is that?" explicitly asking, "where is all the sighing coming from?" was something I had never heard before, but it made sense!
Transgenerational trauma was the cause. Trauma is different for everyone. In my case, it manifested as grief, ancestral grief.
The words are self-explanatory, but I looked it up anyway. To my surprise, there was limited information on the subject. This lack of guidance worked in my favor. It caused me to meditate on the topic and go inside for answers.
One thing was clear, the grief I was carrying was not my own.
Although both men and women made me, I identified very heavily with the emotions of the women who came before me.
When my mother was pregnant with me, she was overwhelmed by the recent birth of her first child, and then her dad died, followed by her grandmother. My mother is a very hysterical person and is very prone to crying fits. I imagined myself in my mother's womb during all those bouts of sadness, the water around me vibrating in the key of her cries and sighs. My body memorized those notes.
As a baby, my mother said, I cried a lot. Shocking! I eventually stopped crying but have always felt this profound sense of sadness. Nobody would ever know this unless they lived with me, as the Aries and Leo dominance in my chart brings out my gregarious side in public.
Going further back, I pieced together parts of my grandmother’s story that might shed some light on my feelings of grief.
As the youngest child of a second marriage, she was often ignored. Her mother was cold and distant, probably because she was in an arranged marriage with a much older man. She uprooted herself and emigrated to the United States. Although intelligent, she was treated like a third-class citizen simply for being female and an immigrant. To top it off, her husband forced her to have sex against her will, broke her nose, and left her to raise three children alone. The kids, products of the 60s and 70s, terrorized my grandmother’s catholic home with their rock music and marijuana consumption.
In her presence, I could feel her sorrow.
I also couldn't help but see that half of the people who have transferred their DNA to me are female. And, as recently as in my grandmother's life, they experienced societies that were not shaped by them or for them. So why wouldn't they be full of grief? And more importantly, why wouldn't that grief be passed on?
My research shows that, for the most part, same-sex parents pass down genetic markers of trauma to the following two generations of offspring.
It's easy to get sucked down a rabbit hole of reflection, but I'm a forward-looking person, so I went straight to looking for solutions. Rather than looking outside of myself, I went inward.
The solution I found may piss you off if you're a person who enjoys playing the victim or who likes to focus on problems.
Fake It Til You Make It
Think about it...
If the negative experiences of our ancestors have left markers in our DNA that cause us to feel a certain way, can we pretend to feel a certain way to change the markers in our DNA?
It can't hurt to try!
They say that the first step to overcoming a problem is accepting that you have one.
I only blurted out the question, "What is that?!?" because I finally recognized that "it" was holding me back. It was a sluggish energy that I had been subconsciously aware of; otherwise, I wouldn't have cried in frustration the way I did.
After finding out the root cause, I started my journey toward healing.
I'll have to dig in my journal archives to recall precisely how the solution presented itself. But I don't have to excavate to tell you what it was.
I hesitate to tell you because, on the surface, it's going to sound cheesy. There is some science behind it if that makes you feel better.
Smile.
That was my medicine. Smiling!
Again, I know it may sound ridiculous, but try it!
I’m not a person who often smiles, especially not when I’m alone. After this experience, I began to smile more, and within a few months, I felt like I had undone years, if not decades, of grief.
I felt lighter and more optimistic. I suddenly had the desire to be more social and collaborative. I started to find solutions to challenges in my life, many of which I documented and will be sharing in due time. 🤓
Most importantly, I got the closest I had ever gotten to identifying my life's purpose. I did, however, need a little push to finally commit to that path.
Smiling may seem too simple a solution, but it's a free and easy starting point. When you smile, you change your neurochemistry and put yourself on a more elevated plane of existence. From this higher ground, you can see the information you may have missed in your lower, more depressed state. With this newfound information, you can find ways to make lifestyle changes that balance out the DNA cards you were dealt.
Don’t get discouraged if you can’t find the answers to your unique problem. You may not always find what you’re looking for, so look inside yourself as well. Perhaps you are the one who is supposed to find the solution and share it with others!
A branch of biology known as Epigenetics studies the effects of environmental factors on one's phenotype. There have been some promising observations that diet, lifestyle, and physical activity can change how your DNA expresses itself. It's pretty brainy stuff, but you can learn more about it here and here.
Let me know how your parent's (or grandparent's) lifestyle or emotional landscape shaped yours. How has your transgenerational trauma presented itself, and what healing methods have you found? Feel free to share your remedies in the comments so that those seeking healing may find them.
