Breaking the cycle : Understanding the Flow of Generational Trauma - Part 1
“It’s up to us to break generational curses. When they say, “It runs in the family,” you tell them, “And this is where it runs out.””
Have you ever heard someone dismissing unhealthy family patterns by saying, "It runs in the family"? As if genetics were destined!? This suggests that genetics dictate our behavior and that we are powerless to change inherited patterns of pain, dysfunction, or trauma.
What if I told you that this belief doesn't have to be the end of the story but rather the beginning of your ability to transform it? Perhaps you've found yourself overreacting to situations and wondered, "Where did that come from?" Or you've noticed the same destructive patterns repeating across generations in your bloodline, like invisible forces pulling everyone along the same painful path.
These are not just coincidences or permanent aspects of your family's destiny. These are the effects of generational trauma—patterns that travel through our lineage. But here's the good news: they can be understood, addressed, and ultimately transformed.
How Trauma Flows Through Generations
Most people think of trauma as something that happens "in the mind"—an emotional or mental experience that stays locked away in memory. However, what's interesting is our bodies keep a record of every traumatic experience, storing it in ways that can affect us for years.
When something traumatic occurs, our entire system goes into high alert. You might feel immediate tension—are your muscles tightening? Is your heart racing? All of these sensations are encoded into our physical being. If we don't have the opportunity to fully process and release this stress response, it doesn't simply vanish. Instead, it becomes trapped in the body, resulting in chronic tension, unexplained pain, or physical symptoms that have no medical explanation.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of 'The Body Keeps the Score,' explains, 'Trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on the mind, brain, and body.' This imprint doesn't just affect us individually—it can be passed down to future generations.
Studies show when our ancestors experienced extremely stressful situations, their muscles contracted and froze in a natural "fight or flight" response. If they did not have the opportunity to fully recover or release that response after the threat passed, the emotions linked to that trauma became trapped within their tissue and encoded in their DNA, passing on this trauma to subsequent generations.
Three Pathways of Inherited Trauma
Biological Inheritance
Just as we inherit our ancestors' genetic traits—such as hair and eye color, we also inherit their sensitivity to trauma. Research published in Nature Neuroscience found that traumatic experiences can cause epigenetic changes that are passed down through generations. These changes do not alter our DNA sequences but affect how our genes are expressed.
Dr. Monnica Williams' research on racial trauma shows how individuals who experience race-based stress develop specific biological markers and stress responses that can be passed on to their children. This suggests that the effects of trauma can biologically flow from one generation to the next. This finding supports what many cultures have instinctively known for generations: certain traits and sensitivities can be "in the blood."
Our bodies hold memories that our conscious minds may not recognize. When our ancestors faced extreme hardships, their nervous systems adapted to ensure survival. These biological adaptations, encoded in our DNA through epigenetic changes, shape how we respond to stress and threats today—even when the original dangers no longer exist.
Psychological Inheritance
The way our ancestors coped with trauma significantly influences how we deal with difficult situations today. Their adaptive strategies—whether healthy or unhealthy—form the psychological patterns we often follow unconsciously. When family members were unable to process their own trauma, they often unintentionally taught those coping mechanisms to their children through behavior, reactions, and explicit messages.
Dr. Shauna Cooper's work exploring how social and cultural contexts impact African American development reveals how experiences of discrimination and trauma create specific family dynamics and coping strategies that get passed down through generations. These patterns often develop as protective mechanisms but can become limiting when the original threats no longer exist.
For example, a grandmother who survived economic hardship might become obsessed with saving resources, inadvertently teaching her children and grandchildren to fear scarcity, even when financially stable. A father who experienced betrayal as a child might instill a sense of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in his children, making it difficult for them to trust others for generations to come.
Children absorb these coping mechanisms through observation and subtle conditioning, often without conscious awareness. Phrases like "what happens in this house stays in this house" or "just get over it" often reflect psychological inheritance patterns that discourage addressing trauma directly.
Cultural Inheritance
Think about some of the unspoken rules in your family. You know, those invisible guidelines everyone knew without explicitly being taught. One may have been to never mention certain relatives, how specific conversations may stop when children entered the room, or how certain emotions were not heard or allowed to be expressed.
Trauma is not only inherited through genetics and learned behaviors—it also influences the way our family and communities function. When a cultural society has endured events such as war, displacement (gentrification), natural disasters, or other ongoing hardships, they develop collective ways of surviving that get passed down like family recipes, except these "recipes" are for coping with pain.
In most cases, these cultural patterns become so normal that we don't even recognize them as responses to trauma. The family that never talks about feelings isn't just "private"—they might be carrying forward a survival strategy from their ancestors who couldn't afford emotional vulnerability. Those who have to work multiple jobs that value extreme self-reliance aren't just "independent"—they might be responding to historical experiences of abandonment or betrayal.
Interestingly enough, many families have topics that are completely off-limits, events so painful they became deeply wrapped in silence. Yet that silence itself becomes a family inheritance. Children grow up sensing these mysterious gaps in their family's story, feeling the weight of secrets they don't even know exist.
But here's the beautiful part—cultural inheritance isn't just about pain. It's also about the incredible strength, wisdom, and resilience that helped our ancestors survive and thrive against impossible odds. Recognizing this resilience can inspire and help us feel more connected to our heritage.
Epigenetic Change: When Genes Respond to Experience
Epigenetics as explained by Dr. Bruce Lipton, is the study of how environmental factors influence gene expression without changing the DNA sequence itself. It examines how behavior and environment cause changes that affect how our genes work. While epigenetic changes don't alter DNA, they change how cells use DNA instructions—essentially determining which genes get switched "on" or "off."
For example, trauma can cause genes that control defense levels to get stuck on "high alert," leaving the body feeling constantly stressed and ready to fight or flee. This state of hypervigilance becomes the default setting, continuously releasing stress hormones into the body.
The journal Biological Psychiatry published research showing that trauma survivors' children had different methylation patterns in genes associated with stress hormones—concrete evidence that trauma can be transmitted across generational boundaries.
A Personal Experience
Let me share a personal experience illustrating how this plays out in everyday life. Growing up in an environment where we kept most things silent, I developed a strong dislike for conflict. However, after going through an emotionally abusive relationship, I now feel particularly anxious during aggressive interactions—even when the frustration isn't directed at me.
Working in retail, if someone approached me with hostility—you know, having "woken up on the wrong side of the bed"—I'd often notice something interesting happening in my body.
I have always been skilled at maintaining professional composure by “biting my tongue” rather than matching the person’s energy. However, after they leave, my mind replays the encounter repeatedly instead of letting the situation go. In those moments, I rehearse everything I "should have" or "could have" said.
Soon after, without fail, my left arm feels ten pounds heavier, and a physical sensation begins: tension crawls from my hand up to the left side of my neck. This discomfort can be highly intense and lingering. I've found that unless I "release" this energy by discussing the situation with someone else immediately, the physical tension remains—sometimes for hours.
This is the "fight or flight" response—my body tends to process as a perceived threat. It's also a perfect example of epigenetics at work. But could this reaction be more than just my own? Dr. William Smith Jr.'s research on "racial battle fatigue" describes this kind of hypervigilant state—where our nervous systems become chronically activated from ongoing stress, creating intense physical and emotional responses to situations that might seem minor to others.
What if I'm carrying the defensive patterns of ancestors who faced genuine threats to their survival? Did they swallow their words in the face of adversity, storing that unexpressed energy in their bodies—and that tension somehow found its way into my DNA.
My journey to understand these physical responses launched me into a deep dive that changed everything I thought I knew about my reactions. I wanted to know: Why does my nervous system go haywire over something so minor? Where did these patterns come from? And most importantly—how can I transform them for my greater good?
Possible Signs of Generational Trauma in Your Life
Generational trauma often manifests in recognizable patterns. Dr. Thema Bryant's research on trauma responses helps us understand why certain reactions might seem disproportionate to current situations—they're usually responses to inherited patterns rather than present circumstances.
It's important to understand that generational trauma often creates what Dr. Judith Herman identified as Complex PTSD (C-PTSD). Unlike traditional PTSD, which results from single traumatic events, C-PTSD develops from repeated, prolonged exposure to trauma—often within family structures where escape isn't possible. This might include growing up with emotional invalidation, chronic family dysfunction, or ongoing stress that becomes "normal."
People with C-PTSD experience many of the same symptoms as traditional PTSD but also face additional challenges that affect their core sense of self and ability to connect with others:
Common Trauma Symptoms (found in both PTSD and C-PTSD):
Unexplained Anxiety: A persistent feeling of being on edge without understanding the cause.
Hypervigilance: Constantly scanning for danger, even in safe situations.
Somatic Symptoms: Experiencing physical pain, tension, or illness without a known medical reason.
Heightened Startle Response: Overreacting to sudden stimuli.
Additional Complex Trauma Symptoms:
Emotional Dysregulation: Intense emotions that feel overwhelming or out of control.
Relationship Patterns: Repeating unhealthy dynamics over generations and struggling to trust others.
Negative Self-Concept: Ongoing feelings of shame, worthlessness, or believing you are fundamentally different.
Identity Fragmentation: Difficulty connecting with your true self or understanding who you are.
Survival Guilt: Feeling unworthy of happiness because of the suffering of your ancestors.
Emotional Numbing: trouble accessing or expressing feelings.
These manifestations are visible signs of disturbances beneath the surface of conscious awareness. Understanding whether your experiences align more with single-event trauma or complex trauma can help direct your healing approach.
Continuing the Journey
In Part 2 of this series, we will explore how inherited patterns create cycles within our families and communities. Most importantly, we will discuss how to begin healing these deep-seated wounds. We will examine practical approaches to redirecting these powerful patterns toward healing and transformation, drawing from modern science and timeless wisdom.
Understanding these issues is just the beginning; the journey of transformation lies ahead.
References
Bryant-Davis, T., & Ocampo, C. (2005). Racist Incident–Based Trauma. The Counseling Psychologist, 33(4), 479-500. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000005276465 (Original work published 2005)
Cooper, S.M., Brown, C., Metzger, I. et al. Racial Discrimination and African American Adolescents’ Adjustment: Gender Variation in Family and Community Social Support, Promotive and Protective Factors. J Child Fam Stud 22, 15–29 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-012-9608-y
Dias, B., Ressler, K. Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nat Neurosci 17, 89–96 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3594
Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Basic Books.
Lipton, B. H. (2005). The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles. Mountain of Love/Elite Books.
Smith, W. A., Allen, W. R., & Danley, L. L. (2007). "Assume the position...You fit the description": Psychosocial experiences and racial battle fatigue among African American male college students. *American Behavioral Scientist, 51*(4), 551–578. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207307742
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
Williams, M. T., Metzger, I. W., Leins, C., & DeLapp, C. (2018). Assessing racial trauma within a DSM–5 framework: The UConn Racial/Ethnic Stress & Trauma Survey. Practice Innovations, 3(4), 242–260. https://doi.org/10.1037/pri0000076
As someone who has navigated the depths of inherited and personal trauma, my journey of seeking understanding has become my calling—to bring light to these hidden patterns and help others transform their lives. — Natasha Marie✨
