8 Tips to Heal from Generational Trauma

What is Generational Trauma?

Trauma is our brain and body’s way of responding to an extremely stressful and distressing event. This trauma often sticks with us behaviorally and psychologically. It has now been proven that trauma can be passed down from one generation to another in biological, environmental, and social ways. Let’s look at how this happens:

• Biological: Trauma can influence our genes, a process called epigenetics. During epigenetics, extreme or chronic stress can modify gene expression. This modified (and traumatized) gene expression can be passed down through generations as all DNA. 
• Environmental: The environments we grow up in have a big impact on our mental health. For example, if your parents grew up in a unsafe area or in poverty, they might create an environment in which the fears they had growing up are instilled in you.  
• Social: We pick up a lot of behaviors from our parents. Your parent's behavior is influenced by their parents, and your behavior is probably influenced unconsciously by your parents. Some trauma can be passed through socially, by learning behaviors or by living through repeated trauma, like with the cycle of abuse. 

Intergenerational trauma may be more silent than first-hand trauma. You won’t experience all of the PTSD symptoms of flashbacks or nightmares, but you will experience the emotional and mental strain of carrying that trauma. 

Examples of Generational Trauma

What causes generational trauma? If your mom got into a car crash, can you inherit that trauma? Probably not. Generational trauma is caused by more complex and chronic forms of trauma, such as:

• Poverty 
• War 
• Cultural dislocation (being forced to leave your home due to conflict or persecution)
• Oppression
• Natural disasters 

This is not a complete list. 

Some research also suggests that when a pregnant mother experiences extreme stress, that can cause changes in brain structure and function which may result in learning ability, emotional regulation, and other functions. This isn’t to say that all stress for pregnant mothers is detrimental to their child, but that a pregnant mother experiencing a trauma is more likely to pass down that trauma to their child than a mother who experienced the trauma before being pregnant. 

Symptoms of Generational Trauma

Intergenerational trauma is not a diagnosis you can receive from a mental health professional, but research has still found a fairly cohesive set of symptoms, which can include:

• Low self-esteem and self-worth
• Anxiety and depression
• Increased risk for substance abuse
• Insomnia
• Irritability and anger
• Depersonalization or dissociation 
• Emotional numbness
• Impaired critical thinking or decision-making
• Feeling socially isolated 
• Anhedonia (a loss of interest in hobbies)
• Impairment to the immune system 
• Chronic pain

How intergenerational trauma affects our physical health is still being researched, but it is hypothesized to have greater effects on physical health.

How to Heal from Generational Trauma

Healing from intergenerational trauma will take time. You might take some steps forward just to backtrack a few steps. It might also be painful to acknowledge a history of trauma in your family. 

Make sure you lean on your community as you heal from generational trauma. You may even want to loop in your family if you are still close to them. Healing together from trauma can be very powerful. 

Here are some ways you can begin to heal from generational trauma: 

1. Talk about it. Generational trauma thrives in silence and grows stronger when it is not acknowledged and talked about from parent to child. Break this habit by talking about the trauma—both present and past—with your family, friends, support group, or a therapist. 
2. Educate yourself on your family’s history. If you aren’t able to talk about it because you don’t know what “it” is, try to learn. Approach your parents or grandparents with empathy and an honest desire to learn and ask them about what growing up was like. See how far back you can find stories from. 
3. Identify the effects of trauma. This can be hard as you pinpoint all the places in your life where generational trauma has left its fingerprints, but doing so is an important part of healing. Once you know what there is to heal, you can start to work on that healing process. 
4. Practice self-care. Make sure your overall well-being is taken care of as you are healing from generational trauma. Eat healthy, get outside, move your body, and sleep plenty. Trauma is stored in the body, and so we need to take care of the body to release it.
5. Allow yourself to grieve. You might experience very sharp grief at what you discover or begin to feel. Allow this, as it is part of the healing journey. Trauma is something awful that never should have happened.
6. Change trauma-based behavior. You’ve identified the effects of trauma in your life. What behaviors are trauma-fueled? For example, avoidance behavior that has been passed down and modeled throughout generations, like not talking about your emotions or moving on quickly after something bad happens. These are behaviors that were once necessary for survival—if you’re actively experiencing trauma, you have to act quickly—but that are harmful when you are somewhere safe. Working to break these cycles of behavior will ultimately lead to healing from the trauma. 
7. Be mindful. You don’t have to meditate every day, but breaking dissociation is important in breaking trauma. Bring mindfulness into your everyday life by doing breathing exercises, mindful walks, journaling, yoga, or anything that brings your attention to the present moment and your experience. 
8. Talk to a therapist. Healing from generational trauma takes time and can be exhausting; it can help to have a therapist there to support and guide you. Therapists trained in trauma understand the depth and complexity of generational trauma.

Therapy is proven to help people heal from trauma, PTSD, and c-PTSD. Generational trauma is more complicated and may take more time to unravel, but having a professional therapist who can help you can be instrumental in the process. 

Contact Lifebulb if you’d like to learn more about therapy for generational trauma. We have a team of trauma therapists ready to support you. 

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