How Do I Not Pass On Generational Trauma: Breaking the Cycle with Trauma Therapy
There have been moments in my 19 years as a mother where I am not proud of how I acted toward my children. I was short-fused and irritable, yelled at them, and was not always present. I wanted our house to be a place of calm and peace, but I seemed to bring the chaos, blaming my children’s behaviors on everything but my lack of awareness of my own trauma and how it was impacting my ability as a mother. I didn’t want to believe I was the problem, and I didn’t want to acknowledge that my children’s behaviors were mirrors of their parents. I scoured parenting books and blogs to find the right method to parent my children, but nothing seemed to work. I was at a loss. My connection with my oldest son was getting worse. I felt like I was losing him, and that scared me. I needed to do something different and fast!
Instead of focusing all my energy on “making” my children happy, well-behaved, and well-mannered kids, I turned within. I started to explore how my own trauma and the trauma that was passed down to me was affecting me and my role as a parent. I started to recognize that I was living in a constant state of dysregulation and coping through perfectionism, control, and people-pleasing. I realized that my trauma was now being passed down to my children—the very thing I was trying to avoid!
If you can resonate with my story, I want you to know you are not alone and that it is possible to break the cycle of generational trauma. In this blog, I will discuss what generational trauma is, how it’s passed down, and how trauma therapy—especially EMDR therapy—can help you heal and create a more fulfilling life for both you and your children. You deserve to find peace with yourself and feel truly connected to your children.
What Is Trauma?
Before we dive into generational trauma, I want to first talk about what trauma is. Trauma can come from various sources—abuse, neglect, loss, or even growing up in a household where emotions were not expressed or supported. These experiences leave lasting wounds on both your mind and body. Trauma is more than just emotional pain; it is stored within us physically, affecting the way we respond to stress, relationships, and even parenting.
How Is Trauma Stored in Our Bodies?
Trauma isn’t just something we experience in our minds—it’s in our bodies as well. When we experience something traumatic, our bodies often hold onto that distress. Over time, if we don’t heal from these events, we live in a constant fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown state, even when the danger has passed. This state of nervous system dysregulation can lead to physical symptoms like anxiety, insomnia, and emotional eating, and it can affect how we relate to others—including our children. This is where the importance of trauma therapy comes in, which we will explore further.
What Is Generational Trauma?
Generational trauma, also called intergenerational trauma, refers to the emotional and psychological wounds that are passed down from one generation to the next. If your parents or grandparents experienced trauma and never had the opportunity to heal, the effects of that trauma can leak over into your life—sometimes without you even realizing it. This can happen through learned behaviors, emotional responses, and how you view the world.
How Does Generational Trauma Get Passed Down?
Generational trauma is passed down in several ways:
Coping Mechanisms: We may unconsciously adopt our parents' coping mechanisms, such as emotional withdrawal or anger. Maybe you recognize that your parent figure often shut down and stopped talking to you when they were upset, and now you find yourself doing the same thing with relationships in your life.
Parenting Styles: Without realizing it, we may react to our children in ways that mirror the behaviors we experienced growing up. You might have grown up in an authoritarian style home where your parents were strict and unempathetic towards your emotions, and now you find yourself struggling to hold space for your own child’s emotions.
Epigenetics: Research shows that trauma can actually change the way our genes express themselves, meaning that the impact of trauma can be inherited, even biologically.
How Generational Trauma Affects Our Lives Today
When we carry generational trauma, it can manifest in our everyday lives in ways we don’t always recognize. Maybe you struggle with feelings of unworthiness and perfectionism or feel disconnected from your emotions. You might find yourself reacting to stress in unhelpful ways, or you feel an overwhelming need to control your environment, including your children's behavior. These patterns often stem from unresolved trauma that’s been passed down from previous generations.
The Impact of Avoiding Trauma
Avoiding or ignoring trauma doesn’t make it go away. In fact, it can make the effects worse over time. When we suppress our trauma, we can pass on our unresolved pain to our children—through both our actions and the emotional atmosphere we create in the home. Children are highly intuitive and often pick up on our unspoken emotions. If we don’t confront and heal our own trauma, we may unintentionally set our children up to carry those same burdens.
How Generational Trauma Affects Our Children
Our unhealed trauma can shape the way we parent, even when we don’t mean to. For example, if we grew up in a household where emotions were dismissed or punished, we might struggle to create a safe space for our children to express their own emotions. Or, if we have unresolved anxiety or anger, we might pass on those feelings to our children, who absorb the energy we bring into the home.
This can lead to children feeling unsafe or unsure about how to express themselves, creating their own emotional wounds. The good news is that this cycle can be broken.
How Trauma Therapy Can Help Us Heal From Generational Trauma?
Healing generational trauma starts with awareness. Recognizing the patterns in your family and how they affect your life today is the first step. This awareness can bring feelings of guilt or shame, but it’s essential to remember that this trauma isn’t your fault. The second step is self-compassion. You’re doing your best with the tools you were given, and healing takes time.
Here are some steps to start breaking the cycle of generational trauma:
Acknowledge the Trauma: Recognize the traumas in your life and their impact. Trauma Therapy, journaling, and talking with trusted friends or loved ones can help bring awareness to these patterns.
Practice Self-Compassion: Healing from trauma takes time. You won’t always get it right, and that’s okay. Self-compassion means forgiving yourself for the times when you feel like you’ve fallen short. Remember, breaking generational trauma doesn’t mean being a perfect parent—it means striving to do better while allowing yourself grace.
Regulate Your Nervous System: Trauma often leaves us in a constant state of dysregulation, making it hard to stay calm when parenting. Practices like mindfulness, deep breathing, and grounding techniques can help soothe your nervous system and reduce emotional reactivity.
Seek Trauma Therapy: Trauma therapy can help you unpack your past experiences and learn how they influence your present life. Working with a trauma therapist can offer a safe space to explore these wounds, and EMDR therapy is especially effective for helping to heal deep-rooted trauma.
How EMDR Therapy Can Help Break the Cycle
EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a powerful tool for healing trauma. EMDR therapy helps reprocess traumatic memories so that they no longer trigger the same emotional responses in you. Instead of being controlled by old wounds, EMDR therapy allows you to heal and move forward. Many women find EMDR to be a transformative therapy for not only healing their own trauma but also for reducing the need to rely on old patterns when parenting and responding to their children.
You Can Break the Cycle
Breaking the cycle of generational trauma isn’t easy, but it is possible. By recognizing the trauma that’s been passed down, practicing self-compassion, and seeking the right support from a trauma therapist, you can heal and create more emotionally resilient children. Healing is a journey; even small steps can lead to big changes over time. Remember, you don’t have to do it alone.
Ready to begin your healing journey?
If you're ready to explore how trauma therapy can help you break free from generational trauma, I invite you to schedule a free 15-minute consultation. Together, we can help you heal and create a brighter future for you and your children.
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Jarae Swanstrom is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor practicing online throughout Idaho. She believes in a holistic approach to therapy, focusing on healing the whole body. Jarae helps women heal trauma, disordered eating, and negative body image. Learn more about Jarae or schedule a free consultation at mountainrivertherapy.com.
