My book Easy Pregnancy, Easy Birth, Easy Baby is jammed packed with tons of different concepts in small digestible tidbits (and people are loving how easy it is to read and the simplicity of how I broke down big concepts so concisely) I wanted to dig a bit deeper into the section on Generational Trauma. As it is an area I am passionate about and get really great results working in. 

Book Excerpts in Blue New additions in Black

It doesn’t start with you. We have inherited family trauma that has been passed down for generations. You were affected by how your parents raised you, but they were influenced by their upbringing, as were their parents and so on. Any trauma experienced is passed down and has shaped your genetics, belief systems, reactivity and triggers and even the architecture of your brain.

In the Nature vs Nurture debate the science is now revealing that nurture trumps nature. That no matter what ‘bad genes’ you were given, your upbringing and way of living (mindset!) has a bigger impact.  I link this amazing interview with Mark Wolynn Author of It Doesn’t Start with you. If you are fascinated with this topic, I highly recommend the interview and his book.

By 20 weeks gestation, a female fetus has already developed her lifetime supply of eggs. Which means you were inside your grandmother as an egg inside your mother. You experienced your mother’s birth and her experiences throughout her life as an egg. Your cellular memories impact your epigenetics as well as your psyche.

This is mindblowing! I have learned through my studies in birth psychology we have cellular memory as well as intrinsic emotional memory from our time in the womb but also from the egg/sperm that created you. A founder of birth psychology and APPPAH, Dr. Thomas Verny new book The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness, and Our Bodies  is a great read. It outlines how our memory and consciousness exists within all our cells and its transference. It is a bit science heavy but amazing, a must read especially preconception. 

I have addressed experiences at these generational levels with BodyTalk! BodyTalk can heal inherited trauma, genetic illness and traits.

Now this is a bold statement, isn’t it? In our 2017 case study fellow BodyTalker, Sharon Koenning and I conducted, I worked with a young girl with inherited epilepsy and addressed it at the generational level. Her seizures stopped but what was most miraculous was so did her brother’s who didn’t receive any treatment. I am often brought to disconnect children as well as adults from inherited issues. I worked with a woman’s sciatica at a generational level to have her report her sister’s was relieved as well. I find it neat how I will be working with a parent on an issue and there seems to be so many layers of other stuff needing to be addressed first before it can be truly resolved and in their child’s session it will take us to the generational healing some of  occurance or trait at the great great grandparent level and it will be just what their parent needed. Working with children, the younger the better, is so effective as they don’t have decades of experiences, emotions and  conditioning build up to sift through. We work on the issue at hand and what’s been passed down to them so much easier.  If you have family history of issues, it never hurts to try BodyTalk for it.  We all have baggage. Working with my indigenous and Jewish clients in particular, I am often brought to tears as I can feel the pain of the past as it brought up to be healed and released. It is phenomenal to experience. 

Numerous studies have been conducted to show how stress responses are seen in the offspring of traumatized people and lab animals. They have shown that trauma’s effects are still present in the physiology, behaviour and stress-trigger responses as many as six generations later.

Mark Wolynn gives many great examples of this.  One of my own examples that comes to mind was during a birth prep session a few years ago. It came up in conversation how both her and her toddler were deathly afraid of snakes. We ended up taking a detour from birth prep to explore the origin of it, and I was able to help all 3 mom, toddler and the new-baby to be able to happily co-exist with snakes. The toddler had never been exposed to a snake or have any real life reason to be afraid, the fear was passed down.

It is believed stress influences alterations of RNA, along with the many other biochemical changes stress causes, such as higher levels of hormones like cortisol to increased inflammation that impact our health.
In good news: In 2016, Researcher Isabella Mansuy published evidence that traumatized mice raised in an enriched environment didn’t pass trauma symptoms to their offspring. The limited data suggests that life experience can be healing and hurtful at the molecular level. “Environmental enrichment at the right time could eventually help correct some of the alterations induced by trauma,” Mansuy says. You can see the complete data here.  

Join the Nurture Revolution and dedicate yourself to parenting with responsive nurturing. Babies cannot be spoiled or held too much!
An enriching environment for an infant mimics the womb- skin-to-skin, held, rocked and attuned connection. Eye contact and the ‘serve and return’ process nurtures their brain. This responsive caregiving in early childhood can stop the transmission of generational trauma! It is the separation that is stressful.

The Nurture Revolution is the new book by my Infant Sleep Education teacher, Neuroscientist Dr. Greer Kirschenbaum. She breaks down how responsive nurturing (day and night) supports the development of healthy infant brain architecture and sets the foundation for long term mental and emotional wellbeing. She became a neuroscientist with a mission to find the cure for mental health disorders and addiction but found an easier solution – PREVENTION!  In the future, I will share about ACES and ABES. The impact of childhood and babyhood adverse events on our long term health and what we cannot prevent, when we are aware of them we can work to heal them and minimize their long term impact. 

In a BodyTalk session, we can be brought to address inherited issues. It will indicate a specific ancestor where we must disconnect a particular issue or trauma. Sometimes, we are brought to strengthen a specific trait or function by tapping into the cellular memory of an ancestor who was healthy and getting your body to remember it has that encoding too.
We have protocols to address physical characteristics such as baldness, size and shape of body parts, hereditary
illnesses, weaknesses and strengths such as diabetes, heart disease and other inherited family history issues, including mental/emotional problems such as schizophrenia and depression. We can address family traits such as alcoholism, addiction, perfectionism,- any ‘ism’ or trait. Personality extremes such as rage, shyness, and antisocial behaviour. And any inherited family trauma stemming from abuse, neglect, separation, war, accidents, terrorism etc.

The energy matrix of the world is made up of the energy signature of each individual. The health of the whole is the sum of its parts. The current world matrix consists of a majority of hurt people in victim consciousness, but that is shifting. As each of us work to heal ourselves and our generational baggage, the healthy wholeness of all of humanity heals. We are a part of a great awakening, a shift in consciousness that healing the self, heals the planet.  Before his passing, BodyTalk founder Dr. John Veltheim was working on “EarthTalk” to expedite this process. I hope it was not lost with him and trust it will find its way into the world when we are ready for it. 

Are you ready to dig deeper into the gifts and deficits that were passed down to you? 

Working into generational transmission is truly one of the most amazing parts of my practice. 

I look forward to helping you heal.