Cycle Breakers
Some of the people dearest to me and the ones who most ‘get me’ are the ones who also are cycle breakers.
They know what it is to learn, unlearn, relearn how to live - how to function - when you are raised in a dysfunctional family-
Moreover, when sometimes when you were raised in a family, where you had to become the parent - the reliable one, the emotionally mature one, the communicator, the one who managed things -
Where they are cycles of abuse - from alcoholism to emotional immaturity, narcissism to poor communication patterns due to trauma -
Being raised by parents who really didn’t know how to be parents-
Because they were not parented well and were never able to heal their own inner wounded child -
In Dr. Muriel Buque’s book, Break the Cycle, she gives detailed definitions and explorations of intergenerational trauma - and the work that is required of the cycle breakers-
Over and over again, she acknowledges - that this role is hard fucking work; that it’s not for the faint of heart.
Often times we are working at breaking cycles and healing wounds from who the hell knows how many generations back?
It’s not easy. It’s not fun.
It’s heavy and often times a big responsibility.
But also - the idea of continuing on with this same old crap - and then handing it onto your kids and future generations - for those of us with kids—is often too much to stomach.
And we do - carry it on.
And it’s fascinating to learn just how much, and in how many ways -
From DNA - epigenetics to nervous system dysregulation - to cortisol level norms to energy/auras - and all of that—when left untreated can manifest in other ways - as trauma does/can -
From fertility problems, auto-immune disorders, increased likelihood of developing cancer, increased likelihood of mental illness, substance abuse, just to name a few. Even emotional inheritance - sometimes their own lived experiences and traumas show up in descendents in really eerie and creepy ways. (As Galit Atlas talks about in her book, Emotional Inheritance or also as discussed in Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start with You.)
If we don’t do the reparative work, we will not only harm ourselves but future generations - and even for those of us without kids, our ripple effects, balloon outward in how we affect others in our realm and lifetime, even on a day to day to day basis.
Not only our own lived experiences but often times because the essence of what was passed onto to us has been shaped and is traceable through their unfinished crap.
But - the flip side of that is this -
And it’s something I wish that I had known sooner, and much earlier on in my healing journey -
The intergenerational trauma is not inaccessible in terms of what we can do to address those wounds, that harm.
We can heal it -
And when we do - we not only heal ourselves, we allow our ancestors to breathe easy. We offer them some relief. We can lighten their load, adjust their energy/soul/spirit/aura - whichever word makes sense to you.
And such a gift then that we can present to our children and our own descendents.
My best friend and I have commented that even though we both wanted to have children at one point in time - the work of cycle breaking, feeling the hard things, working through the trauma, seems to be our legacy, our way of ‘creating’ —if not through our own procreation than through part of our purpose for why we are here.
It often times does seem so heavy. But also -
What a gift.
As I grew, and I was able to see my parents’ wounds - their untreated mental illness and trauma and grief - their emotional immaturity and their wounds - undoubtedly from children and living among parents or in a society/culture where they didn’t talk about it - where they didn’t have so many resources - therapy and books and information so readily accessible to them -
I am thankful, and I feel so blessed that I am able to live in a time and space and have the interest and capacity to learn all that I have about how to address the invisible, carried, embodied generational wounds.
“Pain travels (and shows up) in family lines until someone is ready (and willing) to feel it.”
Or address it.