Emotional Inheritance: The Stories, Scars & Wounds:

that we'll never truly know, but, still, we carry

For the last few years, I’ve been fascinated by epigenetics, intergenerational trauma, and what Dr. Galit Atlas calls “Emotional Inheritance.”

The idea behind these being that we carry within us, within our very genetic structure, our DNA, our ancestors’—parents, grandparents, great-grandparents—trauma and emotional wounds.

There are so many stories, scars, wounds, secrets, that we have, that we carry within us, that we have no idea about…

After hearing Dr. Atlas, a psychotherapist, talk in a recent podcast, my mind ran through the list of trauma and emotional hardships that I know affected my parents, my immediate family members. I know that there is so much more, things that happened to them, that I don’t know, but oh so much more that afflicted my grandparents and great-grandparents, of which I know nothing about.

The list is mind-boggling, staggering. I know we all carry layers of things that happened to those who came before us…

But sitting with all that I know even happened within my parents’ lives is deeply, darkly sobering. I am grateful though for this reminder, the clarity, to see my parents now, through the lens of an adult.

I see them for what they were—too very damaged people, who both had a lot of shit happen to them, especially my mother. The obvious—taken away from her biological father, abandonment from her mother, abusive stepfather, being tossed around to relatives and foster families, never feeling wanted or loved. Her sister’s suicide. Her own horrific post-partum depression, alcoholic husband. That was all before I was born.

But even my father—the tragic accident that took the death of his brother, his only sibling, and then being called to the scene of the accident, only to see my Uncle Jimmy’s car, watching it engulfed in flames, to some degree, witnessing his brother burn alive. Just a few short weeks after arriving home ‘safely’ from the war in Vietnam.

I am certain my parents’ carried these stories, these experiences, within their bodies when I was conceived. I am certain that I was formed, carrying those cells within me, because they experienced these challenging, life-changing events.

I have to also wonder about my niece, and all that she has inherited. Genetically. But then also, from her own lived-embodied experiences knowing her father, losing him. Perhaps learning a later point in life that he completed suicide. Will she too carry that on, if she has off-spring?

Which is why therapy, processing, EMDR, healing, is so so important.

We still have so much more to learn about these areas. I truly believe that we have barely scratched the surface. We carry stories, shaped by the scars and wounds of our ancestors.

And yet, I choose to believe, as I’ve read recently, that if trauma is transferrable through the genes, through the family line, then so is healing. Healing and growth and transformation can be as well.

If we can pass down our own shit and all our family’s junk, I firmly believe that we also can pass down good things too. Perhaps first, we have the potential to do the hard work to heal ourselves, but we can do it, we can transfer healing too. Because it wasn’t always this way.

And though I do not have my own children, I do believe in the ripple effect. I believe that though no other being lives and walks and breathes on this Earth, grown from my womb, that participating and walking through my own healing, still has the ability to heal the world. I can still inflict trauma and hurt and emotional scars onto my beloveds. So too, through healing, can I contribute to ending cycles of pain and trauma and emotional wounds.

At least, that is my aspiration.