ancestral trauma healing

 deep breath in through the nose

& deep exhale through the mouth. 

a little over a month ago i found myself at a path split in two, and with it came a pain that only a woman can experience in life. with a heavy heart i had to choose whether to repeat the ancestral traumas of family and fall into a age old pattern, or choose to break out of the loop and find a different way to go through life. 

i chose myself. at a moment in time many women feel like they must choose something else. for whatever reason: societal expectation, parental pressure, spouses wishes, wanting to escape or find a blessing in this miracle, thinking that it couldn’t ever come in any another form.

and the stages of grief hit me in many ways. mostly in anger, as it’s my safest emotion & coping method. anger at myself, at my partner, at the world, at my mother, at my father, at all those who have been born before me so that i could be born, that i could breathe. 

mostly i was angry at the insight that i gained. i understood my mother better, my grandmothers, my great grandmothers - i saw my ancestors so clearly because i almost became one. someone who handed down their pain before they learned to deal with it on their own. but the insight gave me more than anger, it gave me a glimpse into being an adult, a real adult. a decide life-or-death level  type of adult. and with that, the anger was balanced out by forgiveness. 

let me tell you, ancestral trauma is very real. 

if you haven’t heard of it, or thought of it, or felt it being mirrored back to you by your parents or grandparents, then let me shed some light on the matter - because it is fact. you are offspring, you are an heir. and whilst people inherit a variety of things from family traits & businesses to money & houses, we all inherit something regardless of our family’s social status - trauma. 

the pain and loss that our ancestors felt in their life, embedded deep on on a cellular level, carved into their DNA. we are the children, that get put together through the scarce moments of joy found in love making and orgasms, through the grace of pleasure and devotion. 

yet we get to carry a lot of the opposite through our lifetime. we get to carry our mothers sadness, our fathers suppression, our grandparents critical skills of survival, our great-grandparents sacrifices for life. all that we carry - is to heal it, finally. 

we are the healers of our family lines, the ancestral trauma cycles can end with us. 

today the most pain is felt by the generations that have entered society in the 90s and 00s. 

and hear this, we *get* to feel this pain in our hearts. because our ancestors felt it on their skin. because two generations above they were figuring out how to survive the war not wondering if their kids are aware that they are loved, they were fed and clothed. the generation above us was busy figuring out how to assure their children a better future than the one they had, not pondering over whether or not they had made us feel special. 

our parents and grandparents were survivalists, finding hope and seeing miracles in their children, because they were the ones to carry the family onwards to true happiness. it was never their job to feel this pain in their heart, it would’ve been nice for us, but it was never their job. trying to heal a heart and develop emotional intelligence at a time of suffering, hunger, cold winters and post soviet depression, can you even imagine that? it’s fair to be angry and expect that to have happened, but could you? would you work hard on finding happiness and healing every day, only for it to be crushed regularly by the war, poverty and hunger of the era you lived in? 

all i can see is a landslide waiting to happen. 

we get to feel pain in our hearts. because they endured pain on their bodies.

they fed off pain, their motivation came from pain, they survived because of pain. 

& they gave it all to us, via DNA, through a cell level care package that’s been unfolding within us since our first breath. 

we get to heal the pain, through our hearts. because we get to use our hearts, we get to invoke the love that they passed on to us in secret, in hope. 

so when you think of them, your parents, your grandparents and above - don’t just see their anger and neglect for your feelings that you can see. also shed light on the fact the that they had to neglect their hearts, for fear of feeling the pain deeper than just on their skin. 

they can love, don’t doubt that, see how they loved instead of how they didn’t. see what they loved when they couldn’t love you.

because there’s always anger. but beneath that is sadness, regret, shame… and in the centre of it all, coated under layers of protection, a true desire to love.