How long do we hold the trauma of our ancestors in our bodies? It turns out a lot longer than we thought.
“The experiences of your ancestor that lived 14 generations ago are potentially having an effect on your life right now. Your genes are inherited from your parents, and theirs from their parents before them. If these mutate, your genetic inheritance changes with it. However, changes to how your genome ‘expresses’ itself – how it behaves, essentially – can also occur due to environmental changes, like ingested chemicals, exercise, and psychological issues.”
Trauma Experience of Our Ancestors
“When your ancestor goes through a period of excessive stress, this ‘experience’ can be added to your genome. An extra layer of information is placed on top of your DNA sequences. The DNA sequence itself doesn’t change, but its ‘clothes’ do, so to speak. Generally speaking, this is known as the vaguely defined field of epigenetics, which means ‘outside genetics’.”
“The authors of a new Science paper describe it more precisely as ‘transgenerational transmission of environmental information.’ It has already been seen in humans – Holocaust survivors’ descendants, for example, have lower levels of the stress-hormone cortisol in their blood, which means they’re more vulnerable to stress and fear.”
Brainspotting Therapy to Heal Intergenerational Trauma
Brainspotting is a powerful deep brain and body modality that has amazing long lasting healing, recovery and emotional regulation results. Brainspotting is beyond behavior and symptom management. I provide treatment based on client’s unique and specific needs in each moment. Most of my clients have experienced trauma events, and in most families people have experience trauma in every generation. With Brainspotting therapy, we support the brain in accessing the event that needs to be processed, whether it’s recent or intergenerational, and hold the space to let the brain do the magic of healing.
As a Certified Brainspotting therapist and Consultant, I use Brainspotting in all of my specialty areas – ADHD and Autistic Counseling, Trauma Therapy, Career Counseling, Financial Therapy, and regularly integrate it with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. Email or text me for a free 20-minute phone consultation.