Ever wonder why certain situations trigger you in ways that feel way bigger than the moment? Or why your family has these unspoken rules that everyone follows but no one can really explain? You’re not imagining things – and you’re definitely not “too sensitive.”
Here’s the thing: trauma doesn’t just affect the person who experienced it. It ripples through families like a stone thrown into water, creating patterns that can show up generations later. That anxiety you feel? Those relationship patterns that keep repeating? The way your family handles (or doesn’t handle) difficult emotions? Sometimes these aren’t just “your issues” – they might be inherited responses to things that happened before you were even born.
Mark Wolynn explores this powerful concept in It Didn’t Start With You, showing how unresolved trauma can literally pass through family lines. Think about it: if your grandparent survived something traumatic but never had the chance to process it, those survival mechanisms – the hypervigilance, the emotional walls, the specific fears – can actually get passed down through parenting styles, family dynamics, and even our nervous systems.
This doesn’t mean you’re doomed to repeat your family’s patterns forever. Actually, it’s the opposite. When you start recognizing these inherited responses, you gain the power to change them. You become the one who breaks the cycle.
Maybe you’re the first person in your family to go to therapy, or to question why everyone gets so tense during the holidays, or to say “actually, that’s not okay” when someone crosses a boundary. That takes incredible courage, and it’s also incredibly healing – not just for you, but potentially for the generations that come after you.
As Wolynn writes in It Didn’t Start With You, sometimes the bravest thing we can do is feel what our ancestors couldn’t, say what they couldn’t say, and heal what they couldn’t heal. You’re not responsible for fixing everything that came before you, but you do have the power to choose what you carry forward.
Your healing journey isn’t just about you – it’s about breaking chains and creating new possibilities for your future family, chosen or biological. And that? That’s pretty powerful.
Salt + Cedar Collective 