Literary Insights

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The author experienced intergenerational trauma passed down from her grandmother and mother who grew up in poverty in the Dominican Republic. Her grandmother lived with very little resources and the author witnessed her hardship firsthand.
The author’s mother immigrated to the US and still lived with a “scarcity mindset” from her childhood, holding onto everything out of fear of having nothing. This mindset was passed down to the author.
The author realized during her clinical training that some clients’ issues stem from intergenerational trauma inherited from their family’s lineage of pain. This trauma is passed down emotionally across generations.
The book aims to help readers recognize and heal from the intergenerational ties to their family’s trauma in order to break cycles of pain and achieve emotional freedom. It provides holistic tools and practices for grieving one’s traumatic lineage, embodying resilience, and leaving a positive generational legacy.
Key topics covered include understanding one’s genetic and nervous system inheritance from ancestors, healing inner children, addressing cycles of abuse, dealing with collective trauma, and using mindfulness, nature, and community to facilitate healing.
The passage discusses intergenerational trauma and the challenges of treating it as a mental health clinician, as traditional psychology training does not adequately prepare clinicians to treat trauma passed down through generations.
A therapy session with one client who carried trauma from multiple generations prior, including ancestors who may no longer be alive, was a turning point that led the author to focus their practice on intergenerational trauma.
The author reflects on how trauma can be transmitted across generations biologically through gene expressions and psychologically through caregiver behaviors. Their research into holistic healing methods helped develop their approach.
The book aims to provide a definitive guide for healing intergenerational trauma. Each chapter will dive deep into a different aspect, and include practices and sound bath meditations for readers to apply the lessons.
Part 1 explores what intergenerational trauma is and how it is inherited. Part 2 examines the layers of pain and healing. The goal is to help readers understand, assess and begin addressing trauma carried across generations in their own lineage and developing resilience.

Here is a summary of the key passages:

The book introduces the concept of being a “cycle breaker” - someone who decides to create a different legacy and heal intergenerational trauma in their family and community.
Becoming a cycle breaker is a long-term commitment to shifting patterns, disrupting cycles of abuse, and promoting healing across generations. It aims to bring peace not just for oneself, but for ancestors, descendants, and the broader community/culture.
Cycle breakers do inner work to overcome trauma responses, acknowledge how they previously kept cycles going, and employ daily practices to stay conscious of their emotional experiences and influence their body/epigenome positively.
Some qualities of a cycle breaker include seeing generational resilience in themselves, disrupting systemic inequities, spreading healing knowledge, and determining the cycle of inherited trauma ends with them.
The book aims to provide tools to help cycle breakers navigate emotions, have difficult family conversations, and cement their identity as an agent of intergenerational healing and abundance rather than deficit.
The passage encourages the reader that no one ever truly feels fully ready to break intergenerational cycles and confront inherited trauma. Signs that one is ready can come in dreams or internal feelings.
Healing must be holistic - addressing the mind, body, and spirit. Writing letters to ancestors can help heal the spirit. Practicing mental holism treats the whole person.
Intergenerational trauma can manifest in various symptoms and have layered causes not immediately obvious. Realizing its inherited nature allows one to do the work of healing.
The healing journey will not be linear and may involve high and low emotions. It is important to have coping strategies like grounding techniques to deal with potential triggers. Imagining coping with difficult scenarios can prepare one to face challenges.
The overall message is facing this work takes courage but supporting practices like holistic healing, ancestor communication, and emotional preparation can help one feel ready to break cycles and find liberation from inherited pain. Understanding the process as nonlinear is also important for the work.
The passage encourages taking things at your own pace when doing intergenerational healing work and not to feel like it’s too much to handle alone. Seeking a co-healing partner or therapist for support is suggested.
Sound bath meditations using singing bowls are introduced as a grounding practice to help feel psychologically safe while engaging in the healing methods. Three sound baths are provided with the book.
Healing in community with another committed person is presented as a beneficial strategy, but the choice to heal alone or with someone is left up to the individual based on what feels safer.
A practice of breaking an “intergenerational agreement” to stay stuck in trauma cycles through writing and symbolically tearing up an old “contract” is explained. The individual then writes and signs a new contract committing to being a cycle breaker.
Reflection questions are posed to consider how applying the cycle breaker identity feels, the setup for upcoming work, and experience of breaking the past trauma contract.

The passage discusses the concept of an intergenerational higher self, which represents both a person’s innate wisdom and the ancestral wisdom passed down through generations. Tapping into this higher self can help overcome challenges and trauma inherited from past generations.

The author shares a personal example of drawing on her intergenerational higher self when facing impostor syndrome in her doctoral program. Her mother’s words of encouragement reminded her of her lineage’s strength and resilience.

Some ways to connect with the intergenerational higher self include: sitting in silence, meditation, paying attention to dreams, spending time in nature, having conversations with the higher self as if it’s a separate entity, journaling, and guided imagery exercises visualizing the higher self. These practices can help uncover messages and insights from a place of greater self-awareness and ancestral wisdom.

Connecting to the intergenerational higher self is a way to access generational empowerment and healing from struggles inherited across generations. Regular practice can help reprogram the mind and nervous system to reduce stress and gain a new sense of inner ease and guidance.

Here are the key points from the passage:

Trauma can leave an imprint on the mind, brain, and body through a process called allostatic load. Chronic stress over long periods cumulatively wears down the body.
Psychological trauma can cause physical damage like inflammation and epigenetic changes. Conditions of the liver, brain, and immune system may be linked to trauma.
An estimated 60-80% of doctor visits are due to underlying stress-related issues, showing the strong mind-body connection. Stress impacts both mental and physical health.
When the nervous system is relaxed, higher cognitive functions work better. Relaxing the body helps the mind and vice versa.
The gut microbiome houses neurotransmitters that influence mood. A healthy gut supports mental well-being and vice versa.
Trauma can disrupt the normal mind-body balancing cycle, leading stress to negatively impact both mental and physical health over time through increased allostatic load. Relaxation and healing practices aim to restore this balance.
Traditionally, Western medicine views the mind and body as separate systems, but they are actually deeply interconnected. Stress and emotions can directly impact physical health.
The author did a holistic mental health fellowship where they integrated mental health services into various medical specialty clinics. This helped treat patients suffering from both physical and mental health issues.
They worked to train other medical staff on links between mental health conditions and physical symptoms. The goal was a collaborative, integrated mind-body approach.
One patient, Nola, had chronic lung disease of unknown cause. But through holistic treatment involving mental health, nutrition, social support and coordinating across specialties, her condition stabilized and progression slowed.
This illustrated how addressing stress, trauma and lifestyle through an integrated approach can help conditions rooted in the mind-body connection like Nola’s lung issues, unlike a traditional fragmented medical model.
The author treated a patient named Nola for lung disease, which was exacerbated by stress and trauma.
The author’s own sister also developed lung disease due to rheumatoid arthritis, which was inflamed by a lifetime of stress from caring for her family as the eldest daughter of immigrants.
While studying to be a holistic therapist, the author cared for her sick sister, applying the mind-body knowledge and practices from her studies to help both her sister and patients.
Stress and trauma can negatively impact health through chronic inflammation. The author wishes she had understood this connection earlier to help prevent her and her sister’s suffering.
Breaking intergenerational cycles of stress means addressing trauma, grief, and reconnecting to one’s body through holistic practices like yoga and tai chi. It also means relinquishing feelings of guilt and responsibility taken on from a young age.
The passage goes on to discuss further how stress can be passed down generations and impact conditions like heart disease, cancer, and depression through chronic inflammation and suppressed immunity. The author provides breathing exercises and suggestions for integrating the knowledge.
Depression can cause inflammation in the brain and body, explaining why antidepressants don’t always work and exercise is difficult. Inflammation is a key factor that needs to be addressed.
Stress can directly impact sex organs and reproduction by disrupting hormone levels, causing issues like impotence, abnormal periods, pain and reproductive problems.
Managing stress can help improve overall bodily functioning in these areas as stress and health impact each other bidirectionally.
Chronic inflammatory conditions like lupus, IBS and fibromyalgia are often accompanied by mental health symptoms due to inflammation worsening mood. Treating inflammation or mood can positively impact the other. Anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritis etc. have helped treat depression in some.
Holistic practices like meditation, yoga, herbal teas can help heal the whole person by stimulating a healing response and addressing mind-body-spirit imbalances. These ancient wisdom traditions have endured for helping people.
Stimulating the vagus nerve through singing a calming song can help regulate the nervous system, increase “happy chemicals”, and lessen trauma impacts on the brain by facilitating neuroplasticity. This offers a tool for stress release and intergenerational healing.

Here are some key points about how to know if you are dealing with intergenerational trauma:

Recognizing patterns of toxicity, abuse, trauma or mental health issues that span multiple generations in your family lineage.
Noticing that you experience emotional or psychological difficulties in similar ways to your parents/caregivers and their caregivers before them.
Identifying learned coping mechanisms or relationship patterns from your family that are unhealthy or create suffering.
Realizing toxic dynamics in your family were normalized but are actually harmful.
Seeking therapy or support and gaining insight into how childhood experiences impact your current life and relationships.
Feeling emotionally cut off, distrustful or unable to be fully present with others due to trauma carried from earlier generations.
Continuing the same unhealthy cycles seen in your ancestors despite wanting healthy change.
Having a strong intuitive sense that unresolved suffering from the past impacts your current emotional well-being and relationships in important ways.

The key is recognizing patterns across generations that create suffering and prevent healing or growth, as intergenerational trauma is passed down through families in complex ways over time. Gaining awareness is an important first step to addressing its effects.

The passage discusses intergenerational trauma and how the stresses and struggles of ancestors can be passed down generations through both genetic and environmental factors.
It introduces the concept of “intergenerational strain” - the mental, physical, spiritual and cultural transmission of trauma over many generations that accumulates within a person.
Taking just 7 generations back, a person would have over 250 direct ancestral histories influencing them genetically and epigenetically.
The next step in breaking the cycle is to conduct an “Intergenerational Trauma Healing Assessment” to gather information about how trauma has shown up in one’s own life and family history.
Guidance is provided on preparing for the assessment, including choosing a calm, safe space and grounding techniques to do the introspective work of analyzing one’s intergenerational trauma experiences. Courage is needed to do this vulnerable self-reflection.

So in summary, it outlines the concept of intergenerational trauma transmission, the importance of assessing one’s own family history through this assessment tool, and recommendations for how to prepare for that reflective process.

The passage discusses the concept of intergenerational trauma being passed down genetically from one generation to the next. It notes that intergenerational trauma is both a biological and social inheritance that perpetuates when trauma is not addressed or resolved in the original generation.

It distinguishes between “Big-T traumas” which are extreme, threaten safety, and “little-t traumas” which are more common daily occurrences that cause emotional injury. Both big and little traumas experienced by ancestors can be transmitted genetically and socially to subsequent generations.

The trauma response modeling of ancestors is passed down, first genetically as the new generation is forming, and then environmentally through ongoing stressors and modeled coping strategies.

It provides some examples of potential big-T traumas like abandonment, neglect of needs, divorce turmoil, addiction in the family, and body boundary violations.

The overall message is that intergenerational trauma is an inherited biological and social force that perpetuates when the original trauma is not resolved, and this trauma response pattern gets genetically and environmentally transmitted across generations.

Traumatic experiences, both major events (“big-T traumas”) and everyday difficulties (“little-t traumas”), can contribute to generational trauma when they occur in an emotionally or physically stressful environment.
Studies of Holocaust survivors and their descendants showed that extreme stress can leave an epigenetic mark and affect future generations’ cortisol levels and risk of mental health issues.
For trauma responses to become generational, the stress needs to persist long-term without resolution. This exhausts the body’s coping resources.
When a threatening event activates the body’s stress response system, stress hormones are normally released and then taper off once the threat passes and the body can recover.
But chronic or repeated traumatic stress causes the body to remain in a heightened state of alarm because the threat does not subside. This trapped stress energy can then contribute to persistent emotional and physical symptoms.
If not fully processed and released, this stuck stress energy essentially becomes trapped in the body and nervous system, priming future generations for stress-related health issues and potentially continuing the cycle of generational trauma.
Intergenerational trauma can be passed down through epigenetic and cellular mechanisms. Stress experienced by grandparents can alter gene expression in egg and sperm cells, impacting future generations.
A person’s stress and emotions during pregnancy can affect the developing fetus through hormones. Cells in the fetus are taking in the social/emotional environment of the grandmother as it develops precursor sex cells.
At conception, a person inherits traits like personality and stress coping mechanisms from their parents via epigenetic factors in egg and sperm, not just physical characteristics. Gene expression can be altered by the social environment.
A client named Brooklyn had a family history of mental health issues and lived with chronic stress. She experienced deep grief that felt familiar at a soul level. Her cells may have been programmed through generations to overreact to stress. Mirror neurons allow us to empathically experience others’ emotions.

So in summary, intergenerational trauma can be passed down epigenetically through sex cells and fetal development, impacting future generations at the cellular level through altered gene expression and stress response patterns. Client Brooklyn’s story provides an example of this.

Trauma responses are chronic reactions to stressors that were learned as ways to keep oneself safe. They can be passed down genetically or through behaviors observed in family.
The author provides an example of an inherited trauma response - the author’s grandparent had a fear of stoves after being burned, which was then modeled to the author as a child, resulting in the author developing their own fear of stoves.
Recognizing one’s own trauma responses is the first step to replacing them with healthier behaviors. The author provides some common examples of trauma responses like avoiding confrontation, having a short fuse, shutting down under stress, etc.
The author then shares a personal story of how their father is a “keeper of emotions” - he holds onto his own fears and worries privately rather than sharing them, stemming from how his parents raised him to always be agreeable and avoid burdening others. This trauma response of bottling up emotions was passed down intergenerationally.
The goal is to shed light on trauma responses so the author can establish healthier behaviors and redefine their intergenerational legacy, rather than feel shame about the responses.

Here is a summary of filling out the intergenerational trauma tree exercise:

Draw a tree with leaves, trunk, roots, and soil sections for mapping trauma across generations.
In the leaves, write the names and relationships of family members, any traumas they experienced, trauma responses, physical/mental health issues, and signs of spiritual disconnection.
Traumas can include financial hardships, accidents, deaths, abuse, or identity-based violence.
Trauma responses include avoidance, boundary issues, risk-taking, self-sabotage, people-pleasing, numbing, oversharing, lashing out, gaslighting, pushing away love, hypervigilance, avoiding conflict, and not speaking up.
Physical health issues associated with trauma may include metabolic, autoimmune, inflammatory, and pain conditions.
Spiritual disconnections could be lack of self-love, low self-worth, inability to sustain relationships, dissociation, or feeling scapegoated.
Common mental health diagnoses linked to trauma include depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and psychotic disorders.

The goal is to map intergenerational trauma across family members to gain clarity and context for one’s own healing journey. Take time filling out each section of the tree.

This section provides an overview of how intergenerational trauma can impact someone’s nervous system. It describes the social nervous system, which helps us experience safe and secure interpersonal relationships. This system develops in the womb and early childhood as babies connect with caregivers.

If an infant does not receive enough cues that their environment is safe, their social nervous system may not develop properly. Trauma experienced by parents can be passed down biologically if their nervous systems were affected. The trauma responses of parents can then impact how their social nervous system develops in their own children.

The chapter discusses how a parent who experienced trauma may struggle to regulate their nervous system and provide the safety cues an infant needs. As a result, the child’s social nervous system does not develop in a way that allows them to feel secure in relationships. This perpetuates the intergenerational cycle of trauma through the biological transmission of its effects on the nervous system across generations.

The key points are how trauma impacts the social nervous system, how this can be passed down from parents to children, and how it contributes to continuing the intergenerational transmission of trauma through biological and developmental mechanisms. The chapter introduces the idea of analyzing one’s intergenerational nervous system development.

The nervous system has three main parts - the sympathetic fight or flight system, the dorsal vagal freeze/shutdown system, and the ventral vagal calming system. Unresolved trauma can lead to an overactive nervous system that stays in a hyper-alert state and has difficulty relaxing.
An intergenerational nervous system occurs when multiple family members have destabilized nervous systems due to trauma, causing them to pass stress and trauma responses between each other. Genetic and epigenetic factors also contribute to passing trauma responses across generations.
Unprocessed trauma gets stored in the body and brain as “traumatic retentions.” Triggers can activate these stored memories and evoke a stress response in the nervous system, teleporting one back to the traumatic event.
An individual’s “window of tolerance” for emotions is determined by their capacity to handle stress, influenced by intergenerational trauma histories. Triggers can push someone outside their window of tolerance, overwhelming their ability to regulate emotions and stress responses. Understanding intergenerational trauma patterns is key to healing the nervous system.
Trauma responses can be passed down intergenerationally through both biological and learned mechanisms. Children inherit tendencies towards stress response from their parents genetically.
Parents also model and teach their own stress responses to children unconsciously. Children learn how to regulate emotions and cope with stress by observing caregivers.
This results in families developing similar “intergenerational windows of tolerance” or capacities for handling stress. It also leads to default trauma responses becoming ingrained across generations.
The example client Zuri had inherited both a biological predisposition towards high stress from her father and learned to dissociate and withdraw from stress from observing his behavior. She passed this on to her own children.
Intergenerational trauma responses take different forms in different families but often involve becoming “stuck” in fight, flight, freeze or fawn responses due to repeated triggering.
Memories and trauma can also be transmitted intergenerationally through scent memory even without direct experience. A traumatic event involving a smell can trigger descendants through inherited scent associations in the limbic system.
Breaking intergenerational cycles requires addressing inherited trauma responses, expanding tolerance for stress, and modeling new behaviors to pass on to future generations. It is difficult but important work to heal multi-generational trauma patterns.
Scent is a powerful memory retriever because smells gain direct access to the brain and nervous system. Studies have also shown that scent-trauma pairing can have multigenerational effects, with sensitivity to certain smells transcending generations.
There are inherited memories stored in our DNA waiting to be accessed, which could help with healing by providing a more comprehensive understanding of our history and how we got to where we are.
Types of intergenerational memories include cellular memory (memory of stress carried in our cells and genes), procedural memory (memory of emotional strain carried in our brain and nervous system, triggered by sensory experiences), and intuitive memory (inner knowing of grief in our lineage accessed through dreams, gut feelings, déjà vu).
Triggers and trauma memories are interwoven in many layers of the psyche and can sneak up unexpectedly. Healing involves expanding self-knowledge and using that awareness as a tool.
An exercise is proposed using modified emotional freedom technique (EFT) tapping combined with the om mantra to widen the intergenerational “window of tolerance” by increasing stress tolerance and promoting nervous system relaxation for oneself and ancestors.
This chapter covered how intergenerational trauma can be transmitted through the nervous system via pre-programmed trauma responses, and how practices like EFT tapping can help disrupt this. The next chapter will discuss the intergenerational inner child.
Childhood is a critical period for developing attachment styles and emotional regulation through connections with caregivers. Insecure or traumatic attachments can form if caregivers are unable to provide a stable, safe and supportive environment due to their own trauma, stress, mental health issues, etc.
This transmits stress and trauma intergenerationally as children of caretakers struggling with unresolved issues may develop insecure attachments and emotional dysregulation themselves. Their stress response systems become wired this way early in life.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study found strong links between traumatic childhood events like abuse, neglect, family dysfunction and later health and social problems. However, standard ACEs questionnaires do not fully capture people’s intergenerational and community experiences of adversity.
Developing a more comprehensive assessment of intergenerational adverse experiences can provide more context and allow clients to fully tell their personal and family history of trauma over multiple generations to facilitate healing. The goal is to understand and addresses patterns of stress transmission from the past.
The passage discusses modifying the traditional ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) questionnaire to take an intergenerational perspective. It focuses on trauma not just at the individual level, but also looking at wider familial and cultural factors.
The modified questionnaire explores three themes - “What happened to you?” (direct childhood adversity), “What happened before you?” (intergenerational childhood adversity), and “What happened around you?” (community/societal collective adversity).
The client, Leon, found this intergenerational approach more validating as it helped him understand how trauma was normalized in his family and community through generations. It gave him a more comprehensive view of his experiences.
Clinicians would use information from this questionnaire along with other assessment tools to understand a client’s full trauma history and develop a treatment plan.
The passage then introduces the concept of the “inner child” - how childhood trauma can leave emotional impressions that are carried into adulthood. This includes suppressed emotions, low self-esteem, guilt, etc. stemming from childhood experiences.
The inner child wounds are also passed down intergenerationally as parents may internalize their own childhood trauma and pass on negative beliefs and behaviors to their children through modeling. Addressing the inner child is presented as key to healing from intergenerational trauma.
Intergenerational inner child transmission refers to emotional wounds or unhealthy relationship patterns that are modeled by caregivers and inherited by children across generations.
Traumas can be directly imposed, like physical abuse, or occur through neglect, like lack of emotional support. Children learn relationship patterns from how their caregivers treated them and their own caregivers.
Physical punishment, emotional neglect, and emotional immaturity are examples of behaviors that perpetuate inner child wounds intergenerationally.
When caregivers can’t regulate their own emotions, they may look to their children for emotional support, leading children to take on adult roles. This can result in empathetic stress or people-pleasing behaviors as children try to heal their parents’ pain.
Disruptions in childhood attachment to caregivers can lead to insecure attachment styles and difficulty forming healthy relationships. Secure attachments provide a buffer against trauma.
Examining one’s own attachment history and how it relates to caregivers’ histories is important to recognize intergenerational patterns and disrupt unhealthy cycles when having one’s own children. This allows for establishing a more secure attachment legacy.
Yara experienced inconsistency and abandonment from her father, resulting in trust issues, which is an example of an intergenerational inner child wound that was passed down.
Yara’s mom had to stop caring for her due to mental health issues. This led to a big fight between Yara’s parents, which made Yara feel ashamed for needing her dad.
The fight was so large that Yara’s father left and never returned. Yara blamed herself, thinking “If I hadn’t needed him, this wouldn’t have happened.”
As a result, Yara developed intense self-sufficiency to avoid feeling abandoned again. She didn’t want to burden others for fear they would leave. But this isolated her.
In therapy, Yara learned her fears stemmed from lack of trust in others due to past abandonment. To heal, she had to disprove her belief that others won’t be there for her.
Therapist helped Yara build trust in small ways, like having a friend pick her up. This process of “reparenting” herself helped reduce fears of abandonment over time.
Yara came to see her father also needed healing from his own childhood wounds of abandonment. Her healing would impact future generations in a positive way.
By dealing with past trauma and building trust, Yara was ultimately able to overcome hyper-independence and accept help from others.

People who experience trauma and abuse as children are at risk of perpetuating intergenerational cycles of abuse and unhealthy relationships. Due to repetition compulsion, a subconscious drive to repeat familiar patterns, trauma survivors may unconsciously seek out relationships that mirror the dysfunctional dynamics they grew up with. This could include abusive, narcissistic, or codependent relationships that reinforce their negative self-beliefs. Children exposed to codependent family systems are also prone to developing codependent relationship styles as adults. Breaking these intergenerational cycles requires recognizing unconscious relationship patterns and consciously choosing healthier behaviors to disrupt the repetition of abuse across generations.

Cycles of abuse can continue intergenerationally as children who grew up in abusive households are at risk of repeating the patterns in their own relationships as adults. The cycle of abuse typically involves four stages: tension building, an abusive incident, a reconciliation/honeymoon phase, and a calm period before tension starts building again.

These cycles feel psychologically rewarding due to trauma bonding, but perpetuate harm. To break the cycle, one must gain an understanding of how the patterns work and learn new relationship strategies.

Toxic relationships are often characterized by an imbalance of power and control. Toxic traits that contribute to abuse include manipulation, control, gaslighting, blame, cruelty, jealousy and lack of accountability. Being in a relationship with a toxic person can cause deep intergenerational trauma. However, gaining knowledge about toxic behaviors can help one develop a protective awareness and empowerment to recognize and avoid replicating harmful cycles. Breaking free requires changing any toxic traits and behaviors that have been internalized.

The client, Nola, grew up in an abusive household with addict parents who neglected her needs and engaged in family violence. She took on a parentified role caring for her younger siblings.
As an adult, Nola struggled with intergenerational trauma triggers. She would get upset and cruel towards others, like her boss, when they disappointed her in similar ways to her parents.
The psychologist helped Nola understand how her childhood trauma was being unconsciously recycled and impacted her adult relationships and stress responses.
A practice called STILL was introduced to help Nola build tolerance for stress and regulate her emotions, to break the cycle of perpetuating harm towards others when upset. It involves stopping, cooling down physically, deep breathing, resting, and then proceeding in a calmer state.
Reflection questions were provided to help Nola process how intergenerational cycles impact her and how regularly practicing stress management can increase her capacity to handle difficult feelings without lashing out.

In summary, the client lived with childhood abuse that gave her intergenerational trauma, impacting her stress responses as an adult and relationships, and a method called STILL was introduced to help her build skills to disrupt this cycle.

Collective trauma refers to the traumatic experiences of an entire group of people, such as a community or society. It creates collective memories and spiritual damage.
Collective trauma stems from harmful cultural values, systemic oppression, and natural disasters. It can lead to mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and PTSD that are then transmitted intergenerationally.
Research has shown secondary trauma in descendants of groups that experienced slavery, genocide, war, disasters and more. These large-scale events disrupt the soul and seep into family dynamics.
Cultural influences like normalization of abuse, oppression of ethnic groups, and natural disasters are external factors that maintain intergenerational trauma across generations.
The cultural layer includes harmful practices like physical punishment of children that become ingrained over time due to colonization and are then passed down culturally through families. This external root contributes to daily experiences of intergenerational trauma.

Cultural values and beliefs can unintentionally perpetuate trauma across generations if they promote harm, such as objectifying women’s bodies, suppressing emotions, protecting abusers, embracing harmful beauty standards, and restricting gender roles. Examining one’s own culture critically can help identify positive and negative influences to disrupt intergenerational cycles of trauma.

Systemic oppression through institutions like education, social structures, financial systems, and healthcare can also cause collective trauma that is passed down. Examples include punitive treatment of minority students, social hierarchies, war-induced displacement, forced assimilation, intergenerational poverty, nonconforming identity repression, reproductive restrictions, religious persecution, and racist medical experimentation.

However, oppressed groups often demonstrate remarkable resilience by preserving cultural identity despite trauma. Moving forward, individuals can combat systemic injustices through community involvement, political participation, and supporting others facing similar hardships. Overall, recognizing how cultural and systemic factors perpetuate intergenerational trauma is important for addressing its roots and disrupting continuing harm.

I appreciate you sharing this complex story. A few thoughts:

Intergenerational and collective trauma shape all of us in deep ways, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Healing requires empathy, compassion, and community support.
Reconnecting with cultural roots and traditions can help provide meaning, identity and a sense of belonging that counteracts trauma. Perhaps exploring Luna’s indigenous language and traditions held empowering possibilities.
The foster system often does more harm than good, so keeping the family unit intact, while ensuring safety, seemed a wise goal. Supporting open communication and healthy coping skills could help break cycles.
No one is beyond redemption. With understanding of how trauma imprints us, and tools to process emotions constructively, positive change is possible. Focusing on growth and solutions, rather than blame, fosters that.
Your role as liaison, helping Luna comprehend complex influences beyond her control, while prioritizing her child’s wellbeing, demonstrated care, nuance and faith in human capacity for growth. Approaches like that can heal fractured relationships and communities.

Overall it seemed you navigated a delicate situation compassionately. With patience and community, intergenerational harms can diminish over time through renewed connection to identity and each other.

Collective trauma has cumulative layers related to how cultures normalize physical child punishment, continuing intergenerational trauma was not the ancestors’ desire, and feeling disconnected from culture due to an unsafe mother-child relationship.
Luna wanted to stay connected to her cultural roots, but her actions were having the opposite effect and disconnecting her daughter from a rooted cultural identity and a healthy relationship with her mother.
Therapy focused on settling Luna’s intergenerational nervous system to change behaviors without physical punishment. She also learned how collective traumas impacted her actions through anger.
Luna saw her own childhood pain in her daughter’s tears, realizing she was perpetuating the cycle. This motivated her to break the cycle and help others in her family.
Disrupting collective trauma takes community efforts - settling one’s own nervous system, shifting to local community rehabilitation through awareness, identity building, advocating for vulnerable families, sharing resources, and initiating community healing circles. Individual and grassroots action can create positive change.
Breaking intergenerational cycles of trauma requires confronting family secrets and challenging long-held beliefs about not airing dirty laundry. It means accepting that family members’ recollections of events will likely clash with one’s own.
This process can be difficult and emotionally painful. Family members may try to rewrite history, gaslight experiences, or shun the person trying to break the cycle. It requires grieving the loss of illusions that family will change or be fully understanding.
There is an innate human tendency to stay loyal to what is familiar, even if it is dysfunctional or hurtful. This intergenerational loyalty keeps trauma cycles intact through secrets and maintaining appearances. It is learned behavior shaped by cultural norms.
Breaking this loyalty takes courageous and ongoing conversations about family secrets, both within the family and with oneself. While conversations may not change family dynamics, it helps heal intergenerational wounds. Expectations must be tempered as healing is a long process.
Many cycle breakers realize they also previously contributed to maintaining the family’s trauma cycle as a form of loyalty. Breaking the cycle requires acknowledging one’s role while moving focus to present healing, not past shame.
Breaking up with shame is a core part of the process, as shame perpetuates trauma cycles. It requires discomfort and crisis to develop a new, healthier identity not defined by lineage trauma and flaws.
Shame and trauma can be passed down intergenerationally from parents to children. Children internalize shame when caregivers don’t take responsibility for harmful actions and the child feels it is their fault.
Young children lack abstract thinking and see things in black and white, so they assume their parents are good and anything bad must be their own fault. This leads to deep rooted shame.
As an adult, one may realize this shame was actually displaced onto them from repressed grief and emotions in past generations. Healing one’s own shame can help resolve intergenerational patterns.
When trying to have conversations about trauma with family members, it is important to avoid blaming, keep messages short and simple, focus on emotions rather than facts, and be aware of how conversations may activate both parties’ nervous systems given their intergenerational histories. Gentle, caring approaches are more likely to lead to understanding and healing.

Here are the key points about cues that indicate a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response, and suggestions for next steps:

Pay attention to physiological and psychological cues that you may be activated in a stress response like increased heart rate, rapid breathing, feeling jittery or on edge. This indicates your nervous system may be in fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode.
If you notice these cues, consider regulating your nervous system by taking deep breaths, stretching, going for a walk or other grounding techniques to help settle your body’s response.
Pausing the current interaction or conversation can allow space for regulating your nervous system and improving how you may continue the interaction.
Continuing the interaction without regulating or pausing first runs the risk of your stress response driving your behavior in unhelpful ways like lashing out, shutting down, etc.
Once regulated, you’ll be in a better position to thoughtfully consider your next move in continuing the interaction in a constructive manner.

The key is paying attention to your internal cues, regulating your activation as needed through grounding techniques, and pausing if still feeling activated, rather than pushing on without addressing your stress response first. This approach helps settle your nervous system to then effectively handle the interaction.

Generational resilience refers to the ability to overcome challenges and adapt that is passed down through families over generations. It draws on the strengths of ancestors who endured hard times.
When people learn about the resilience demonstrated by their ancestors, it emboldens them and helps them tap into resilience within themselves.
Building generational resilience involves not just drawing on one’s own wisdom and strength, but that of ancestors as well. This includes the lessons they learned about navigating difficulties.
Cultivating generational resilience helps people live fuller, more present lives by giving them fortitude to withstand challenges and bounce back from hardships.
The chapter discusses how embracing one’s “generational higher self” or ancestors’ strengths can foster resilience in facing current issues. However, it does not include substantial word-for-word quotations due to copyright concerns.

In summary, the key message is that understanding family history of overcoming adversity through the generations enables people to tap into an inner strength and develop resilience to face their own life’s challenges.

Intergenerational resilience is the resilience that is passed down through generations from ancestors’ combined efforts to survive traumatic experiences. It includes both biological and social preparations to cope with similar stressors.
This resilience is reflected in one’s innate capacities like problem-solving skills, perspective shifting, and viewing hardships as learning opportunities. It stems from our biological inheritance as well as our daily efforts to overcome challenges.
Epigenetic changes from trauma biologically prepare us to survive the types of stressors our ancestors faced. This transmissible information helps us cope with life.
We can continue building on this intergenerational resilience through holistic strategies like meditation that rehabilitate the body and brain from early stress impacts. This changes neural pathways to fire in a healthier, more resilient way.
Post-traumatic growth involves acknowledging past trauma while developing new meanings and focus on the future. Intergenerational post-traumatic growth also acknowledges ancestors’ wisdom and contributions while pouring that wisdom into future generations.
There are seven areas that characterize intergenerational post-traumatic growth and further resilience: generating new strength through relaxing practices; building safer social connections through vulnerability and trust; developing a stronger sense of self; finding meaning in life; relating to others in a deeper way; appreciating life’s small blessings; and helping future generations.

Here is a summary of the key points about building secure attachment and healing the intergenerational inner child from chapter 7:

A secure attachment to others can act as a buffer against trauma and help in the healing process. It requires developing trust in other people.
Relearning to trust starts with small moments of vulnerability where you share personal information or needs with others in a gradually increasing way. This helps widen your “window of tolerance” for intimacy outside your comfort zone.
Examples include telling others something you’ve never shared before, allowing others to do small tasks for you, and expressing a small need for support like a hug.
The goal is to challenge yourself just enough to create positive change over time, not so much that you overwhelm your nervous system. Employing strategies like active listening and sharing empathy can help establish secure attachments.
A secure attachment provides the foundation for healing inner wounds from past generations by meeting attachment needs not met in one’s family of origin. This allows the “intergenerational inner child” to feel safe and supported.
The passage discusses the importance of impacting future generations in a positive way to promote intergenerational resilience and healing from trauma.
It provides some examples of how one can impact future generations, such as teaching them about self-regulation, creating a safe and nurturing relationship, advocating for safer environments, and modeling healthy behaviors.
The goal is to disrupt systems that allow trauma to take root and build generational wisdom and abundance rather than focusing only on intergenerational trauma.
Communities have developed shared languages and symbols related to resilience, like in post-genocide Rwanda or among the Cherokee Nation.
The Japanese practice of kintsugi (repairing broken pottery with gold) is given as a metaphor for embracing life’s imperfections and transformations.
An exercise is presented using progressive muscle relaxation paired with visualizing building trust with others, to help expand one’s social limits and “window of tolerance” as a way to strengthen intergenerational resilience.

Here is a summary of the key points in the passage:

Our body is able to absorb nutrients and other substances when it determines it is safe to do so. The body has mechanisms to sense when ingesting something could be harmful versus beneficial.
The passage does not provide much additional context or detail about how the body determines safety. It is a brief statement about the body’s ability to absorb being based on its assessment of safety, but no explanation of the assessment process is given.
The key learning is that the body will only absorb nutrients/substances into the body itself when it has concluded, in some way, that doing so would not pose a health risk or threat. But the mechanisms by which it makes this safety determination are not described or explained further.

So in summary, the passage notes that the body absorb when it deems it safe to do so, but does not go into more depth about how the body actually assesses and determines safety. It’s a high-level statement about absorption being linked to perceived safety.

Parents who experienced trauma in their own childhoods often wish to parent differently than how they were raised. Common goals include raising children without fear, allowing open communication, making children feel heard, appreciated and empowered.
Breaking intergenerational cycles requires both “parenting back” by caring for one’s own needs and trauma, and “parenting forward” through consciously focusing on the child.
“Parenting back” involves settling one’s own nervous system through techniques like meditation, regulating emotions, and doing inner child work to be a more stable parent.
“Parenting forward” means consciously focusing on the child’s needs, such as teaching them emotional regulation skills, forming secure attachments through attunement, modeling safety, affirming the child, avoiding physical punishment, prioritizing the child’s voice and opinions, and allowing expression of feelings.
This two-pronged approach of caring for one’s own needs while also consciously caring for the child can help parents avoid unconsciously perpetuating intergenerational trauma cycles and instead create healthy legacies for their children. The goal is raising children with emotional stability, resilience and empowerment.
The passage discusses some best practices for parents who want to break intergenerational cycles of trauma and help their children avoid experiencing trauma. These include apologizing to children, letting them express their feelings, get creative, play, vet caregivers carefully, always believe children, teach them community responsibility, advocate for child-focused policies, and let them learn from elders.
It acknowledges that breaking cycles is challenging and parents may worry if they have passed trauma onto their children. However, worrying does not help and can be detrimental. Parents should focus on self-care, modeling regulation, and ensuring children’s needs are met.
Activities like singing, dancing and laughter can help reconnect families and regulate nervous systems collectively. Story examples show how parenting back through affirmations and consistently showing up for children can break cycles.
Overall it advocates parenting through practices of self-care, attunement, regulating together as a family, and instilling a different message and legacy for children compared to what the parents experienced. consciously stepping into a new generational flow rather than constriction.
The author felt calm and proud of the work they had done to heal intergenerational trauma within their family through ongoing conversations, self-care practices, and storytelling.
They have modeled this healing approach for their nephew to establish a new foundation.
The author’s clients have also disrupted cycles of trauma and built new legacies focused on cycle-breaking.
The work done in therapy sessions with each client has made the author proud.
The author is also proud of the reader’s work on this journey of “unbecoming and unlearning” trauma, and reestablishing their identity beyond past layers of trauma.
The goal is to show up more often with a regulated nervous system and see this as part of creating one’s own intergenerational legacy of healing.
In summary, the author feels proud and hopeful about the healing work done within their own family and with clients to break intergenerational cycles of trauma and establish new legacies focused on health and well-being.
The passage described going through a 3-part healing protocol to address intergenerational trauma. Part 1 involved sharing one’s own traumatic experiences, as well as the trauma of previous generations, and how cultures breed trauma through cycles of abuse and toxicity.
Part 2 focused on shedding the layers of pain, expectations, and harmful values from the past in order to make room for growth, resilience, and caring for future generations.
Part 3 was about building a new legacy of abundance by concretizing one’s goals and values going forward for oneself and future descendants.
Now that the protocol is complete, it’s time to break trauma cycles by leaving old patterns behind and replacing them with something that embodies abundance. Daily commitment and choosing courage over trauma is key to continuing the intergenerational healing journey.
The passage ended by sharing the author’s experience seeing their family evolve in healing and experience a legacy of love, despite past pain. This highlighted how the work can positively impact future generations.
The author thanks several people who supported the writing of their book, including Layla Saad, Leezet Matos, family members, and colleagues.
Gratitude is expressed to healers who provided care for the author and family.
Children and partner are thanked for their roles in the author’s life.
The author’s mother is remembered and their parents are thanked for their strength and efforts in breaking cycles.
The author’s sister is praised for their companionship and role in the author’s healing work.
Clients are thanked for sharing their stories and histories.
The book is dedicated to all cycle breakers working to create healing.

Several traditional herbal healing recipes and lists of holistic practices are also included as appendices for readers. Overall, the section expresses deep gratitude to the community of support that helped make the author’s work possible.

Here is a summary of the key points from the sources provided on the topics of stress, trauma, and their intergenerational transmission:

Stress activates the body’s stress response system, also known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This triggers the release of stress hormones like cortisol which prepare the body to respond to threats. Chronic stress can disrupt normal HPA axis functioning and impact health.
Psychological trauma and chronic stress can impact the brain and body through neuroinflammation and altered stress hormone levels. This plays a role in conditions like depression, anxiety, IBS, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Trauma and stress experienced by parents can be transmitted intergenerationally through epigenetic and biological pathways. Stress hormones in sperm/eggs, altered HPA axis and brain development in offspring, and parenting influenced by trauma are some proposed mechanisms.
Studies on Holocaust survivors’ children and families that experienced wartime famine found evidence of intergenerational transmission of stress responses and disease risk through these non-Mendelian inheritance pathways.
Maternal stress, depression and anxiety during pregnancy are linked to behavioral and health issues in offspring, possibly due to impacts on fetal brain development and epigenetic programming through changes in placental function and fetal exposure to stress hormones.
Addressing both inherited trauma/stress and current life stressors through psychotherapy, social support, lifestyle interventions and trauma-informed practices may help disrupt intergenerational transmission of health effects. But more research is still needed.

Here is a summary of the key points from the selected sources:

Several studies found evidence that early life stress, trauma, and adverse experiences can influence biological systems like gene expression, DNA methylation and histone modifications in ways that get transmitted to offspring via sperm RNA/chromatin or in utero exposures. This points to an intergenerational transmission of stress phenotypes and trauma impacts. (K. Lardner et al.; Gapp et al.; Lismer et al.)
Experiences like stress, trauma, diet can induce epigenetic changes in sperm that get passed on to offspring and impact their development and behaviors. This occurs through sperm RNA, histone modifications and DNA methylation. (Gustafson; Gapp et al.; Lismer et al.)
Childhood trauma and adversity are associated with long-term health impacts and increased risk of several diseases. Early experiences can literally reshape brain architecture and other biological systems through epigenetic modifications. (National Scientific Council; Thumfart et al.)
Adverse experiences in parents like trauma, stress or lack of nurturing care during their own childhood can influence parenting abilities and attachment with their children through intergenerational transmission of trauma impacts. This in turn shapes the child’s development. (Bowlby; Bernard-Bonnin; Cummings & Davies; Burke Harris)
Intergenerational transmission of trauma is proposed to occur via biological (epigenetic), psychological and social/environmental pathways. Early life stress gets embedded in biological systems and transmitted across generations to influence stress regulation, behavioral and health outcomes in descendants. (Houck; Švorcová; Van Steenwyk & Mansuy)
Experiences like trauma, stress or lack of nurturing care during sensitive periods of development like early childhood can disrupt healthy attachment formation between children and their parents/caregivers, influencing the development of their “inner child” in long term. (Ainsworth et al.; Archer; Campbell et al.)

Here is a summary of key points about intergenerational trauma and cycles of abuse from the provided sources:

Trauma experienced by parents can be transferred to children intergenerationally through genetics, environment, and parenting styles influenced by unresolved trauma. This leads to cycles of trauma, abuse, and mental health issues spanning generations.
Events like natural disasters, war, racism, and pandemics can cause collective trauma that impacts entire communities for generations through disrupted social systems, economic hardship, loss of culture/identity.
Unresolved trauma is expressed through toxic parenting behaviors like emotional unavailability, abuse, neglect, enmeshment, overcontrol that negatively shape children’s development and attachment styles. This perpetuates trauma responses like dissociation, shame, rage.
Breaking intergenerational cycles requires individual trauma healing through therapy, education on trauma impacts, developing secure attachment skills, addressing emotional needs met through past abusive relationships, and preventing toxic parenting responses influenced by one’s own unhealed trauma.
Building community resilience through support programs, cultural preservation, economic opportunities can lessen long-term impacts of collective trauma events and give rise to intergenerational well-being versus cycles of dysfunction and poor mental health. Early prevention is key to changing long-term outcomes.

Here are summaries of the key sources:

Rothstein discusses how growing up poor increases the risk of toxic stress and disrupted physiological functioning in African American children, leading to depressed academic achievement. Toxic stress from adverse experiences like poverty can harm brain development.
Pumariega et al examine trauma’s effects on minority children and youth in the US. Trauma exposure is high among these groups and linked to mental health issues. Care that is culturally informed is needed.
Rashkin discusses the concept of “phantom transmissions” where collective trauma experienced by one generation can affect the next through family and community dynamics without a direct factual transmission.
The Surgeon General has made adolescent mental health a new priority given alarming increases in conditions like anxiety and depression during the pandemic.
Some millennial Latinx parents are moving away from physical discipline like “la chancla” that was common in previous generations due to concerns over harsh parenting.
Singh et al review evidence that lockdowns and isolation during the pandemic negatively impacted child and adolescent mental health globally by limiting school, support systems and activities.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provides guidance on crisis counseling programs to help communities affected by traumatic events. Michael Ungar also discusses principles of building systemic community resilience after adversity.
Saul discusses concepts of collective trauma and approaches for collective healing and building community resilience in the aftermath of traumatic events or disasters.

Here is a summary of the key points from the book:

The book discusses how trauma can be passed down intergenerationally through various biological, physiological, emotional and cultural mechanisms. Things like cellular memories, attachment styles, cultural scripts, suppression of emotions can all transmit trauma across generations.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and collective/systemic traumas can impact future generations through this intergenerational transmission of trauma. Things like colonization, racial oppression, poverty are discussed as forms of collective trauma.
The mind-body connection is explored, with trauma being shown to impact our bodies and physiology through things like chronic stress, inflammation, changes to the brain. This embodied trauma can then be passed down.
Becoming a “cycle breaker” is discussed as the goal - someone who chooses to stop the intergenerational transmission of trauma in their family line. This involves healing one’s own trauma, changing patterns, being a source of resilience for future generations.
Tools for healing discussed include things like breathing exercises, emotional freedom technique, conversations about trauma, focusing on emotional capacities, reconnecting to culture/ancestors, prioritizing self-care, addressing inner child wounds, and assuming the role of being an ancestor for future generations.
Both individual and collective efforts are needed to disrupt intergenerational trauma cycles within families and cultures. The book provides a framework and strategies for doing this inner healing work.
Generational trauma can be transmitted epigenetically through gene expressions impacted by stress and strong environments. This affects future generations’ stress responses, trauma responses, and characteristics.
The Intergenerational Trauma Tree is used to identify trauma, beliefs, and responses carried across generations within a family. It can also help break cycles of trauma.
The inner child of oneself and one’s parents holds trauma from adverse experiences in past generations. Reparenting the inner child through exercises can help heal wounds.
Grieving one’s traumatic lineage by talking about family trauma, forgiving hurts, releasing false identities and loyalties, and attending funerals can facilitate breaking trauma cycles.
Parenting practices can perpetuate trauma responses intergenerationally if parents’ own inner wounds are not addressed. Cycle-breaking parenting involves healing one’s inner child and adopting healthier behaviors.
Becoming the ancestor future generations need by addressing one’s own trauma, being a cycle-breaking parent, and role-modeling healthy behaviors can end the legacy of a broken trauma cycle. Building resilience across generations.
Holistic practices like meditation, grounding techniques, journalling, herbal remedies and alternative therapies can aid intergenerational trauma healing on physical, mental and emotional levels.

Here are summaries of the passages:

Microbiome, gut - discusses how trauma can affect the gut microbiome and gastrointestinal system.
Middle Eastern communities - discusses intergenerational trauma in Middle Eastern communities, including from war, conflict, discrimination.
Mind-body connection - discusses how stress and trauma affect both the mind and body, impacting things like neurological and immunological functions.
Mirror neurons - discusses mirror neurons and how seeing emotions and experiences in others can trigger our own nervous systems.
Modeling - discusses modeling behaviors like calmness and safety to help rewire nervous systems and break cycles of trauma.
Motivations for healing intergenerational trauma - discusses personal and community motivations for addressing trauma passed down through generations.
Multidimensional nature of intergenerational trauma - notes how trauma impacts individuals and communities on multiple levels.
Murthy, Vivek - briefly mentions Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General.
Narratives, cultivation of new - discusses creating new narratives to build resilience and move past traumatic experiences.
Nature, spending time in - notes benefits of spending time in nature to help settle the nervous system and reduce stress.
Neurological impacts of stress - outlines how stress affects the brain and nervous system on neurological and chemical levels.
Neurons, mirror neurons - discusses how neurons and mirror neurons are involved in stress contagion and trauma responses.
Nonlinear process of healing - notes that healing from trauma is not a linear process.
Parentification - discusses how trauma can cause children to take on adult responsibilities prematurely through parentification.
Parents - discusses intergenerational patterns involving parents and their roles in breaking or continuing trauma cycles.
Physical punishment - discusses how physical punishment of children can be traumatic and continue trauma cycles.
Post-traumatic growth - outlines how people can experience positive personal growth and change following traumatic experiences.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - mentions PTSD as one potential outcome of unresolved trauma.
Poverty of author’s family - provides context about the author’s own experiences with family poverty.
Problem solving - notes trauma can impact one’s ability to effectively solve problems.
Quiet, remaining - discusses “fight, flight or freeze” trauma responses and how some remain very still and quiet when stressed.
Racial identity - discusses impacts of trauma like racism on racial identity development.
Ready to end trauma cycle - discusses internal readiness to address inherited trauma and end intergenerational cycles.
Recognition of inherited pain - discusses acknowledging and making peace with pain passed down through family lines.
Release unhealthy patterns - discusses the importance of letting go of coping patterns no longer serving individual or community wellbeing.
Resilience - summarizes key aspects of building personal and intergenerational resilience following trauma.
Rwanda - briefly mentions Rwanda as an example of a nation working to build resilience after violence and trauma.
Safety, modeling - discusses importance of modeling feelings of safety and security for children.
Saying Goodbye practice - summarizes a practice of saying goodbye to painful parts of personal and ancestral histories.
Screaming - provides an example of an uncontrolled trauma response like screaming.
Secondary trauma - discusses impacts on communities from indirectly experiencing trauma through others.
Self-care - briefly mentions self-care as important for intergenerational healing.
Serotonin - notes how trauma can impact brain chemistry like serotonin levels.
Shame - discusses shame as common byproduct and intergenerational impact of trauma.
Shock position - provides an example uncontrolled trauma response position of freezing still.
Slavery - discusses impacts of transgenerational trauma from the legacy of slavery.
Sound bath meditations - discusses using sound baths as a healing practice.
Spirit and spiritualism - notes a spiritual or energetic dimension to intergenerational trauma and healing.
STILL protocol -summarizes a protocol to help manage stress responses like those triggered by trauma.
Strong environments - discusses how strong, supportive environments can help break trauma cycles.
Survival mode - discusses “fight or flight” survival responses triggered by trauma.
Systemic influences - outlines wider societal/systemic factors perpetuating certain forms of trauma.
Tapping exercise - briefly discusses an exercise using tongue tapping to expand safe zones.
Toxic traits - discusses need to identify and address toxic coping behaviors passed down through trauma.
Trauma bonding - discusses unhealthy bonding that can occur between traumatized individuals.
Triggers - discusses triggers that can unconsciously activate trauma responses.
Trust - discusses impacts of trauma on abilities to trust others and one’s own judgment.
Unhealed trauma - discusses identifying and categories of unhealed personal and ancestral trauma.
Vagus nerve stimulation - outlines a process by which certain practices can help regulate stress responses.
Visualization - discusses visualization as a technique for soothing the nervous system and healing.
Vulnerability - notes importance of feeling safe with vulnerability as part of building trust and resilience.
Wisdom, ancestral - discusses tapping into ancestral wisdom as part of healing from intergenerational trauma.
Yoga - briefly mentions yoga as a possibly helpful stress-reducing practice.

Dr. Mariel Buqué is a trauma-informed psychologist and professor who received her doctorate in counseling psychology from Columbia University. She integrates ancient and Indigenous healing practices like sound bath meditation and breathwork into her comprehensive therapeutic approach.

Dr. Buqué has utilized her holistic training to help deepen trauma healing for many clients. She also provides healing workshops for large companies and lectures at Columbia University. She is widely recognized for her clinical expertise in trauma and has been featured in major media outlets.

Dr. Buqué is originally from the Dominican Republic and currently lives in New Jersey. She shares her work at drmarielbuque.com and on social media under @Dr.MarielBuque. She is focused on infusing holistic practices into modern psychotherapy to help clients heal from trauma.

#book-summary

Break the Cycle A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma - Dr. Mariel Buqué