What does it mean to be the cycle-breaker?
Intergenerational trauma occurs when the effects of trauma are passed down between generations. This can occur if a parent experienced any form or kind of trauma that remains unhealed and the cycle of trauma impacted their parenting and eventually allowed the trauma to pass down to their children and so on.
Very often the effects of intergenerational trauma continue to impact populations for generations after a collective traumatic event has occurred. A deeply collective traumatic event that can have a deep effect and can pass to many generations is the experience of war as it holds within is a complex of deep-routed emotional, mental and physical conditions created fromfacing fear, death, adverse conditions, suffering, starvation, poverty, loss, grief and many more.
When intergenerational trauma passes down from generation to generation, it can cause unexplained emotions, fears, insecurities and deeply-rooted beliefs you have no clue how they were formed in the first place. A trauma-response appears every time one is triggered from an internal or an external stimuli resulting to specific reactions, mental patterns or phobias.
Intergenerational trauma can be healed when one is truly ready to accept and acknowledge the trauma and then allow oneself to go though the healing process. If the healing process is undone or incomplete then the trauma continues to pass down to future generations where if healed it changes the experience and future of the person and their children after them.
Going through the healing process of intergenerational trauma means that one would need to prepare their nervous system in order to be able to feel all the intense and difficult emotions of the trauma, which were not felt before by the people who carried down the trauma. For example if one experienced war and was killed or developed PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) then the next generation will have to allow the emotions related to the experience of war to be felt while cultivating a more expansive capacity and resilience of their nervous system. This process will bring completion and eventually heal the trauma.
Healing trauma of one's lineage means that the person will start having a different experience within their anscestral line. This will create a different experience for the self, one's children and the generations to come. But it is not only that...Even the one's before the so-called cycle-braker are affected, even if they are still alive or even if they departed.
Knowing of how intergenerational trauma works and what one can do in order to break the cycle of trauma is key in order to feel motivated to do the work. If you feel you are holding and carrying intergenerational trauma please know that is possible to heal one step at a time.
A cycle breaker is the one who becomes aware of the problem and chooses to make changes.
Thank you for reading,
and remember that everything you seek is already within you.
Heart to Heart,
Christina
© Christina Georgiou
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