Breaking the Cycle of Generational Trauma
How have my family’s narratives affected me?
Many of us make decisions, interact with others, and respond to the challenges of daily life without thinking about the hidden forces that shape our beliefs, relationships, and sense of self.
As we begin to wrap up our ongoing series, Surviving and Thriving After Trauma, we are covering the essential topic of generational trauma – the passing down of traumatic events from one generation to the next through anxiety, depression, PTSD, and even economic and social effects.
Our special guest for this episode, Gina Birkemeier, is a licensed professional counselor, author, and trauma specialist. Her book, Generations Deep, explores the ways that unaddressed dysfunction and trauma creates emotional wounds and toxic beliefs that are passed down from one generation to the next. She joins us to explore how trauma patterns are inherited and what it takes to break free.
Listen in as Austin and Gina discuss:
The impact of inherited trauma and how it shapes your perceptions
How to recognize patterns like shame and control
The way dysfunction gets passed down through families
Breaking the cycle to create a new, healthy legacy
Why forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation and how it leads to freedom
Shifting family narratives to transform future generations
Highlights of Austin’s Conversation with Gina
On understanding generational trauma
Generational trauma is the impact of one generation upon the next, upon the next. Trauma can come through our genes as well as the influences that our parents and grandparents have on our lives. It’s so important to know that the generations before us form and inform our perception of ourselves, of other people, of God, and of the world around us.
When it comes to trauma, it’s important to distinguish between the event and the reaction. We may only think of “big” events, but we may not recognize that small-t traumas are woven throughout the fabric of every life story. The way people react to those events can perpetuate dysfunction and hide in different ways.
A common sign of generational trauma
Something that most people can recognize in their family of origin – to some degree - is shame. If shame is part of your foundation, it can determine your ceiling. If it's woven into the fabric of who you are, if there's this felt sense of something being wrong with who you are, that is going to impact all of your relational aspects of life.
Shame will impact what you believe about yourself, what you believe you can achieve in life, and even what you believe God might have for you. When you have that pattern of shame in the family, there will be a lot of shoulds and a lot of condemnation.
Understanding epigenetics
We now know that environment, including stress, diet, physical activity, and trauma, can change the way DNA is expressed. That means that some of the concepts in our society, like you being the ‘captain of your soul’ - the only one who controls your destiny - aren’t actually true. You are more influenced by the past than you know!
Figuring out what you internalized from your family system
You don't come to your beliefs in a bubble; that doesn't happen in a vacuum. That happens in the early years when your personality is being formed. Your self-narrative is largely shaped the epigenetic influences that you take in at that stage of life - and the strongest epigenetic influencers in the early years are your parents and other caregivers.
Piecing together generational trauma can feel like putting a puzzle together without the picture on the box. The more pieces you add, the easier it becomes to see patterns.
Piecing together generational trauma can feel like putting a puzzle together without the picture on the box. The more pieces you add, the easier it becomes to see patterns.
Breaking the cycles that you inherited
When you recognize patterns and decide to break them, it’s like standing in the raging rapids of past trauma and dysfunction and deciding that they cannot rage beyond this point. It requires a willingness to look inside, but from a place of grace. That can be difficult, because most dysfunctional families aren’t grace-filled. You will need to learn how to have grace for yourself.
Cycle-breaking isn’t about vilifying the generations before you - that’s a dangerous place to dwell. Cycles are broken when you understand what impacted your life and recognize places that you are not walking in freedom. Systematically dismantling those narratives often requires professional help.
Silencing the inner critic
If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you may have adopted a narrative towards yourself of negativity and shame. The voice of your internal critic is loud and harsh: “You’re a failure. You’re ruined. No one loves you.” When that narrative gets too painful, you may self-medicate – which increases the feelings of shame. It’s a vicious cycle.
The first step away from that cycle is recognizing that God wants to change that narrative; instead of adopting the stories and voices of others, you can create your own story instead. This is what God says about you: “You are loved. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are the apple of my eye. You are a beloved child. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Taking the first step
If you have felt the tiniest spark as you hear about breaking generational trauma, it is time to do the work. That is God knocking on the door saying, "It's time. Let's do this." Start a conversation with a trusted friend, find a counselor who is faith-informed and trauma-informed, or pick up a copy of Gina’s book, Generations Deep. Wherever you begin, the journey won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
We are so grateful to Gina for joining us on today’s episode!
Be sure to listen to this episode to hear more insights and wisdom from Gina:
Recommended Resources:
Generations Deep: Unmasking Inherited Dysfunction and Trauma to Rewrite Our Stories Through Faith and Therapy by Gina Birkemeier
ginabirkemeier.com – Gina’s website
@myoutloudvoice – Gina on Instagram
While my father had (as do I) an ASD about which he wasn't formally aware, my mother had suffered a nervous breakdown or postpartum depression around the time I was born. It likely would have meant a lack of such crucial shared joyful interactions. It may also be relevant that Dad used guilt punishment instead of physical blows as an effective means of chastising me. (e.g. "See what you did!")
In his informative book SHAME: Free Yourself, Find Joy and Build True Self-Esteem, Dr. Joseph Burgo writes about how a lack of shared joyful interactions between infant and parent typically results in a particularly emotionally/mentally crippling life curse — a cerebrally ingrained disorder (because it forms in the earliest of one’s life) called “core shame”.
It would help explain why I have always felt oddly uncomfortable sharing my accomplishments with others, including those closest to me. And maybe explain my otherwise inexplicable almost-painful inability to accept compliments, which I had always attributed to extreme modesty.
It would also help explain my avoidance of social interaction with and even simple smiles at apparently interested girls/women, especially during my youth and early adulthood, which was undoubtedly misperceived as snobbery. The very bitter irony was that I, while clearly finding most of those females attractive, was actually feeling the opposite of conceit or even healthy self-image and -esteem.
According to Dr. Burgo, “When brain development goes awry, the baby senses on the deepest level of his being that something is terribly wrong — with his world and with himself. As the psychoanalyst James Grotstein has described it, ‘These damaged children seem to sense that there is something neurodevelopmentally wrong with them, and they feel a deep sense of shame about themselves as a result.’
“Throughout my work I have referred to this experience as ‘core shame.’ It is both intense and global. Under conditions that depart widely from the norm, shame also becomes structural, an integral part of developing child’s felt self. Rather than feeling beautiful and worthy of love, these children come to feel defective, ugly, broken, and unlovable” [pgs. 47-48].