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2: From Pain to Power: Overcoming Family Trauma Together
21 Plays1 year ago
In the second episode of Spiraling Together: A Mother-Daughter Healing Journey, we delve into the topic of generational trauma and how to transform pain into power.
Join us as we explore:
- Understanding Trauma: What trauma is and how it can be passed down through generations.
- Personal Stories: We share personal stories of painful childhood moments, realizations and the healing journey we’re on.
- Inner Child Healing: The concept of inner child healing and how subconscious programming affects us.
- Apologies and Awareness: The importance of mothers acknowledging and apologizing for past hurts before they were aware.
- Processing Emotions: Effective ways to process emotions and why regulating the nervous system is crucial in the healing process.
- Resources: A selection of books to help you learn more about overcoming family trauma etc.
Tune in for an honest and insightful discussion on healing family wounds and finding strength in vulnerability. Let’s move from pain to power together.
Listen now on your favorite podcast platform!
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Transcript
Introduction to Spiraling Together
00:00:00
Speaker
Aloha, friends. Welcome to Spiraling Together, a mother-daughter healing journey. I'm the daughter, Chloe, and I'm the mother, Valerie. Our mission is to create a safe, nurturing space where mothers and daughters can begin a journey of healing and empowerment together. Through heartfelt conversations, shared experiences, and our personal insights, we aim to foster deeper connections, strengthen bonds, and inspire growth. Before we dive into today's conversation, we want to take a moment to express our heartfelt thanks to all of you who are tuning in. Your willingness to expand and grow with us inspires us each day, and we are honored to have you as part of our community. If you haven't already, please check out our links below and follow us on your favorite platforms so you never miss an episode.
From Pain to Power: The Healing Journey
00:00:52
Speaker
Let's get ready to unravel the spiral. Together.
00:00:57
Speaker
All right, y'all, we are officially on episode two of Spiraling Together, a mother-daughter healing journey. um Today, our episode title is From Pain to Power, Overcoming Family Drama Together. Yeah. So this is a pretty big topic to start off for real talking about. um But we're also aware that generational trauma is kind of something that not everybody knows about. ah But guess what? We all have it. We do. We do all have it.
Understanding Generational Trauma
00:01:34
Speaker
If if you're a human and you have a family, most likely you have experienced some type of trauma within your family system. Exactly. yeah
00:01:45
Speaker
First things first, do you kind of want to get into generational trauma? What it means? Yeah. but i mean Well, I think I just want to start out with the word trauma. Okay. Okay. Cause it sounds like really big. and right And I know that from personal experiences, people are like, I don't have any traumas. And, and, and we think about trauma as in like, a huge, you know, like ah a train wreck or like a suicide in a family losing somebody. And we think that those are the only traumas, like these capital T traumas. But like life changing, like huge life changing, altering. Yeah. Just horrific things. That's what a lot of people and and that's what I grew up thinking and trauma was. But we also have those lowercase T traumas that are just like the things that happen in family systems, like maybe for instance, the silent treatment.
00:02:52
Speaker
Like someone withdrawing their love because they're they don't like what maybe you're doing. Like you're not doing something that I want you to do, so I'm not gonna talk to you. And that withdrawal of love is a trauma. Definitely. Yeah, so family trauma. Yes. Yeah, I mean, you you can literally Go ahead. I feel like you want to say something. Oh, I'm going to say it's something um that just gets passed down. You know, something that.
00:03:32
Speaker
you have in common with your family because it's something you got from them. And it's not, you can't always blame your parents for it because guess what? Their parents probably did it too, right? And the parents before them and before
Family Patterns and Personal Growth
00:03:47
Speaker
them. So it's it's literally passed down and right it's so normalized. You know, it's everywhere. You see it all the time. Families that choose possibly not to talk about, you know, just not have any type of conversations about what's really going on and just push it under the rug. Yeah, I'm definitely.
00:04:15
Speaker
Well, I guess it's different for us now, but I can say when we were kids, maybe, when things were very different. I mean, even if we're kids, like, yes, certain things don't get talked about, obviously, but you'd like pick up on the things that... I don't know, when you get to a certain age, it's just like it all makes sense. yeah why we're all like this or you know what I guess once you become aware you're like oh wow yeah and then you're like oh my grandparents do that too yeah oh like it's like
00:04:58
Speaker
I don't even know how to describe it. It's just weird. Well, and I just want to say, I mean, you're 22 and you have an awareness that I just started having in my forties. Yeah. i
00:05:15
Speaker
you know i don't I don't know what what life would have been like if I would have like woken up to all of these different things that now we are like are faced with every day that we can see and we have this opportunity to heal and grow you know together. and I just, I'm really honored. Again, I know I said that in the first episode, but I'm very honored and I'm very proud of you for facing this journey. Like, it's hard. Yeah. It's, I don't know, I guess, well, I'm lucky enough to
00:05:55
Speaker
be here with you right now. I mean, when you started your healing journey, we'll be separated. I mean, because that's what you do when yeah you turn 18 and no everybody does that. But sometimes the bird is not ready to leave the nest and that's okay. And there's a lot of things that I'm learning right now and I'm like, I'm comfortable enough now. I mean, I'm about to move again away, but I'm like, it's a different like setup and focusing more on figuring out who I am and
00:06:36
Speaker
You know, seeing the way that you've blossomed and turned into a completely different person. We're not completely different, but in the way. Yes, you have. You've transformed. Yes. um And it's motivating. Even if I'm. I'm still not close. oh yes Like in the sense of like it's, I still have those tendencies to be like, I'm just kidding. Like I'm just figuring it out. Like I don't want to do this work cause this work sucks. And it's a different kind of thing than, you know, what everybody else does at my age. And I'm not saying I'm perfect either. And I'm like doing everything I can.
00:07:23
Speaker
because it's you ears you hold yourself back a lot too. Oh, absolutely. And I definitely, it's like you don't want to do it in a way. Of course. Yeah. Your ego doesn't want to do this work. Yeah. Like that part of you has learned how to protect you. Right. And so when it's so much easier to stay the way you are because that is more comfortable, even though it is uncomfortable, it's, it's holding you back, but it's also
00:08:04
Speaker
Sorry, this is making me think of a quote and I don't even remember exactly what it is. It's an unfamiliar, oh, an unfamiliar heaven. Oh, I know what you're gonna say. it' You're talking about your nervous system, right? The nervous system chooses a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven. Mic
Tools for Healing: Regulating and Forgiveness
00:08:28
Speaker
drop. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah, so that, okay, so that is something that is absolutely necessary for healing, generational trauma or just trauma is being able to regulate your nervous system. Right. And it's something that we as a family system work on together. I think before we have conversations. Yeah.
00:09:00
Speaker
Because when our nervous systems are unregulated and we're in a state of survival, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, we're not always going to be able to take in conversations without having reactions. I mean, yeah. And in my opinion, it is really easy to get triggered by your family. Oh my gosh. It's there. It's so easy. Because you have so much history together, you know? And then there's this, I feel like this sense in...
00:09:34
Speaker
like everybody has this opinion like well they're your family right you're gonna be with them no matter what or you know you have to trust them no matter what like this that and like i'm not saying our families that that like we've messed each other up so much that i don't even you know want to freaking talk to you about it but
00:10:00
Speaker
I don't even know where I'm going with that. Like, I mean, we obviously wouldn't be here together doing this podcast if we had like, yeah if we'd crossed the line that we weren't able to forgive, you know? But like, that's another thing too. Yeah. With other people, you know, your family might not be at the point of you can talk yet. Right. Cause there's a lot that goes into like forgiving family members if they've done anything to you that you don't like. yeah Or even if you realized it so late. And I think that might be a whole episode in itself, the forgiveness ah yeah you know and being able to get to that point to forgive. But the biggest thing that you know I want to portray in this is that we all have these
00:10:56
Speaker
traumas within our families in some aspect. And to again, like we talked about earlier, seeing that this has been passed on and passed on and passed on into when we stay in a state of blame, we are really honestly limiting ourselves oh yeah and are limiting our own healing. And we're we're actually giving power away to those that have hurt us when we are trying to bring the power back to ourselves through healing.
00:11:28
Speaker
It's crazy. It is crazy.
00:11:34
Speaker
Well, I don't know. Do we have any specific examples that we can talk about that might open up some eyes? Like in our own family system? Maybe. It just depends on how. to talk about I feel like i I don't mind starting out with something that has been pretty big for me.
00:11:59
Speaker
So my father, he did take his life and I was four. And I remember just growing up, having this belief that because he took his life, that I had a mental illness and that that was just something that ran in my family. And I did struggle with depression many times. But the more healing I've done, I've realized that the traumas that went on in his family and the traumas that I experienced growing up were what caused me to suffer with my mental health. And it wasn't something that was actually like in my DNA. I've had DNA testing and everything like that. Yeah. So.
00:12:55
Speaker
generational trauma can affect your mental health. It absolutely yeah can. Yeah. No doubt. I was definitely something that I've, like I've overcome in the last like four years on my healing journey is knowing that I do not have a mental illness. And I know that I don't, I just know that there was so much trauma that was passed on and traumas literally passed on through, you know, epigenetics and, Yeah. And there's nothing actually wrong with you. No, I just, my my nervous system was so extremely unregulated that i I lived in a state of survival for years. And when that happens, your nervous system is connected to every system in your body. And our Western medicine is literally so
00:13:49
Speaker
focused on just the mind and and the body, right? It's it's not like it doesn't teach so much about that we're more than just
Impact of Upbringing on Self-Expression
00:14:02
Speaker
our bodies. And so we can't only focus on our mental health. We have to focus on our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health to have wholeness. and be who you really are and be who you really are. At least you're striving to get to and figure out who you are. Yeah. I mean, I think the main thing for me or like generational trauma for me was kind of like, it's okay. You can say whatever it is. Um,
00:14:48
Speaker
I don't know. I just never like... We might have to cut this part out. No, it's okay. But, um... Well, no, it is generational to trauma. Okay, hold on. It's just like my inability to use my voice. My inability to...
00:15:14
Speaker
under understand my emotions as well. Um, I mean, to be honest, you already know this. I've talked to you about this before, but, um, like when I was growing up and I think you and dad, y'all never fought or like y'all never had problems in front of my brother and I so like never understanding that emotions would happen like that
00:15:57
Speaker
The only I think emotions that we like got from y'all. This sounds so bad. No, it's okay. I feel like was like, if we did something wrong and like getting in trouble and like y'all getting upset, which I love you and I know you're doing the best that you could, but now that I look back at it, it's like,
00:16:25
Speaker
We were just always left in the dark about stuff unless it was like, you're in trouble. And the only emotion was like anger. And now I know that for me, if people are angry with me now, I can't handle it. like I think my world is gonna end. um But the other thing is like I never learned how to
00:16:54
Speaker
I guess express other emotions or I don't know. it It was just like, well, I'm just gonna not trigger my parents so they don't get mad and everything will be fine. And now I've also, I'm like grew up with my walls up, like not letting people in. Blah, blah, blah. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I think for me that like generational and trauma has just been like not being able to use my voice, not understanding who I am, not and like not being willing to open up to new experiences because I never wanted to try new things because I never wanted to do something wrong. And now I'm at the point where I'm like,
00:17:53
Speaker
I'm 22 and I'm finally understanding like my voice is important and figuring out what Chloe likes is important to me. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I just, I want to say thank you for sharing that and being vulnerable. And I also want to say I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I know I'm so sorry, but that's the thing is I'm always going to apologize over and over again for the things that I was not aware of. And I i also know that, you know, there was a lot going on, you know, during that marriage to your father, um which I'm no longer married. Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
to Chloe and her brother's father. And yeah, so I'm truly sorry. And I'm, I'm so proud of you. Like what you're doing right now is healing your voice, is expressing what has come up for you and the awarenesses of how you
00:19:07
Speaker
realized from your childhood the ways in which that you have were limited. And yeah, it absolutely makes sense. you You didn't see us arguing and that you only saw the anger. and And now you get to go to your inner child to the little Chloe and you will tell her that now you have her back. Now, you have like You can reach out and hold her hand and tell her how precious she is and how you're gonna protect her if anyone else is angry in your life.
00:19:49
Speaker
you know harder said than done, I will say. I know. and And this is where that nervous system regulation comes into key because when you are able to be in your body and feel safe in your body, truly be there.
Reprogramming Learned Behaviors
00:20:09
Speaker
Someone else can get angry, but if you are regulated and you're safe, And you have that little Chloe with you and you are just like, I got you. Like you have to be regulated in your body. And I think that's such a huge key. And I know that it's talked about so much about nervous system regulation, but it literally is the pinnacle of like,
00:20:36
Speaker
are even being able to connect on a spiritual level. If we're unregulated, we don't have the ability to connect into anything more. We're just being led to reaction after reaction and pain after pain. yeah And so it it is it is a process. It's a process. Definitely. Yeah. I also do want to say, um
00:21:03
Speaker
I guess I feel like it's important to add that I feel like in our current, um, I guess society, especially at my age, um, like doing this healing thing. Um, I will say, I think that kids like I'm more at my age and stuff are a little bit less prone to it because it's like when you do say these things like oh talk to your your inner child or talk to your you know your little Chloe or whoever
00:21:41
Speaker
ah your ego wants to be like, oh my God, like that's embarrassing. Or, you know, like why would you do that? Whatever, you know. It's just like, it's just another thing to try to set you back. um So maybe you you look at your inner child, it's really your subconscious programming. So something that I really think is cool is, you know our phones. Oh, yeah. Okay, because we all have those and they're like in our hands all the time, seriously. And we have apps on the phones. Okay, so some of those apps, like if we think of our bodies as a program, like where we are programmed, like think of yourself as a phone, right? Some of those programs that were downloaded are faulty programs.
00:22:31
Speaker
That was a cool analogy, bro. Yeah. So what we're trying to do during a healing journey is uninstall some of those programs that were learned and that are faulty. Smart. So if you if you don't want to talk about you like inner child, maybe just talk about unprogramming some of those apps on the phone instead. Yeah. because it's It's like what you talked about, you were programmed to become scared when someone is angry. So now we're going to learn a new programming by being regulated and knowing that when we install that new program, that new way of being, you can stay in your body and stay grounded when someone is angry.
00:23:21
Speaker
right and not go back to that old programming, that faulty app. So maybe we could look at it like that and um and yeah. there's like that Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to look at healing. I also will say that the inner kid thing, the inner child, is it's actually really cute. When you look at it, i mean it's like almost deeply saddening that you know you like think of yourself as a little kid and like you have to protect them.
00:23:57
Speaker
but you do i know because it's sad it is sad it's it's sad so what's coming up for you right now i don't know no you do know so um yeah what's coming up no it's it's just like
00:24:19
Speaker
I just think the moral of the story is it's fucking hard. It is really hard to do these things and these practices and even like the nervous system regulation with different practices like breathing and et cetera.
The Non-linear Nature of Healing
00:24:38
Speaker
It's, it's almost like, like with the breathing and stuff. And when you showed that to me, it's cool but sometimes it doesn't always like quote on quote work or you can't always you feel like you can't always get out of your head or it's just a 10 minute video but for some reason you just
00:25:03
Speaker
don't want to do it, even though you know it will help. That's the resistance. That is where the ego wants to protect you. The, remember the familiar hell. So sometimes, yeah, I mean, breath work is just one tool that we can use, but sometimes it needs to be longer, the longer. Sometimes it needs to be an hour long practice, like a yin yoga. Sometimes it it just needs to be that you do put your phone down, which is really fucking hard. I get it. it's It's not looking at social media and like how many likes did I get on that and then like worrying. It's also like when other people have reached out to you and text you.
00:25:48
Speaker
like possibly that you let them know that you need a little bit of ah of a break, you know, from your phone and it's going out into nature. You know, it's like our phones are taking us all over the place. Yeah. So there's a whole lot of those programs that are installed on us to try to like make sure that we are, you know, giving people what they need, like and responding. And so sometimes it takes more, And it also is knowing that not every day you're going to feel good.
00:26:25
Speaker
True. You know, healing does not happen. A snap of a finger. No. And I really thought that healing meant that one day I was going to get to this point and I was just going to feel good every single day and everything was going to be great. And I was just going to be like, ok yeah, I'm just taking this five D consciousness and all these things are like working out and I'm always in love and all. Like I really honestly thought I was going to get to that point.
00:26:52
Speaker
But it doesn't have, it's not, that's not reality of the human experience. That's that's not reality. we're We're going to go through ebbs and flows in the more that we can realize that like part of healing or healing the generational trauma is feeling it.
00:27:09
Speaker
It really is. It's facing it. It's feeling it. It's allowing the emotions to come up. Going back to that inner child or if we want to call it those faulty you know apps, the programs.
Expressing Emotions Through Writing
00:27:24
Speaker
And I don't want to say faulty. I i just want to see like but learned the learned behaviors, the wounds that we've accrued. It's going back to those and then like you know what maybe for you with what you shared about how you weren't you know we were we yelled or we were angry at you just when you did something wrong but you didn't ever see anything else
00:27:53
Speaker
you know, maybe writing a letter to me or your dad or whatever and like expressing all of the different ways that made you feel at that age to just pull that up and out of you. It's literally like expressing that up and out of you. Like you're not going to come to me and say, wow, like you're not, it's not going, and but it's going through and feeling those like Like what came up for you. Yeah. And I do think that's a good, that's a good thing to help. Like writing yeah your feelings down. Yes. Because I've been pretty bad with... coming up with words to explain how I feel a lot. like I guess when I'm in conversation, like it's harder for it to come up and just come out and make sense. yeah But a lot of the time, I know like growing up or like whatever, I would always write it down.
00:28:50
Speaker
are like write something I need to say to somebody because it does help like organize your thoughts. It helps you realize what you're actually feeling in a way instead of it just being up here and then that changes or gets thrown in a different file cabinet in your head. like It does help a lot to write stuff down.
Healing Family Relationships
00:29:11
Speaker
And yeah, writing letters, burning them, writing it on a plate, throwing that plate on the ground, letting it break and having up your glass shards. Yeah. Yes. Also, I was just going to say.
00:29:27
Speaker
Finding somebody that you truly can trust that you read certain things out loud Oh, yeah to express it because it just like Earlier like when we were talking and you know, sometimes we have tears that come up because we're actually expressing Yeah, you know writing it down is really great and then also reading it out loud Allows the emotion to come up and through yeah Yeah well
00:29:58
Speaker
I think that we covered some good stuff today. gender I mean, I think that generational trauma, it's just like maybe I'm hoping that you've all seen how it's possible that you could have this running in your family line and that it's it can be something really big and it can also be something that we never really thought would affect us. but And it's hard to talk about. um But another thing you guys can hopefully grasp from this is I just basically called her out right in front of her. But you know when you're comfortable enough and like you actually want to help each other.
00:30:43
Speaker
um You know, nobody's perfect. Yeah. and And not everybody has it all figured out. But if you're also willing and aware to accept that maybe you didn't do something as. as good as you thought it was. That's okay. And I think as a mother, it's really important that when your children come to you and say, hey, this this hurt me, is it's like I'm not gonna deny that that didn't hurt you. Even if I can say I did the best that I could with what I knew, I'm never gonna say that
00:31:29
Speaker
I did the best I could and, and I gave you all the things that you possibly could have ever had. And I did all these things for you and blah, blah, blah. No, that that's invalidating your feelings and I'm never going to do that. And I, and if you are a mother that wants to heal with your family, it's taking a deep breath and going, Oh, okay. You know what? I fucked up. Um, I didn't mean to. But I did. yeah And I'm sorry for that. And every day I wake up, I'm gonna...
00:32:07
Speaker
commit to learning more and becoming more aware of the ways that I had learned behaviors. And then I did those unconsciously. Exactly. Cause most of the time this child trauma is unconscious. you It is not something that you planned for the day. yeah Today I'm going to go out and hurt my children on purpose. You know, um that's not ever
Resources and Conclusion
00:32:31
Speaker
something. Yeah. Yeah. So. Slay. I think we're. Well, we also did want to share um a few other resources about, you know, learning about generational trauma because again, we all have it. Yes. Yes. um But there's a few books I know that um are helpful. We like reading books. We love reading books and listening to podcasts yeah and and just learning more. Exactly.
00:33:02
Speaker
So one of the books, it didn't start with you by Mark Wolin.
00:33:11
Speaker
And then we have another one. um The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, MD. Don't know if we butchered either of those names, probably. But um we'll definitely link it down below as well. um Again, we do want to hear your guys' insight um from what we talked about. If we said anything wrong, call us out. Or you didn't like. um you know it's a big one we did like or what you did like yeah we do like positive comments yes positive or if you want to learn a little bit more yeah yeah or if you have just anything to say but yes yeah well thank you sweetheart i just want to say thank you for being so vulnerable and honest and talking about real things
00:34:03
Speaker
Thanks for listening to me and not getting angry. Of course I'm not. Just kidding. I'm not getting angry. We're past that. We're past that. That was child, child times. Yeah. That was definitely when I was not much older than you. True. Yeah. All right.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah. So thanks for being with us on our very first, actually our second episode, our second episode. Yeah. First like real. Yeah. First where we like got into things, but yes. So please subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't already, we'll have some links down below and yeah, just thank you for being along on this journey with us. And remember, don't judge her. Just love her. Aloha. so
00:34:55
Speaker
okay we're all
00:35:16
Speaker
Cool. Okay, we're all done.