Veronica is a Holistic Trauma Specialist. She is a qualified BodyTalk Practitioner, qualified TRE Provider and utilises quantum field talk therapy to help her clients address and understand trauma, and how it manifests in their body (physically, mentally and emotionally).
We are living in a very exciting time. The understanding of collective and intergenerational trauma gives us an opportunity to release it. We are remembering what the ancients knew many millennia ago, that memories are passed down through generations via genetic material. This includes inherited consciousness, events experienced, and reactive behaviors. Of course, that includes traumatic experiences too.
What does this mean?
Intergenerational trauma means that you hold within you the collective experience of those who came before you.
Collective trauma is often explained alongside intergenerational trauma. Collective trauma occurs when a traumatic event or series of events is experienced by a group of people, and as a result, those memories are held by the group.
This collective trauma can also be transferred across generations. Trauma leaves a chemical mark on an individual's genes. Beyond inheriting physical traits, we also inherit intergenerational consciousness, along with the experiences attached to that consciousness. This can alter an individual's biology.
Some causes of intergenerational trauma (macro level):
Natural disasters
Enslavement
Cultural genocide
War and famine
Forced migration
Systemic oppression
Food insecurity
Some causes of intergenerational trauma (micro level):
Family violence (sexual abuse)
Family oppression (mental abuse)
Serious injury or illness (loosing out on a normal childhood due to illness)
Societal or family conflict (intolerance for difference, forced into the same set of behaviors/beliefs)
Child abuse (inner child wounding)
Absent mother/father (The child acts like the parent, learned coping or survival mechanism/ abandonment wound)
Domineering mother/father (The child never grows into a healthy independent adult, low self esteem, remains the “child”, suppressed anger)
Financial struggles (Financial fear or poverty consciousness)
Arranged marriages (No freedom of choice)
These examples above are just a few of the many types of trauma that can be passed down. The effect stays in the body chemically and can have a profound impact on each individual—physically, behaviorally, and emotionally.
For example, six generations ago, a family experienced a war-torn country, an abusive family environment, and a poverty-stricken community. That resulted in substance abuse as a way to cope with the dire circumstances, along with anxiety about how to manage daily life. The consciousness of substance abuse as a coping mechanism can be passed down through generations, as well as the anxiety experienced. The tendency to rely on substances and feel a state of anxiety can emerge a few generations later. This is not to say it will necessarily be experienced, only that the memory of it resides in the individual’s body on a cellular level.
Generally, this trauma manifests physically when there is a similar experience. A comparable situation can spark a deep cellular memory. For example, using the case above, substance abuse or relying on substances as a coping mechanism might emerge when an individual’s life experience resembles that of their ancestors. However, the situations themselves do not need to be identical (e.g., a war-torn country). Instead, the emotions and experiences may be similar (e.g., helplessness in work or personal life). This is because the body, on an unconscious level, remembers how to respond to a comparable situation. Again, this does not mean one is destined to repeat the pattern, only that behavioral responses are inherited and can remain dormant. Whether an individual follows the same path depends on their personal experiences, self-awareness, and choices.
Consider a child who has been taught how to deal with a situation. Later in life, when faced with a similar circumstance, they recall what they learned. For example, if a father teaches his son that when he is stressed, he should go for a run, that child may grow up to exercise as a way to clear his mind before returning to work. As a child, he may have taken a break from schoolwork to jump on a trampoline, but the coping mechanism remains the same. Later, in his professional career, he might go to the gym to manage stress. The principle remains consistent. However, this understanding extends across generations and often occurs unconsciously. The memory of how to handle a situation is embedded, as humans respond to what they have experienced and what they have been taught.
When it comes to intergenerational trauma, these patterns reside in the subconscious. This makes them more accessible and more powerful than we may currently understand. The subconscious has far more influence than the conscious mind; we are simply unaware of it. An individual may unconsciously draw upon stored information, as their body already holds a “solution” when a similar situation arises.
While the above example followed substance abuse, here are some common things (among so many more) that can be passed down intergenerational:
Poverty consciousness
Victim mindset
Superiority mindset/belief
Family violence
Metabolic changes (immense stress in the family line)
Communication (or noncommunication) styles
Work ethic (or entitlement mindset)
Self-confidence
Self-value
Dopamine chasing (always looking for the next “thrill”)
Cultural/religious/gender/class superiority or inferiority mindset
Self-sabotage tendencies
Attachment avoidance, specifically in relationships
Overeating
Controlling behaviors
Fear of conceiving
How to change your course
Take responsibility. Notice your own patterns. Do not blame anyone. Education is key. Take charge of your life and effect changes to alter the epigenetic markers for the better.
As a whole, everything is energy. Your cells vibrate according to your environment and you can change how your cells vibrate by changing your lifestyle and mindset. Everything works off an energetic log, or frequency match. You attract or repel things based on the vibration of your body (cells).
What constitutes the vibration of your body? So many things that are every changing but here are a few:
The food you eat. Processed food vs raw, nutritious food. Man made food vs food from nature. Food has a vibration too, and what you ingest will affect how your cells vibrate. Eat foods that provide real nutrition and feed your cells.
The way your body expels what it does not need. This includes
Physical: heat and sweat such as via exercise
Biological: via your lymphatic system (bowel movements, excretion etc)
Emotional: dealing with your present emotional state in a healthy way such as not suppressing or denying
Mental: removing mental patterns that no longer serve you. This is a big part of trauma work, as the reactions and behaviors that once served you to keep you safe; in the long run turn out keeping you caged and not experiencing a full, peaceful life
Mindset. Looking at yourself honestly, deciding how to see each situation as an opportunity for healing and growth (usually what we may label as “negative” experiences)
Your authentic self, living in harmony with yourself, respecting yourself and being honest with yourself. Not aiming to please others but respecting htem as an individual on their own journey. This includes not projecting onto others what you think they should do and believe.
Your unconscious conditioning. The most difficult as it is unconscious but as you move through life you notice a pattern within yourself. This is one of the most powerful factors contributing to your vibration and one of the most underrated factors. Your unconscious mind is 90% more powerful than the conscious mind. Many times positive thinking is over run by unconscious conditioning, meaning that even the most well meaning positive thinking mental patterns only go so far. This is because the unconscious belief system holds something that is limiting you, and more often that not, the two (the positive thinking and your unconscious mind) are at odds. Again, an opportunity for healing. Peel back the layers.
Focus on the above and actively work on creating a body that vibrates at a higher energetic level. By making these changes, you develop new behavioral patterns, activate new consciousness, and, from an epigenetic perspective, create profound and healthy transformations. As mentioned previously, trauma can leave a mark on an individual’s genes, which is then passed down through generations. Even though it does not alter the gene itself, it can affect how the gene is expressed (epigenetics). Thus, by implementing these changes, you are also influencing how that gene is expressed in a healthier way. Both trauma and trauma work create an epigenetic effect—they are just two different sides of the same coin.
This inner work will create a shift within yourself and ripple out into your life. These changes will then shape the experiences of those who come after you, as they will be stored in your genetic material and passed down.
This is not to say that future generations will automatically follow suit. Each individual is responsible for their own life, regardless of the circumstances they are born into or what they inherit, whether physically or at the level of consciousness. However, by making these changes, you create new (hopefully healthy) patterns and cellular memories that can be drawn upon by future generations.
Your intergenerational power
You are responsible for your own life. There is no short cut. You have inherited a certain set of genetic material, and you have inherited consciousness with deeply rooted belief systems and patterning. But you have the power to change the course of anything you have inherited, if you are willing to do the work.
Email to book a session: VeronicaLetsTalk@gmail.com
Read more from Veronica di Muro Merchak
Veronica di Muro Merchak, Holistic Trauma Specialist
Veronica has a unique approach to trauma as Holistic Trauma Specialist. She combines her personal experience, her academic qualifications, her professional experience, and her in depth intuitive understanding of people to help them navigate their individual situations. An important focus of hers, is to empower her clients so they understand how trauma was received by their individual body and above all; how it is possible to move forward, in an unapologetic and gracefully powerful way.
