Lelañea is a certified Transformational Mindset Coach and is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) candidate with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Her approach is based on the Whole Person Coaching® methodology, which scientifically recognizes the interconnectedness of all aspects of our being and facilitates inner balance and alignment.
As a professional pattern observer, I specialize in identifying recurring patterns stemming from intergenerational traumas. I leverage my education and my own alchemized traumatic childhood experiences to uncover hidden or unresolved traumas that span across multiple generations and wreak havoc on relationships.
The existence and impact of intergenerational trauma have been well-documented "since 1966, when Canadian psychiatrist Vivian M. Rakoff, MD, and colleagues observed high levels of psychological distress among children of Holocaust survivors." (Canada’s Mental Health, Vol. 14). While the most extensively studied group is the descendants of Holocaust survivors, similar issues exist across various communities. This documentation and scientific research are supportive. However, we did not need this research to confirm this, as it has been widely known amongst Indigenous communities, including the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy, who have long held the principle of considering the impact of decisions on the seventh generation into the future.
“Our Elders have always said, what we do today will affect the next seven generations.” – Iroquois.
"Repetitive traumas that happened to our ancestors, as many as seven generations before, can be passed down to our children." – Integrative healing therapist and Métis/Cree Elder, Kerrie Moore.
Ancient Eastern philosophies, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, have also long addressed the concept of intergenerational trauma through teachings on Karma and samsara. In traditional Chinese Medicine, the notion of Jing (essence) highlights the inheritance of physical and emotional traits across generations. With our progressive evolution in science, through quantum physics and epigenetics, we can now use modern interpretation and language to understand what ancient Eastern spiritualities have been patiently asking us to recognize for at least 5000 years now.
Trauma is stored in the DNA, going at least seven generations back, and it is believed but has not been proven yet, that it goes back to twenty-five generations. The burden that “survivors” bare is not limited to historical genocide, wars, cultural oppression, slavery, or even the gender-based eradication of women during the witch trials. Modern scientific advancements in quantum physics and epigenetics have validated and provided a contemporary understanding of what these ancient spiritual traditions have long asserted. We now understand that trauma can be stored in DNA and impact individuals across several generations. It extends beyond historical events manifesting in various forms of abuse and suffering, from the macro level to the micro level. The secrets of a few can fester down the line, expressing themselves in numerous ways that inhibit an individual from truly living their life in sovereignty or freedom from the ghosts of the past.
As heavy as this information is, my intentions here are to share knowledge that supports and empowers you, the reader, in becoming an architect of your own reality. You already possess the necessary attributes to do this inner work – knowledge, willpower, integrity, compassion, love, and resilience – You are equipped with everything you need, so let's delve deeper into this concept.
I would like to explore with you, the reader, the micro level of intergenerational trauma, as these are the little waves that continue to disrupt the harbor, chipping away at the walls of security and, for some, become tsunamis that destroy every attempt at safety, growth, expansion, and connection, unbeknownst to them.
Each family member copes with this hidden pain in unique ways—some express it, others conceal it, while some numb themselves or dissociate from it. Even if these pains remain unspoken, the dense energy permeates the household, impacting all residents, even those who come after the initial events. This pervasive energy hauntingly binds and constricts the family unit shackling, and constraining the organism known as “family.” Even if you are the “black sheep” and separate yourself from the organism of toxicity, the energy remains tethered to you until the collective wound is acknowledged, witnessed, and healed. It is irrelevant as to whether addressed separately from the whole or together, but to do it, we must if we do not want the seeds of shame, fear, repetition, unworthiness, and conspiracy to be planted into the following generations.
We are part of a collective upheaval, a universal summons for this generation to interrupt destructive patterns so that the residual energies of trauma not only stop the descent but also are removed from the quantum field. This collective healing, known as global shadow work, extends beyond family lines and DNA, impacting global communities. It is the responsibility of each individual to address personal traumas and purge the collective energy of these low vibrational wounds. We are being called to alleviate this burden and leave a legacy of healing for future generations.
Recently, I've noticed a significant increase in the number of clients who are working on healing intergenerational wounds related to parental betrayal. These clients reflect aspects of my own healing journey, both past and present. It's important to understand that parental betrayal is not necessarily intentional, but rather a result of programmed behavior that affects individuals operating from their subconscious. By recognizing this, we can approach our parents with compassion, understanding that they were simply navigating life from an unconscious state. Our awareness of this dynamic allows us to awaken, become more self-aware, and act with intention, thus breaking the karmic cycle for future generations.
The quality of our interactions with children shapes their sense of security and well-being from our level of presence, awareness, and behavioral intentions. Unfortunately, many adults didn't experience this kind of nurturing environment in their childhoods. Often, they end up repeating the same patterns in their parenting, unknowingly projecting their unresolved issues onto their children. Take Karen, for example. She's a vibrant, successful businesswoman and entrepreneur in her late 40s. Despite all her achievements, she reached out to me feeling like she was going through a "mid-life crisis," which is essentially a call for her ego to realign, reflect, and let go, otherwise known as an egoic shift. Karen's romantic relationships are tumultuous and painful; she finds herself attracting the same type of men repeatedly and then feeling rejected, unfulfilled, and lonely. Sometimes, she even engages in self-abandoning behaviors just to seek attention, only to retreat when someone genuinely shows interest.
We were able to isolate Karen’s insecure disorganized attachment to a mirrored pattern developed in childhood with her mother, who was projecting her childhood pattern with her own mother upon Karen. Even further back, we recognized that this projected pattern was a pattern going three generations back on the maternal side. The lineage of women in Karen's family witnessed their mothers' unhappiness in marriages that resembled prisons, characterized by emotional neglect and abuse between partners. The mothers lacked the capacity to meet their own needs, let alone those of their young daughters, which resulted in unpredictable temperaments, emotional neglect, resentment, and a lack of presence and awareness. As a result, the daughters (across three generations) developed a tendency to seek attention through people-pleasing behaviors, emotional outbursts when their needs or expectations were not met, and then withdrawing as a form of punishment when they finally received their mother's attention, creating a cycle of push and pull or victim/victor dynamics.
Throughout the lineage, each woman saw their mother as unsafe and unpredictable, and each mother expressed themselves as initially avoidant in her relationship with the daughter, then moving toward an anxious attachment style when outbursts and anger were finally deployed. In every scenario, the mother had a different relationship with her son(s) that allowed her to show up as doting, invested, safe, consistent, and loving, as she was projecting and healing the relationship with the masculine, using her son to repair what the masculine partner had broken. Each woman was projecting her unhealed wound with her mother upon the daughter, recreating a toxic relationship with the feminine while attracting partners that would perpetuate the dynamic—the toxic dynamic between the feminine and masculine and between daughter and mother. Karen found herself initiating and imitating the three attractor phases (people-pleasing to anger outbursts to avoidance as punishment) and the push-and-pull strategy with male suitors, as that was how she learned to attract and receive the love she sought from her mother. Karen was aware of her unhealthy relationships with the masculine, but prior to this work, she could not see how it was linked to her childhood with her mother and the mothers before her, nor was she aware of the patterns that existed historically between the masculine and feminine and mother-daughter.
Karen’s lineage fascinates and moves me, and as she enters each scenario with awareness, compassion, and love, I am supporting her through Inner Parts Work, meditation, nervous system regulation, and mirror work to address the complexities of reparenting and interrupting patterns. As she changes her behavior, a new mindset takes root, and we are able to rewrite neurological pathways and depattern old programming.
We are not confined to our bodies or minds. Like updating a computer program, we have the ability to rewrite any program to free ourselves from the bondage of ghosts. With one small energetic pattern dissolved, we untangle a web so intertwined that, from the perspective of those in it, it is just how life is, and there is no other way. This is where a coach, therapist, spiritual minister, or even guru comes in. When we have someone to reflect us and attune to us, we can enter into a co-creative relationship of safety, and it is in these spaces I have seen phoenixes rise from ashes of despair. This is the power behind being your own healer.
It is not only the women who can carry the wounds of the mother, as my client Edmond drags his about like a spiritual anvil. Projecting fear, emotional lack, and abandonment by wealthy parents who traveled extensively for months at a time while leaving him with caretakers and nannies, never knowing when they would leave or even return. His young self expressed this emotional neglect and rigidity, an inability to adapt to change as the change was perceived as painful, especially change that he had no control over. Edmond found himself in a co-dependent relationship with a family member from his marital side, and together, they projected their unhealed wounds upon one another, further cementing his feelings of despair, torment, and rejection while perpetuating fears of abandonment and change and acknowledging his own emotions.
Through our work, we were able to find the tiny thread that tied all of it together and began to slowly unravel it, dismantling, and deconstructing the belief systems developed by a young child who felt unseen, ignored, abandoned, and rejected. A child who was gifted with clairvoyance, yet his parents couldn’t understand it and couldn’t attune or mirror back to him his experiences so that he could feel safe within himself. He was and is “too much,” and no one will ever understand him, and he is destined to sit in the pain of his own emotions alone, or at least, that’s the ego's story that has kept him “safe.” I have never seen a person tackle these narratives more strongly than Edmond. Through Inner Parts Work, Edmond and I have sat with the fragments of his inner child in all the many states and ages that he has been frozen in, over time, with each traumatic event that developed his story.
Edmond, much like Karen, does not hate his parents, nor does he harbor resentment towards them. They both speak lovingly of their parents and show compassion for their individual and collective struggles. Both clients recognize that if they do not work on themselves, they may end up repeating their parents' patterns in their relationships with their children, family members, and communities. Edmond is learning energetic boundaries, and self-compassion for how he has manifested his trauma onto himself and others. Edmond is creating energetic shifts that ripple across generations past and future, all from being completely and utterly present in the now.
Through his surrendering to the reality of these traumatic events while maintaining love and compassion, he, like Karen, is acting as the pattern interrupt that he has signed up to be. Both are dissolving the generational programming from their lineage without the assistance or support of their parents, as their presence is not necessary. This work can often be done with greater success and allows for greater freedom when done without the parent.
Both individuals are freeing themselves from a life of sacrificing their needs for "the other," of energetically collapsing to avoid the pain of rejection or abandonment, and both are freeing themselves of the self-betrayal pattern that happens when we have been raised in an environment where we had to deny who we were to be accepted into the family unit, to receive love or attention, and to feel safe. No longer are these individuals the sacrificial lamb, quieting themselves to foster a lineage of trauma that, if continued, would perpetuate the manifestation of bodily inflammation, disease, cancer, and diabetes. Through epigenetics and stem cell research, we have learned that no disease is inherited; they are only accepted and grown in environments or cultures that support them. Ridding ourselves of the accumulated traumas energetically and alchemically is the greatest work you can offer your physical and spiritual self, and it is one of the greatest contributions and acts of service to not only the lineage you have reincarnated into in this lifetime but to the collective, the planet, and ultimately to the universe.
Many of us whisper to ourselves that we want to leave a legacy to be remembered by; wealth can be lost through poor economics and bad management, history can be overwritten, and names no longer recognized, empires crumble, and heirlooms decay, but what can never be lost is energy. Energy does not die, dematerialize, crumble, or decay. The energetic manipulations you make in this life come in the form of healing traumas, experiencing emotions, and passing on this gift of gratitude, appreciation, kindness, love, and authenticity, to others; and if obtained in this life, can also come in the form of "Unity Consciousness" or "Christ Consciousness" that is abundantly available to us all. We are creators, and creation starts with and within the self.
Read more from Lelañea Fulton
Lelañea Fulton, Integrative Consciousness Coaching
With over 20 years of experience in legal, legislative, business development, and corporate leadership, she has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities that these sectors present, as well as the skills and mindsets that are essential for success. Lelanea uses a range of tools and techniques, such as cognitive behavioral therapy & neurological restructuring via meditation, mindfulness, somatic work, polyvagal, kinetic, breathwork, and the Hermetic Principles and its 12 Laws. A fan of spiritualist Richard Rudd, she also utilizes the Gene Keys in much of her work with clients who want to expand their consciousness through the art of contemplation.
