Childhood and Generational Trauma

Every experience you’ve had has made a mark on you and this starts from the time you are conceived.  Often, our culture has discounted the significance of our early childhood experiences and the trauma we may have experienced in it.  They say things like “oh don’t worry children are too young remember” “kids are resilient” or even “that's just how our family/culture was raised, so it’s fine.” While humans are resilient, kids might be too young to remember and maybe that is how it was done in your family or culture, it doesn’t take away the pain you experienced and how it informed the way you function in your life and relationships and how you view yourself

Early childhood trauma can be incredibly difficult to understand and even sometimes difficult to see.  How we grow up in our families is what we learn is “normal” for not only relationships but what to expect from the world around us.  Which is why so many people in relationships have conflict because they grew up in different homes, with different expectations and ways of interacting with each other, not to mention our own internalized process of making meaning of our experiences. 

Generational Trauma can show up in the way we were raised by our parents/primary caregivers.  How they view the world, what they’ve experienced becomes part of them and they pass down this lineage, often unconsciously, to us from how we are disciplined to how to interact with the people and community at large to the stories they share with us.  Even though you may not have been directly affected by something, being raised by someone who was affected by trauma, war, oppression, violence, natural disasters etc. or who were raised by people who were, their experience can have lasting impacts on the meaning you make of yourself and the world around you. 

Understanding the early childhood trauma and adverse experiences, whether if be physical or sexual abuse, or the more covert emotional abuse and neglect, or even the generational trauma you experienced as a child will help you understand why you feel what you feel and do what you do. It will help you make sense of why you struggle to trust yourself and others. 

You can't change what happened to you, however you can change how it continues to impact your life and how it defines not only your self identity but how you show up for yourself in your relationship and for yourself within your relationships. Healing this aspect of your experiences, helps you stop the cycle from continuing in your life and the lives of those whom you care deeply about.

For Questions or Scheduling:

hello@amandajpbrown.com or 602.717.7316