Are You Holding Emotional Wounds That Aren’t Yours? Signs of Generational Trauma
Have you ever experienced a wave of emotion, like guilt, fear, or sadness, that seems to appear out of nowhere? These intense emotions feel real within you, but when you try to trace their source, you cannot identify a specific event that triggered these emotions. It may be that these feelings are not yours, that these seemingly random feelings are not from your direct life experience. Generational trauma is often invisible, passed down from one generation to the next, manifesting in ways that can be difficult to understand and can become barriers to your thriving and abundance.
Emotional wounds are not always directly experienced. Sometimes, they’re inherited from our ancestors and cultures, carried unknowingly through our family lines, passed down from those who lived before us. The term generational trauma is used to describe a process that acknowledges the painful legacy of unresolved trauma that spans generations. This can feel like you are carrying emotional burdens that do not belong to you. We can honor the past and learn new ways of healing once we recognize our inherited patterns.
Signs of Generational Trauma:
Recognizing the signs of generational trauma is an important first step in healing inherited emotional wounds. These patterns can manifest in various ways, such as emotional reactions or behaviors that do not seem to have a clear origin in your own life. You may find yourself feeling or acting in ways that feel unfamiliar to your typical ways of being, activating shame and self-judgment. Here are a few signs:
1. Unexplained Emotional Triggers:
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by sadness, anger, or anxiety without any apparent reason? Maybe these feelings seem to come out of nowhere, like a sudden wave crashing over you. These emotional triggers might be a sign that you are carrying some unresolved pain from past generations. Often, these emotions do not come from anything specific within your current life, but are instead tied to unresolved trauma that generations before has experienced.
Perhaps you find yourself reacting with intense fear in situations where others do not seem affected, or as affected. Maybe you feel inexplicably sad at moments where others feel joyful, like a family gathering or a personal celebration. These emotional responses are often linked to generational trauma that has been passed down to you and that is why seeking to understand the “why” behind these reactions is not helpful to your healing.
Understanding the origin of these triggers may be intriguing, but it is not typically easy to pinpoint. We can accept that these emotional reactions are deeply embedded in your family’s history without needing to identify why exactly they are there. Recognizing and accepting this generational connection can help you heal these triggers and develop new ways of responding, instead of familiar patterns of reacting.
2. Repeating Family Patterns:
Generational trauma reveals itself through repeated family patterns, especially those involving toxic relationship dynamics or cycles of abuse. These patterns can feel like a constant invisible presence, showing up at home, school or work, and in your relationships with yourself and others. If you feel stuck in unhealthy relationships, even when you consciously try to avoid familiar behaviors, this might be a sign that you are unconsciously carrying family patterns of generational trauma.
You might notice that you tend to pick partners who are emotionally unavailable or that you fall into similar conflicts as your parents or grandparents faced. These patterns are indeed difficult to break, but beginning to recognize them can be a powerful first step towards healing.
We begin to become more aware of these patterns through intentional actions, like noticing with mindfulness instead of judgment. By bringing attention to the ways you experience these behaviors, you may start shifting from inherited patterns, such as scarcity thinking, into new ways of thinking and responding, such as an abundance mindset. This shift often includes receiving support through therapy or internal parts work to develop self-compassion and embrace healing.
For some people, these inherited patterns may also manifest in behaviors like perfectionism, emotional detachment, or hyper independence, all of which are examples of learned responses to trauma. It is not uncommon for children of emotionally dysfunctional families to adopt coping mechanisms that feel protective, but often perpetuate an ongoing cycle of pain.
3. Feeling Overly Responsible for Others:
If you grew up in an environment where family struggles were overwhelming, you may feel as though it is your responsibility to fix everyone else’s problems, to sacrifice your well-being to meet the needs of others. This feeling of being overly responsible for others, especially when it’s not your burden to carry, is another example of the impact of generational trauma.
Children of emotionally immature parents often adopt the role of family caretaker and are tasked with taking on the emotional labor of the adults and children around them. You may find yourself trying to protect others from their own pain; draining your energy and preventing you from nurturing your own emotional needs. This can be a sign that the emotional responsibility of your parents or family members has been passed down to you, causing ripples of codependent relationships and people pleasing tendencies at work and home.
Recognizing this tendency to carry others’ burdens is essential in breaking the cycle. It’s important to begin learning that you are not responsible for other people’s emotions. You deserve to take up the space necessary to heal and learn how to prioritize taking care of yourself. Learning to set healthy boundaries, and seeking support in therapy, can help you heal this generational burden.
4. Scarcity Mindset:
A deep fear of financial instability, even in times when you are secure, is another sign of generational trauma. If your family has experienced poverty, financial struggles, or food insecurity in the past, you may carry the lingering belief that there will never be enough. Even when your circumstances have changed, this mindset can create feelings of fear around money or an urge to hoard.
Scarcity mindset often leads to overworking, anxiety about the future, and prevents you from enjoying the present moment for fear it will be taken away. Breaking free from this pattern can help you change your beliefs around money and also heal emotional wounds that have been passed down through your family.
You may find yourself hoarding resources, like keeping expired food or making unnecessary purchases, or working tirelessly to "secure" your future. This can also lead to constant worry or feelings of inadequacy. Therapy focused on limiting beliefs around scarcity and money can help to shift this mindset and create space for future generations’ healing.
5. Emotional Repression:
If you grew up in a family where emotions were dismissed or even shamed, you might find it difficult to express or process your own feelings. Emotional repression is a common coping mechanism in families where vulnerability was seen as a weakness or where emotional safety wasn’t available. Unfortunately, children in these households often do not learn how to identify or regulate their emotions.
As an adult, perhaps you struggle with expressing emotions like sadness, anger, or pride, fearing judgment or rejection. This can lead to a sense of emotional numbness, making it difficult to connect with your feelings and others on a deeper level. Recognizing opportunities to identify and regulate emotions, instead of repression, can be a potent tool for breaking this cycle.
Many people who repress emotions experience physical symptoms like chronic tension, headaches, or digestive issues. The body keeps the score, as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk writes. The emotions that weren’t allowed to be expressed remain trapped within, affecting both your mental and physical health.
How to Begin Healing:
Healing from generational trauma is a deeply personal and often transformative process. It requires curiosity, self-compassion, and a willingness to break free from familiar, old patterns. Here are some ways you can begin healing:
Inner Child Work and Family History Exploration:
Healing generational trauma requires loving self-inquiry and honoring your family’s history with gratitude, not blaming. Inner child work can help you connect with younger versions of yourself who may have experienced emotional wounds you were never able to process. This connection to your inner child can allow you to access deeper self-compassion and let go of the burdens that were never yours to carry.
For some people, exploring one’s family history can help bring compassion for how these patterns of trauma have impacted those who came before us. By acknowledging the pain your family has endured, you can begin to hold the inherited emotions with curiosity and compassion and make space for your own healing journey.
Mental Health Therapy or Somatic Healing:
Therapy, particularly trauma-focused therapies, can be incredibly helpful in healing generational wounds. Bottom-up therapeutic approaches, like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Brainspotting, IFS (Internal Family Systems) or somatic therapy, focus on helping the body release trauma that has been passed down through generations. Somatic work can be especially effective, as it allows you to connect with your felt sensations, exploring where and how these emotional wounds present in you, and release generational trauma from the body.
Working with a therapist who specializes in trauma can help you understand how these generational wounds have affected your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It also provides a supportive space to work through healing, breaking the cycle of trauma one step at a time.
You no longer have to carry what is not yours. Healing is about honoring where you came from while choosing a new path forward. The journey may be challenging, but with curiosity, compassion, and aligned therapeutic support, you can create a new emotional legacy—not only for yourself but for future generations. If you would like to speak with Kyrie Sedano, LMFT, about support for intergenerational trauma therapy, please reach out here to schedule your free virtual consultation.
