Anxiety Didn’t Start With You: Inherited Trauma
How do you know if your great-grandmother might be to blame for your anxiety?
Go with me here: Imagine your ancestor survived the Potato Famine.
At 4 years old, she and her 7 older siblings boarded a boat to America. They barely survive the journey. They live in someone’s attic and scrape together 1 meal per day from begging.
Her dad (your great great grandfather) drinks to ease his anxiety.
Her mom (your great great grandmother) works 12 hour days to feed her 8 children, but most of the money goes to her husband’s bar tab.
After making it through their first winter, her mother faces a devastating choice: Do I try to keep my children together and let them starve? Or do I give them to an orphanage where they will at least be fed and kept safe?
In the middle of the night, she packs her bag and kisses her sleeping children one last time. When she gets to her youngest (your great-grand) who is shivering in her makeshift bed of crumpled newspaper, she wraps her in what feels like a “blanket,” kisses her forehead, and sneaks into the night.
This little girl’s name is Lillian Degrasse. She was my great grandmother.
The story goes that Child Protection Services found her alone in an attic, wrapped in the American flag. She was taken to an orphange where she lived until the 3rd grade when her best friend’s family adopted her.
By the time I knew my great grandmother, she was a sassy retired bartender adorned in red lipstick and fake jewels attached to clip-on earrings.
She was my first lesson in inherited trauma.
Inherited trauma is the idea that we inherit the trauma patterns and stress levels of our ancestors.
If a mom is abused and develops hypervigilance around men, she might pass down her hypervigilance to her daughters.
If a parent is a veteran who turns to alchool to ease the anxiety, he might unintentionally teach his kids to suppress their emotions with substances.
If the children never met their parents, would they inherit these same behaviors? Studies say yes.
Studies prove that inherited trauma is connected to both nature and nurture.
Nurture: We observe our caregivers anxious behavior (substance abuse, hoarding, hypervigilance) and we mimic it.
Nature: Even if we never meet our parents, we still mimic them.
A few years ago I was teaching students in Level 1&2 EFT and I wanted to give them evidence that their high stress levels didn’t always have to do with their childhood. I found a study that blew my mind.
A Mouse Study that Proves Inherited Trauma
Researches wanted to know if PTSD is passed down genetically so they gathered a group of mice and intentinonally gave them PTSD (sorry I know!)
In phase 1: They sounded a bell and sent a small electric shock to the mice. The mice obviously went into fight or flight from each shock.
In phase 2: The researchers stopped shocking the mice (thank you) but continued to sound the bell. Every time the mice heard the bell, they went into fight or fight, even though the electric shock was gone: PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
Phase 3: They split the mice into groups where they made mice babies. When the bell sounded, the babies went into fight or flight… even though they had NEVER been shocked.
Phase 4: These mice had babies. When the bell sounded, the grandbabies went into fight or flight… even though the trauma was two generations back.
Is this shocking? No pun intended.
More shocking is that one group of mice was separated from their parents disproving that nurture is to blame for the jumpy behavior. Their bodies carried the jumpy PTSD in their DNA, no parenting required.
Your anxiety does not start with you.
When I was a kid and my parents went on a date, I would cry by the window the entire time, plagued with the fear: “Are they coming back!?”
Everyone acted like my anxiety was irrational, but maybe I was playing out my great-grandmother’s memories.
My parents leaving for dinner was the alarm bell, triggering the shock that my great grandma etched into my DNA.
How can you tell if your anxiety stems from grandma?
When I taught this research to my EFT students, I shared a handful of strategies to release the imprint of inherited trauma. Here is one that you can try this weekend:
EFT and writing exercise to break cycles of inherited trauma:
Make a list of the core events, traumas or transitions your caregivers and ancestors faced: Even if you dont know your parents or ancestors, make a list of the challenges they most-likely faced considering their race, age, and socioeconomic status. (It’s safe to say that most ancestors lived through some kind of war, immigration, depression, and racism).
Measure your current emotional attachment to each memory: Rate your level of emotional intensity when thinking about each memory on a scale of 0-10. If your emotional intensity rises above a 3, it means that her trauma is spiking your stress response.
For example, “Girl abandoned in attic” - sinking in chest level 6
War veteran deported by his country - anger - 5
Racial Abuse - sadness - 8
parent going through bankruptcy - fear- 4
Release emotional charge around each event with EFT Tapping: Choose 1 event from your list per week. Tap through each memory using an evidence-based approach in my EFT for Inherited Trauma workshop. Continue breathing and tapping until you feel your emotional intensity dissipate.
Once you feel calmer, cut chords with your ancestor: Write a letter to your ancestor. Honor and celebrate all that they survived. Then, tell them what you don’t want to pass to the next generation.
Example: Thank you grandmother for learning to survive with nothing, enjoy life without money, and for having an eagle eye for people who aren’t trustworthy. Thank you, but I don’t want my son to inherit a fear of poverty, abandonment, or trust issues.
In one of my advanced workshops I had students ask their ancestors what they would have wanted to pass down as their legacy. Most ancestors don’t want us to inherit their baggage or failure. They want us to have the life they never had the chance to live.
You can stop the cycle of inherited anxiety, hypervigilance, anger and scarcity by transforming your relationship to your past, and their past. You get to choose waht you take, or leave, from their story.
In the words of Richard Rohr, "The pain that is not transformed is transmitted."
You can transform it. It doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens with 1, 15, 30, 60 minute window at a time.
Start with this EFT writing exercise.
When the revelations, questions, and insights come, let it motivate you to keep digging.
If you want to learn EFT Tapping techniques to safely process your conditioning, without getting re-triggered, I highly recommend the EFT for Inherited Trauma and Shadow Healing workshop.
I am happy to help you uncover the core emotion beneath your roller coasters and reactive behavior. I am one click away at jackie@theeftmasterclass.com
Here for the feelings,
Jackie Viramontez
EFT Master Trainer