Takeaways & Reflections | Coming Home To Ourselves
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Generational learning and ancestral trauma run deep in families. It’s not even something I gave much thought to before becoming an Advanced Certified Grief Recovery Specialist.
In episode 37, Angela shared how the lessons her mom was taught were passed down generations, impacting her life ten-fold.
It takes courage to break the cycle of generational learning because it takes action and deep, internal work to address it.
In this week’s episode, I talk more about my takeaways and reflections from Angela’s episode and also from Shandra’s episode, where she shared about her memory loss.
I share today, my reflections about the impact of not connecting the dots of our grief to our behaviors and about what’s in a name.
Angela and Shandra both had to find their way back home to themselves, in ways that required each of them to address what they thought was the truth. They found what was true for themselves and, in my personal experience of having done the same, have felt more at home in my own skin than I ever have.
We are all just walking each other home (a quote I read not long ago). And, at the same time, finding our way back to ourselves, too.
Resources:
And then Episode 38 with Shonda Shultz titled Who am I. Going through an end of life doula training program just completed my YouMap Certification and I will link to those in the show notes if you’re interested in learning more. But The conflicting feelings that would cause a child and it wasn’t just physical abuse. It was sexual abuse too. And that’s what really struck me in her story. Through this podcast, I’ve met so many incredible people with who have led really experienced lives and I use that word experience because For the most part, there are experiences that people don’t ask for. And so, I know I spoken to about children and resilience. And the one message that I would love to highlight that Angela said during her episode was that resilience should not be our natural state. And I could not agree more.
Children don’t ask to become resilient. It is something that is forced on children. So this idea that children bounce back and are resilient, is really sending the wrong message. If you’re find yourself saying that about a child, ask yourself what that child is going through. And see if there’s a way that you can help lift them up. And that was one thing too that Angela shared in that it seemed that everyone turned their back on her. There was no one for her to turn to no one became her advocate. No one stood up for her. And it wasn’t until she found herself. Knocking on death’s door. Dealing with addiction and attempting suicide. She found a therapist who really changed helped change her life. He’s still her therapist to this day. And it’s just a really rich conversation. I have so many notes here that I’m not even sure where to start.
Complex Trauma As a Child
Another aspect of our conversation that really struck me too is that she talked about use the term this, like this complex trauma as a child. And what she became good at as a child was this critical thinking and creativity was kind of looked at and viewed as an insult. As a child, she like that was not a good skill or asset or strength, really. And she realized that was also her superpower when she got older. Writing and creating and just being able to look at things critically. Because when you are bombarded with these stressors, coming at you each and every day, you’re constantly on alert. And you know, things don’t happen have to happen continuously either to have that sensation. Think of it like PTSD, you know, you just have to have one incident, and anything that reminds you of that or sparks that you can have that same physical reaction. So she ended up with this hyper-awareness. And she turned that into a craft and into an art form. in a beautiful way, she ended up getting her PhD in Creative Arts and becoming a professor and self published author as well. Actually, I don’t know if it was self published, I should take that back. I’m not sure if it was self published. I don’t think it was actually. But anyway, her book is called snakes and ladders and Sharon she shares her story I believe, from what she said very candidly in her book.
But everything that she has done since that time and since that experience has been about mothering herself. And I really had a picture in my mind as she was sharing about that because when you don’t feel like you grow up with the mother, like the mother that you wish you would have had. You do tend to like she did mother yourself. But it takes a long time to get there. We hope you get there to the point where you can mother yourself but for many children who grow up in circumstances like that where you’re abused by your mother or you know a parent experiences like that really set you up for failure. And like Angela said she should have been a monster. Based on her childhood experiences, she should have been a monster. The one thing too, that she shared was that when her mom ended up passing away, people said that she needed to make peace with her mom. And she didn’t go to the funeral, because she stated that she couldn’t have her truth there. And her mom had actually changed her name as well. But I thought that took so much courage, because how often do we do things to please others to make others feel more comfortable. And she just knew that was not something that was felt and in integrity with what her experience was.
How to Raise Children
She shares advice for parents and that if you want your child to one day care for you, raise them to be humans, how to be humans. You have to show them what care really is. And I love that part. I loved how she shared that as well. I think there’s just this overarching thought of I mean, that really causes me to reflect too, and just reviewing the notes again, let’s just imagine being a child and waking up every day, knowing and feeling secure, and loved. And it’s a really tragic and heartbreaking thought to know that so many children out there are not waking up feeling secure and loved, and hurting children become hurting adults. And I have seen this play out on this podcast in nearly every single episode, nearly every single interview, I’ve had these experiences from our childhood or from just our just our lives in general we can you can have an experience in your teen years, and it creeps up again in your 20s and 30s and 40s. You can have an experience in your 20s. And it creeps up again in your 40s and 50s and 60s.
These experiences that wound you on such a deep level, they don’t just go away. It says if there’s glass in this wound, and we often try to just cover it with a band aid and and let it go and hope it heals by itself and hope that we can forget about it. But that glass just festers in that wound. It is relentless, and it becomes infected and it gets to the point where you can’t ignore it anymore. And that’s a lot like grief. It’s a lot like trauma. We can’t just ignore these things. They do creep up in our lives and they impact every area of our lives. Whether you grow up to be in business, if you have, you know, your own business as an entrepreneur, you might have self worth issues. You might have money issues, you might have relationship issues, which then affect your business because everything affects everything. Everything touches everything. And because you are the common denominator in your life and in every relationship that you have. I was interviewed for a podcast today and I talked about this very thing and how these childhood experiences like Angela’s or like my own are like yours if you’re listening. We often don’t connect what is happening to us in adulthood to our past or to grief things that of the ways that we’ve lost people or things or what have you. These are many different kinds of grief and loss. But we have to address what it is that is leaving us feel this ease. And we often don’t connect the dots to grieve.
Honesty is the Antidote of Shame
I would just ask you to think about what your childhood is experiences were like, what has left you maybe a scar to try to heal. Or maybe you had a wound that just got reopened with another loss. That’s the thing to like we want to try and forget and bury and we can have another loss or another experience that kind of feels like it’s kind of opening up that wound again. That’s really essentially what happened to me. When it comes to grief, I’d be remiss to say that usually shame isn’t involved as well. And Angela, and I talked about that a little bit in her episode. And I have a note here, one of the things that I said during her episode is that honesty is the antidote for shame. When we can really become honest about where we are in our lives, what we’re feeling, where we want to be, what we feel we didn’t do, or could have done, or what others did, that have left us feeling emotionally incomplete, that have left us feeling shame, we can start to understand then the impact of shame. When there is grief, there’s often shame as well, they kind of go hand in hand, they don’t kind of they do. I also had asked her thoughts on being a survivor. Because what I hear sometimes, too, with Grievers, and you know, they’ve had a loved one that completed suicide, they might say they’re a suicide survivor.
Or if someone who can try attempted suicide, they might call themselves a suicide survivor, for example. And I wanted to hear what her thoughts were around that term. Because essentially, she survived a lot at the hands of her mother. And despite her experiences, like I said, she ended up getting her PhD, which I just still, it just blows my mind. But she said that she embraces it, she actually identifies with it. And I just really appreciated her perspective of the word because sometimes that can keep people stuck in their story of being a survivor. And it’s also often a way that people find comfort and other people who have had similar experiences, and who relate as a survivor as well. I guess it feels good for you. So be it. But I know for some who perhaps haven’t done as much personal work into their grief and trauma as Angela has for the past 20 years working with her therapist. That is a word that could easily keep you stuck. Just something to reflect on. And keep in mind.
Generational Pain | Generational Trauma
Another area of conversation that really I felt the energy from Angela in a concerned and passionate way was talking when she talked about this generational pain that had been passed down through the generations. And I actually have a note here that says, briefcase of pain is the phrase that came to my mind as she was sharing how her grandpa in World War Two was mistakenly told that his wife and baby whom his wife was pregnant with had died. And so he had stopped writing her. And they since he believed that he was now a grieving spouse husband, they put him in an office or training program and basically put him in an office with an abundance of booze available. And so he came home to a life that he thought he wasn’t going to have realizing that his wife was still alive that he had a child and they went on to have more children but something like that really changes you and and I imagine and I’m not sure if this is what she said in the episode, but because of all of that exposure to the alcohol that he had while serving in the military. I imagine that was something that I habit that he kept once he came home as well. I don’t know that for sure if she mentioned that, but just that trauma of thinking someone is has died, right. But there was a lot of family history that was found in this briefcase that she is not really fully dug into herself yet.
But she explained to how Sydney Australia had this. It’s has this history of killing these children like baby, there’s so many babies skeletons had been found in yard, she said she called them baby farms. She said that homeless and destitute kids from the US and the UK, to Australia, were sent to Australia to and farmed out for profit. And this was back on in 50 years ago. So the roots of that have penetrated generations after. And I think we see this playing out in among various different demographics, where this generational trauma is being passed down. And the one thing that Angela shared, and I made it a quote graphic because there was such an important point I felt that needs to be highlighted was that we don’t have to live out the histories that were given. Whether this is you know, teachings or generational learning from your parents or abuse or beliefs or what have you, or it goes back generations of generations of abuse, or again, belief systems, values, all of those things are generally passed down generations. But trauma can be too because it’s stored in the body. And again, we don’t have to live out the histories that were given. Whether they’re ancestral, or whether they’re just one generation back, and it was your parents telling you this, that or the other thing, you don’t have to become that. You don’t have to live that out. Angela was told she’d be dead by 16 with a needle in her arm. Instead, she got her PhD. She did not live out the history that she was given. But she very well could have. That could have been her story. Like she said she should have been a monster. So many amazing nuggets of wisdom from Angela’s episode. I hope you check it out.
The Accident that Saved Shandra’s Life
And moving on to Shandra’s episode. Who am I? We talked about her experience of not remembering much of her life, including her own daughter. And could you imagine walking away from a car accident? Like physically? You look okay, right? You look in the mirror and you’re okay. But something’s not right. You don’t recognize the people around you. That’s a loss. I can’t imagine I mean, the conflict that would stir up within yourself, amongst your relationships with others. Like she said, You know, people had trouble believing her. And the grief that must have caused. I mean, really think about that. If you went about your day tomorrow, and had an accident, and you could not remember, I just can’t imagine. It’s like you have these people around you who want you so desperately to remember. And like she said, like she shared in her episode, frequently asking her Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember? It’s like this, like taking a razor blade and just taking a little cut each time because that has to be painful. To know that no, I don’t remember. But I want to and the grief that holds. I just can’t imagine. And that’s why I really was excited to have Shandra on because it’s an experience that not a lot of people can share in the knowing of what that’s like. Not a lot of people do share in that experience, I should say, what was interesting about Shandra story too, is that she viewed her accident as the accident that saved her life.
Because that put her on the path to relapse, and she did not want that. And so that’s when she really looked to work on herself and understanding that I want something better. I want something more for my life and for myself and for my daughter. And out of that came with an interesting part of our conversation was about her changing her name. We identify so much with her name, don’t we? Some people don’t. And that’s part of why she changed her name if she didn’t identify with her name, her birth given name. And she had tried several iterations of it as I mean, I did too. I was Vicki for the longest time. And it wasn’t until I was got married that I went with Victoria. And honestly, like today, Victoria feels so much better. When I changed to Victoria, it did. And people had a hard time calling me Victoria. In fact, there are still people that I don’t know if they insist, or if it’s just out of habit, or, or what but they still call me Vicki. I don’t correct them. But in truth, if you know, I go by Victoria, why would you call me Vicki? Right? And that’s a point that Shandra brought up is that why do we have such a hard time calling people by the name that they wish to be called? It’s really common with the nicknames.
You know, I have a daughter, Alexandra. And to me, she’s Alexandra. But to friends and herself actually she goes by Alex, I need to have a conversation with her. Because does she prefer Alex over Alexandra? What feels better to her? Alex or Alexandra? I still need to have that conversation with her. In fact, and I intend to because I think it’s so important that if we’re not sure then we ask, even though I love her name, I think it’s beautiful. I love Alexandra. Maybe it’s not fitting her right now. And that needs to be okay with me. A lot of the times I’ll say that she’s actually dra dra our son, when he was starting to talk, he would call her dra dra, because he couldn’t say Alexandra and so it’s kind of stuck. So oftentimes she is dra dra.
Looking for Healing Modalities
Anyway, Shandra has talked a lot about like this inner work, this inner child work that she has been doing, and she said in 2020, she remembered after six years of her healing work, she remembered, that’s when she remembered everything. But it took her six years to get there. And it took a lot of different healing modalities as well. She had mentioned a case against a right cache a cache of records. I know I’m butchering that, but she also mentioned cranial sacral therapy, emotion code, which I’m familiar with Reiki, she mentioned parts work, the adult chair. And so if you haven’t listened to that episode, she does actually go a little bit more into depth on the parts work. I found that interesting. I was going to actually look that up because I had never heard of it before. And I’ll probably link to that in the show notes, as well as some other resources that I couldn’t fit into the show notes on her episode. But, you know, grief is cumulative, and it’s cumulatively negative. And I’ve said that so many times, but healing is to not negative, but healing is cumulative. And it’s cumulatively positive. Like shandra said, Don’t judge yourself. And don’t live in that feeling of judgment. Because you’re not where you want to be, or you’re not where you think you should be, or focus on things that bring you joy. And the good times.
She said that the one thing grief taught her was to live, and that the meaning of life is to live it. And I think, you know, going through the end of life doula program that I’m currently going through. Obviously, it’s all about death and facing our mortality and what it means to have a Good death, if you’ve never heard that that’s a possibility it is. Now granted, it’s you know, the, the work focuses on those who have had, who are going through a terminal illness, or a chronic disease that’s increasingly becoming debilitating for those who are going through that experience. Who there is the opportunity to have a good death. And in thinking about what kind of death you would want to have, you really think about what kind of life do you want to live. And so I’ve been doing some reflection on that, as I’ve been going through that program. And really all this is all you know, the common theme between Angelo’s episode, and Shandra’s episode, and so many other episodes that have, you know, shown up on this podcast is that there is a path to self discovery.
And regardless of what healing modality you choose, it likely just choose something, just choose something and find the support, or the guidance to help you. Like Angela had a therapist for over 20 years now, and surrounded herself with people who could support her the way that she needed to be. And then she actually practice boundaries around those who couldn’t. And I think that’s an important aspect of her share, as well as in her story is that even though her mother was alive, she had created boundaries as much as she could to make sure that she was looking after herself first. And in the case of Shandra, looking for those healing modalities to help her really discover who she was with quite literally. She said that it felt like she was coming home to herself. And that’s really something I resonate with, and really have felt for myself to be true these past two years as well.
P.S. If you are interested in learning more about the healing modalities that I have to offer, including grief recovery, or Reiki energy healing. And so if you have any questions on anything that I’ve shared today, or any services that I offer, please don’t hesitate to look me up on my website, there is the contact form at www.theunleashedheart.com. I do have free resources on there for eBooks about grief and loss, as well as an opt in for my bi-weekly newsletter that I send out every other Wednesday of every month. I used to have it weekly. But I feel like to make it the best it can be I needed a little bit of space and I needed some mental bandwidth as well to ensure that it is continues to be really good content. So check those resources out. And I will also link to some things in the show notes. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.