It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

by Mark Wolynn

I had given up on them long ago, traded them in for better parents, divine parents, spiritual parents—all the teachers, gurus, and wise men and women who were guiding me to the next level of awakening.

where we come from affects where we go, and that what sits unresolved in our past influences our present.

we’re likely to keep repeating our unconscious patterns until we bring them into the light of awareness.

“The mother’s emotions, such as fear, anger, love, hope among others, can biochemically alter the genetic expression of her offspring.”

“Trauma has the power to reach out from the past and claim new victims,”

Paternal PTSD, she discovered, increases the likelihood that the child will feel “dissociated from [his or] her memories,”

maternal PTSD increases the likelihood that a child will have difficulty “calming down.”50

the experience in the womb shapes the brain and lays the groundwork for personality, emotional temperament, and the power of higher thought.”

unconscious loyalty as the cause of much suffering in families.

Hardage family!

When entangled, you unconsciously carry the feelings, symptoms, behaviors, or hardships of an earlier member of your family system as if these were your own.

remains unresolved with the father, and the firstborn daughter is likely to carry what remains unresolved with the mother, though this is not always the case.