Healing Generational Trauma: Why Parents Must Address Their Own Wounds

Trauma is not just an emotional experience—it lives in our biology. Research in epigenetics has shown that trauma can modify our DNA, passing unresolved wounds through generations. As Dr. Rachel Yehuda, a pioneer in the field, states: “Trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.” This means the pain our ancestors endured can shape our nervous system, influencing our reactions, fears, and coping mechanisms in ways we may not fully understand.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, reinforces this when he writes, “The body keeps the score, and our biology changes as a result of traumatic experiences.” For parents, this understanding is essential. When we do not address our own trauma, we unintentionally pass it on to our children—not only genetically, but through our emotional patterns, behaviors, and the way we relate. Many of the struggles we witness in our kids—anxiety, aggression, withdrawal, or perfectionism—may actually be their coping response to an inherited or unspoken trauma lingering in the family system.

Family Constellations offers a unique and profound lens to understand these dynamics. Developed by Bert Hellinger, this approach reveals the hidden loyalties and entanglements that bind us to the pain of previous generations. Hellinger observed, “What is excluded in a family system does not disappear; it manifests in later generations.” Through this work, what was unconscious becomes visible, and what was too heavy to carry alone begins to find relief in the greater field. Parents who engage in this process not only free themselves but open space for their children to grow with greater ease.

Trauma is not always obvious. Sometimes it hides beneath persistent guilt, chronic anxiety, unexplained physical symptoms, repeated relationship struggles, or a sense of disconnection from oneself. These signs often indicate unresolved emotional wounds. Children are exquisitely sensitive to the emotional states of their parents and may manifest their own symptoms as a way to cope with what is unspoken or unresolved in the home. Healing our trauma is, therefore, one of the most loving actions we can offer them.

Gabor Maté reminds us:
“Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.”
Healing requires that we turn toward ourselves with curiosity, compassion, and presence. It is not a solitary journey; trauma often begins in disconnection, and so its healing requires reconnection—through community, therapeutic spaces, and supportive relationships.

Presence becomes a medicine. As Sri Mooji teaches, “Your presence is the most precious gift you can give to the world.” When we sit with our pain instead of avoiding it, when we breathe into what once felt unbearable, something softens. Presence opens the doorway for compassion, and compassion creates the conditions for true transformation—both within us and within the family system.

How I Accompany Families in This Healing Process In my work with families, with mothers and fathers, I witness every day how trauma reveals itself in small gestures: a tension in the voice, the gaze that turns away, a silence heavier than it seems, a child who “feels too much,” an adult who “can handle everything” until they suddenly can’t.

When I accompany someone, I don’t do it from the idea of “fixing” anything, but from presence, deep listening, and absolute respect for what emerges. My approach integrates Family Constellations, somatic work, and Gabor Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry, because trauma expresses itself both in our history and in our bodies.

Sometimes we work with very simple movements—breath finally dropping into the belly, a sentence that dares to be spoken for the first time, an inner image that shifts its place. Other times we engage in a deeper systemic movement: returning burdens that do not belong to us, including a forgotten ancestor, or recognizing with honesty something that has been hidden for generations.

I have seen parents cry when they discover that what they believed was “their problem” was actually the echo of a pain that began long before they were born. I have also seen children relax, sleep better, or stop carrying certain symptoms once their parents begin this work. A mother once told me, “I don’t know what you did, but my child breathes differently now.” And it isn’t magic: when the system finds relief, everyone breathes differently.

In every session, I hold a space where what was frozen can move again, where what was excluded can be seen, where truth can be spoken without fear, and where the body can trust again in its own capacity to feel and self-regulate. I accompany with presence, compassion, and a deeply human gaze, because I know that no one chooses their wounds—but we can choose how we embrace them today.

This is the sacred essence of Family Constellations: healing in relationship, healing in community, healing in the field of life that holds us all. What once felt too heavy for one nervous system becomes lighter when shared among many. Stories untangle. Patterns loosen. The system begins to reorganize itself toward truth, inclusion, and balance.

Healing trauma is like tending to the roots of a great tree. Though the wounds may be buried underground, perhaps shaped by storms that passed long before we were born, they still influence the strength of the trunk, the openness of the branches, and the fruit the tree can bear. When we bring light, water, and presence to those roots, the entire tree transforms. It grows stronger. It stands taller. Its fruit nourishes not only us but generations to come.

**When parents choose to heal, they do not heal alone—they heal the soil from which their children grow.
And so, each act of presence, each breath of compassion, each courageous step into our own story becomes a quiet blessing whispered into our lineage:
May the future be lighter. May love flow freely again.