58th Edition

To give you a short overview of this little book - it's written by a therapist who tells the stories of clients whose lives have been greatly affected by trauma that occurred generations before they were born.

It tells the tales of these brave and fascinating people who told their stories and healed through the journey but also intersperses research findings to help interpret and provide a scientific framework for the stories and results.

But THIS. THIS QUOTE I highlighted, underlined, and even dogeared in my book.

Let's just unpack that for a bit.

So, when we have trauma, even/especially intergenerational trauma that doesn't get spoken or processed, our bodies hold that.

Of course, we know from research like from The Body Keeps the Score, that trauma is held in our bodies, but it's also passed down in our genes, micro-expressions, and interactions within a family.

So, the converse is that when we do our own work, we release ourselves from the bondage of our ancestors' trauma. We free ourselves to live our own lives. I know even in my own family, we don't like to talk about the "bad things." We, like many families, often walk around issues and do our best to function like a beautiful, normal family (whatever that means).

But what happens is - anxiety disorders pop up in future generations, obsessions about "what if" scenarios that never happened, fears about children, work, relationships that leave us paralyzed for no apparent reason.

But! When we speak the truth, however ugly it is, we break through the chains and the cycle ENDS WITH US.

As I've grown older, I become more aware that life is fleeting and my days with the older generations are limited. I need to ask the questions now. I need to find out who I am and where I came from NOW because once they are gone, the untold stories die with them.

Is this scary? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. But is it enlightening and fruitful? Absolutely.

Even in the past month, I spent a long weekend with my mother and aunt - one that I'll cherish forever because I got to ask all the things. Why did this happen? What did she say? Even down to the reason for the names of all of the kids in the family.

While to the outside, it may seem like mere curiosity, it's way more than that. I'm trying to make sense of who I am and what stories are currently being lived out within and through me that have remained silent for generations.

As I do this heart-wrenching work within myself, I free up the next generation to live their life. No more repeating of what what not spoken - the littles ones get to live their story, unburdened and free to make their own mistakes without ancestors' spillage seeping onto them.

So again, what does this have to do with sandtray?

Sandtray brings out trauma that is stored in the right brain, those feelings and actions that we're even aware of but often run the show.

When we are living out the stories of our grandparents and great-grandparents, our body is aware but our mind (especially the left brain) remains in the dark, making progress forward extremely difficult.

Think of it like driving at night with no headlights - you may end up where you want to go, but it will take a lot longer and you may up high-centered in a ditch.

So, when we bring IN the sandtray into our sessions, we allow the trauma that was passed down through generations to be heard and to come alive through the images.

And what happens? Once it's heard and held, it can then be healed.

To make this even more personal, one of the generational legacies on both sides of my family is the issue of a woman's weight. My literal first memory is in a Weight Watchers line with my mother and aunt waiting for them to find out their worth through numbers on a scale.

Given that, I honestly have no memory of a time when I wasn't aware of my weight or my appearance. I desperately wish I could have been that little girl who loved her body and just saw it as an extension of herself - something to be cherished and treated kindly - much like your first Huffy bike with pink streamers and a basket on the front.

But, that isn't my story and I don't wish that on any little member of my family.

So what I can do now? Work on myself, change my narrative, listen to, absorb, and integrate the stories of the women before me so that the females that come after me aren't saddled with the ever-present whisper "you'd be good enough if you were thinner."

Like I mentioned earlier, sources appear in our lives as we need a message.

Just in this past week, one of my messages came through a powerful, soul crushing, but hopeful ballad from an up and coming artist Maddie Zahm.

Watch the video and listen to the words. This could so easily be about my journey, even if I'm not a member of the LGBTQ community.

Stop what you're doing now - watch and listen.