I am fascinated by my own family curse.
In my own healing journey over the past few years I’ve been digging to find out where a lot of my wounding comes from – all the things from depression to unidentified shame about the past.
I’ve come to believe that trauma is often inherited through the family line. In fact the science 100% backs this up: trauma is passed down epigenetically, which means that even though the trauma isn’t coded into your DNA, it will affect which genes turn on and off and how they express themselves. Something about that trauma energy travels down the generations.
When you think that when your mother was in the womb of your granny, your mother already held inside her ovaries the egg that was one day to become you… it makes sense how something from generations ago can still hold such influence over us today. We were literally a part of the body that held and experienced that trauma. A part of us was there.
An important thing to know with trauma, crappy experiences and hardship is that we store the energy and experience of this event in our bodies, not in our mind – which is why we will have such fast physical reaction to things.
You know me: I see things through a lens of magic.
The way I understand this inheritance of issues it is by thinking of it as a family curse.
Once upon a time, something terrible happened in our familylineage. Our ancestors who experienced this event absorbed it into their bodies and beings and they pass it down the familyline until it can be resolved.
It’s nobody’s fault, it is just how the world works.
Some curses can be broken, some can’t. Again, no judgement, it’s just how things are.
For example, my mum had a really tough childhood and she worked really hard to give us kids as secure and happy a childhood as possible – and she did great, good on you mum.
I’ve still struggled with worthlessness and terror of conflict my whole life. It’s no where near as strong as it was in my mum, but it’s still there in me and there is no real place it came from in my life. I think it’s part family curse and part sponging it up off my mum when she was younger.
Some curses are physical, and some are energetic. We don’t just pass down physical reactions; we also receive beliefs, perceptions, paradigms about the world. These can all be blessings or curses.
Some curses aren’t exactly resolvable, but we can learn how to manage them so that it doesn’t continue getting passed down in such a destructive way.
In my lineage we have a current of depression and addiction going through both my motherline and my fatherline. I avoided the addiction curse but I definitely got the depression one. I was lucky enough to identify it and get the support I needed to manage it so that it doesn’t destroy my life or my relationships. Depression is always going to be a part of my life; it’s just how I am wired, and how the rest of my immediate familyare also wired, but it’s manageable and I’m able to have healthy relationships with peeps.
My dad was unable to do that. He’s still stuck in the curse. Hopefully I’ve done a bit bit of breaking it for the lineage. Who knows.
(On that note: I think peeps who are hooked on the idea of everything being curable and all the bad things being able to be magically fixed at some point for ever are folks who are very uncomfortable being present with difficulty or with what is. I don’t like those people.)
It’s not reasonable to expect one person to break all the curses in their family lineage. My mum broke the curse of abuse with her kids, but passed down her own embodied trauma from that abuse to us in some way. It’s not her fault that she wasn’t magically able to make everything go away – that’s not how curses work. They are like typhoons or earthquakes. My mum did really amazing in breaking some of the big familycurses and releasing her children from their influence as much as she could. Great job mum.
Sometimes we can break the curses. Sometimes we can’t.
That’s life. Life isn’t good or bad – it just is. There are curses and there are blessings, and they just are. I’m great at drawing, but crap at regulating my anxiety – cést la vie.
I like thinking of these parts of me as curses. It helps me accept them as they are, helps me understand how they carry through our lineage, and it helps me see it as something separate from me. It’s much better than hating myself for being the way I am and not being able to fix it, which was the approach I went for in my twenties (… would not recommend.)
It reminds me of how in an astrological chart there are planetary aspects and placements that are blessings and ones that are… difficult and challenging. It’s not a judgement. It’s the hand you are dealt. Everyone got a mixed bag of curses and blessings – that’s ok!
I know my family curse. I can see it, accept it as it is and have love for it. I’m so happy that we are in a time where we can get help and support with mental health so I can mitigate my particular curse a bit… and honestly, a family curse sounds a whole lot more fun to me than intergenerational trauma.
Maybe it will help you to think of your inherited stuff as a familycurse too.. or maybe you think I’m nuts.
Either way, I’m rooting for you 💖
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