Generational trauma is a Pandemic.
Generational trauma is a Pandemic.
Let me first be clear and state that this is not a comparison to Covid. Now that we have that out of the way let’s continue.
I wrote a blog post the other day, and in it, I mentioned that when I was four years old, my mother cut off my right index finger. I have written about this experience in both my book and website a few times over the years. I think about the impact that carrying the scars of our abuse has on us as survivors of childhood trauma, and I can’t help be feel a deep sense of both anger and sorrow. I feel now and will likely always feel a sense of hurt and anger but also understanding. But how can someone possibly have an understanding for the abuse that they have suffered? I look at my mother’s childhood and the torture she went through and the same as her mother and so on, and I recognize a pattern. I see in their experience that they were doing what they had been taught to do.
Everything that I understand about trauma tends to lead back to a source, to a moment when this all begins, and I hate to say it but humans hurting each other is as old as humans being in existence. We are a brutal and violent species, a virus that consumes and destroys in the words of Agent Smith from The Matrix. As I often think about my childhood and the incredible amount of abuse that was inflicted upon me and those around I now have an understanding that at its core, abuse is the language of communication of the abused. To put it simply, abused people abuse people, much like you have heard in hurt people hurt people.
We are faced with accepting the hard truth that trauma has been happening for generations. It is in our DNA, and in part, I believe that we seek violence as a way to share our emotions and in part because we don’t know how to share our emotions. It’s easier to hit someone than to say you hurt me. That is a human problem. And though I recognize the impacts of slavery dating back thousands of years, the effects of poverty, and the effect of poor education and resources worldwide, I can’t help but get it; trauma exists because we don’t take care of each other.
As I look around the world today, and I see the exponential growth we have experienced in the last decade, I believe that there will come a time when we no longer have to have this conversation. I don’t know that it will occur in our lifetime, but every part of me believes that one day this idea of peace that I am often consumed with will take shape. It has taken our species countless generations to reach this place that we have said enough, and I don’t think we are at the precipice yet, but we are damn close. And when that breakdown occurs, when that rock bottom moment happens, we will have no choice but to change.
I am so encouraged to see change happening now. I look at how my siblings and peers raise their children with love and guidance, not hate and fear. I know how this community of people who want to be healthy and healed are doing hard work together. I see how technology is giving us the space to create connections and community through our experiences. And I feel the shift in the societal norm in how we very what is and should be acceptable in how we treat each other.
I hope that my hypothesis that Healed People Heal People can be proven correct. We’ll know in time. But for right now, we stay the course. And damn, I am proud of the work we are doing! I hope you are too.
Until next time my friend…
Be Unbroken,
-Michael
P.S. You can take my brand new 1-hour course: The Key to Healing for FREE. Click Here:www.linktr.ee/michaelunbroken
Michael@ThinkUnbroken.com