Ripples
The ripple you feel started somewhere, and maybe not with you. Trauma is not just something that happened. It is something that keeps moving. It can affect how we view ourselves, how we feel even when we cannot name the emotion, and how we connect and engage with others. I like to use the public health or awareness calendar as a reminder for my own well-being, and February draws our attention to heart health and to celebrating Black history. Through the lens of the work of Green Shoe Foundation, these two things have great alignment as we look at the mind-body connection to the experiences of trauma and intergenerational trauma.
Our work is shaped by Pia Mellody’s Model of Developmental Immaturity. We define trauma as anything less than nurturing that happened in childhood that impacts how you think, feel and behave today. Historical trauma extends well beyond our childhood. It is important to explore the imprint of that lineage trauma. Like a stone thrown into water generations ago, the ripples continue. These ripples move through families, attachment patterns, nervous systems and the beliefs people carry about who they “ought” to be. If we want real healing, we cannot just study the stone; we have to understand the water.
When adults carry unresolved trauma, it affects emotional attunement, boundary clarity, self-regulation, relational safety and self-worth. What we define as the five core developmental capacities are injured in chronically unsafe environments (beyond what is just physical, this can also mean emotional and psychological safety). Trauma impacts having healthy self-esteem, maintaining healthy boundaries, understanding your own reality, expressing and attending to needs and wants, and experiencing moderation in all things. A child shaped by trauma (and in the case of historical trauma, oppression), internalizes messages that they are less than, that their needs will not be met, that they may become unsafe by asking for those needs or wants to be met, that they must over function in order to survive, that emotions and feelings are weakness, or that their own perception (what we define as your reality) cannot be trusted. Using the ripple analogy, the ripples turn into adaptations to survive. Think of these survival ripples as a relational adaptation to early injury. These survival strategies, when repeated across generations, may begin to look like one’s personality or even culture, when they are actually adaptations to an injury (survival skills). Over-functioning becomes virtue. Self-neglect becomes loyalty. Emotional suppression becomes strength. Hypervigilance becomes responsibility. And calling these out in family systems or communities can start to feel like betrayal. Healing does not dishonor history or survival; healing honors and builds on it.
Not intentional but with impact, parents and caregivers pass on this unresolved trauma to children (what we call “carried shame”), and that trauma changes the capacity of the child. Children absorb a parent’s unresolved trauma; caregivers may have limited awareness of how their unresolved trauma has an impact and causes harm.
Imagine the surface of water after a stone hits it. The ripples expand outward. You cannot calm the water by pretending the stone never hit. If nothing intervenes, the ripples continue until they fade. Healing is the moment when someone steps into the water to restore self-esteem, to practice healthy boundary-setting with others and self, to engage in emotional regulation, to experience healthy dependency and interdependence … and by doing so, creates a counter-ripple. Something new with a new pattern expanding outward. The water settles, and as it settles, perceptions can change, and your most authentic self can emerge. Children raised in that new water with new ripples will inherit something different. There may still be an undercurrent of experiences, but through healing, we recognize it, get curious and create a counter-current. Ripples, given enough time and courage, change the shape of the water.
I invite you to get curious about your history. A history that is remembered and cannot be erased, but a history for which the trajectory can be altered. If you notice that experiences from your history or childhood are impacting how you think, feel and behave today, consider attending one of our transformational retreats. February is a month to turn your attention to the heart and soul of who you are, so that you can live fully and authentically in the world.
