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Intergenerational Healing: Breaking Family Patterns You Never Knew Existed
"You are not starting from scratch. You are starting from experience—some of it not even your own."
— Brooke Sprowl
Why Intergenerational Healing Is the Work of a Lifetime (and Beyond)
Many of us carry emotional burdens that don’t start with us. Family pain, trauma, beliefs, and behaviors can be passed down through generations—not just through stories and parenting, but also through nervous system patterns, unspoken rules, and even genetics.
This is where the work of intergenerational healing begins: identifying and interrupting inherited emotional wounds, so the pain doesn’t pass forward. In 2025, therapists are increasingly using trauma-informed and systemic approaches to help individuals recognize, feel, and release patterns they never consciously chose.
Let’s explore what intergenerational trauma is, how it lives in your mind and body, and what healing actually looks like—so you can reclaim your story and rewrite the future.
What Is Intergenerational Trauma?
What it is:
Intergenerational trauma refers to emotional pain or unresolved trauma that gets passed down from parents, grandparents, and earlier ancestors. It can manifest as:
Chronic anxiety, depression, or emotional disconnection
Repeating toxic relationship patterns
Hypervigilance, people-pleasing, or perfectionism
Shame, scarcity mindset, or emotional shutdown
Even without direct abuse, trauma can be inherited through attachment patterns, epigenetic changes, or cultural survival mechanisms.
How it works:
When trauma isn’t processed, it gets passed down—consciously or unconsciously—through behavior, silence, or emotional modeling. Children often absorb unspoken fears, unresolved grief, or beliefs about love, safety, and worth.
Ask yourself: Are there emotional patterns in your family that seem to repeat generation after generation?
The Science Behind Inherited Emotional Wounds
Research shows trauma can alter gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms, meaning stress responses and emotional patterns can literally be encoded and transmitted biologically.
Additionally, neuroscience reveals that children develop their sense of self and safety based on caregivers’ emotional regulation. If your caregivers were dysregulated, disconnected, or overwhelmed, their pain may have shaped your nervous system too.
Therapist insight: Your anxiety or emotional struggles may have roots in your grandmother’s grief or your father’s fear. It’s not about blame—it’s about awareness.
Ready to Break the Cycle?
You don’t have to carry what was never yours. At My LA Therapy, our trauma-informed therapists help you release inherited emotional pain and step into your own identity.
6 Signs You're Carrying Family Wounds That Aren't Yours
You experience intense emotions but don’t understand their origin.
You repeat relationship patterns seen in your parents or grandparents.
You carry guilt, shame, or responsibility that feels larger than your life.
You feel like you’re living someone else’s script.
You fear becoming like a parent even while doing everything differently.
You feel a deep urge to ‘break the cycle‘—but don’t know how.
What Intergenerational Healing Looks Like in Therapy
1. Mapping Your Emotional Inheritance
Therapists may guide you to create a genogram (emotional family tree) to explore patterns of trauma, silence, addiction, or abandonment.
2. Inner Child and Parts Work
You learn to meet the parts of you shaped by family pain—validating and reparenting them, rather than repeating or rejecting them.
3. Somatic Trauma Work
Because inherited trauma lives in the body, somatic practices like breathwork, EMDR, and movement help release old fear patterns stored in the nervous system.
4. Boundary Repair and Emotional Individuation
Breaking family patterns sometimes means saying: “This is where I end, and they begin.” Boundaries help you love your family without losing yourself.
5. Ancestral Healing Practices
Some therapists integrate spiritual or cultural tools (e.g., ritual, meditation, storytelling) to honor the past while rewriting your role in the lineage.
Ask yourself: What healing is my generation being asked to do?
Reclaim Your Story, Rewire the Future
You inherited more than DNA—you inherited patterns. But you also have the power to change them. Work with a therapist who helps you untangle emotional legacies and write a new chapter.
The Gifts of Breaking Generational Cycles
Healing intergenerational trauma is hard—but it’s also liberating. Over time, you may notice:
Greater emotional freedom and clarity
Healthier relationships and communication
Reduced anxiety and reactivity
A stronger sense of identity and agency
Peace with your family history—even if it’s imperfect
Healing insight: You are not just healing for yourself. You are healing for the generations before you—and the ones yet to come.
Stay curious, stay compassionate, and know that your journey is uniquely yours.
And in that uniqueness lies your power.
In the meantime, stay true, brave, and kind,
– Brooke
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Brooke Sprowl is an industry-leading expert and author in psychology, spirituality, and self-transformation. Her insights have featured in dozens of media outlets such as Huffington Post, Business Insider, Cosmopolitan Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Spectrum One News, Mind Body Green, YourTango, and many more. As the founder and CEO of My LA Therapy, she leads a team of 15 dedicated therapists and wellness professionals. Brooke has been a featured speaker at prominent universities and venues such as UCLA School of Public Affairs, USC, Loyola Marymount University, the Mark Taper Auditorium, and Highways Performance Gallery, to name a few. With a Master’s degree in Clinical Social Welfare with a Mental Health Specialization from UCLA, a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from USC, and certifications in peak performance and flow science from the Flow Research Collective, Brooke has helped hundreds of prominent leaders and CEO’s overcome anxiety, relationship difficulties, and trauma and reclaim a sense of purpose, vitality, and spiritual connection. With 15 years of experience in personal development and self-transformation as a therapist and coach, she has pioneered dozens of original concepts and frameworks to guide people in overcoming mental health challenges and awakening spiritually. Brooke is the host of the podcast, Waking Up with Brooke Sprowl. She is passionate about writing, neuroscience, philosophy, integrity, poetry, spirituality, creativity, effective altruism, personal and collective healing, and curating luxury, transformational retreat experiences for high-achievers seeking spiritual connection.
