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We can point fingers at colonialism for inciting the racialized discrimination and systemic oppression we still see today. Specifically, descendants of Indigenous peoples forced to attend residential schools and African Americans who have been the victims of generations of slavery, segregation, and institutionalized racism are most likely to experience this type of cyclical trauma. Since then, we have seen intergenerational trauma impacting various cultures and communities, including descendants of refugees and Black and Indigenous populations. These children experienced the effects of genocide, displacement, and various forms of trauma years after their parents survived the initial atrocities. Researchers found significant impacts on the mental health and cortisol levels of the children of survivors despite never having been through the Holocaust themselves. The term “intergenerational trauma” was first coined after scientists conducted a study on Holocaust survivors in 1988. When whole cultural groups experience trauma and are victims of systemic oppression, this is a specific branch of intergenerational trauma called historical trauma. The American Psychological Association defines intergenerational trauma as “a phenomenon in which the descendants of a person who has experienced a terrifying event show adverse emotional and behavioural reactions to the event that are similar to those of the person himself or herself.” This trauma may result from one victim’s experience (such as abuse, violence, etc.) or an entire group of people.
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Trauma doesn’t just impact the person who experiences it–it can hold tight through ancestral lines and show up decades, even centuries, later. Residuals of past atrocities show up both in our current behaviours and biology. We know the systemic injustices many underrepresented groups experienced generations ago didn’t simply stop when laws changed, and neither did the harm inflicted upon them. Not just from a geographical perspective but also from a trauma perspective. Like many of our societal issues, colonialism has significantly influenced the generations of today. But it isn’t necessarily as euphoric as it sounds. You’re the product of dreams thought up centuries before you took your first breath. In addition to that reality, every single one of your ancestors’ experiences and choices (or lack of choices) resulted in you. You likely already know that your parents influence both your physical appearance and behaviours. But how often do we wonder about how their lives impact us today? Or how the trauma our ancestors experienced four, five, or even seven generations ago affects us and generations after us? Of course, it’s exciting to see our lineage and better understand our personal history. Constellations like nothing else, are a multiplying generator of healing, generates a field of constellations.Recently, people have become fascinated with companies that can track our ancestry and DNA. Constellations work accompanies us to be understood and seen with resonance by others, which is what settles us. The reason constellations are so supportive for healing trauma is that humans are more settled by being understood, than they are by anything else. In the video below from the 5th Australasian Constellation Intensive in Sydney, I explain the two different ways our brain stores memory (the amygdala and the hippocampus) and why it is that we’re able to go back to a challenging time and, with enough resonance and support, actually steward ourselves to move the memory from the amygdala to the hippocampus! Once it’s there safely, that memory will no longer feel like it’s living in our present moment, it becomes part of our past that we can integrate. The reason constellations are helpful for healing trauma is because of how the brain stores traumatic memory, and the way those memories are always living in the present moment causing us to feel the same unaccompanied aloneness that we felt when the actual traumatic experience occurred. Constellations work accompanies us to be understood and seen with resonance by others.