It Didn't Start with You How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

Intriguing. Wolynn explains the process by which our parents' parents' (& so on) experiences are remembered in the fundamental coding of our own selves. This concept makes plenty of sense to me especially among other works such as The Body Keeps the Score and the current discussions permeating the mainstream about trauma & potentially traumatic experiences in general. There is also some great stuff in here about the specific ways your parents' dynamics affect your own relationships. Overall, Wolynn fills the pages with anecdotes but lacks psychological and physiological explanations—I needed more of a balance.

Part of me feels a sense of relief with this understanding: not everything that myself & my siblings are hashing out right now are our issues alone. It didn't start with you highlights that there's plenty unresolved coming through from the generations behind us. Some aspects of the theory, such as descendants of holocaust victims struggling with symptoms that the original victims would have experienced, are far fetched; however, when expanded to a general sense (i.e. your core beliefs are shaped by your parents & their core beliefs, which were shaped by their parents & so on) this really clicks.

On the other hand, I find this message teetering on the fence between enlightening and disempowering. To see your own issues as the product of generations and generations of war veterans, troubled relationships, abuse, etc., puts an incomprehensible weight on the individual to either heal everything or accept defeat. I agree that it always helps to be made aware of these patterns of the unconscious, but I can't see this as the primary lens through which to heal yourself... I think all that I read here could be taken with a grain of salt and accompanied by chats with a therapist specializing in family systems.