Have you ever heard the term generational trauma? What about family curses? Or epigenetics? In this episode, we’ll review recent research that shows how the effects of trauma can be passed down through your DNA.

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Welcome to the PEEP Podcast. I’m your host Nicolle Morock, and on this episode, we’re looking at generational trauma, and what – if anything – might be done to mitigate its effects.

But first, I want to let you know that I’m having a virtual grand opening for my healing business – Great Is the Spirit! On Sunday, January 29, 2023, I’ll hold a Zoom call to celebrate. During the event, I’ll explain Reiki and the Emotion Code, and describe how they can be used to heal from your own past trauma and inherited trapped negative emotions that came down through your family line. One lucky attendee will win a free healing session – their choice of Reiki or Emotion Code – and you don’t have to be local to win! Energy healing works just as well over distances as it does in-person. But if you are local to the Raleigh area, I have an office in North Raleigh where we can meet.

If you want to join me for this no-cost virtual event, go to GreatIstheSpirit.com and hit the yellow button near the top of the page to register. Once you fill out the registration form, I’ll send you the Zoom link to attend.

Now back to the topic at hand, which is somewhat related to my practice – epigenetics!

This emerging area of research is absolutely fascinating and somewhat controversial. The basic tenet is that trauma experienced by parents can affect how the bodies of their children and grandchildren read their DNA. So, it doesn’t change the DNA, but it effectively turns on or off certain genes. Even more interesting – the damage can be mitigated or even undone in some cases.

If you follow self-help gurus, you might have heard phrases like “breaking ancestral curses” or “generational trauma ends with you.” I know I have, and I’m not that deep into that world. You might have seen memes on social media with those themes. The general idea has been around for a while, and now there’s science to back it up.

To give you an idea about the recent studies on epigenetics, also known as genetic trauma, also known as inherited trauma, I’ll review a few articles and add the links to the show notes in case you want to know more.

First, let’s look at the information about epigenetics on CDC.gov. CDC is the shortened name of the US’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here’s their definition:

Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.

At this point there are three ways epigenetics appear to work: DNA methylation, histone modification, and through non-coding RNA.

These are all very technical terms, but the CDC page breaks it down as much as possible, so I’m going to share what that site says rather than struggling to paraphrase it.

DNA Methylation works by adding a chemical group to DNA. Typically, this group is added to specific places on the DNA, where it blocks the proteins that attach to DNA to “read” the gene. This chemical group can be removed through a process called demethylation. Typically, methylation turns genes “off” and demethylation turns genes “on.”

Histone modification: DNA wraps around proteins called histones. When histones are tightly packed together, proteins that ‘read’ the gene cannot access the DNA as easily, so the gene is turned “off.” When histones are loosely packed, more DNA is exposed or not wrapped around a histone and can be accessed by proteins that ‘read’ the gene, so the gene is turned “on.” Chemical groups can be added or removed from histones to make the histones more tightly or loosely packed, turning genes “off” or “on.”

Non-coding RNA: our DNA is used as instructions for making coding and non-coding RNA. Coding RNA is used to make proteins. Non-coding RNA helps control gene expression by attaching to coding RNA, along with certain proteins, to break down the coding RNA so that it cannot be used to make proteins. Non-coding RNA may also recruit proteins to modify histones to turn genes “on” or “off.”

This all sounds very complicated, and I’m not a biologist, which is why I’m reading this from the CDC website, but these three modes are important, yet as I said earlier, they don’t necessarily permanently change the way your body reads DNA. They can be reversed.

One of the more commonly cited papers that points to epigenetics as the potential cause for inherited traits was written by Rachel Yehuda and Amy Lehrner and is titled, “Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms.” (I had to look up the word putative, which means “commonly regarded as such” or “supposed.”)

In that paper, the authors review several studies that seem to show that offspring of mice that suffered trauma, exhibited behavior that seemed to reflect the parent’s trauma. For example, one study conditioned male mice to expect a mild shock after smelling the scent of cherry blossoms. Those traumatized mice were used to breed the next generation, who without being taught also exhibited anxious behavior when exposed to that scent. The next two generations also showed increased sensitivity to the smell, while not reacting to other scents introduced into their environment. Think about it! The great-grand-mice were still reacting to trauma they had not experienced for themselves!

This might explain survival of the fittest, at least to a small degree. Those mice weren’t taught to fear a smell they’d never experienced.

They just inherently knew the scent could be problematic.

In that same article, Yehuda and Lehrner also discuss observations regarding children of Holocaust survivors and Vietnam War veterans. Those offspring tended to be more likely to develop PTSD symptoms, among others. However, this is where the controversy is easily apparent – the question is whether being raised by a survivor of such horrific traumatic events leads the child to learn to be more anxious, hypervigilant, etc., or are those symptoms the results of epigenetics. The authors acknowledge the reasons it will be hard to know for sure.

One last set of studies referenced in that same paper was a couple of studies focused on the children of people who had endured serious famines. “Phenotypic and epigenetic changes were observed in adults who were exposed in utero to the Dutch famine of 1944‐45, but only among those exposed at the time of conception and during the first half of gestation, compared to those exposed in the third trimester or early postnatal period.” Their grandchildren also showed signs of the effects of DNA methylation.

The current science seems to be saying that if the parent is exposed to trauma, for example, fathers before the offspring’s conception or mothers during the gestational period, their children exhibit responses to that trauma.

Some psychologists think we might be able to mitigate the effects of genetic trauma with actions such as cognitive behavior therapy.

So, inherited trauma, generational curses, whatever you want to call it appears to be a real thing!

You can imagine my surprise while studying to become a certified Emotion Code practitioner, that one of the types of emotions the process can identify is an inherited negative emotion. Even more, we can also narrow the time to when a non-inherited negative emotion was trapped to while the client was in the womb. When I was first learning the process, I questioned that idea. Then I learned of epigenetics, and it made more sense to me.

Trauma often leads to negative trapped emotions – emotions that the person experiencing it doesn’t process and release correctly at the time it’s happening.

And it doesn’t have to be something as horrific or on a large scale as the Holocaust or participating in war. It could be an unexpected death, the sudden end to a relationship, or an event that just made you feel like you weren’t good enough.

I recently released an inherited emotion for myself and all my maternal line that went more than 40 generations back. It seems strange to say it, but that’s what happened, and what was that emotion? Feeling unworthy, and in my case, it came up in association with something I was trying to work through at the time. My feelings at that moment had nothing to do with unworthiness, but as I worked through the process, identified that emotion and thought back through what I have been taught about my family, it really made sense.

Let’s think about it for a minute. If a generation covers about 25 years, then 40 generations back is approximately 1,000 years ago (give or take a decade or two). My mother’s side of the family is mostly from the UK, Germany, France, and that region, and 1,000 years ago, women were not treated as much more than property. It would be easy in that era to have the feeling of being unworthy to succeed as an individual deeply impressed upon you in a very severe way.

I get it, and on behalf of my ancestors, I released that emotion and forgave those who caused it. The beautiful thing about this kind of energy work is that it works for past, present, and future generations who might be affected, and I trust that I lifted that weight from my sister and my niece as much as myself.

But… this isn’t an ad for the Emotion Code, although it probably could be. It’s just an example of an experience I’ve had practicing it over the last year.

What this really is – is a discussion of how once again, science is beginning to catch up with what we “new age” types already intuitively understood: trauma can in some way be passed down through generations. Now we know one way it is has a name – epigenetics.

Thanks for listening! I’m including the links to the articles I quoted and a few I didn’t cover that were still worth reading in the show notes in case you’d like to read them for yourself.

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