Hi Reader,
I was working with a client last week doing EFT tapping around creativity and money beliefs, specifically the beliefs:
- "I need a man (or some other person) in order to be financially safe"
- "I can't make money without a 'normal' job."
I asked what I always ask: "How long have you felt this way?" or "What's the earliest memory you have around this?"
They paused, thought about it, and said, "I don't know. I've always felt this way."
Ahh........ a bell went off in my head.
There it is.
Because here's the thing...
When we say or hear someone else say "I've always felt this way," it usually signals something rather profound.
That belief, pattern, or block we are speaking to most likely didn't start with us.
It's not actually ours.
It was likely passed down generationally; inherited through stories, through behaviors, through our DNA, through our ancestors and their lived experience.
The concept - and study of - how certain genes express (turn ON/OFF) based on trauma and lifestyle choices is known as Epigenetics and if you're interested in learning more, I've linked a few resources at the bottom of this newsletter.
I can't tell you how important this recognition is because it changes everything about how we approach our healing work, the direction and the actions we take- or don't take - in our life.
A few questions to see if the current pattern or block you are experiencing did not start with you and was inherited could be:
- Who else in my family line may have believed this?
- Is there an example of this in my lineage?
- One place this belief make have come from is_______.
- Does this belief remind me of someone?
- Who does this sound like?
- Does it sound like me or someone else in my family?
When we only work on patterns from the perspective of this lifetime, we miss the opportunity to release and change them from their source - from the true place where they originated generations before us.
For those patterns or beliefs that seem like no matter what you do, they just never seem to shift or if they do shift, it's not long lasting, we can begin to ask ourselves "did this pattern even start with me?"
Or by acknowledging "maybe this pattern didn't actually start with me - maybe this was passed down to me," we can get off the hamster wheel of trying to "fix" ourselves.
It doesn't mean we shrug it off and abdicate any responsibility around it......just because it didn't start with us doesn't mean that pattern or belief isn't impacting our lives in a very real way.
it just means that the method to which we free ourselves can shift and to be honest, be far more efficient.
Because we don't have time to be healing ourselves all day.
We have things to create, projects to be put out in the world, creativity to express, dreams to fulfill and life to be lived.
Instead, we can start working in a completely different way - like with EFT Tapping - specifically targeting the generational and ancestral transmission of these patterns and beliefs.
And that's when these blocks truly begin to shift.
Why?
Because when we can shift out of the stress response (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) of our ancestors - through emotional regulation - we begin to act on the future we want to create vs. reacting from (their) past.
For example in that session with the client?
Instead of focusing that specific session on releasing the fear she felt around putting action towards one of her creative ideas, we focused on how her own mother had put away her creativity to raise a family.
And how her grandmother had done the same thing.
It was a profound session where we practiced a technique in EFT Tapping called "The Two Chairs" technique where we invite someone - real or imagined - (this can also work with the different parts or aspects of ourselves) to sit in a chair across from us; obviously this is using our imagination.
As we tap on the various points, we acknowledge the pattern or belief from where it started from - with the other person - and release the emotional imprint - the stress- it has created in our own bodies by saying phrases such as:
- This is their story not mine
- This was their fear not mine
- This was their experience, not mine
- I can care about them without carrying it for them
- They would never want me to carry this
- I can honor their story without re-living it
We aren't necessarily "giving this experience back to them" but by releasing this inherited stress response from our own bodies, we are not only freeing ourselves but we are actually freeing previous and future lineages.
In the following sessions with this client, we'll start to focus on the moments where this fear shows up - or has shown up - tangibly in her own lived experiences so she can be completely free from it, but after this session she reported back a few days later that she had booked a big job leading a creative workshop.
I'm looking forward to seeing what continues to unfold for her especially as we continue future sessions.
I know it's not always easy to recognize that what feels so personally ours might actually be an inherited pattern, but there's something incredibly liberating about seeing our perceived (and actual) blocks through this wider lens.
It's not only freeing but it also deeply trains us in having compassion for ourselves and for the ones who came before us.
Is it simple? Not always.
Is it profound? Absolutely.
Is it worth exploring and healing? Beyond what words can capture.
Because on the other side of that belief or pattern, is the most self-expressed version of you, your soul and your dreams.
With care,
Bianca
Books on Epigenetics (resourced by my incredible teacher, Jackie Viramontez):
- It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn
- My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
- Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing by Joy a Degruy
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D
Articles and research on Epigenetics
1:1 EFT Tapping Sessions: