My guest Kim Keane is a certified life coach, a Reiki Master, and an IET practitioner (Integrated Energy Therapy) as well as a podcaster. In this episode, we talk about generational trauma and the importance of releasing it so that we can become more of ourselves.
How can generational trauma show up in someone’s life?
Below is an excerpt of the full interview. Click below for full episode.
When we think of the definition of generational trauma, it’s traumatic experiences that previous generations in your family have had, it could be parents, grandparents great-grandparents.
And then we learn things from those traumatic experiences. We internalize them and we take them with us on our journey of life. And then inadvertently, we share them with the fellow family members that come along and we then take on those same patterns, those same messages and thoughts, and beliefs.
Generational trauma often goes so far back to where we don’t even really know where it came from. But we just take it and we think it’s ours, but it’s not ours to carry, but we don’t know any better.
What often happens is that we have these feelings of being exhausted, confused, stuck, and lost, and we don’t know what to do with it.
It makes the struggle that much more difficult because we’re trying to adjust back to what our norm was. And then it’s uncomfortable.
This may show up not only in our relationship with ourselves, but in our relationship with the people in our immediate household, our extended family. And then it doesn’t always work out so great for us.
Kim’s own story is that I left my teaching career after six years. I felt like an epic failure because I thought I was going to be a kindergarten teacher until I was 90.
I left teaching to become a stay at home, a stay at home mom. And that was really a struggle for me because I had always said to myself, I’m not meant to be a stay-at-home. Mom.
My whole identity was wrapped up in being a teacher. So losing that identity was a struggle.
And so I started going to therapy because I wasn’t thinking the most healthy thoughts about myself in life. I felt worse than actually when I had started because a lot of things are being dug up from the past that I wasn’t even aware of or prepared for.
So it started with my therapist saying, do you know you’re codependent? I didn’t, cause I didn’t even know what codependency was. I’d never heard that word.
And then the final straw was when she said, “Do you realize that you are being affected by childhood emotional neglect?”
So I went to see a life coach as well and that was really where the magic happened.
What really inspired me to get my life coaching and certification was that in eight sessions I had made so much progress, and felt incredibly empowered.
Part of the journey for me was actually learning the root cause of the generational trauma.
I wasn’t being the person I wanted to be for myself either. And so I, I had to change. I have have been releasing these patterns or gaining a new perspective.
I realized that I am everything I need to be. And I’ve always have been [whole]. And really just being able to see that for what it is and being exactly okay with where I am in this moment. That is something that I never even would have thought as possible or even would have considered in the past.
I think it’s “the tired of being tired” of generational trauma showing up.
We get to the point in life where we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. I think people are getting to that point. And I think on some level, the pandemic was the perfect opportunity for that because it snapped us out of auto-drive and autopilot that we were all living on.
When I started my healing journey, I really got into yoga and that was so helpful. Because it required me to slow down and really just be in my own space instead of focusing on what is that person doing on their mat? What is the teacher doing?
I really had to tune in and tap into myself.
But the other thing too, that was really helpful as I started going for Reiki sessions with a Reiki healer, and that really helped to move some of that old stagnant energy out that had been lingering.
So I started to actually listen to what you need. You allow different things to come in and for you, it provided this opportunity to actually connect with yourself more so than ever before.
The other thing is that journaling, which was huge for me. And I think it’s really helpful because it allows us to get what’s in our head onto a piece of paper.
So then we can read it, then we can reflect on it.
This way we can take more of a heart-centered approach to what’s going on in our minds.
Rather than just staying stuck in that constant thought process of overthinking and overanalyzing.
And then the last piece is meditation. I didn’t realize the science behind meditation, you know, it actually helps to reprogram and rewire our brain.
I’ve been meditating for almost five years now. And I know that because of the meditation, I’ve been able to just sit, in stillness and connect with myself.
I just allow thoughts and opinions to come and release them.
But also it’s helped me with coping with stress. I could never meditate because I could never turn my brain off. Or I don’t have time to sit down. “I don’t have half an hour to meditate”.
It really doesn’t have to be half an hour of sitting in silence to count as meditation.
So it’s just about acknowledging the thought and letting it go. Instead of holding on to the thought of even being judgmental about the thought is there.
You can visit Kim at kimkeane.com
