Healing the Wounds We Carry: Breaking Generational Patterns with Love and Awareness
Stillness in Storms- Feb 13
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 15
What Patterns from Our Families Deserve Healing or Celebration?
I used to think of my childhood as golden—filled with sunshine, broom weed stubble, and endless acres of land to explore. I can still feel the heat rising off the ground, the sound of grasshoppers leaping, the comforting crackle of storm clouds forming in the distance. Was it a lack of supervision or a deep trust in the land as our teacher? Maybe it was both.
But as I’ve grown older, I’ve had to sit with the contradictions of my past. The moments of magic did not erase the moments of pain. I’ve had to ask myself hard questions: What was normal? What was dysfunction? And most importantly, how do I begin to heal the wounds I didn’t even realize I was carrying?
Looking back, I see the generational patterns woven into my family’s story—some that I want to mend and others that I want to celebrate and continue.
The Emotional Gaps Between Appearances and Reality
Appearances can be deceiving. I think we all learn to do our best to conform to what we’ve been taught about family and societal expectations. What we learn about ourselves and the world begins with at an early age.
My father’s home looked stable. My mother’s home looked chaotic. But in both places, I felt unseen. I grew up in the quiet spaces between what people said and what they meant, between what they presented to the world and what I lived inside their walls.
At my mother’s house, the instability was visible—her mental health spiraled in cycles I didn’t have words for, but I felt them in my bones. My survival depended on sensing the shifts before they became storms. At my father’s, things looked better. But love was conditional, silence was safer than speaking, and being "good" meant being invisible.
Neglect wears many faces. And I had learned early how to recognize them all. I had also learned not to point them out.
Do I believe that the action or inaction of my parents was intentional? No. I believe that they were repeating patterns that they learned. I can only arrive at the suggestion that they, too, were talked down to, neglected in some way, and invalidated as children.
The Impact of Mental Health on Family Dynamics
My mother’s mental health seemed normal to me because it cycled so frequently. I didn’t have space to process fear—it was buried deep inside my body while I focused on surviving her shifts.
When she was happy, she was infectiously electric—staying up late, cleaning frantically, making plans. Playing and totally engaged with us and the world around us.
And then, the crash.
In some instances it resulted in hospitalization. It always resulted in days of silence. Weeks turned into months of endless sleeping. Her eyes empty, her body barely moving. Medicated.
I learned to read the signs before they came. I learned how to not make things worse. I learned to carry her sadness like it was my own.
But that’s not something a child should have to learn.
The first time I saw her self-harm, I froze. The world blurred. I didn’t know what to do with that kind of pain—not hers, not mine. So, I called my grandpa, “Grandpa, mom cut herself bad, I see blood and white stuff under her skin. I think she needs help.” Then, I locked the fear and pain away, deep inside my 7 year old heart, where it could hurt me quietly instead.
The Patterns That Need Healing
Loneliness and Isolation. Invalidation and criticism of normal child behavior and responses. Some wounds don’t just live in memory; they live in the body. They shape the way we react, the way we shrink or expand in the presence of others, the way we hold our breath when we expect rejection.
For me that looked like being put in my room a lot when I was under 5. More than once I watched the day turn to dusk and then to night. Not just feeling alone, but truly alone. I wonder now—where was everyone?
I think back to the mornings:
4 AM. We had one care so we’d wake up early to take my dad to work.
Afterward, my mom would put me on the couch.
She’d work out. Or watch Phil Donahue.
Or disappear.
I don’t remember doing much with her during the day. When we lived in town I played with neighborhood kids, but supervision was loose. I was four or five years old and blocks away from home when I learned that wandering too far meant a spanking so hard my whole body ached.
Maybe my mom had been scared. Maybe my father was mad, he had to come home from work. But the severe physical punishment felt like a strange way for them to express relief that I was ok. It felt like a strange way to be loved.
But at least this was somewhat predictable. After my parents divorced there were other pains I wasn’t taught to navigate.
One of these instances was when a mother figure freaked out about my thumb-sucking. I remember feeling surprised at her reaction, then embarrassed, then humiliated. I remember the moment my small body curled into itself, shrinking as I pulled an orange afghan over my chin, listening to her voice trailing down the hallway as she talked about me.
I was 7 maybe even 8. I was just a child. But in that moment, I felt broken—like something about me was inherently wrong. That moment was profound because I learned, "There is something 'wrong' with a child this age who sucks their thumb."
There was something wrong with my existence.
The Origin and Echo of Patterns
I didn’t have the words for it then, but I do now. Worthlessness. Rejection. Shame. Unlovable the way I am. And somehow, I still feel echoes of similar moments in my body today, tied to fears I can’t always name.
My parents were young. One with unsurmountable mental health obstacles and one a survivor of, in my best guess, an alcoholic and verbally abusive household. I'm sure both felt a pressure to be perceived as "normal" and adjusted. They did not understand that children explore within the latitudes they are given. They didn’t realize that behavior which appears bad or abnormal may actually be a natural response to trauma.
This is what generational wounds do. They don’t just stay in the past—they weave themselves into our present until we choose to unravel them.
It has taken me years to recognize the weight of what I carried. That kind of silence, that kind of shrinking, doesn’t just leave—it stays in your body, tightening your throat when you try to ask for help, convincing you that your needs are burdens to others.
I know now that wasn’t true. But knowing doesn’t always stop the feeling.
How Do We Heal Feelings of Worthlessness?
By acknowledging that our needs and feelings were real, even when they were ignored.
By refusing to shrink ourselves to accommodate others’ comfort.
By speaking up for our inner child, the one who was told to be or made to feel small, silent, or compliant.
What Deserves Celebration?
For all the wounds, there were also moments of deep connection—especially with the land. Nature was my home, my refuge, my real mother.
I watched tadpoles grow legs and scatter like tiny armies across the water. I built treehouses and buried treasure. I found stories hidden in acorn caps and smooth creek stones. Slate colored storm clouds were a comfort, their summer heat shattering into rain that soothed my skin. Owls stood guard at night, their calls familiar and sacred.
This was where I belonged. Not in the spoken or unspoken rules of my family, not in the contradictions of neglect wrapped in appearances of stability—but in the land, in the wind, in the waters that never turned their back on me.
The Love That Endured
There were also moments with my mother—when she was healthy, when she was in her element.
Shearing sheep and tending to the wool she was often gifted.
Seeing her create art with charcoal and pastels.
Playing kickball with us until dusk.
Hiking the hill and prairie that surrounded our trailer.
Tanning snake skins and learning to build rabbit traps.
Riding horses.
Cleaning, not out of mania, but out of care.
Renting VHS tapes for family movie nights.
The music she played when she was happy and healthy.
There were moments of warmth, of presence, of love. And those deserve to be held onto, too.
Breaking the Cycle
Healing isn’t just about grieving what was lost; it’s about choosing what we carry forward. It’s about looking at the patterns passed down to us and deciding—this ends with me.
I have spent years unlearning the ways I was taught to shrink.
I listen to my children. I make space for their feelings.
I listen to my body. It tells me I am not a machine.
I have stopped holding everything in. I speak up when I feel hurt.
I ask for help.
I am learning to be imperfect without shame.
And even now, I find myself reaching out for reassurance, for clarity, for understanding—because deep down, there is still a fear that my needs might be an inconvenience to someone else. But I am learning. And that learning is healing.
The Practices That Help Me Heal
This year, I’ve been integrating practices that reconnect me to myself:
Qigong
Journaling
Art
Reading
Yoga
Body movement
Copal smoke clearing
Listening to my Native language
Sending my voice up on tobacco smoke
Making time for nature and family
Every time I engage in these practices, I am rewriting the story. I am telling my younger self, I see you. I hear you. You are worthy of love and care.
You Are Not Alone
If you are doing this work, too—if you are sifting through the pieces of your past, trying to make sense of what should be healed and what should be honored—know this: you are not alone.
Healing generational wounds is not easy, but it is possible. And it starts with us.
What patterns in your family deserve healing? What deserves to be celebrated? I invite you to sit with these questions, to write, to reflect, to begin.
Journaling Prompt:
Think of a childhood memory that still sits in your body.
What emotions does it bring up?
If that memory had a voice, what would it say?
What do you want to say back to it?
Your story matters. Your healing matters. And you deserve peace.
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