That literally means that the DNA expression of who you are is affected by the way that 14 generations before you lived! This goes beyond your conscious choices and is something that we are all affected by no matter where we were born or who our family is.

Today (a lot of us) have more opportunities, comforts, luxuries, and easy access to shelter, food, and water than ever before. We may face economic hardship, abuse, and mental-emotional instability, but it might not even be comparable to that which our parents and grandparents lived.

So, let’s think about this for a second. What kind of life did our (recent) ancestors have?

What kind of childhood did our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents have?

What were their daily obstacles?

What society did they live in?

Were they encouraged to speak their truth and feel their emotions?


Were they encouraged to follow their hearts and dreams, or were they only offered a very limited amount of options for their life?

Did they have easy access to food and shelter?

Did they experience any life-threatening situations?

Were they deeply fulfilled and happy?

The crazy thing about this exploration is taking into account how drastically different the world today is versus only 100 years ago. The life of even our most recent ancestors may look nothing like ours.

She was an orphan that lost both her parents by the time she was about 7.

Her father was a miner that died from a head injury he incurred during a work accident. At 83 years old she could still describe with incredible detail the day her father died and her mother was left alone with 6 children—3 girls and 3 boys.

Her mother started working long hours at a factory to support the family, but only 2 years after her husband’s death she died from appendicitis.

My grandmother and her siblings became orphans.

Their extended family used the situation as an opportunity to steal my great grandparents lands (my grandmother and her siblings’ inheritance) and only took care of the children out of familial obligation without any true love or care for them.

They split up the children against their will, sent the boys to the city, and kept the girls on the farm to work.

My grandmother and her sisters were forced to work all day in the fields without shoes. They were treated as workers by family and were verbally and physically abused.

Their most precious possessions were river stones they had drawn dolls on…

It’s really humbling to learn about these things because it makes us realize how incredibly fortunate we are… And yet, how much do we really take into consideration the effect this traumatic imprinting may be having on us too?

My great grandfather (my grandmother’s father) was a revolutionary that fought for the independence of Mexico… In fact, a lot of our recent ancestors existed in a world where they had to fight for their BASIC RIGHTS. As humans, as women, and for their children…

Slavery was abolished only a few generations ago (maybe 5-6) and we’re understanding that we have epigenetic imprinting of up to 14 generations before us!

Think about that for a second.

We come from a lineage of self-judgment, abuse, repression, and control…

What kind of inner reality did my grandmother have when she was an orphan working on the field?

What kind of inner reality did my grandfather have when he chose to risk his life for the freedom of his people?

They had real problems… and we can barely even deal with the ones we have!!!

I don’t say this to shame us. I share it to give perspective. The truth is I believe this awareness can help us practice more compassion.

In our culture some of the world’s most successful people have overdosed or consciously made the choice to commit suicide.

Some of the most successful people we have ever seen!!!

If someone that has everything can feel so alone, so distraught, so broken, and so hopeless so as to kill themselves… how did our ancestors feel facing problems so much more serious than our own?

People weren’t encouraged to speak their truth, to heal, to follow their hearts, to be free…

How did they feel? How did they cope? What did they do to self-protect?

Really sitting with this exploration is incredibly enlightening. And humbling.

A lot of our ancestors lived in survival, fear, grief, disappointment and a feeling of helplessness. There was no other way to feel. It was a natural and logical mental-emotional response to what life was for them.

And that information lives within us.

It’s in their programming…

We do not choose to inherit this programming nor can we consciously just decide that we don’t want it. It’s part of who we are and is intrinsically tied into our process of healing and inner evolution.

The experiences of our parents, our grandparents and our ancestors before us live within our bodies, our DNA, and our nervous systems.

Their experiences affect the way we perceive reality and the way we respond to life.

Think about things in you that are similar to your siblings, parents and close family members. Think about the relationship dynamics that tend to repeat. Think about the mental-emotional problems your family typically faces.

This is a real thing that goes beyond learned behavior and actually has to do with deeply ingrained unconscious programming on the biological level.

When you look at it from this perspective it’s obvious why so many people live in such serious stress, anxiety, and depression despite the fact that they don’t have to deal with even half of what their ancestors had to deal with.

The more I understand all of this the more I realize that lack of awareness around trauma is probably one of the most prominent reasons for the current poor mental-emotional health situation.

We are a traumatized culture. We’ve gone through war, starvation, and hardship that a lot of us can’t even imagine.

Our ancestors' bodies created self-protective strategies that at the time allowed them to survive, but now keep us in limitation and suffering despite the tools, support, and potential that is available to us.

That is why I believe expanding our understanding of ancestral trauma and taking the time to learn about our family’s stories is so incredibly powerful and important.

It can help us gain perspective about why we are the way we are, and what we’re really “up against” when we decide to heal.

We would understand why for so many of us self-improvement strategies based on willpower, discipline, and force do not work. There is information within our programming (belief structures and hidden emotions) that needs to be transmuted and no amount of willpower will ever allow us to skip over them and just get to the other side (Remember, energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be transformed. Physics 101).

We would understand that so much of healing is about creating safety in the body. Teaching the body to relax and bringing it into the present moment where it is not facing any real dangers.

We would make healing on a nervous system level as important as going to therapy or seeing a psychologist. Unfortunately, addressing trauma in the body is commonly overlooked in healing and many still try to heal by just talking about the past versus actually doing the work necessary to rewire the brain and body.

We would be more patient and less judgmental of ourselves because we would understand that there is nothing wrong with us for having the psycho-emotional problems that we have. A lot of our behavior and programming has nothing to do with our conscious choices and is automatic. 

We would let go of the internal pressure to change overnight and we would understand that our healing journey requires time as we release limitation layer by layer.
.
We might be more compassionate with our partners, parents and immediate family members understanding more deeply that there are many unconscious forces at play within any relationship dynamic.

We would understand that even if we have had “relatively good lives” we may still have a lot of healing to do, and that every unconscious reaction or self-sabotaging tendency within us is there for a reason.

When we really understand that within us we hold information from the experiences of 14 generations past we can also deduce that we pass on information from our experiences to 14 generations after us.

In other words, our healing, our conscious choices about how to live our lives, and the experiences that we have will affect our children, grandchildren and so on.

We are not just healing for ourselves. We can actually pave the way for the future happiness of those that come after us.

(If you do not have children this continues to be applicable to you because as a collective consciousness all our decisions and experiences influence the information within the collective. All our healing heals others too.)

Awareness about ancestral trauma allows us to be kinder to ourselves.

For me it has really helped me practice compassion and accept a lot of the things within me that I disliked. It has made me understand that there is no way I could be any other way, and thus giving me the awareness that allows me to be more gentle with myself.

I am not just healing my own trauma and the painful and confusing experiences I’ve had in my life, but I’m healing my grandmother’s trauma too. My grandfather’s. My great grandfather’s. Etcetera.

This is a really important point to become aware of as we often hear "time heals everything".

I don't believe it does.

Healing our trauma (that inevitably includes that of our ancestors) is a result of making the conscious choice to heal. It requires that we find ways to access our nervous system and body in order to release dense repressed energy from the deeper layers of our being.

Fortunately, we have access to way more tools for trauma release than we even need.

My personal favorites are breath work and psychedelics but I would suggest that you do your own research and try out the ones that call to you. If you find something that works, stick with it.

Understanding how far back our trauma goes reminds us that we cannot expect quick fixes or to completely let go of limited ancestral psycho-emotional programming after only one session or one therapy.

It is a shedding process that in this physical reality may always require time.

• Download my free ebook "Elements of Personal Power.
• Explore my Psycho-Spiritual Support Sessions.
• Subscribe to my newsletter.
• Follow me on Instagram.