Family patterns can shape how we understand ourselves and relate to others. In this teaching, Christian explores shame, protective habits and the possibility of making different choices from those we inherited.
Recognising a family pattern
The practice begins with noticing a familiar voice or reaction and asking where it may have been learned. Christian describes a symbolic ritual of giving back what no longer feels like our own. It is a way of exploring the relationship to that pattern, rather than proof of its origin or a guarantee that it will disappear.
Compassion and responsibility
Understanding the circumstances behind someone’s behaviour can make compassion possible. It does not make harmful behaviour acceptable, and forgiveness is not something another person can require. The useful question is what helps us recognise a pattern and respond with more choice now.
The student account below describes Shalini’s experience of this teaching. Its language of inherited energy and release belongs to that personal and symbolic framework.
Through the Eyes of a Student
By Shalini Tewari
After tracking our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and sensations in our own beings, and then incorporating this tracking in connection with another by sharing what’s alive, our triggers, shadows and judgments, there is a point of recognition where some of what we are experiencing is not only of our own creation.
Generational trauma is when unresolved trauma and shame are passed on and inherited from your mother or father, who also inherited trauma that was passed on to them, the cycle repeating for generations.
It can be feelings of disempowerment and behaviours that feel shameful, cause guilt, resentment or pain, and can’t always be understood within the context of the life of the person experiencing these feelings.
We take on this pain in our body mind between the ages of 0-7 years old when we believe everything in the world has to do with us. When our parents react angrily, are in a bad mood, sad or upset, whether it is pertaining to us or not, we believe that we are the cause of their emotions, and our core unworthiness takes root from here.
This trauma is unintentionally passed on, and the way to heal is by consciously becoming aware of the various ranges of toxicity that don’t really belong to us, and was in fact imprinted generationally down the line.
A key element to this healing includes the art of forgiveness. From the perspective of the world we know, we make choices and take actions in the best way that we can, and therefore compassion for the behaviours or actions that might have caused harm, shame, guilt or regret is critical.
Within an amplified field, and in ceremony to identify those parts and return them back to source, we begin to heal this generational trauma that we carry. Being in a community or collective field can help release those parts and enable us go to a place that we might never have been able to go on our own.
Combining the elements of the 90-Day Challenge of tracking and practicing heart-centered communication, we develop a deeper understanding of our own world, as well as that of others, and only then can we bring compassion to all that lives inside of us.
Recording Notes
Christian explores how a child may understand a caregiver’s anger or absence as something about their own worth. He connects this with patterns people may recognise later in life.
Christian is careful to frame the associated ritual, in which participants identify and symbolically return the parts of themselves that belong to a parent or ancestor rather than to their own selfhood, as a practice rather than a cure. He says explicitly that it is not a quick fix and is not designed to instantly resolve generational trauma, but to awaken awareness of it and build the capacity to separate oneself from an inherited part over time.
The recording also connects this theme to forgiveness, particularly forgiving oneself for actions taken while carrying unconscious trauma. Christian's reasoning is that people act according to their model of the world, and that compassion for past behaviour becomes possible once its roots in unresolved trauma are understood. He notes this is easier to reach within a group setting, where a collective or 'amplified' field can support release that feels harder to access alone.
The Generational Healing Ritual
- Track thoughts, feelings and sensations in yourself and with another
- Notice patterns, shame or reactions that feel older than your own life story
- Explore whether the pattern resembles something learned in the family, without forcing certainty.
- Bring compassion and new meaning to those parts through understanding
- In a group field, name the part and consciously give it back
