How Being an Overwhelmed Mom Led me to Learn How to Heal my Generational Trauma

I was 37 years old when my ship started taking on water.

40 when it started sinking.

By 42 I was on the bottom of the ocean floor.

I devoted my late 20's all of my 30's to being a Mom.

It was hands down the happiest and most fulfilling part of my life, up to that point.

I lived for my kids to have a better home and family life than I did.

I aced that assignment, or so I thought.

But I was dying a slow, silent death by a million tiny paper cuts.

Every day, compromising on EVERYTHING--giving little pieces of my soul away to keep the peace. 

And my kids absorbed it all like the sponges they are.

I had NO IDEA that I was subconsciously repeating dysfunctional patterns I'd learned from my parents and siblings, a classic display of a lack of healing from Generational Trauma.

In the end, the co-dependency and people pleasing that helped me survive, almost killed me.

I had zero awareness that my body was keeping score and years of trauma were piling on top of my psyche.

Until I had a mental breakdown that nobody wanted to touch with a 10-foot pole.

Not even me — I lived in denial.

It took 12 years of healing to understand the impact of generational trauma. 

You're already miles ahead of where I was.

Talking about Complex Trauma and the lasting effects on your mind, body and spirit aren't just destigmatized, they're considered part of a healthy mindset.

But the overwhelming source of informational content, mostly created by AI, is a double-edged sword.

Aside from some nuggets of good info, constant content consumption fries your central nervous system.

Where the F do you go to find time, space and a moment's peace to process it, much less use it in a way to help yourself heal?

Understanding Generational Trauma

Generational Trauma, also known as intergenerational trauma is: “the transmission of trauma or its legacy, in the form of a psychological consequence of an injury or attack, poverty, and so forth, from the generation experiencing the trauma to subsequent generations.” as defined from the American Psychological Association.

It’s a cycle of trauma that can be subconsciously passed on to subsequent generations, causing the trauma to live on in future generations through its continued expression.

You may be living with Generational Trauma and not even know. It shows up in micro-aggressions and repeated behaviors. 

Maybe you have that moment where you think, “I’m just like my mother” and that isn’t a good thing. 

Breaking the cycle can feel impossible because it’s learned behavior that starts in childhood, and shapes your whole life, sometimes identity, around this trauma. 

You become hyper-aware of people’s needs and suddenly you’re “a great gift giver” or maybe you binge drink and become “the life of the party”.

These habits don’t have to define who you are, and you can break free of the trauma. 

The first step is acknowledging that this is learned behavior from the environment you grew up in, and then the second step is being brave enough to prioritize yourself and your healing.

How to Heal from Generational Trauma

It is not a clear or straightforward path. One thing that helps immensely is connecting with like minded souls like yourself, and our healing retreats are just the start for finding community. 

As a Gen X’er with her own fair share of living with and healing from trauma, I’m here to guide you through the healing process. Soul Stretch Retreats are your opportunity to be your authentic self, take away your masks, and I will help you find your path to healing your Generational Trauma. 

We provide a time and space to heal at our private hideaway where nothing else matters, it’s a container that’s focused on healing your wounds and connecting to your inner child that so desperately wants to feel seen and heard.

Your First Steps to Healing

You want to know the truth? 

There is no perfect starting point. There’s no gold star for doing this “right.” There’s just a moment, usually quiet, usually uncomfortable, where something inside you whispers: I can’t keep doing it like this. 

Much like my epiphany where I realized in all of my 40 years nothing had changed, despite me creating my own family for myself.

That moment, when you’ve had enough — that’s where Generational Trauma healing begins.

Not in a book.Not in a perfectly curated morning routine.Not in another piece of online content telling you to “just let it go”.

It starts with awareness. That inner knowing where you feel something isn’t right.

It looks like catching yourself mid-reaction and thinking, wait… why did that feel so big? It’s noticing the patterns — how you overextend, over give, over-apologize. How silence feels safer than speaking up. How your nervous system is always bracing for something, even when nothing is wrong.

That’s not who you are. That’s what you learned.

The beautiful thing is that what is learned can be unlearned.

You need to give yourself permission to pause. Not fix. Not solve. Not optimize your healing journey into another checklist.

Just… pause.

Because if you’ve spent your whole life in survival mode, stillness will feel unfamiliar—maybe even unsafe at first. 

It’s in that space that your body finally gets a chance to exhale. From there you can start to rebuild trust within yourself.

Small things, honest things like saying no without explaining why.Letting someone be disappointed in you without immediately trying to fix it.Listening to your body when it says “I’m tired” instead of pushing through.

These might not look like breakthroughs, but they are.

Somewhere along the way you begin to meet parts of yourself you’ve been disconnected from for years: your inner child, your intuition, your voice. 

Not the version of you that learned how to survive. The version of you that never got the chance to just be.

This is where the real work of healing from generational trauma deepens.

Not by becoming someone new, but by returning to who you were before you learned you had to shrink, perform, or carry what was never yours to begin with.

You don’t have to do it alone. 

Healing in isolation can only take you so far, we were shaped in relationships, and we heal in them too.

That’s why finding safe spaces, safe people, and guided support matters. It gives your nervous system something it may have never fully experienced before: safety without conditions. 

I’m so excited to help you in those steps. I hope to see you soon.