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WHAT ARE GENERATIONAL CURSES?
When someone is suffering from a generational curse, they’re dealing with a cycle of trauma that has passed down through their family line. The word “curse” can sound scary, but generational curses are something you can heal and break.
Generational curses show up in many ways: financial struggles, addiction (including gambling), certain illnesses, relationship issues and more. Generational curses also typically affect not just the individual who’s struggling but their entire family as well as society at large.
So how does a generational curse start? A lot of things can lead to these cycles of trauma—like abuse, betrayal or even war. One example could be if your great grandfather was part of the Vietnam War and he came back with PTSD, where he started drinking to cope and ended up becoming emotionally abusive to his children. That trauma would then be passed down until someone like you breaks the cycle through healing work so that it doesn’t get passed down anymore.”
HOW TO BREAK THE CYCLE
The first step to breaking a generational curse is awareness. You should always be aware of the cycles of trauma that are at play in your life, and how they might be affecting you and those around you.
The next step is to understand how it began, because there’s always an origin story for this kind of thing. Whether it’s sexual abuse or assault, poverty or something else entirely, understanding where the cycle began can give you a sense of perspective on why the behavior is happening now. Once you know the origin, take steps to heal from that trauma—if it came from someone close to you, consider talking with a trusted friend or therapist about what happened.
Remember: just because a certain pattern was passed down to you doesn’t mean it’s set in stone as your destiny. If an issue has followed your family through generations and feels like an impossible hurdle to conquer, try not to get discouraged and become passive; instead, channel all that extra energy into expanding your thinking even more than before and coming up with creative solutions for each of these issues individually.
THE FIRST STEP IS AWARENESS
The first step towards breaking the cycle is becoming more self-aware. You can’t heal something that you don’t understand. As we mentioned earlier, generational curses are deeply rooted in our subconscious minds and they manifest themselves when we least expect it. Acknowledge that your thoughts, reactions, and behaviors are not always yours–sometimes they’re a result of something that happened to your parents or grandparents. When you spot a generational curse within yourself, take action by asking yourself these three questions:
- What behavior of mine is causing harm to me or those I love?
- Where did this behavior come from?
- How can I heal this behavior?
PUTTING THE PUZZLE PIECES TOGETHER
Healing from generational curses can be an extremely daunting experience. It is so important to be gentle with yourself in the process and take time to process your thoughts and emotions. Though healing may seem overwhelming, it’s really just about putting the puzzle pieces together in a way that makes sense for you. Not a single human on this earth is perfect, & we all have some form of healing journey to walk.
In order for this to work, however, you need two things: TIME and SUPPORT. Do not try to put the pieces together alone!
Sometime people will say “Oh, I know all about my family history. I don’t need therapy,” but that’s not actually how it works. Knowing what happened is only part of the puzzle; making sense of it is another thing entirely. This may take years—and that’s okay! You don’t have to do everything at once or fix everything right away; instead, you can find ways to heal little by little until everything starts to make more sense and resonate with your life today. While you’re doing this work, remember—You are loved and supported!
IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT YOU
If your parents or grandparents have passed away, you can still do some family research to learn more about the people and events that shaped their lives. This will help you have a better understanding of how their experiences may have affected them and their decisions, and how that may have impacted you.
Healing from trauma is a journey that requires support from others. If you’ve been stuck in patterns of behavior that are unhealthy, don’t feel like it’s on your shoulders alone to overcome them; reach out to loved ones who can help set you on the right path, as well as trusted mental health professionals who can provide support & guidance. And remember healing is possible, even for generational curses that have persisted for many years and caused much suffering for the people involved.
HEALING TAKES TIME & SUPPORT
Remember that recovery is a process, not an event.
As you work your way through the healing process, make self-acceptance a priority. That’s where true healing starts. It means learning to take responsibility for your life and relationships with others in a way that honors who you are.
Healing also requires being open to self-examination and taking an honest look at the ways in which old patterns have affected (and continue to affect) you and those around you.
Healing takes courage, commitment, and support—and it’s something you can achieve over time with dedication and patience. The journey of healing is possible—and worth it!
YOU CAN START TO HEAL FROM YOUR TRAUMA
Generational curses are tricky, though. They often come in the form of a traumatic event that occurs between two or more generations with an emotional impact on subsequent generations. These events often occur at an emotional age where children and/or teens are still learning about themselves as people and forming their identities, including their own perceptions of what’s important and valued. For example, some traumas fulfill generational curses through their psychological effects by insinuating guilt for not having been able to prevent something from happening. In these instances, the child is taught that he wasn’t able to protect his parents from harm and has trouble trusting himself in future situations; another example involves the trauma occurring when a child is unable to stop someone else from being hurt (or worse) because they are not strong enough or brave enough to fight back against it or cannot see it coming because they haven’t learned yet how to observe other people’s behavior.
An additional common generational curse is one that comes about through physical damage inflicted against members of one generation as another one suffers the consequences of the trauma (think water damage after Hurricane Katrina). These traumas can be especially damaging if they occur in early childhood or adolescence when young people aren’t able to fully understand exactly what happened and why it was so devastating long before they’re filled with self-doubt about who they are and how unique their experiences were compared to others’ experiences.
