Trauma of the Ancestors in Our Cells

In a beautiful Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy session recently, the client and I both enjoyed resting in a peaceful state of dynamic stillness. As I held the person’s body, I was aware of an ongoing sense of discharge, as if their cells were discharging some very old trauma. A prickly, slightly cold sensation seemed to exude from every cell, dissolving in the field of stillness we were suspended within. Suddenly, I understood this to be ancestral trauma, originating before the client was born. Knowing this client was Jewish, I began to understand what I was sensing.

I had heard about this client’s struggles to feel safe and welcomed by her parents, themselves the children of immigrant parents who had fled from Russia. These grandparents were stressed and traumatized by their own experience of escape and trying to find their way in a foreign land. They also carried generations worth of terror. Pogroms and almost universal anti-Semitism created a field of oppression and hyper-vigilance. Never knowing when the next attack might come, and which loved ones would they lose next. Or would they be next?…

Traumatizing Oppression; Oppressive Trauma

Sitting with my client, I was reminded of words from David A. Treleaven, author of a book I recently read and highly recommend to anyone working with or recovering from trauma: Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing. Treleaven includes the effects of oppression as important to acknowledge in being with trauma. He writes,

“If we focus exclusively on individual components of trauma, we can draw attention away from the systems of oppression that so often lie at the root of trauma. Traumatic stress is a physical and psychological experience, but it is also a political one.”

Minority groups live within an oppressive field. Recent research demonstrates that the experience of our grandparents can affect our health and well-being through epigenetic changes, carried down to our parents and then to us. If our grandparents lived in a threatening environment, they probably learned to protect themselves and taught this skill to their children. Their ability to be fully present with their children may have been affected by their trauma. As Treleaven notes,

“If we’re targeted by systemic oppression—as someone who is poor or working class, disabled, a person of color, transgender, or a woman—we face a greater likelihood of experiencing interpersonal trauma over the course of our lives, and live inside of traumatic conditions every day.”

My client’s grandparents experienced perhaps more physical safety in their new country, but they continued to be outsiders, and probably continued to experience anti-Semitism. Her parents marinated in the field of terror, stress and insecurity of her parents. Every cell floated within this field, as was also true for my client.

When we have grown up within such a field of ancestral as well as ongoing traumatizing oppression, old trauma patterning can be stirred by encountering news such as the recent attack on a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburg, or other similar attacks in Europe recently. To those not oppressed, it may seem like a horrible incident, but to those who know this ancestral terror in their cells, it is like dropping acid on an old wound. It sends shock waves through already scarred tissues, shaking already trembling communities of cells.

Reminders of conflict and war are also amplified by markers such as Remembrance Day, celebrated today, the 11^thday of November, acknowledging the end of the First World war, the “war to end all wars” one hundred years ago.

I understood why my client might be expressing this cellular trauma at this time. It is not unusual for ancestral trauma to present in this work within a field of relational safety and the support of the Breath of Life.

Intelligence with a Capital I

Holding my client within the stillness, I once again experienced a depth of gratitude for what father of Cranial Osteopathy called “Intelligence with a capital I.” A mysterious intelligent force conducted the session, drawing out of the cells tensions of trauma no longer needed.

Allowing the trauma to discharge gently within the profound resource of dynamic stillness resonates with other kinds of modern trauma work. Orienting to resource and support enables the person to let go of the effects of an overwhelming event in the past without being drawn back into a state of overwhelm.

While it is possible to dissociate or become activated while receiving Craniosacral therapy, as with any healing work, we can support ourselves and our clients in orienting to the powerful supportive presence of the Breath of Life and its intelligent manifestations within our bodies and our work. Attending to sensory awareness of ok-ness in the present moment can balance the intensity of trauma memories and influences, so they become more tolerable. Here the old can be released and new presence and aliveness embraced.