Heal Within with Dr. Evette Rose

The Ghost in Your DNA Lineage + Meditation

• Dr. Evette Rose • Season 15 • Episode 11

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Trauma doesn't simply disappear when unaddressed—it can echo through generations, leaving molecular imprints on our genetic code that influence how we respond to stress, perceive danger, and regulate emotions. This fascinating exploration of inherited trauma reveals how your anxiety, recurring patterns, and even physical symptoms might have origins in experiences you never personally had.

The science is compelling. Children of Holocaust survivors show altered stress hormone regulation despite never experiencing the trauma themselves. Those conceived during the Dutch Hunger Winter demonstrate lifelong metabolic changes. Even studies with mice reveal that fear responses can be inherited by offspring who never experienced the original stimulus. These findings suggest trauma leaves biological fingerprints that pass through generations, creating ripple effects we're only beginning to understand.

Beyond biology, emotional patterns travel through family lines via attachment styles, communication habits, and modeled coping mechanisms. Through mirror neurons, we unconsciously "download" our caregivers' ways of being—including their unresolved trauma. This intertwining of inherited emotional imprints with biological predispositions creates a complex web that shapes our identity, relationships, and health. But understanding this inheritance is the first step toward freedom. By approaching your body with curiosity rather than judgment, recognizing its language of sensations and symptoms as messages rather than malfunctions, you begin the healing journey. Through practices like meditation and affirmations, you can release inherited stress patterns, rewriting your story with love and safety. Your healing becomes not just personal transformation but a profound gift that breaks cycles for generations to come.

Ready to set yourself free? Listen, breathe deep, and remember—you're healing one breath at a time. Share this episode with someone on their healing journey and join us next week as we continue exploring the path back to wholeness.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Heal Within, here with me, Dr. Evette Rose, a trauma therapist and also the creator of Metaphysical Anatomy Technique. And this podcast is your safe space to explore emotional healing, nervous system repair and also deep inner transformation. And if you are ready to go deeper and you would like to be supported on your journey, you can always book a one-on-one session with me or any one of my Metapsychology Coaching practitioners, and also join us for one of our upcoming life healing events, whether it's a workshop or a retreat at metaphysicalanatomycom. And now let's begin your journey back to wholeness, one breath, one breakthrough at a time. And I look forward to today's podcast.

Speaker 1:

Because what if the anxiety that you feel, the patterns that you can't seem to break it, or even just the physical symptoms that you carry didn't start with you? What if they were maybe echoes? There may be some emotional imprints that is left by the lives of those who actually came before you. You see, today we're going to dive deep into the science and the soul of inherited trauma and also, most importantly of all you probably know me really well by now I always ask why and how and how, also, most importantly, can we start to set ourselves free from this. Now let's set the stage the idea that ancestral trauma can still be expressed through us. You see, we often think of DNA as almost like this fixed code that's just handed to you. It's almost like a blueprint that's just passed down from our parents, right, and that just kind of just dictates everything from our eye color right down to our height. But what we're starting to see now that's really interesting is that science now actually tells us that DNA is a lot more like how can I say? It's almost like a dynamic manuscript and, yes, the basic letters, you know, it kind of stays the same, but the way that those letters are read and how they are expressed, this can be influenced by life experiences, even trauma. Now, this also means that, in a way, what I can explain is like the intense emotional experiences of your parents and your grandparents and even your great-grandparents. All this can leave almost like little molecular marks on the genetic code that you are carrying today, and it's almost as if the echoes, like the ripple effects of their pain and, as I like to call it, almost like the ghosts of their experiences, are still stored inside of your cells. Now, what does that mean here?

Speaker 1:

Now I'm going to open up the discussion, the science of inherited trauma, which leads me to epigenetics, how biology stores experiences. You see, let's break it down. First, epigenetics we know that's the study of how behavior, and at least behaviors and also the environment, can cause changes that affect the way that our genes work, without actually altering the actual DNA sequence of itself. Now, these changes, they occur through these epigenetic tags, almost like DNA mytholization, that act as molecular bookmarks and they're telling your cells which genes to switch on and off. Now, what does research show in regards to this statement that I'm making? Let's dive a little bit deeper.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if you've seen the research about the Holocaust survivors. Now, researchers that studied these children of the Holocaust, and especially, of course now the survivors I'm specifically referring to. They all had altered stress, hormone regulation and also differences in cortisol receptor sensitivity, even though they never experienced the trauma themselves. So these are survivors of the Holocaust. This is the children of the Holocaust survivors. The famous one also, the Dutch Hunger Winter, remember that one Children that were conceived during that famine. They showed lifelong changes in their metabolism and also higher rates of cardiovascular disease. And also, just ever so recently, researchers also found that parental PTSD can actually alter a specific type of gene that's impacting stress response in the next generation. That says a lot. So people who many years back said, wow, you know, this child is so young, but they show all these symptoms of PTSD. But PTSD can only happen as an adult, when we experience a traumatic event. All this is now being blown out of the ballpark. You see, there was also another study done. There was a rodent study that was actually done, where mice they were exposed to like a scent that was paired with like a mild shock, and then not only did they develop a fear of the smell, but their offspring, even their grand offspring, showed the exact same fear response, without ever experiencing the shock. You see, this is incredible because what this is actually showing us is that these studies suggest that trauma it leaves this long biological fingerprint that can be passed down, influencing how descendants respond to stress, to regulate emotions and even perceive safety or danger that they themselves never experienced.

Speaker 1:

But, as most of you know, in my work I love to dive deep into emotions and how emotions impact and affect the body. You see, emotional patterns can they also be inherited? From my research, what I've seen with the thousands of clients that I have worked with. My answer is absolutely yes. And now, biology is actually only half of the story. You see, emotional patterns go the long distance as well, and they travel down the family lines through attachment cycles, communication habits and also modeled coping mechanisms. You see subtle messages just like we don't talk about feelings, we're always on guard. Don't talk about feelings, we're always on guard, or we sacrifice ourselves for others. This can become engraved behavioral patterns. And now what happens with this and something that I love to also teach in my workshops, we dive deep into this as well is the mirror neurons, because from infancy we absorb the environmental tone of our caregivers, right, and they carry unresolved grief, anxiety, hypervigilance and God, the list goes on, and we could actually download that way of being.

Speaker 1:

And it's not just that. What about body memory? You see chronic muscle tension that startle reflexes or patterns of shallow breathing can be subconsciously copied from a parent's body language. Yes, it can be copied from a parent's body language. And over time, these emotional inherited imprints, they start to intertwine with our biology predispositions, creating this web of influences that shapes identity, relationships and, most importantly of all, you know my research, our health, how emotions inherited, experienced in this life, if left unresolved, can deeply impact our health, and I'm not just referring to mental health, psychosomatic ailments. Mental health, psychosomatic ailments you see, as an example, let's say, there's a mother. That's always worrying.

Speaker 1:

And the beauty of all of this, my point, research is showing us. It's actually showing us what we can start to do in the here and now to start to improve our quality of life. And I understand that you might sit there and think well, I don't know where all of this is from. I get that, I really do. The body doesn't necessarily speak a language in the way that I'm speaking to you now, where we can easily and clearly understand one another and you understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

The body has a completely different somatic, nonverbal language, and the more we can start to learn to just understand the body's language, what it's trying to say, what is the messages that's coming through when we have aches and pains, instead of thinking what's going wrong, instead ask what is the body trying to correct. What is the body trying to tell me that I'm doing certain things, I'm thinking a certain way, I'm behaving a certain way that's creating discomfort, and the body is looking for a different outlet. It's looking for a solution, because the only way that we listen is when there's discomfort. The only way that we've evolved to the point where we have is because we've experienced resistance or adversity or challenges. That's the only time when we pause and we think, oh wow, something's not working, how do I correct that? And people having the breakthroughs are the ones who are asking the right question. Instead of thinking what's going wrong, instead think what needs to be done, what needs to be corrected. Right, it's more a matter of approaching our body and our mind with a solution-orientated mindset rather than going straight into oh, it's failing me.

Speaker 1:

The body is not designed to fail you. It's designed to keep you alive. That is its sole purpose. It has no benefit in malfunctioning in any way, shape or form.

Speaker 1:

But sometimes, if we don't know how to listen to the messages, how can the body correct itself? It's like when you drive a car. Right, we know we have to service it regularly, and if we don't, the engine light might go on, the battery light might go on, the car might make funny noises when we're driving. And if we ignore the messages because we don't understand and we just go, oh, I guess it'll just sort itself out and we just keep driving. We can't be shocked if the car breaks down. Right, the car breaks down, right, expect it. It's the same with the body. It's exactly the same with the body, and my invitation to you today is to gently give your body the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 1:

What is it trying to communicate? What is it trying to correct? Where does it need your help to decode? Maybe pain, emotional distress or discomfort? There's something that the body needs your extra help with because it clearly doesn't have, perhaps maybe the resources or the needed solutions to correct the challenge that it's experiencing, the challenge that it's experiencing, and so that is my invitation to you for this week Beautiful.

Speaker 1:

And so now, as with all my podcasts, let's start a gentle meditation, with the focus being on positive affirmations, to start to rebuild and heal our relationship with our body. And when you are ready, let's take a nice deep breath, and you can sit down as you are, or you can lie down, whatever you feel most comfortable with. It's probably best not to be driving right now, or maybe walking somewhere. If you can sit down, that would be best. Let's take that nice deep breath now, inhaling and exhaling Very good, and notice now just as you're finding yourself there, just as you're finding yourself there. Notice your breath, just simply your breathing, and notice, as you are breathing, how your body is moving with you every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week.

Speaker 1:

It's beating just for you and notice, now finding yourself stepping into an open space which transforms now into a beautiful forest or the beach, wherever you feel safe, wherever you feel grounded, your favorite place and noticing as you are in that open space, I invite you To imagine that there's a big waterfall in that space and you almost feel invited to step towards that waterfall and notice as you do, and notice as you do, it's almost like you can feel the mist of that waterfall, the mist of that water just landing on your skin and the sound of the water is so soothing you can't help but just feel relaxed in that waterfall and, as you do, feeling that lukewarm water flowing down your body, through every single cell in your body, cleansing you, helping your body to relax, de-stress and also just bringing awareness, bringing healing in different areas of your body where you might feel discomfort Maybe there's pain, maybe there's pain, maybe there's stress and just feeling this water gently just dissolving, dissolving and dissolving and dissolving Any stagnant stress that is being held in your body. And notice, as you are finding yourself in that waterfall, starting to feel more and more relaxed, more at ease, almost like lighter, just like your body is expanding. All that stress and these contractions are just loosening up. It's almost like your body was like a twisted towel that is now unwinding, unwinding and is starting to relax more and more. It's also easier to breathe, isn't it Just imagining, with every breath that you exhale just more unnecessary old stresses, just leaving your body.

Speaker 1:

And now, as you're under that waterfall, receiving all that beautiful healing, I'm going to affirm affirmations and all that you have to do is listen to my voice, or you can also repeat it if you wish. I honor the experiences of those who came before me and I release what is no longer mine. Imagine your body just releasing that stress. Down, down, down, down, down down into the earth are acknowledged, but they no longer define my life. I see and I acknowledge the pain in my family's history with compassion and I allow that now to run through me and out of me down, down, down, down into the earth my family without repeating their patterns.

Speaker 1:

My body is no longer a prison for the past. It is a vessel for new life and joy. Every cell in my body is allowed to release inherited stress and to welcome peace just remember to also keep your breathing consistent as we move through this, and the story stored in my DNA can now be rewritten with love and safety.

Speaker 2:

It's over.

Speaker 1:

I now let go of subconscious emotional story. From this day forward, I choose to respond with love and clarity, openness and mutual respect. I create relationships based on trust, openness and mutual respect. My voice is valued and my needs are valid. I choose patterns that nurture my soul and support my growth. I am a gentle turning point in my family line. My healing is a gift to those who came before me and those who will come after me.

Speaker 1:

I embody resilience, courage and compassion in every action I take. I am now free to live a life that my ancestors longed for. I pass down love, wisdom and freedom. I allow myself to heal with love, self-compassion and self-love, allowing that healing waterfall to continue to flow over you gently, gently, gently flowing over you. And now I invite you, as you're under that waterfall, to gently start to step out, allowing this healing from today to continue to integrate throughout your day and night and bringing this healing and this integration of it with you back into the here and now.

Speaker 1:

The here and now Feeling the surface beneath your body fully supporting you and holding you, giving yourself a nice big stretch and bringing your full focus and awareness to the bottom of your faith, feeling fully anchored, balanced and at ease and when you're ready, you can gently open up your eyes and welcome back. Welcome back, well done, and always remember that you're not alone and you are healing one step at a time and one breath at a time, and affirmation for today is I set myself free to be me and remember everyone. If this episode touched you, then please share it with someone that's on their healing journey and, as always, breathe deep, listen within and stay gently curious. I love you all and I look forward to seeing you in our next podcast episode. And if you have any suggestions for topics as well, you want me to talk about something, let me know. I would love to do that for you and, until next week, be the light that you are. Bye, everyone.