How healing your own wounds can transform your children’s lives
What if the one thing your kids are hoping and waiting for is for you to do the work to grow with them instead of staying stuck in old behaviors and reactions that never served you, and certainly don’t serve them?
If this resonates, how do you begin?
Your Story Matters – Healing Yourself Heals Your Kids, Too
First, know that healing yourself IS healing your children, and their children. Feeling dysregulated, a nervous system stuck on high alert, self-blame, high reactivity, a lack of self-compassion and self-care, all of these are passed down until one person decides to do the courageous inner work to break the cycle once and for all. This is how we begin to heal others. This is how we prevent trauma from being passed down from generation to generation.
As a science journalist and author, I’ve spoken with countless parents who feel overwhelmed by the pressures of modern life. They share how challenging it is to stay calm and compassionate when their children are struggling, especially when unresolved issues from their own childhood resurface in moments of stress. But the good news is that you don’t have to stay trapped in those old patterns. It’s never too late to rewrite your story—for yourself and for your kids.
The Healing Together Community
In my latest article on Substack, I dive deeper into these themes, share insights from research on parenting and trauma, and offer practical steps to help you start your healing journey. When you begin to heal, your children benefit, too.
Right now, all my articles on Substack are free, and it’s a great time to get involved as we shape this supportive space together. Your presence and engagement mean the world to me! (In the future, I’ll be offering additional content, activities, and conversations for paid subscribers. If you want to support my work as a paid subscriber right now as we build this meaningful community together, thank you!)
Click here to read the full article, which includes a simple three-part writing exercise to help you reflect on your past and how it shapes your present. Your story matters. And if you want many more strategies and neuroscience-based writing prompts, drawing exercises, and visualization practices to help you on your healing journey, might I suggest picking up a copy of my latest book, the Adverse Childhood Experiences Guided Journal.
I hope these offer you the tools you need to start breaking the cycle.
Yours,
Donna
