What’s Shaping Us
Trauma is not just psychological—it’s biological.
Modern science is beginning to confirm what Indigenous wisdom has taught for centuries: the body remembers. Through a field of research called epigenetics, we now understand that trauma, famine, toxins, and stress leave chemical “tags” on our DNA. These tags don’t change our genetic code, but they do determine whether certain genes are activated or silenced. And what’s more, these changes can echo across generations.
How Epigenetics Reveals the Biology of Trauma
Studies have shown that descendants of Holocaust survivors carry heightened cortisol reactivity, making them more vulnerable to stress and memory disorders. Communities shaped by transatlantic enslavement, colonization, and systemic racism show intergenerational PTSD, as well as higher rates of hypertension, maternal mortality, autoimmune disorders, and diabetes. These outcomes are not individual failings—they are lineage injuries, carried forward in our cells.
Indigenous teachings have long spoken to this truth: the Seminole say “the blood remembers.” The Lakota remind us that “we carry the prayers and the wounds of seven generations.” In the Andes, people say, “our bones are libraries of ancestors.” Science is finally catching up.
We Inherit More Than Wounds
Trauma is not the whole story. Epigenetics also shows us that resilience is encoded in our DNA. Endurance, creativity, resistance, strength—these too are passed down through generations. We are shaped by pain, but also by the gifts that survived it.
Healing at the Epigenetic Level with BodyTalk
BodyTalk is a holistic healthcare system that works at the level of epigenetic repair. Trauma can short-circuit the communication between body and mind, creating symptoms that show up as illness, anxiety, or chronic pain. BodyTalk helps to reset stress pathways, regulate the nervous system, and heal grief at a cellular level. In doing so, it reopens the body’s ability to communicate with itself—allowing old trauma “marks” to shift and new patterns of health to emerge.
When the body talks to itself, it remembers how to heal itself.
Moving Forward
We live in a time of profound reckoning—facing the inherited wounds of slavery, colonization, and systemic oppression, while also rediscovering the resilience carried forward by our ancestors. Epigenetics offers a scientific lens for what spiritual and cultural traditions have always known: healing is not only possible, it is necessary for the generations to come.
👉 If you’re curious about how BodyTalk can help you address inherited trauma and restore balance, book a call with me here.