A mindfulness practice often begins with a breath practice. This is where you focus, sometimes count, your in-breath and out-breath. Your mind may wander and you just bring your focus back to the breath. As you grow more confident in this practice, you can include noticing your thoughts and how they affect you. This practice is done by observing and not getting caught up in the past or the future threads of any of your thoughts. These simple practices and the others I've described in previous podcasts are important ways to build a practice. Change your brain - change your life.

Life is difficult. Why? Why does my brain want to spend so much time generating emotional suffering? Why am I so reactive to stressful situations? Why am I always upset when this happens? What am I supposed to do with these feelings of guilt, shame, boredom, or stress? What about addictions, depression, or chronic pain? Why can't I remember anything? Mindfulness addresses all of these questions. Tuning into our moment-by-moment experiences gives us insight into why and how our minds create senseless suffering. Listen to this week's podcast to get the scoop on my mindfulness practice and how it has positively changed my brain. It will work for you too!

The Mindfulness Solution : Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems

Ronald D. Siegel, PsyD

This podcast is about emotional intelligence. This podcast addresses how as parents and caregivers and spouses and siblings and friends we can do the work of understanding our emotions in order to create a better emotional climate in our relationships. I use the words "bad and good" at one point to say something is "bad" parenting, and I would like to rescind that statement. It was a harsh and judgmental word that came out of a passion for the topic. Parenting is hard. Relationships are hard. Teaching is hard. Therapy is hard. Dealing with our own emotions and the emotions of people around us is hard. Let's do the intentional work and normalize emotional experiences so that everybody feels safe feeling and expressing those feelings.

Join the conversation - email: [email protected]; IG in_sanitypodcast or Spotify

Epigenetics is the study of the chemical changes in the cells that alter gene expression by turning a gene "on or off." Epigenetics does not alter the DNA strand or the genetic code. This burgeoning area of research has implications for mental health and generational trauma. Most people agree that environment and behavior play a significant role in our physical and mental health, but can we change our gene expression to reverse certain negative outcomes? Listen to this episode for a shallow dive into epigenetics and how this subject relates to generational trauma.

This is the last episode on generational trauma. If you feel like I have missed something, please let me know. You can message me at the In Sanity Instagram account or email me with questions or comments at:

[email protected]

What is Epigenetics?

Additionally, practicing empathy would include creating a positive outcome in a given situation. Now, this definition goes a bit beyond the scope of this podcast but will be important in the future. For this week's podcast, understanding the concepts of "emotional literacy," "feeling with others," and "tuning in to feelings" will be important. 

UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World

If you are experiencing generational trauma, or if you have experienced your own trauma(s), it is important to find help and support. Often this can be a friend or a family member, and sometimes professional help in the form of support groups, or individual therapy is necessary. Listen to this week's podcast where I talk about genograms, adverse childhood experiences, and mindfulness all in the context of healing generational trauma.

Therapist Aid Genogram

Support Groups

At the end of last week's episode, I briefly mentioned the idea that boys and girls experience prenatal and postnatal parental stress differently. A listener reached out and asked about that. I embarked on the task of researching this. I did not find much, but what I did find was interesting and worth talking about. I hope it is meaningful to you, and that you can make some sense of it. Men and women experience post-traumatic stress disorder and potential traumatic encounters differently. Diagnostic criteria, types of trauma, and coping strategies are unique in men and women. Listen to this week's podcast for some insight into the new research that explains how and why this is the case. Below are a couple of articles for your reference. 

How Does Trauma Discriminate Between Men and Women?

Why Men and Women May Respond Differently to Psychological Trauma?

Natural disasters, systemic exploitation, poverty, and war are traumatic experiences that are passed down as inherited trauma. Additionally, maternal stress, emotionally absent parents, attachment wounds, and adverse childhood experiences are generational trauma. This week's podcast expands on the circumstances and situations that can be considered generational trauma and touches on the definition and explanation of epigenetics. The research continues on these important topics. 

What is Generational Trauma

What Is Genetic Trauma?

Generational trauma is trauma that can be experienced by more than one person, passed down from grandmother to grandson, or father to daughter. Often it is silent and lacks definition or detail. It can be implied or taught. The symptoms include anxiety, depression, substance use, or PTSD. Listen to this week's podcast and begin the journey of understanding historical trauma, generational trauma, epigenetics, and their role in the lives of both adults and children. 

The Legacy of Trauma

Empathy is not something we "have or don't have" by a certain age. Empathy is somewhat of a work in progress - certainly through childhood and adolescence, but oftentimes even into adulthood. Most people are born with the capacity for empathy, but it is something that needs to be experienced, taught, practiced, and cultivated. Listen to this week's podcast where I discuss empathy using Michelle Borba's book Unselfie. It's a good podcast and a better book. 

UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World