What happens when trauma goes unspoken and gets carried into the next generation?

In Part 2 of Nina's conversation with her father, Dr. Craig Arthur Keebler, they look more closely at the family he grew up in: a mother he describes as a "drill sergeant," a father deeply affected by PTSD from his experiences in World War II, and a home where emotional availability could be hard to find.

As Nina begins to see her father's childhood differently, she wonders how these family patterns and generational trauma may have shaped the emotional distance she has sometimes felt in their own relationship.

Nina turns to Michelle Masters, a Family Constellations expert in generational patterns and trauma, to explore how unresolved grief, PTSD, and intergenerational trauma can shape attachment, belonging, and the ways we love and connect, and what it means to choose what we carry forward.

At the heart of it all is a question: What makes a house feel like home? Maybe home is where we can reach for someone and find them there.

About Our Guest

Michelle Masters is a Personal Development Trainer and Coach with over 30 years of experience. Her work blends neuroscience-based change techniques, Family Constellation work, and quantum healing modalities to help people create lasting transformation. Her popular Money Magic workshop and the book that followed have helped people around the world transform their lives. Known as "The Coaches' Coach," Michelle has worked with some of the top coaches and trainers in the industry.

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A childhood shaped by control, conflict, and instability can influence a lifetime in ways we don’t recognize until much later.

In this first episode, Nina Frank, LMFT, sits down with her father, Dr. Craig Arthur Keebler, to trace the early experiences that formed his sense of self and the patterns he carried with him into adulthood.

Craig reflects on growing up as an only child with a “drill sergeant” mother, his complicated relationship with a beloved but possessive grandmother, and the painful unraveling of his parents’ marriage. During that turbulent period, he found refuge in the home of his closest friend, whose immigrant Jewish family offered a warmth and sense of belonging that contrasted sharply with his own upbringing.

Already drawn to Judaism, Craig found in it not only a place to belong, but a set of values and principles for how to live. Religion became a kind of moral compass—a framework for building an ethical, meaningful life and perhaps creating something different from what he had known growing up.

Together, Nina and Craig explore how childhood, divorce, religion, loyalty, and family mythology quietly shape who we become.

And along the way, a larger question emerges: What happens when the family we inherit isn’t the place where we feel most at home?

This is a conversation about childhood, belonging, the stories families tell, the things they don’t talk about, and the patterns we can carry for generations without realizing it.

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Learn more: https://www.steppingconsciously.com

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
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Stepping Consciously is a podcast about family, belonging, and the patterns passed from one generation to the next.

Hosted by Nina Frank, a licensed marriage and family therapist, the show brings together intimate family conversations, personal reflections, and therapeutic insight to explore how our earliest relationships continue to shape us.

From divorce and blended families to inherited roles, unresolved conflict, and the search for connection, Stepping Consciously asks what we carry forward—and what we have the power to change.

Follow the show for honest conversations about understanding where we come from and creating more conscious, connected relationships.