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Can We Feel Trauma From Our Ancestors?​

At AHC, we honor the reality that people and communities suffer from the effects of trauma, even if they haven't personally lived through a dramatic event. Ancestral trauma can be attributed to both internal factors, such as genetics, and external factors, including environments, behaviors, or situations that someone in your familial lineage was subjected to long ago. Ancestors and survivors of intergenerational trauma live with ongoing struggles that continue to affect families today, revealing that the lasting effects of Ȟá Wičhóuŋčhaǧe OyázaŋyA, or intergenerational trauma, are real. Epigenetics, the study of how people’s environments and behaviors can affect how genes work—known as “gene expression”—demonstrates that these changes, along with DNA sequences, can be passed from one generation to another, a process called epigenetic inheritance.

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We Can Heal Trauma From Our Ancestors ​

 

​We are dedicated to healing intergenerational trauma experienced by Native American people whose ancestors suffered tragic deaths due to colonization, massacres, and the implementation of boarding schools. We acknowledge that ancestral trauma spans across all cultures and time. Holocaust survivors, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans also carry the burden of historical trauma from genocide, slavery, refugee violence, and the stressors related to migration. We embrace the Lakota Tradition of Wóakiktuŋže, an ancient spiritual practice of forgiveness, taught to us by Lakota Elder Basil Brave Heart. Through Native ceremonies, prayer walks, and name changes, we seek to heal history. By reaching back to our ancestors through prayer and traditional ceremonies, Wókiksuye occurs—a spiritual doorway opens, allowing for forgiveness and healing to take place.

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