If you are a follower of my blog, you probably have read my post on Epigenetics and how they can play a role in your health and healing journey. When I first started diving into the role of Epigenetics, it was important to me to read about it from someone who was an expert. In his book, It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How To End The Cycle, Mark Wolynn digs super deep into Epigenetics and how we can use the study of our family to help break generational curses that are prevalent in our own lives.
The beginning of the book starts off very strong with scientific explanations on what Epigenetics are and why they are important. He follows into family trauma, core language, and what we can do to improve our view and how we hold and ultimately release our family trauma. The book is chalk full of plenty of stopping points with short exercises that help the reader to make connections while they digest the information.
While many who have reviewed this book feel that is is inappropriate to call up the past and make forced reconnections with your parents, I did not gather that from this book at all. Often, people have very strained relationships with their parents, for reasons known or unknown to them. This book helps the reader look back into their childhood at how they were or were not treated by their parents in effort to make connections to how those events helped to shape who they are today. From what I can remember, I do not believe that the author ever says to try to go back to your parents regardless of your feelings.
Digging into family trauma is a very complicated process and can be super painful due to years of hidden and/or buried memories. However, Wolynn implies that by doing the hard work, the reader will ultimately be able to find freedom and healing from sorting out the ghosts of the past.
An argument can be made that sometimes it is best to just let sleeping dogs lie. I beg to differ, however. I think that by confronting hard to digest situations from our families history, healing and ultimately joy can be found moving forward. I am not saying that it is easy or that the process is joyful – it is actually quite hard and sometimes devastating to deal with. It is SO worth it, though.
If I had to rate this book on a scale of 1-10, I would give it a solid 9.5 because of the impact it made in my life and how easy it was to read. With my background in psychology, I always read books hyper critically, and this book passed my radar with flying colors. If you are on your healing journey and looking for the next step – this book might be for you!
modernmeditations22436556.wordpress.com 