Epigenetics and The Mystery of Emotional Inheritance
Epigenetics is a new line of research that has been intriguing us in recent years. There is significant progress in scientific findings on this front and in the metaphysical domain. For practitioners of energy healing techniques, this is a very potent line of work. There is more and more discovery of overlap between science and spirituality that now aids both research and treatment of issues.
Epigenetic inheritance is a non-conventional approach. It opposes the premise that inheritance happens only through the DNA code that passes from parent to offspring. It supposes that a parent’s experiences, in the form of epigenetic influences, can be passed down to future generations. Epigenetic changes do not alter the DNA sequence, but they do change how your body reads the DNA sequence.
This understanding also forms the basis of study of intergenerational trauma. It establishes that trauma can be inherited because there are genetic changes in a person’s DNA. The changes from trauma do not damage the gene (genetic change). Instead, they alter how the gene functions (epigenetic change). It’s no secret that trauma can change us. What’s less understood or talked about is how it impacts the next generation.
Researchers first discovered the generational impact of trauma on the children of people who lived through the Dutch famine (the “Hunger Winter”) during World War II. Pregnant women were the most and rather distinctly vulnerable. The children they gave birth to have been found to be influenced by famine throughout their lives. When they became adults, they ended somewhat heavier than average. In middle age, they had higher levels of triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. They also experienced higher rates of such conditions as obesity, diabetes and schizophrenia.
Scientists also found that trauma can have a generational impact when they studied the children of Holocaust survivors. The conclusion from a research team at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital led by Rachel Yehuda stems from the genetic study of 32 Jewish men and women who had either been detained in a Nazi concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture or who had had to flee during the second world war. They also analysed the genes of their children, who are known to have increased likelihood of stress disorders, and compared the results with Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during the war. “The gene changes in the children could only be attributed to Holocaust exposure in the parents,” said Yehuda.
“Healing trauma is so important, but not easy to do, and certainly something we don’t understand at the biological level. A lot of work still to be done here,” says Tracy L. Bale, PhD, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland.
The field of epigenetics is still young. More research is needed and is important because epigenetic changes are reversible. The hypothesis that an individual’s experience might alter the cells and behavior of their children and grandchildren has become widely accepted.
Our parents’ and grandparents’ pain — their fears, their angers, their grief, their shutdowns — can all subconsciously become ours, an inheritance that carries on in the family. And here’s the somber part: Few of us ever make the link between our issues — our unexplained fear, anxiety, and depression — and what happened to our family members in a previous generation.
Instead, we believe that we’re the source of our problem. That we are solely responsible for how we are and what we feel. And it doesn’t end there. These subconscious patterns, along with whatever issues we leave unattended, can then be passed on to our children, and even to their children. What could be more painful than to see our children suffering, knowing that they continue to feel the pain we’ve left unresolved?
As this stream of research and work evolves, there is space for practitioners of both medical and energy healing fields to go deep and change the way some of these issues are dealt with today.
