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Epigenetics and How We are Carrying 2 Generations of Trauma in Our Body
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Jun 19, 2025
Welcome to Adaptable | Behavior Explained! This episode explores epigenetics and how we carry two generations of trauma in our bodies. We break down how traumatic experiences can alter gene expression and be passed down, affecting not just our mental health but also our physical well-being. Understanding this science helps us approach healing with more compassion and intention—not just for ourselves, but for future generations. Learn why what you carry might not have started with you, and how awareness can lead to transformation. I'm Kelly O'Horo, Attachment based EMDR Therapist, EMDRIA Consultant, and Advanced Trainer. I'm a mom of 5, Nonna of 5, wife, and a healer. I have the honor of spending my workdays walking along side people while they brave their healing journeys. I try to live with the generous assumption that we're all doing the best we can with what we know. Therapists are teachers for the "life stuff" and "emotional vocabulary" that may not have been learned due to gaps in our care givers capabilities. In the last 15 years I've learned that people are freaking amazing, resilient, and inspiring. Most importantly, we are hardwired for connection and for healing! I hope to bring an authentic, compassionate, and unpolished approach while we explore a variety of topics such as parenting, marriage, relationships, dating, trauma, attachment, adoption, depression, addiction, anxiety, and love! There's a why for all behaviors and an explanation that makes perfect sense as emotion is at the root of it all. -- Links -- https://linktr.ee/kellyohorolpc https://youtu.be/rLnARKekvgo https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/
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0:06
hi everyone I'm Kelly O'Horo and this is
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Adaptable Behavior Explained hi there
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everybody thank you so much for tuning
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in today to Adaptable Behavior Explained
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i'm your host Kelly O'Horo i'm an EMDR
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therapist and I have tremendous passion
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about helping people understand the why
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behind their behavior especially when
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those behaviors don't seem to make sense
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today we're going to explore a powerful
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and really eye-opening topic could I go
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back to school and just spend all of my
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time geeking out about the biology of
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how we work I would absolutely get a
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doctorate in the topic of today which is
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epigenetics and this is basically how
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trauma can be passed down through
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generations not just through the stories
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or family dynamics but biologically
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you are carrying and your body is
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carrying echoes of your grandparents
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experiences your parents' experiences
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and I can't tell you how many times
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someone will sit down in my office and
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they will say things like "I'm so
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anxious but I have no reason to be so."
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So if you've ever wondered why do you
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feel a certain way about something or uh
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behave in certain ways and nothing in
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your life adds up to explain why this is
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then you're going to like this episode
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on epigenetics so first we're going to
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talk about what that even is we got to
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know about the basics epigenetics is the
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study of how our environment and our
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experiences can influence the way our
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genes are expressed without changing the
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actual DNA sequence if you think about
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your DNA as the hardware of the computer
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your body your brain uh it's the same in
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every cell but epigenetics that's the
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software it's the part of our body that
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tells the hardware what to do when to do
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it and how much to do it so here's the
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fascinating part about this topic and
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why I could just go to school like I
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said I could learn about this so much
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because it's so fascinating that this
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software can be influenced by things
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like stress our trauma our diet and even
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nurture or lack thereof in some cases
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those changes are passed down to future
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generations and so your body might be
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running programs that were installed by
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your ancestors experiences and so when I
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talk about history taking when I when I
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teach my therapists that work for me how
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to do this I talk about starting with
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our greatgrandparents and grandparents
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and then the par person's parents'
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histories because we are carrying at
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least two generations worth of material
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that is helping to inform the way our
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software or our code runs and so it's
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really important that when you think
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about the why and how you show up and
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how you interact and how you trust or
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don't trust how you're anxious how
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you're not anxious how perhaps you show
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up even more uh with depressive traits
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oftentimes we're not just looking at our
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life itself sometimes we're looking at
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our parents and our grandparents
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experiences i can remember thinking and
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this is before I was a trauma therapist
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i was watching uh my youngest son play
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and he was lining everything up and I
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think most people would describe me as
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anxious i'm sure I meet criteria for
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generalized anxiety i think most people
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who are high achievers tend to meet
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criteria for that but the kind of
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anxious I'm talking about when I was
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watching my son isn't this kind of
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anxious it was pragmatic it was almost
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obsessive and he's lining things up in
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size and color order and he's so
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determined that the things must be this
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way and got very upset if it was knocked
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out of place and I remember looking at
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my husband and going I don't think this
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is anything I've done to him i mean I'll
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take accountability that there's plenty
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that that have definitely you know
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influenced it but I think this is the
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anxiety that our parents had and our
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grandparents had and so the the display
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of behavior across generations is this
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whole study of epigenetics uh there's
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growing evidence that trauma doesn't
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just affect a person and who experiences
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it we can have vicarious trauma and we
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can understand that our experiences
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shape the way our children and our
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grandchildren show up so for example how
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we learned about this is through the
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studies of Holocaust survivors basically
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we had so many people that had gone
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through such treacherous experiences and
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they were all having offspring or
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reproducing and in those offspring we
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were seeing uh behaviors and altered
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levels of cortisol and stress hormones
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in the offspring even though their life
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didn't justify those levels and so even
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though they didn't live through the
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trauma themselves their bodies seem to
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carry the imprint of the experience that
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happened to their parents and their
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grandparents
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another example of where we started to
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get curious about this topic is during
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uh the Dutch hunger winter during World
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War II so babies were born to mothers
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who were pregnant during the famine uh
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and they were more likely to develop
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obesity diabetes heart disease uh later
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in life and their children which was the
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grandchildren of those who starved also
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showed signs of metabolic changes so
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it's pretty fascinating that we actually
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inherit more than just our eye color and
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our height we can inherit stress stress
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responses emotional behavior patterns
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and even vulnerabilities to mental
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health conditions and it's all part of
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not just what we went through in our
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lives but our parents and our
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grandparents and so I talk a lot about
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on this show adaptation and trauma and
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the experiences that we go through and
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how we have to learn to adapt in order
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to navigate current environmental stress
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or the stimulus that we're faced with
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and so when you think about the history
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right trauma epigenetics what does it
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mean for our mental health as a
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therapist I often work with people who
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don't understand why they feel a certain
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way they they'll tell me "My life was
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fine my parents were great i had good
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enough parents." And I go "They probably
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were." And and they were certainly
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trying the very best they could with
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what they have and I often operate with
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a generous assumption that that is how
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people are but when we take the family
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history and we look at something like a
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genog or a trauma egg in some models and
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we start to peel back the layers of what
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someone's story shows us oftentimes
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those behaviors or those anxieties are
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not from their life itself and I'll even
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do implicit work with people and I'll
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say you know I know you're feeling
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anxious i know your mom had anxiety i
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know your dad you know was struggling
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with the things that you described but I
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want you to close your eyes and I want
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you to tune in and if you could think
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about mom and think about how much
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you're carrying that's yours and how
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much you're carrying that's hers if you
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could split this pie chart up what
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percentage would you give back to mom
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that you know is hers and isn't yours
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and without fail I have never had a
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client that didn't just know they would
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come with an answer like "Oh it's like
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80% hers it's not even mine." And so
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part of the work that we're able to do
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which is so fun and fascinating is
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almost give back the percentage of
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whatever that expression of a trait is
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to the parent we lean into what thwarted
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experiences emotions and behaviors that
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happened in the generations before us
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and we acknowledge we validate we feel
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the feelings that were oftentimes not
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able to be expressed and in so doing
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we're able to relieve generational show
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we're able to reduce the I guess a
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universal energy i think it is what it
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feels like is we're able to release or
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free generations past of course
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ourselves and then what's even more
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fascinating is we're able to change the
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way our RNA shows up and our offspring
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don't necessarily have to carry it if we
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do our trauma work before we reproduce
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so sometimes the anxiety and the
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depression or the hypervigilance we feel
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isn't just ours it's not just our story
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it's about our family's story so let me
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give you another example let's say your
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grandmother lived through war she
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developed hypervigilance she's always
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scanning for danger she needed to do so
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as a survival mechanism because the
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history dictates the other shoe is going
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to drop because she's seen that happen
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and that pattern may have been passed
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down not just through behavior but
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biologically so you might feel anxious
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in safe situations or have a propensity
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to scan environments because your
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nervous system is still wired for that
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danger um so what looks like dysfunction
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in you might just be an adaptation your
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body is trying to protect you based on
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whatever information was inherited and
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what was useful generationally uh in
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past isn't maybe ne necessary now and so
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we're adapted to be ready in that fight
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that freeze that flee stance when it's
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no longer necessary and so when you're
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thinking about how you show up really
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get curious about what did your parents
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carry what did they go through because
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that data that information gives us a
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lot to work with so there's a lot of
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good news about learning about this
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these epigenetic changes aren't
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permanent just like any stance that we
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have now any state that we are
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experiencing any traits that we've
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inherited and that we show up those are
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influenced by our experience and that
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means they can be changed so we've
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learned them generationally in our
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family history sometimes in our current
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environmental lives and things that
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we've been through and sometimes past
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but all of those adaptations are things
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that our brains had to learn in order to
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adapt and they can be unlearned so the
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kind of therapy that I love uh is EMDR
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therapy that's where my specialty lies i
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I like combining that with things like
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sematic experiencing and sensory motor
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modalities uh anything mindful-based is
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going to really address the way we
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cellularly store information because our
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trauma that feels inherited that we
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can't experience is in our cells and so
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we can treat this kind of trauma and use
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tools like I said before genogs family
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trees and these these uh maps can help
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us really learn about emotional patterns
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things that uh will inform and help us
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understand why we might be carrying what
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we're carrying and the thing that I love
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the most about approaching life and
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understanding about adaptations from
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this lens is because it helps us to
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unshame ourselves a lot more quickly if
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we recognize the why we understand what
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happened to people that we inherited
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things from and what happened to their
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parents and so on and so forth it makes
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so much more sense we can start to shift
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the narrative it's not that I'm anxious
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it's that I was a little predisposed to
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be prepped for danger and when we
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understand that our struggles might have
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deeper roots we can start to let go of
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the shame and the self-lame about those
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uh attributes and those traits we're not
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broken you're not broken you're adapted
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and when we think about those
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adaptations as something that we can
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work with we can heal we can rewire
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because what fires together wires
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together and we can change the story for
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our next generation if we really get
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curious about it and we want to dig in
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um I just love that there's this
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information out there now and that it's
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not just theory we understand it we can
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see the way our genes line up we can see
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the propensities we can see the
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behaviors that show up in our offspring
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and we can see so many changes that have
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happened from the past to the present
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epigenetics shows us that trauma can
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echo across generations and you're
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you're carrying more than your own story
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and that's okay what you're experiencing
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might be inherited um it might be an
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adaptation and certainly it's not a
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personal flaw it's not something to be
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judged anything that we learned we can
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understand what we learned we can decide
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what we're ready to give up we can learn
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where we learned it and we can unlearn
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it to gain something that's more
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adaptive for today's self today's
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circumstances and today's environment
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and that's where the freedom lies
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healing is absolutely possible and so
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I'd love you to take some time and just
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reflect what patterns in your life might
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be roots from your family's past i think
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it's exciting read more about it i'm
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going to shoot a blog about this because
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I want to go ahead and cite the research
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and share with you a lot about um you
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know where this data comes from and make
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it a little bit digestible but if this
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episode resonates with you please
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subscribe leave a review give us your
12:19
feedback on it talk about things that
12:21
you made connections about because of
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what you thought about because of this
12:25
show share it with us share the show
12:27
with someone that might need to hear it
12:29
someone who's talking to you about they
12:30
don't know why they act the way they act
12:32
and maybe this can help them start to
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put some pieces of their own puzzle
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together so connect with me on social
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media kellyohoro.com
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Instagram kellyohoro or any of the links
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in my show notes so thank you so much
12:46
for tuning in today i hope that you
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found this helpful and remember you are
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adaptable and understanding your story
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is the first step towards hearing so
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thanks again for listening and until we
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meet again don't forget to lead with
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love it'll never steer you wrong
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[Music]