Many people grow up carrying emotions they can’t explain. A tendency to over-apologize, a fear of asserting themselves, a deep unease in their own skin—these aren’t always personal flaws. Often, they’re symptoms of something older: a pattern passed down through family systems, shaped by cultural history and collective wounds. This is where the conversation around intergenerational trauma begins. And where ancestral healing comes in as a response.
What Is Intergenerational Trauma?
Intergenerational trauma refers to emotional and psychological patterns that are inherited through family lines. These aren’t just behaviors children learn by watching their parents. They can be embedded more deeply—shaped by the unprocessed grief, fear, or survival strategies of those who came before.
For many descendants of colonized peoples, immigrants, or families touched by war, this isn’t a vague idea. It’s lived reality. Trauma becomes a family language, even if no one talks about it.
In Filipino communities, for example, trauma often has roots in centuries of colonization, military dictatorship, religious control, and mass migration. Families may carry burdens shaped by historical violence, economic instability, or the dislocation caused by overseas labor.
A parent who survived dictatorship might become emotionally withdrawn. A grandmother who lived through war might enforce strict discipline. Children born into these systems may not understand the origin—but they feel the impact.
Why Does This Matter?
Unaddressed trauma doesn’t disappear. It shifts. What one generation suppresses, the next may express—sometimes through anxiety, depression, or chronic self-doubt. These patterns can also show up in how we parent, form relationships, or respond to stress.
There’s growing research into how trauma affects gene expression (known as epigenetics). But even without the science, many people recognize the emotional weight they carry doesn’t begin with them. The question becomes: how do we work with that inheritance?
What Is Ancestral Healing?
Ancestral healing refers to the process of acknowledging, understanding, and resolving emotional wounds passed down through generations. It’s not a single method but a broad term that includes personal reflection, therapy, spiritual practices, and cultural reconnection.
At its core, ancestral healing invites us to pause and consider the stories and systems we’ve inherited. It doesn’t mean blaming our families. It means recognizing that patterns have context—and that we have the power to shift them.
This process can look like:
- Learning about your family history and the historical events that shaped it.
- Naming recurring emotional patterns, like shame, fear, or over-responsibility.
- Exploring cultural practices that connect you to earlier generations.
- Engaging in therapy or community dialogue that supports this reflection.
Trauma in the Filipino Diaspora
The Filipino diaspora offers a powerful case study. Many Filipinos grew up with strong family values, but also with silence around pain. Children were expected to be obedient. Suffering was often spiritualized. The concept of hiya (shame) played a major role in behavior.
Other values like pakikisama (smooth interpersonal relationships) or utang na loob (debt of gratitude) shaped how individuals navigated conflict, often at the cost of their own needs. When combined with authoritarian parenting or economic pressure, these values could become mechanisms of control.
Then there’s the global phenomenon of the Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) system. Millions of parents have left their children to work abroad. While financially beneficial, these arrangements often lead to emotional gaps, unresolved grief, and a normalization of abandonment in the name of survival.
The result? Generational patterns of emotional suppression, guilt-driven loyalty, and chronic people-pleasing—all in the name of family.
What Healing Might Look Like
Healing is not about fixing the past. It’s about relating to it differently. For those exploring ancestral healing, the process often begins with naming what was previously unnamed.
This can include:
- Mapping family patterns without judgment.
- Speaking openly about taboos or family secrets.
- Understanding that a trait like emotional distance might be protective, not malicious.
- Asking: What was the function of this behavior? Who did it serve?
In Filipino contexts, healing might also include:
- Reconnecting with cultural practices that were once suppressed.
- Exploring indigenous spirituality outside colonial religion.
- Talking to elders to understand their untold stories.
- Making space for grief—not just personal, but inherited.
For example, someone who always feels pressure to “succeed” might realize that this drive is linked to unspoken expectations passed down from parents who sacrificed everything to send them abroad. Naming that pressure, and honoring the pain beneath it, allows space for transformation.
Ancestral Healing Isn’t About Perfection
It’s easy to romanticize the idea of ancestral healing. But the work is often slow, uncomfortable, and non-linear. It’s not a weekend retreat or a social media trend. It’s an ongoing process of inquiry, compassion, and boundary-setting.
Sometimes it involves confronting the reality that certain family members may never change. Other times, it means developing rituals or practices that allow you to grieve what was lost and celebrate what survived.
Why This Matters Now
More and more, younger generations are waking up to the emotional weight they’ve been asked to carry. They’re beginning to ask different questions—not just about personal success, but about emotional integrity, cultural reconnection, and healing at the root.
In the context of growing mental health awareness, especially among Filipino Americans and other diaspora communities, ancestral healing offers a framework that’s both personal and political.
It challenges the belief that survival alone is enough. It opens the door to flourishing.
Final Thoughts
To engage in ancestral healing is to recognize that you are not starting from scratch—but you are writing a new chapter.
You inherit more than trauma. You also inherit resilience, love, and memory. The task is not to erase the past, but to relate to it in ways that restore dignity to yourself and those who came before you.
Whether through prayer, therapy, community, or quiet reflection, ancestral healing begins when you give yourself permission to feel—and to ask: what ends with me?