What if it DID Start With You?

Turning the societal ancestral healing programming upside down

I talk a lot about inherited trauma, war trauma, beliefs, behaviors, and patterns within our ancestral lineage. I have consciously been on a spiritual journey and doing inner and ancestral healing work since 2012 so I know how to take accountability for my own baggage. And usually I do, unless I’m not ready, and then push it down again… as we all do. However….I also bought into the societal programming that it’s all the fault of our parents and ancestors. But yet, I also didn’t buy into that programming.

In 2016, Mark Wolynn published a book, It Didn’t Start With You. How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. I bought this book, read a few times, made loads of notes in my journals, took his class, and used these ideas as a foundation for my own healing and how I help clients.

Fast forward to this morning when I’m combing out my hair after a shower and it hit me…

What if it DID start with me?

This is Not About Blame or Judgment. It is About Awareness

Let me be clear – this is not about blame or judgment. This is about awareness of self, parents, grandparents, and ancestors. When we spiral into blame we are playing in low vibrational energies which doesn’t help us. We need to view our lives and the lives of our ancestors through the historical lens. No blame or judgment – just a matter of fact – this is who I/they were at this point in their life.

I also want to be clear that people change. YOU will change with every piece of yourself you heal, release, or forgive. The more you change, you might just see that the parent or grandparent you might “blame” for an issue is not really that person. The identity you assigned yourself and them may shift. I have seen this often in my own lineage, especially with my grandma Libbie.

Stay out of the blame energy and be the observer of all things. Feel the emotions and let them go.

The Societal Programming is Everywhere

Part of my healing work has been to work with different energy healers at different points in my journey. I have also voraciously read books on epigenetics, inherited trauma, war trauma, and explore this within my own lineage and life. I was a bit surprised at how many resources I’ve explored in just the last 11 years, when I put together a Trauma Toolkit for my new military and ancestral healing programs I teach this week. So many modalities, bits of information, and programming to believe this or that.

Have you noticed, especially since 2020, that the societal and media programming is more to push accountability and responsibility for any personal trauma, on to someone else? Our neighbors, society, parents, grandparents, etc.? Media tells us basically we could not personally be to blame – it’s someone else’s fault. Have you noticed more people view trauma through this lens more every day? Take a look around and notice the patterns, the talking points, the “celebrity” folks and healers who are pushing this narrative.

Ask yourself how much you have bought into this narrative? It’s someone else’s fault I am this way. Be honest. We have all done it while also not doing it. Here’s what I mean.

Could It Have Started With Me?

If you were born just prior to or during World War II, let me give you an example of how your problems, repeating patterns, beliefs, and behaviors that do not enhance your life may have started with you.

Children born just prior to and during World War II lived in a world shaped by fear and control. These children grew up with blackouts every night. Media telling them to be afraid of an enemy invasion or bombs dropping on them. Air raid sirens went off which programmed a nervous system response. Some parents couldn’t handle and process their own fears so their children absorbed that. Other parents were non-chalant about it all which also produced fear in their children.

Think about what that stress creates. Think about how old you were during the war. Children process things differently at different ages. Some of that is shaped by how the parents respond or react and if they themselves are grounded and feel safe.

Without parents to help you process your own fear, this could have led to you growing up and passing down feelings of: fear of the dark; fear or hatred of those who are different or from another country; a visceral response any time a loud siren or similar noise goes off; fear of airplanes or flying; fear of getting in trouble if you don’t follow every rule (which may lead to strictness and abuse of your children later in life); and so many other possibilities.

This is not a perspective we often talk about. This is not a perspective most ancestral healing books provide.

Did it REALLY Start With Me?

As this big awareness just came through this morning, I am making notes in my journal. I do intend to sit with this and focus on things I have blamed others for that are messing up my life. How much of that did I create because of something that happened to me as a child? Or adult?

Once I identify things, I can start to forgive, heal, release, grieve, or shout with joy. We all process differently. I can tell you I will no longer be buying into the programming of I am this because of them. A deeper level of accountability is happening. This is growth even when it feels painful.

Questions For You

If you are on your own healing path or studying ancestral or war trauma, I invite you to get a journal out and sit with some of these questions. Perhaps seek out an energy healer or trauma-informed coach who can help you explore your family history, military history and self. I know for myself, I plan to set up a few more sessions with my energy healer to work through some of this in the near future.

1. What big events in your life, especially when you were a child, shaped your beliefs, behaviors, and patterns you brought forth throughout your life and modeled or taught to your children and grandchildren?
2. How are those beliefs, behaviors, and patterns messing with your life? How do you see them messing with the lives of your children?
3. What can you do to process this new information? Do you journal? Do you want to work with an energy healer or coach or therapist? Do you need to have honest and open conversations with family members? Do you need to learn some new tools?
4. How can you explore what you identify without blame or judgment of self and others? Are you capable of this?

These are just a few questions you can start with. If you’d like to explore this more, sign up for my newsletter as I will be bringing forth starting in November 2026, a more balanced program of military research and writing classes along with generational/inherited and war trauma classes and tools. I am also expanding my private coaching to help people who would prefer to discuss their veteran father in a private, safe space, rather than in a class.

Let me know what resources you have explored. What energy healing modalities. And, any questions you have. I’m happy to discuss and share resources and my own experiences.

© 2026 WWII Research and Writing Center