Begin your journey of understanding family dynamics by turning inward with compassion towards your own feelings, recognizing that your struggles likely didn’t originate with you.
Investigate untold stories, secrets, and hidden things in your family history to understand that your present-day struggles or vulnerabilities may not have originated with you, but rather be unprocessed trauma from previous generations.
By allowing yourself to hear and feel the loss of past family secrets and untold stories, you can prevent passing down unprocessed trauma to the next generation.
Acknowledge that denial is a natural response to difficult truths, but allow yourself to gradually turn towards and face unwelcome news or losses at your own pace to begin dealing with them.
Dedicate 5-10 minutes daily to solitude, sitting with yourself without distractions like smartphones or social media, to allow feelings to come up and become aware of your inner state.
Refrain from self-medicating overwhelming feelings or emotional pain with distractions like smartphones, busyness, alcohol, or sugar, as this prevents you from understanding and addressing the underlying issues.
Turn your attention inward, breathe, be aware of what you feel, and name your emotions, as they are transmitters of information that need to be expressed and allowed through your system to avoid getting stuck in dysfunctional patterns.
Become aware of your inner emotional state, respond to the messages these emotions convey, and meet the needs they indicate, otherwise, negative feelings will persist and worsen over time.
Reflect on whether you are prioritizing your time to spend with family, especially if family is a core value, to create soulful, meaningful conversations and deeper connections.
When needing to have a difficult conversation or broach a sensitive topic, do so while engaged in a shared activity (like puzzling or walking) to make the interaction less threatening and allow things to come up naturally.
Keep a large puzzle ongoing in your home as a low-pressure environment where family members can gather, engage in a shared activity, and naturally ease into difficult or tricky conversations.
Initiate conversations with family members by asking specific questions about past generations’ beliefs (e.g., about sex, money), upbringing, or difficulties, to uncover untold stories that may help you understand your own unvoiced disturbances.
Engage in journaling or conversations to articulate your feelings, as voicing or writing them down can reveal emotions you didn’t consciously know were present.
Try walking and talking with a close friend, or using your phone’s voice memo to journal aloud, as voicing thoughts can release unconscious insights and surprise you with unexpected words.
Dare to begin exploring family dynamics by talking to parents, siblings, or children about things that have been bothering you but were never voiced, starting with small steps.
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