Intergenerational Healing: Beyond the Ravages of War

the human cost of conflict, epigenetics, and the promise of intergenerational healing.

We inherit so much from our family and culture, from time and circumstances. How can we heal passed the past?

War, occupation, colonization, and genocide don’t end with ceasefires, treaties, or formal apologies. They leave profound imprints — on bodies, families, cultures and entire nations. They ripple through generations in the form of health conditions, emotional wounding, dismantled communities, and changes in physiology that science is only beginning to understand. This post explores the intersection of epigenetics, intergenerational trauma, and healing — blending research with my own family’s history of surviving a war 85 years ago.

A Personal Story / My inheritance

Both of my parents were raised during World War II. My father spent his earliest years — ages one to four — in a Japanese internment camp in Java. He was kept alive by his mother, two older sisters, and his grandmother - who inevitably died in the camp. My father rarely spoke of those years. As a child, I wanted to understand and pleaded for stories. Once, he relented and shared that all of the Dutch and Indonesian prisoners in the camps were starving. If they were lucky, they would receive leftovers from the soldiers - usually rotting scraps. On one special occasion, my Oma managed to barter for a banana peel. She carefully fried the peel in the fat of a candle, which she then presented to my father as a special treat for his birthday.

It was only near the end of my father’s life that he began sharing fragments of the horrors he endured. He mostly carried the horrors in his body: digestive troubles, disturbed sleep, nightmares, high blood pressure, mental health issues, diabetes, addictions and dependencies, the list goes on. Not coincidentally, my father’s eldest sister, Marijke died from an aggressive cancer in her early 30s and his other sister, Marjolein - my magical intuitive auntie, succumbed to cancer when she was only 55. 

My mother’s childhood was also marked by severe malnutrition. Even though she lived in a counsel flat in Amsterdam during the war, food was scarce, and safety even more uncertain. My mother recalled the eerie silence of people hiding in benighted rooms, the quiet and darkness punctuated only by sirens and bombs. One night, when a cart with a bag of potatoes toppled in the street, my mother watched behind smeared glass as dozens of hungry people scurried from the shadows, grabbing whatever they could. By the time she was ten, my mother had endured multiple intestinal surgeries and lived with digestive issues, histamine intolerance and depression throughout her life. She passed at the age of 57 of cancer. She, too, carried the imprint of war.

As for me, I grew up in America - a land of abundance with a roof over my head, food in the refrigerator, clothing to wear, school to attend - no imminent threats of occupation or war. Yet the mark of scarcity was written into my body. In childhood photos, my belly was distended like those of malnourished children in famine zones. From a young age, I struggled with night terrors and digestive issues. While these disturbances mostly resolved around puberty, an adverse reaction to the antibiotic Cipro in my late twenties decimated my gut microbiome and systemic inflammation, food sensitivities, and insomnia became constant companions.

My own Road to Intergenerational Healing

It's been a long road: years of experimenting with diet, supplements, acupuncture and other forms of energy medicine, spiritual healing, yoga, learning to not fixate, functional and allopathic recommendations, along with targeted nervous system regulation, cognitive rewiring and vagal toning exercises. 

What’s poignantly clear is that my challenges are not mine alone.

In a recent meditation, I visioned inward into my belly and discovered a code for starvation lodged deep in the small intestine. One of the reasons for my slow motility (which contributed to SIBO, which contributed to MCAS) is that my abdomen is in an ongoing state of suspension - possibly a subconscious attempt to keep the food in and the hunger pangs at bay. These revelations have helped the belly begin to unwind and heal at a deeper level. I can now flood my body with the nourishing light of consciousness and it is a bit softer, more open to receive. I'm still careful with diet and tweaking supplementation, and, that revelation was key: Healing is not just the right tools at the right time, it’s the coherence of simultaneous care and receptivity. 

Culturally, we’ve been talking about intergenerational trauma for years. Research studies have confirmed epigenetic influences and the longterm casualties of war for decades. This information wasn’t new to me - and yet, clearly perceiving starvation in my own body was the inter-dimensional "aha" I needed to unlock another layer of healing. 

What Research Shows us about Conflict Trauma

It cannot be denied that trauma leaves a physiological impact: alterations in gene expression, shifts in stress hormones, changes in the gut and nervous system - as illustrated by my peresonal experience along with dozens and dozens of studies. I’m not even delving into the emotional and cultural imprints - which are too many, vast and varied.

For First Nations and indigenous peoples, the legacy of genocide, land theft, forced relocation, and cultural suppression reverberates. In the U.S., Indigenous and Alaska Native adults experience disproportionately higher rates of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers than any other racial group. Rates of depression and suicide also remain inordinately high — outcomes that have been linked to generational trauma and disrupted cultural continuity. Research suggests it can take up to seven generations to recover from the effects of colonial trauma and genocide. You read that correctly: seven generations - and, that speaks nothing of the loss of time, cultural traditions, language, collective learning, deferred advances and so on.

Studies of Holocaust survivors and their children have shown differences in methylation of stress-related genes and malabsorption of particular nutrients. UNICEF reports that nearly all of Gaza’s 1.2 million children now require psycho-social support. In Ukraine, WHO found that roughly half of those surveyed reported significant mental and physical health issues since the invasion in February 2022. In Sudan, more than 11 million people have been displaced since 2023, with malnutrition and disease compounding the extant trauma of war. Eleven Million. Across refugee populations, rates of PTSD, depression, and anxiety hover between 20–35% — this soars above global averages.

This. Has. To. Stop. 

It’s beyond confounding that the longstanding casualties of war have not taught us enough to start choosing differently, to start finding peaceable ways of managing conflict. To heal greed and ignorance at it's root. To unify against rather than in favor of dictatorships and oppressive international policies. To address diversity and collectivism with love rather than fear . . . I don’t claim to have global or even national answers. My work has always lived at the level of community and individuals, so . . . 

Survivorship, Resilience, and Paths to Healing

Whenever my family faced hardship, my father would turn to me and say, “Brit, we are survivors. Never forget that.”

He said this because he knew firsthand that survivors carry an astonishing reserve of resilience, creativity, and strength - even in the face of ongoing adversity. Survivors find ways to transmute the horrors, to care for one another, to remember who we truly are and who are meant to be. We won’t stop fighting for peace - in our bodies, our family lines, and in our world.

A few ways that we can weave healing into the body and into the world

Trauma-informed care and community support can ease symptoms and restore connection, especially when offered to children and parents together.

Cultural continuity — language, ceremony, and land-based practices strengthen physical and emotional resilience and resources.

Policy change and reparations - investment in holistic health systems, food security, education, and advocacy can help repair structural inequities and injustices.

Family and perinatal support - protecting mothers and infants, offering holistic health care, and strengthening early attachment can interrupt cycles of stress/trauma transmission.

Truth-telling and memorialization help societies honor those who have been harmed, help peoples reclaim dignity, and weave together new narratives of belonging.

Learn More - there's incredible and deep literature and research available. I personally love the books "It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle" by Mark Wollyn and "My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies" by Resmaa Menakem

Personal Reflection

We the people are both fragile and astonishingly resourceful. Violence, famine, and displacement can reverberate in bodies and the collective psyche for generations. So too do resilience and ingenuity. Healing is always possible, and, it takes dedicated resources, time, reparations and ongoing intention.

For me, healing is more than managing symptoms. Healing is tending to the body, mind and spirit and the lineages that live within and through us. It means giving nourishment not just to the people I can see and touch, but to those suffering in Pakistan, Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Haiti and anywhere a child goes hungry. By nourishment, I mean actual food and water, integrative care, financial support - not just prayers. Prayers too tho!

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian organization that specializes in food aid. Other large scale organizations like Action Against Hunger, Heifer International, World Central Kitchen, and Rise Against Hunger offer different approaches while all demonstrating a proven track-record in effectively providing emergency relief and long-term solutions to global food insecurity. Another amazing charity that I only just learned about is Many Hopes, an organization that rescues children in Africa and Latin America from slavery, abuse, and abandonment and equips them to become adults with the capacity and the character to help others.Please consider donating and/or volunteering to make this world a better place.

Thank you 🙏

If you are navigating intergenerational trauma, are clearing ancestral patterns, or would like healing support in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out. I’m here for you in-person in Tucson AZ offering intuitive and holistic care through acupuncture, Chinese Medicine (TCM), hands-on energy healing, and craniosacral therapy. I specialize in multi-dimensional, transformational healing. Virtually, I’m available online via Zoom, FaceTime and phone for intuitive life coach and distance energy healing sessions.

Xx

Britta

Licensed Acupuncturist, Intuitive, Healer, Coach, Energy Medicine Practitioner

📞 917-519-2432

📧 britta@intuitivehealthhealing.com

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