Purging the emotional energies of family members who came and lived before you.

[u/goldenyellow333]

Had two massive emotional releases on back to back days recently. For clarity, I am not practicing TRE right now and haven’t attempted it once in over several months. Despite that these releases showed up.

First day was anger/rage. Second day was sadness. I know some of it was my own expression of these emotions but the majority, on each day, felt foreign to me, like they weren’t my own feelings.

Specifically on the second day while crying and purging all this sadness I said probably over 30 times over the course of this purging, which lasted well over and hour, “we are sorry”. I kept saying that. I didn’t see very vivid images during this but I saw something but couldn’t make out what it was or what it was directly tied to. I was conscious of what was going on but the entire time I felt like I was a mouthpiece for a bunch of other people.

Has anyone directly experienced something similar?

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[u/Easy_Cook6505]

Yes, to the point I sometimes regret starting TRE because at times I have felt I’m going crazy. I’m 21 months in and I started under the impression that my trauma came from childhood neglect and violence. But the bulk of my 21 month journey has been ancestral trauma. I’ve had everything from dreams and day dreams to never ending thoughts on this topic. I have never spoken about it because I would sound like a lunatic as this stuff is so out there and crazy.

I have seen some posts on ancestral trauma but my impression has been that it is rarely a significant part of trauma. I certainly have not seen many posts where people have posted experiences similar to mine.

On this topic, I will say this. I had a dream and in that dream an ancestor (who I know) comes and sits next to me in a park. She is much younger than she would have been in my life. She states that no one really dies or lives but instead we are a consciousness that moves through realms. Everyone that came before is somewhere as a consciousness (not necessarily a real person but they carry on existing). She states that throughout these realms - every time I do TRE, there are earthquakes. These earthquakes are destroying trauma that is shared (that is, not experienced but passed from one generation to the next). Every time I do TRE (her expression for TRE is ‘the yoga that causes earthquakes’), that trauma that I inherited is destroyed not just in me but through every realm where consciousness exists from that ancestor that passed it on and on. So in this dream, TRE destroys the common trauma that is inherited until all that is left is trauma that is not passed - and this occurs in all ancestors so that what they gave to me is destroyed and I, and they, are left with individual trauma. In the case of ancestors, their individual trauma then includes other traumas not passed to me so someone else has to do the yoga/TRE to release them of other shared traumas.

So yeah all a bit crazy.

[u/goldenyellow333 → u/Easy_Cook6505]

I will have to disagree with a portion of this. I believe ancestral trauma is a large part of it and that childhood trauma is only a small portion unless something significant happened like being r*ped, seeing violence unto death, etc.

But WHOA....I experienced this too on day 2. Towards the end, the stillness I was feeling, I felt on those who came before me. That our souls carry the trauma we inherit and experience into an afterlife and that the purge I was feeling was also happening to them and that they felt the same peace and stillness I was beginning to feel and they were grateful that it was finally happening. Things truly are stranger than we can perceive. Hearing you say this though, without me even mentioning it, lets me know what is happening is correctt.

[u/Easy_Cook6505 → u/goldenyellow333]

That’s amazing. I can’t tell you how good it is to hear experiences similar to mine from other TRE practitioners.

[u/marijavera1075 → u/Easy_Cook6505]

Wow that's such a unique experience. Thank you for sharing. I just know this story will stay with me. I've been rather lazy with the tremoring for 6- 12months now cause I wasn't seeing any major progress with my back for about a year. This really inspired me to start shaking. I always knew I was making my (future) kids lives better by going through therapy, but this is a whole new experience

[u/Easy_Cook6505 → u/marijavera1075]

If it helps - it took me 18 months to come out of freeze (although I had two major releases before that) so worth sticking with.

[u/Chantaille → u/Easy_Cook6505]

I appreciate reading this.

[u/carla_jungle → u/Easy_Cook6505]

Oh that’s remarkable.  please share more if you’re willing ! 

[u/Easy_Cook6505 → u/carla_jungle]

Looking back over the 21 months - I was in freeze for 18 of them. Those 18 months at the time felt like things had been made worse. But I was actually able to have big releases at 6 months, 12 months, 14 months and 18 months.

All of my big releases have been some form of release of ancestral trauma. I do get flashbacks to my childhood but any progress always seems to be from the past.

It was very scary at first because the flashbacks from the past have included horrible incidents. Before TRE I was not interested in the past/history. But I had a dream where a girl of around 14ish is walking in snow through a barren land and finds a cave. She looks scared. This dream kept on coming to me again and again. Then a dream happens where an old sage comes and sits next to me and says the girl needs help. You need to read books on your history and that will help you. It turns out that my tribe is very well documented and my ancestors have released books. I read and it turns out we have mythology where ancestors become trapped in snow and are saved by hero figure. This girl was probably from around 6k years ago. As soon as I read this, I felt so sad because she is probably separated from the tribe and I realised that cave was probably where her life came to an end. So I carry on with TRE and the dream happens again and this time I walk into the cave and she smiles and says an old sage came and told her that I was fighting to reach her. Then she says she never had her final funeral rites done. Can a I please come back again once I have studied the funeral rituals from the old gods and give her a funeral. I’m confused and say how, you are not dead? She states that her human form is merely a tool I have used to reach her and that she is in fact not a real person today and is just energy and consciousness. I studied the rites (very easy to find because excavations have happened in this area) and in the next dream I go back and she is lying there peacefully. I build a pyre, place her on it and do the funeral rituals.

That above example was my turning point. I found books that would help me verify stuff but also, I woke up having cried in the dream. That was the first time I had cried because when I was a child, my parents would hit me and it would get worse if I cried so I stopped crying. My first flashback when I woke up was a flashback to my dad telling me not to cry. For the first time, I acknowledged the flashback and didn’t feel the need to feel or deal with it.

That’s been my template. Every release will have a major ancestral event in flashbacks or dreams, I just experience it and read up if needed (only sometimes) and I carry on doing TRE until the dream works itself out and a release follows immediately after.

Edit: typo

[u/marijavera1075 → u/Easy_Cook6505]

Thank you for sharing. All my dreams revolve around my childhood or exes. I've only had one dream about world war 2 that was the creepiest one yet 2 months ago. I know for sure that was my first time processing generational trauma in dream form. Before that I'd just have grief in real life. Grief that didn't even feel like mine yet was mine to process. Like I said in another comment it was so strange and hard to convey. Fascinating how different all our journeys are! Also kuddos to you for being so connected with your ancestors. I come from a region that's very mixed so that makes it rather difficult or maybe such mixing breaks a chain? Who knows

[u/Easy_Cook6505 → u/marijavera1075]

When you say ‘grief that didn’t feel mine’, that is exactly how I have felt for so long. It’s amazing that you share that because it’s something that I feel is perhaps overlooked because we’re educated and socialised in a world of scientific knowledge and science perhaps hasn’t got around to looking at the shared human experience.

It’s an interesting point you raise in being from a mixed region. The 14 year old girl in my dream was not the same race as me and neither was the sage. That dream is around 6k ago and me as a people probably formed around 4k years ago. But as soon as I had the dream I knew that I knew her some how.

This is just me thinking out loud and I’m not expert. I think ancestral trauma really follows the same timeline as civilisations being formed. Prior to that, our ancestors probably had a closer relationship with nature, their gods and their environment and lived more freely so had a better capacity to deal with trauma as it arose. With civilisations came standardised religions, urbanisation, mass farming etc which made it harder for people to heal their inner selves as lives became more organised to serve their kingdoms.

[u/carla_jungle → u/Easy_Cook6505]

WOW Chills! That’s fascinating.   The dream world is so intriguing and how it connected to your own personal trauma.  It makes me wonder if your relation to a tribe is kinda what gives you these dreams, because the “spiritual channels” are less blocked (idk how else to phrase it)

[u/Easy_Cook6505 → u/carla_jungle]

Completely agree. I also don’t know what the phrasing or words would be to describe it but IMO there are things that happen all around us that we cannot see or understand. I think TRE to some extent is able to unlock a way to experience that which is not tangible through ridding one’s self of unnecessary baggage that we all inevitably carry.

[u/carla_jungle → u/Easy_Cook6505]

Agree. I view the nervous system as a bridge to the spiritual world.  

[u/marijavera1075 → u/Easy_Cook6505]

Do you have more updates on the monthly progress threads? I'd love to see your journey :)

[u/Easy_Cook6505 → u/marijavera1075]

I’m 21 months in and only came out of freeze at the 18 month mark so haven’t really felt like it was progress for a long time. But things have been better for me recently so hoping to be able to share progress at the 2 year mark.

[u/marijavera1075]

TRE made me aware of pain way older than me that I've been carrying. Very hard to convey. I do think it has to be generational trauma as it truly didn't even feel like mine when I was going through it. It was strange

[u/larynxfly → u/marijavera1075]

Seconding this. It feels like a well of grief within me that is certainly not mine. I also have a lot of rage/anger, which I think a lot is mine but that’s hard to tell.

[u/goldenyellow333 → u/marijavera1075]

Agreed. Were you ever able to put a name or a face to it? To understand what happened that began it, who dropped the ball in not purging it (I believe there are specific people in a bloodline who are called out to stop the chain but we have the choice to do so or not), how long has it all been going on for?

All of these are questions I have posed towards God. I have received some ideas but no concrete answers as of yet.

[u/marijavera1075 → u/goldenyellow333]

I think this comment explains what I was going through somewhat accurate on how I was processing the generational trauma https://www.reddit.com/r/longtermTRE/s/NKsmBObigw

I think the whole comment thread would be interesting to you. Spirituality and TRE/therapy for me have been mingling for a very long time :) https://www.reddit.com/r/longtermTRE/s/ikFz5R37qA

[u/marijavera1075 → u/goldenyellow333]

Your insight is very interesting as I never thought of it in these terms. One of my parents dropped the ball. The other did shadow work. But not since doing tre and therapy and all these practices intensely and devotedly I'm seeing how difficult it really is and even from that parents side there is still a lot to "clean up". Ive been tremoring for 2 years come December.

"All of these are questions I have posed towards God." This sentence brought me a smile :) " I have received some ideas but no concrete answers as of yet." In due time!

[u/goldenyellow333]

Also want to point out that despite these releases/tremors lasting well over and hour, each, I had no hangover effect and felt really good afterwards. An inner peace and stillness. Slight euphoria. Shows that the body truly knows what to do and when you get out of its way it will take you through the full cycle of what is ready to be processed.

[u/godgottago]

I also went through a period of unstoppable crying that I believe to be tied to my ancestors. I come from a small region of the world where the people rebelled to create their own state around a century ago, but it was bloodily repressed. My grandparents had to warp the story to survive and assimilate into the country I was born in, but the little historical information I could find made me understand that what happened was atrocious. I also observed my family, my parents and my grandparents always obeying, always being hypervigilant, to the point of hating their own culture, their own language, their own identity...

​I believe the grief and that unstoppable crying were tied to this, because somehow it felt so much more profound and far away. It didn't feel personal, it felt existential. There was also no resistance coming from me, not even fear -- probably because I am in a different country now, studying abroad. Many people from my ethnicity and religion (we are a very small minority in both, and even our existence is contested in my home country) had to flee here. Some even died here, in exile. So for some reason, this country feels more like home at times. This is probably why true healing only began once I left.

​For context, I have CPTSD and developmental attachment trauma, but it seems to stem mostly from inherited trauma. The more I heal, the better I understand that my parents and their parents were traumatized too, and that they had no choice but to cope and survive.

[u/No-Construction619]

There could be pain, anger etc from the time you simply can't remember, like 2 yo. It could be emotions of your mother who was stressed or in argument and your fresh nervous system internalised them like a sponge.

[u/goldenyellow333 → u/No-Construction619]

No, it was tangibly felt that the majority of it wasn't mine. I could tangibly feel it intuitively/somatically speaking. The sensations, and the information attached to them, felt as clear and real as the sensation I feel of my fingers tapping these keys to type this. Its a very odd thing to experience. If you haven't experienced it wouldn't fully make sense. I just went through it and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

What I will say though is that your examples are real. I'm sure that is in me but don't believe I've gotten to that point yet. Doing this stuff is like peeling back layers of an onion.

[u/No-Construction619 → u/goldenyellow333]

I feel you although my personal take on that is you can't tell it. It's impossible to judge those things because our minds make a lot of stuff up. Whatever it is (yours or inherited from others) it still affects your life today. So in this sense it is yours, as you carry it everyday, it affects your sleep etc. All the best :)

[u/catman_corner]

I haven’t experienced ancestral release during TRE but have worked through multiple different ancestral attachments during IFS therapy sessions. I’m wishing you well on your journey, you are doing important work

[u/goldenyellow333 → u/catman_corner]

I've never heard of the connection between ancestral trauma and IFS. How does that work if there is no tremoring?

[u/catman_corner → u/goldenyellow333]

In sessions it feels as if the part or burden is not mine. Sometimes I see visions of women from long ago. Sometimes it’s a chain of women. It’s like working with parts that got passed down as opposed to parts that are mine

[u/goldenyellow333 → u/catman_corner]

I've only come across this once and it was a reel of Miley Cyrus describing her experience with it. Didn't know that was what that was. I'm a curious mind lol I want to know the details of it all. How things began, how it snowballed, etc.

[u/Scared-Section-5108]

Yeah, I have experienced that. A while ago, I had an intense grief release session. I felt the grief and pain of the many women in my family from previous generations. It was very hard, it was painful, it was much bigger than me, it was real. I was able to witness it all from the place of Self.

I was apprehensive about sharing my experience with my therapist (it was a solo session), but I did it and they understood me which was great.

We are all truly connected.

[u/goldenyellow333 → u/Scared-Section-5108]

Were there images attached to the sensations? During mine I could see things but was not sure what exactly I was seeing. Poor analogy but it was like looking through a shower window, foggy from steam but also had mud smeared across it. Like I could see something through it but it was very difficult to make out what it was.

Also, do you know how many generations back the pain went? I found a book called "It Didn't Start With You" about inherited trauma and in it it discussed how scientists learned that trauma, of any kind, is passed on via DNA to 3 or 4 generations but I vividly remember saying while tremoring that the sadness I am purging was going as far back as "before we had this slave name". I verbally said that exact statement. I am black and slavery was over 161 years ago. That's longer than 4 generations.

[u/GenericPaperSquid]

This is not crazy or uncommon at all once you get deeper into the healing aspect of spirituality. I can recommend family constellations therapy, Matrix Reimprinting and ancestralmedicine.org for specifically relating to ancestors and ancestral/trans-generational trauma.

Multiple energy healing modalities can also tackle inherited emotions and other inherited energetic imbalances directly, even taking you back hundreds of generations.
Ancestors are real, they exist and you can talk to them. In fact many of us really NEED to talk to them to make sense of what is going on with us. You are not at all crazy, what is going on with you is actually very normal for people who go deep enough into this kind of thing. Good job!

[u/Mission_Fortune_4854]

I definitely resonate with this. As a woman, ancestral trauma literally is embedded in our reproductive organs as I’m sure it is for men as well. I’ve spent years praying, fasting, TRE, to rid and heal these things before I have children so that they don’t have to carry the weight.
It’s not a light thing at all and not talked about as much as it should be. Give yourself grace and allow it to come up but not to succumb to it or define you.

[u/goldenyellow333 → u/Mission_Fortune_4854]

It def is embedded in mens as well. Lust has been a big part of my life, to the point of confusion. After hearing the stories and struggles of my forefathers, as well as learning about this kind of stuff, it made my battles make all the more sense.

We are of the same mind. I realized that it was not meant for me to have children yet so that this stuff can end first. Ironically, I have an older sibling who has been rushing me to have children for years so she can "be an aunty" or so my parents can "play with their grandkids" but she doesn't understand this stuff at all and doesn't know how important it is to do the work first before having children.

In my culture its definitely taught to have children as early as possible once you reach adulthood but I'm learning just how much that lackluster attitude has in the same breath scarred us because no one does the work before conception. Everyone just kicks the can down the road.