Why time with family can trigger old patterns
The holidays often come with an unspoken emotional weight. Even when we genuinely want to connect, spending time with family can reopen old wounds or activate familiar patterns of behavior. You may notice yourself feeling smaller, more reactive, more withdrawn, or more responsible for everyone else’s emotions. These responses are rarely random. They are often rooted in early family experiences that shaped how you learned to stay safe, connected, or seen.
Family gatherings tend to bring these patterns forward because they place us back into relational contexts tied to our earliest emotional learning.
Our body remembers what our mind may have long moved past. Alongside this, families also carry strengths that allow us to endure, adapt, and care for one another even in difficult conditions. Both pain and resilience often live side by side in family systems.
What is generational trauma and what else is passed down?
Generational trauma refers to emotional wounds, stress responses, and relational patterns that are passed down within families. These patterns often emerge from experiences such as chronic emotional neglect, instability, loss, conflict, or environments where emotions were not safely acknowledged. When these experiences are not processed, they influence how caregivers relate to their children and how children learn to relate to themselves³.
Research also supports an experience that clients often talk about in therapy. A large systematic review found that trauma exposure in one generation is associated with emotional distress, altered stress regulation, and relational difficulties in subsequent generations. These effects were strongly linked to unresolved trauma symptoms in parents, even when children did not directly experience the original traumatic events. This suggests that trauma is often transmitted through emotional attunement and relational dynamics rather than explicit memory¹.
However, research on adverse childhood experiences highlights something equally important. Supportive relationships, emotional awareness, and intentional intervention can interrupt these cycles². Families do not only pass down pain. They also pass down coping, creativity, endurance, and care. The same relational pathways that carry trauma can also carry healing when new patterns are introduced.
Why the holidays can feel emotionally confusing
Holidays increase proximity, expectation, and emotional exposure. Old family roles often resurface because they once served a protective purpose. Being the caretaker, the achiever, the peacekeeper, or the invisible one likely helped you navigate your early environment. These adaptations deserve respect for how they supported your survival.
At the same time, families often gather around traditions, rituals, and shared history that reflect resilience and connection. Even when relationships are strained, there may be moments of warmth, humor, or shared meaning. The nervous system responds to both threat and familiarity. This is why holidays can feel emotionally confusing. Pain and longing, love and grief, resentment and loyalty can all coexist.
How therapy supports generational healing
A space to gently explore both the pain and the strengths carried through your family history, without blaming yourself or others.
Start to understand how early family dynamics shaped the way you relate, cope, and respond to stress.
Experience a steady, emotionally responsive relationship where your feelings are noticed, understood, and met with care, helping your nervous system learn what safe connection feels like.
Recognize when old survival strategies are activated and shift toward responses that feel more grounded and intentional.
Develop self compassion for how you adapted, while creating space for change that aligns with who you are now.
Build greater emotional regulation, clearer boundaries, and more presence in your relationships.
Integrate your family history with clarity and care so it no longer quietly drives your choices.
Create new relational patterns that support your healing and influence what gets carried forward in your family line.
Moving forward with choice and compassion
Choosing to explore generational trauma does not mean your family failed or that you are turning against them. Many of the clients I work with hold deep respect and love for the people who raised them, even while recognizing that some of their needs went unmet. Therapy makes room for both truths. It allows you to understand how your family shaped you without assigning blame or rewriting the past.
The holidays may still bring up familiar emotions, but curiosity about what is happening opens the door to new possibilities. When one person chooses to slow down, feel deeply, and respond differently, the family system shifts. This might look like greater emotional availability, clearer boundaries, and more honest relationships. These strengths are powerful and can become part of your family legacy too.
Healing becomes something that can be passed down just as powerfully as trauma once was.
References
- El-Khalil C, Tudor DC, Nedelcea C. Impact of intergenerational trauma on second-generation descendants: a systematic review. BMC Psychol. 2025;13:Article 98.
- Heard-Garris N, Davis MM, Szilagyi M, Kan K, Sullivan M, DeMonner S, et al. Childhood adversity and parent perceptions of child resilience. BMC Pediatr. 2018;18:204.
- Reuben A, Moffitt TE, Caspi A, Belsky DW, Harrington H, Schroeder F, et al. Intergenerational associations between parents’ and children’s adverse childhood experience scores. Children (Basel). 2021;8(9):747.
