My February reads and reflections

 “In those days, people will no longer say,
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
 and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’”
— Jeremiah 31:29

I came across this verse in both books that I read in February. Initially, my goal was to finish four books by the end of the month. But the first one I picked up, Bittersweet by Susan Cain, was so rich and layered that I found myself slowing down. Every page carried so many ideas and insights that I needed time to sit with them.

That book, together with the next one I read, unexpectedly made me fall in love with the topic of trauma. For a long time, I had avoided anything related to trauma because I saw it as overwhelming, too complex, too wide, too mentally demanding. I assumed it required a kind of intellectual capacity I wasn’t sure I had. But instead of feeling intimidated, I found myself drawn in, curious, reflective, and wanting to understand more. Now I think I want to be a grief and trauma therapist. 

These two books explain well what trauma is. It is in the first book that I learn about generational grief or inherited grief, and the second book helped me understand deeply how this trauma is passed on from one generation to the other.

Here's my take-home from the two books.

1. Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole ~Susan Cain

First of all, let us all give Susan Cain her flowers. She is just an amazing author. LinkedIn even recognizes her as the sixth(6th) top influencer globally, which is crazy. 

If I were to get serious about writing, I'd want to reach her level. She is a good researcher, and in her book, she doesn't hesitate to add links to websites, youtube or specific locations to find the resources of the things or ideas that she is referencing. Here is an example of an article she shares in the book by Andrea Wachter on Psychology Today titled Can This Moment Be Enough? Please go read it; it is an amazing piece.

There's a lot to write about this book, as I said, every page was phenomenal and often left me thinking about everything. Two parts got my attention, the first part is where she talks about how we should always let kids know that life can be sweet and bitter, that with life, not everything will always be okay. That this world is good, but it is also bad. Which I wish our parents could take the time to explain this to us. Instead, we grew up knowing that life should be okay, life should be perfect, bad things should not happen to us, and it is only now9atleast for me) that we try to take in the fact that it doesn't work that way. Life is a mix of both, and most times, bad things happen to good people. 

It's okay to let children know the pain of goodbyes and that it is part of life, and they will experience that pain more than once in their lifetime.

The other part is the idea that we can inherit grief from our parents. She talks about how we inherit the grief and pain from our parents and ancerstors which makes sense. She even shares research that has been done regarding this, and it is so mind-blowing, and this led me to read the second book on emotional inheritance, and I also wrote something here about Inherited and generational Grief

Amazing book, amazing author... would totally recommend.

2. Emotional Inheritance by Galit Atlas

Galit Atlas brings out the therapist in me. This book made me miss the sessions I have had with clients over the years. In this book, she talks about her personal stories, clinical case histories, and reflections on contemporary research to show that unresolved emotional experiences don’t simply disappear; they influence how we think, feel, and relate across generations. 

Every chapter has a character, her former patients, who come into therapy with a presenting problem that atlas connects them with their childhood experience that came from wounded parents who pass down pain and trauma either directly or indirectly.

She talks about grief, about the loss of a brother/sister, and how this grief shapes the surviving children. I loved every bit of this book. I read every word, every line, and generational trauma now makes sense to me.

In my first ever therapy session, I had one area that I was struggling so much with, and my therapist told me to go sit down with my parents and ask them about how they were brought up. I did talk with my parents, and that was the most life-changing thing that happened in my life. I healed so much from knowing about the history of my family, and like Atlas' patients in this book, most of them found healing in knowing their family histories.

We might never forgive our parents for the childhood that they gave us and how they raised us, but we can try to understand that they did raise us how they knew best, and they, too, had trauma and pain that were passed down from their parents and grandparents. The best we can do is process the pain that we have today, deal with the trauma and bitterness, and raise the next generation that is free from inherited pain. 

It ends with us

“Instead, everyone will die for their own sin;
whoever eats sour grapes—
their own teeth will be set on edge.”
~  Jeremiah 31:30