July 21, 2025 • 10 mins
Ever wonder why we repeat behaviors we swore we'd never adopt from our parents? The answer lies in generational trauma – a powerful psychological phenomenon that shapes our responses even when we're consciously trying to break free.
Through the lens of a fascinating flea jar experiment, I explore how limitations learned in one generation mysteriously transfer to the next without any direct experience. Just as fleas stop jumping higher after hitting a lid (even when the lid is removed), humans unconsciously inherit boundaries from our parents' experiences. For many of us born in the 1980s with Baby Boomer parents, we're actively working to recognize and dismantle these inherited limitations.
I get vulnerable about my own journey breaking cycles of physical and emotional abuse, sharing personal stories about my imperfect parenting moments and how I handle them differently than previous generations did. When I slip into old patterns like yelling, I make a conscious choice to apologize to my children and recommit to change. It's beautiful witnessing how they're developing emotional intelligence in response – offering breathing exercises when they see me getting frustrated.
The transformative power of choice stands at the center of this episode. At some point, we must acknowledge that while our childhood experiences weren't fair, continuing harmful patterns is now our responsibility to address. Through practices like meditation, journaling, or mindful walking, we create the space needed to recognize triggers and choose different responses. There will be setbacks, but persistent small steps forward eventually create meaningful change.
Join me in this thoughtful exploration of breaking free from inherited limitations. Text me directly using the function in the description – I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences as we continue building this safe space for women's voices and stories.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is still Rosie's podcast.
This podcast is created forwomen, by women, to elevate
women's voices.
I hope that everyone is havinga great week.
I have a couple of thoughtstarters here today I wanted to
go over with all of you.
So first things first, let mesee here where will I begin.
So I've got a message here thatI saw on Pinterest.
You guys know that's my go tofor all of my thought starter
(00:21):
episodes.
There's an example here that Iwant to talk about.
Now.
This is something that'sinteresting because it's a
physical.
It's a real, legitimate,physical thing that you can
measure.
It's measurable, and I'vetalked about this on a past
episode, but I can't rememberwhich one.
It was a while back.
This thing that I saw onPinterest explains generational
trauma and essentially forgenerational trauma, they did
(00:44):
this study where they took abunch of fleas and they put them
inside of a jar.
Now, when the fleas are firstput inside of the jar, they're
going crazy, they're trying tohop out.
So the researcher puts a lid onthe top of the jar, encloses
them all in, leaves them inthere like that for a little
while.
So the fleas are starting tounderstand that if they jump up,
they're just hitting thisceiling.
They're not getting anywhere.
There's no point in continuingto bang into the top of the
(01:06):
ceiling, so they just stoppeddoing it.
When that happens and theresearcher takes the lid off the
jar, the logical expectationwould be okay, well, they're all
going to come out of that jar.
Now you know the lid is off, sothat's it.
But the interesting thing thathappened was that the fleas
learned not to jump any higherthan where the lid is.
You could take the jar away.
They will not jump higher thanwhere the lid was, because this
(01:28):
is a trauma.
Quote unquote.
Let's say that they've learned.
They were.
There's a trauma there.
The more interesting thing thathappened was that when they
reproduced, the next line ofoffspring also did not jump any
higher than that lid.
Because this is whatgenerational trauma is.
When you have a generation thatgoes through something really
horrible, it does pass on to thekids through learned behavior
(01:52):
and observation.
Now, like there's always thiswhole debate nature versus
nurture and there are argumentsfor both sides.
But when you really look atthis and you look at trauma
passed down from generation togeneration, there is a
legitimate thing here that ifyou learn a behavior, you learn
certain something from yourparents, you potentially will
(02:12):
pass that along to the nextgeneration if you have kids.
A very common example of thiswould be abuse.
If your father or mother was anabuser, if they abused each
other verbally, if they abusedeach other physically, that's a
trauma that you are picking upand no matter how much you hated
growing up with it and nomatter how much it affected you
poorly when you were growing up,you most likely are going to
(02:34):
turn into this person unless youreally make a significant
choice and the choice is goingto be you are basically going to
rewire your brain.
That's literally what you haveto do.
You have to break it Now.
Speaking from my age group,right, those of us born in the
80s and early 90s Nah, not early90s, that's a little too young,
but from the 80s In any case.
Those of us born in the 80s,you know we had our boomer
(02:56):
parents, right, we had the babyboomer parents or baby boomer
parents, right?
Baby boomer parents did notgrow up.
Majority of them I don't wantanyone coming at me, but
majority of these parents thatwere born in the 50s and 60s
mostly 50s they were born in the50s.
Mental health was not a concernat all.
(03:16):
The reason why I'm bringingthis up in relation to, like,
our age group.
You'll notice that a lot ofyoung folks now in their fifties
and late thirties and midthirties we're really focused on
mental health and there's areason for that because many of
us are trying to break somegenerational trauma.
We don't want to carry thisinto the next generation, and
(03:36):
I'll use my husband and I as anexample, like a very vivid
example for us.
You know, we wanted to breakphysical abuse.
We wanted to break physicalabuse.
We wanted to break mental abuse.
We wanted to make sure that ourchildren felt loved and that
they felt seen.
We wanted to make sure that ourchildren had everything that we
didn't have, and majority of itwas like this emotional support
that we felt lacking in ourlives.
(03:58):
When we were growing up, Ialways very much and this is
very like, oh, poor, poor littlegirl, girl, but I always had
very much felt like my brotherswere seen.
They were, you know, attendedto and that I was.
I was tough enough to do it onmy own.
It came to.
I remember initially feelingproud of that that, oh, my
(04:19):
parents just they'll leave me toit, I'll just take care of
myself.
But it got to a point alsowhere it was hurtful, like I
guess no one's going to help me,I have to do it by myself, you
know, like, and it kind ofturned and snowballed into
something else.
Now, no parent is perfect.
I'm sure I'm certain mychildren will have something to
tell their therapist when theygrow up.
But I'm doing the best that Ican, and then they can break any
trauma that I cause.
(04:40):
So it's really a matter of likerecognizing I didn't like this,
I did not like how this turnedout.
My parents, my kids, might comeout saying I don't like that.
My mom screamed so much.
I am a yeller.
I will admit it openly.
I admit it to people all thetime.
Admit it to people all the timeI snap, I scream, I 110% will
always address it with my kidspost.
I always, always, always goback to my children and say to
(05:07):
them I apologize to you.
Mommy should not be behavingthis way.
I'm trying my best not to dothis.
There's been there.
I mean, I used to snap muchharder before and I've gotten
much, much better at likecontrolling that and walking
away.
And I think I see the kids likecoming to me and saying like
hey, mommy, if you're having ahard time, take some deep
breaths.
My one little girl, she comesover and she does a little like
spider thing on my arm.
She's trying to distract me.
It's, it's comes together, it's.
(05:28):
It's a beautiful thing to seebecause it just showing how much
they're picking up and how muchthey're learning to not cope
but to have the skill to dealwith things when they're angry
or things when they're upset.
So it's a beautiful thing tosay.
Now, this is kind of a goodsegue over to my next quote that
I saw.
After a certain age, you are nolonger the product of your
(05:49):
environment or how you wereraised.
It's a personal choice to livethe way that you do.
Let that sink in for a secondBecause, as I noted, my husband
and I both made very clearchoices when we got together and
when we started having kids.
Not when we got together, wegot together, it was like
ridiculous.
But when we started havingchildren, we made some very,
very, very clear choices aboutwhat we were going to do, how we
(06:11):
were going to handle things,how we were facing things
together, and you have to get toa certain point where you are
taking ownership for your life.
Like, kind of like, I made funof myself a few minutes ago.
Yes, poor me.
I didn't feel like my parentspaid enough attention to me.
Poor Jenny, yeah, honestly poorJenny.
Poor little Jenny.
Like little Jenny didn'tdeserve that.
She deserved, you know,somebody to really like really
(06:33):
be paying attention to her,really, really engaged with her,
but she didn't get it.
Okay, well, now that sucked andit hurt.
You know it hurts, and I thinkabout stuff now that I'm like
damn like, why did my parents dothis, or why didn't they do
that?
It is what it is.
The only thing I can do now isbe the best person I can be.
Now I can make changes formyself.
Now I can make the choice, Ican make the determination how I
(06:53):
want to live my life and whatkind of person I want to be.
You have the same choice.
You know, if you're hearing this, this might have been a message
that you needed to hear today,and so I really want you to take
a minute and really thinkthrough this.
We all have a story.
We all have trauma, everysingle one of us.
I was just talking with mygrandmother.
I went to go visit her thisweek, 97.
(07:14):
My favorite thing to do is takea day off once a month and go
and visit her.
I wish I could do more, but fornow it's just once a month.
You know, her and I weretalking through something
similar and I said I'm like, youknow, making the choice for
yourself to just to live how youwant to live.
(07:35):
That's a privilege right there.
You know, that was notsomething that was available
before.
We have that choice.
Today you can take a step backfrom your situation and look at
it Really, really look at it anddetermine, like am I happy with
this?
Is this a runoff?
Is this only happening becauseI am continuing a pattern that I
learned, that I hated anyway,and now I'm stuck like this.
(07:58):
You are not stuck.
You don't have to be.
You can make a consciousdecision today and every day
moving forward, not to continuedown this path and to make a
difference.
I'm gonna sound like a brokenrecord, but if you start
meditating and you start reallygoing down that path, the amount
of things that will shift andthe amount of avenues this will
(08:18):
open up if you acknowledge thetrauma, acknowledge what you did
not like, you don't have tomeditate, you can journal.
You could walk.
That is a form like anythingthat you can do, where you're
just focused right in the moment.
That is considered meditation.
It's not just sitting quietlyin a room.
Most people can't do that,that's okay.
You're not really supposed todo that.
It's more of a not that you'renot supposed to do that, but the
(08:41):
point is is that you can do itin any way that will fit you,
and making the decision at anypoint in your life, no matter
how old you are, how young youare, will impact the rest of
your days.
We have a very limited amountof time here on this earth, and
do you really want to live it byliving a life that you're not
happy with?
Let's go Small steps and therewill be setbacks and there will
(09:02):
be times you'll slide back intopoor habits.
But okay, who cares, keep goingforward.
You're going to see shifts.
You will see things godifferently for you.
I hope you liked the ThoughtsArtists today.
I have another set for youcoming this week.
Thank you for everyone.
All the new subscribers I'mlike super excited and just like
super pumped that everyone thatI've been seeing, like the new
listeners and everything Cute,shout out to all of my base
(09:25):
that's been listening since thebeginning.
I just, I greatly, greatlyappreciate all of you.
I really do want to hear fromyou guys.
Please use the text function inthe description.
You can get to me directly.
You can make recommendations.
I got feedback, really, reallylove hearing from you guys and I
, you know, I just want toencourage you, and this is a
safe space.
The whole point of this podcastis for women to come together
(09:46):
and share their stories.
I am also starting to work onthe guests, for I don't know if
the fall series is going tohappen exactly how it's been
happening.
I'm going to do that littledifferent twist that I had
mentioned on one of the otherepisodes.
So we'll see.
We'll see how everything rollsout, but I appreciate all of you
being with me.
I greatly appreciate all of youspending time with me here.
I will see you on the next one,take care.
This is still Rosie's podcast.
This podcast is created forwomen, by women, to elevate
women's voices.
I hope that everyone is havinga great week.
I have a couple of thoughtstarters here today I wanted to
go over with all of you.
So first things first, let mesee here where will I begin.
So I've got a message here thatI saw on Pinterest.
You guys know that's my go tofor all of my thought starter
(00:21):
episodes.
There's an example here that Iwant to talk about.
Now.
This is something that'sinteresting because it's a
physical.
It's a real, legitimate,physical thing that you can
measure.
It's measurable, and I'vetalked about this on a past
episode, but I can't rememberwhich one.
It was a while back.
This thing that I saw onPinterest explains generational
trauma and essentially forgenerational trauma, they did
(00:44):
this study where they took abunch of fleas and they put them
inside of a jar.
Now, when the fleas are firstput inside of the jar, they're
going crazy, they're trying tohop out.
So the researcher puts a lid onthe top of the jar, encloses
them all in, leaves them inthere like that for a little
while.
So the fleas are starting tounderstand that if they jump up,
they're just hitting thisceiling.
They're not getting anywhere.
There's no point in continuingto bang into the top of the
(01:06):
ceiling, so they just stoppeddoing it.
When that happens and theresearcher takes the lid off the
jar, the logical expectationwould be okay, well, they're all
going to come out of that jar.
Now you know the lid is off, sothat's it.
But the interesting thing thathappened was that the fleas
learned not to jump any higherthan where the lid is.
You could take the jar away.
They will not jump higher thanwhere the lid was, because this
(01:28):
is a trauma.
Quote unquote.
Let's say that they've learned.
They were.
There's a trauma there.
The more interesting thing thathappened was that when they
reproduced, the next line ofoffspring also did not jump any
higher than that lid.
Because this is whatgenerational trauma is.
When you have a generation thatgoes through something really
horrible, it does pass on to thekids through learned behavior
(01:52):
and observation.
Now, like there's always thiswhole debate nature versus
nurture and there are argumentsfor both sides.
But when you really look atthis and you look at trauma
passed down from generation togeneration, there is a
legitimate thing here that ifyou learn a behavior, you learn
certain something from yourparents, you potentially will
(02:12):
pass that along to the nextgeneration if you have kids.
A very common example of thiswould be abuse.
If your father or mother was anabuser, if they abused each
other verbally, if they abusedeach other physically, that's a
trauma that you are picking upand no matter how much you hated
growing up with it and nomatter how much it affected you
poorly when you were growing up,you most likely are going to
(02:34):
turn into this person unless youreally make a significant
choice and the choice is goingto be you are basically going to
rewire your brain.
That's literally what you haveto do.
You have to break it Now.
Speaking from my age group,right, those of us born in the
80s and early 90s Nah, not early90s, that's a little too young,
but from the 80s In any case.
Those of us born in the 80s,you know we had our boomer
(02:56):
parents, right, we had the babyboomer parents or baby boomer
parents, right?
Baby boomer parents did notgrow up.
Majority of them I don't wantanyone coming at me, but
majority of these parents thatwere born in the 50s and 60s
mostly 50s they were born in the50s.
Mental health was not a concernat all.
(03:16):
The reason why I'm bringingthis up in relation to, like,
our age group.
You'll notice that a lot ofyoung folks now in their fifties
and late thirties and midthirties we're really focused on
mental health and there's areason for that because many of
us are trying to break somegenerational trauma.
We don't want to carry thisinto the next generation, and
(03:36):
I'll use my husband and I as anexample, like a very vivid
example for us.
You know, we wanted to breakphysical abuse.
We wanted to break physicalabuse.
We wanted to break mental abuse.
We wanted to make sure that ourchildren felt loved and that
they felt seen.
We wanted to make sure that ourchildren had everything that we
didn't have, and majority of itwas like this emotional support
that we felt lacking in ourlives.
(03:58):
When we were growing up, Ialways very much and this is
very like, oh, poor, poor littlegirl, girl, but I always had
very much felt like my brotherswere seen.
They were, you know, attendedto and that I was.
I was tough enough to do it onmy own.
It came to.
I remember initially feelingproud of that that, oh, my
(04:19):
parents just they'll leave me toit, I'll just take care of
myself.
But it got to a point alsowhere it was hurtful, like I
guess no one's going to help me,I have to do it by myself, you
know, like, and it kind ofturned and snowballed into
something else.
Now, no parent is perfect.
I'm sure I'm certain mychildren will have something to
tell their therapist when theygrow up.
But I'm doing the best that Ican, and then they can break any
trauma that I cause.
(04:40):
So it's really a matter of likerecognizing I didn't like this,
I did not like how this turnedout.
My parents, my kids, might comeout saying I don't like that.
My mom screamed so much.
I am a yeller.
I will admit it openly.
I admit it to people all thetime.
Admit it to people all the timeI snap, I scream, I 110% will
always address it with my kidspost.
I always, always, always goback to my children and say to
(05:07):
them I apologize to you.
Mommy should not be behavingthis way.
I'm trying my best not to dothis.
There's been there.
I mean, I used to snap muchharder before and I've gotten
much, much better at likecontrolling that and walking
away.
And I think I see the kids likecoming to me and saying like
hey, mommy, if you're having ahard time, take some deep
breaths.
My one little girl, she comesover and she does a little like
spider thing on my arm.
She's trying to distract me.
It's, it's comes together, it's.
(05:28):
It's a beautiful thing to seebecause it just showing how much
they're picking up and how muchthey're learning to not cope
but to have the skill to dealwith things when they're angry
or things when they're upset.
So it's a beautiful thing tosay.
Now, this is kind of a goodsegue over to my next quote that
I saw.
After a certain age, you are nolonger the product of your
(05:49):
environment or how you wereraised.
It's a personal choice to livethe way that you do.
Let that sink in for a secondBecause, as I noted, my husband
and I both made very clearchoices when we got together and
when we started having kids.
Not when we got together, wegot together, it was like
ridiculous.
But when we started havingchildren, we made some very,
very, very clear choices aboutwhat we were going to do, how we
(06:11):
were going to handle things,how we were facing things
together, and you have to get toa certain point where you are
taking ownership for your life.
Like, kind of like, I made funof myself a few minutes ago.
Yes, poor me.
I didn't feel like my parentspaid enough attention to me.
Poor Jenny, yeah, honestly poorJenny.
Poor little Jenny.
Like little Jenny didn'tdeserve that.
She deserved, you know,somebody to really like really
(06:33):
be paying attention to her,really, really engaged with her,
but she didn't get it.
Okay, well, now that sucked andit hurt.
You know it hurts, and I thinkabout stuff now that I'm like
damn like, why did my parents dothis, or why didn't they do
that?
It is what it is.
The only thing I can do now isbe the best person I can be.
Now I can make changes formyself.
Now I can make the choice, Ican make the determination how I
(06:53):
want to live my life and whatkind of person I want to be.
You have the same choice.
You know, if you're hearing this, this might have been a message
that you needed to hear today,and so I really want you to take
a minute and really thinkthrough this.
We all have a story.
We all have trauma, everysingle one of us.
I was just talking with mygrandmother.
I went to go visit her thisweek, 97.
(07:14):
My favorite thing to do is takea day off once a month and go
and visit her.
I wish I could do more, but fornow it's just once a month.
You know, her and I weretalking through something
similar and I said I'm like, youknow, making the choice for
yourself to just to live how youwant to live.
(07:35):
That's a privilege right there.
You know, that was notsomething that was available
before.
We have that choice.
Today you can take a step backfrom your situation and look at
it Really, really look at it anddetermine, like am I happy with
this?
Is this a runoff?
Is this only happening becauseI am continuing a pattern that I
learned, that I hated anyway,and now I'm stuck like this.
(07:58):
You are not stuck.
You don't have to be.
You can make a consciousdecision today and every day
moving forward, not to continuedown this path and to make a
difference.
I'm gonna sound like a brokenrecord, but if you start
meditating and you start reallygoing down that path, the amount
of things that will shift andthe amount of avenues this will
(08:18):
open up if you acknowledge thetrauma, acknowledge what you did
not like, you don't have tomeditate, you can journal.
You could walk.
That is a form like anythingthat you can do, where you're
just focused right in the moment.
That is considered meditation.
It's not just sitting quietlyin a room.
Most people can't do that,that's okay.
You're not really supposed todo that.
It's more of a not that you'renot supposed to do that, but the
(08:41):
point is is that you can do itin any way that will fit you,
and making the decision at anypoint in your life, no matter
how old you are, how young youare, will impact the rest of
your days.
We have a very limited amountof time here on this earth, and
do you really want to live it byliving a life that you're not
happy with?
Let's go Small steps and therewill be setbacks and there will
(09:02):
be times you'll slide back intopoor habits.
But okay, who cares, keep goingforward.
You're going to see shifts.
You will see things godifferently for you.
I hope you liked the ThoughtsArtists today.
I have another set for youcoming this week.
Thank you for everyone.
All the new subscribers I'mlike super excited and just like
super pumped that everyone thatI've been seeing, like the new
listeners and everything Cute,shout out to all of my base
(09:25):
that's been listening since thebeginning.
I just, I greatly, greatlyappreciate all of you.
I really do want to hear fromyou guys.
Please use the text function inthe description.
You can get to me directly.
You can make recommendations.
I got feedback, really, reallylove hearing from you guys and I
, you know, I just want toencourage you, and this is a
safe space.
The whole point of this podcastis for women to come together
(09:46):
and share their stories.
I am also starting to work onthe guests, for I don't know if
the fall series is going tohappen exactly how it's been
happening.
I'm going to do that littledifferent twist that I had
mentioned on one of the otherepisodes.
So we'll see.
We'll see how everything rollsout, but I appreciate all of you
being with me.
I greatly appreciate all of youspending time with me here.
I will see you on the next one,take care.
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