Name: Liana's review of It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn
Item: It Didn't Start with You
Rating: 1
Author: Liana

Mark Wolynn

"A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by a renowned expert in the field. Inherited family trauma is currently an area of growing interest, as science increasingly explores what we know intuitively: that the effects of trauma can pass from one generation to the next, and that the answers to some of our greatest life problems often lie not within our own story, but in the experiences of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and extended family. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on in those in the present. And while inherited physical traits are easily discernible, this emotional legacy is often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language"--

How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes who We are and how to End the Cycle

It Didn't Start with You

Lindy

The bigger secret is that a great love was just waiting to be excavated the whole time. It is the love passed forward from those who came before you, a love that insists that you live your life fully without repeating the fears and misfortunes of the past. It is a deep love. It is a quiet love, a timeless love that connects you to everything and everyone. It is potent medicine.

Parents, in the course of being parents, inadvertently cause their children pain. It's inevitable. The problem is not what our parents have done to us; the problem is how we're still holding on to it. Generally, when our parents caused us harm, it was unintentional.

Kay so Queso

What lurked behind the façade of independence was simply an association between getting close and getting hurt.

People often unconsciously choose a mate who will trigger their wounds. In this way, they have an opportunity to see, own, and heal the painful and reactive parts of themselves.

Not many of us, however, when faced with our difficulties, can use the difficulties as direction signs. Instead, we focus on alleviating the suffering and rarely travel to the source.

Anger and numbness are much easier to feel than sadness and pain.

Cutting off may have been the only option you knew. Cutting off can make you feel free at first, but it's the false freedom of a childhood defense. Ultimately, it will limit your life experience.

The constant looking outside of ourselves can keep us from knowing when we hit the target.

Hayat

Starts strong, then basically says, “Maybe your narcissist mom did love you—you just didn’t notice while dodging emotional landmines.” If I wanted to be gaslit, I’d call her myself.

Liana

Starts strong, then basically says, “Maybe your narcissist mom did love you—you just didn’t notice while dodging emotional landmines.” If I wanted to be gaslit, I’d call her myself.



The painful truth is that you can’t change your parents, but you can change how you respond to the trauma that’s been passed down to you. I am skeptical about the strategies introduced the this book though; they seem too simplistic. 

This was a fine book. I didn’t particularly care for it and felt that TBKTS provided a far more informative and gripping perspective on trauma, but I really appreciated this book’s niche in the topic. There’s definitely some interesting and useful information in there, along with some enlightening anecdotes. However, overall, I did not care for the book and was not engaged by the author’s writing style. Also, like half of it was a workbook to work through your own problems, which could be cool but I didn't really use it.

It’s a decent read. If you have an explicit reason for reading this book (like your own family trauma or suspicions of unknown trauma holding you back), then I highly recommend it. Otherwise, eh, take it or leave it.

This was a fine book. I didn’t particularly care for it and felt that TBKTS provided a far more informative and gripping perspective on trauma, but I really appreciated this book’s niche in the topic. There’s definitely some interesting and useful information in there, along with some enlightening anecdotes. However, overall, I did not care for the book and was not engaged by the author’s writing style. Also, like half of it was a workbook to work through your own problems, which could be cool but I didn't really use it.

It’s a decent read. If you have an explicit reason for reading this book (like your own family trauma or suspicions of unknown trauma holding you back), then I highly recommend it. Otherwise, eh, take it or leave it.

Rebekah jean

This was a very limited approach in my opinion. It did a lot of blaming the mother and made it seem like no matter what, you should forgive parents and repair relationships with them. What about in instances of abuse, neglect, etc? It also lacked representation from BIPOC viewpoint. It touched briefly on immigration, but I would have loved to see more of a talk on slavery, discrimination, struggles of indigenous, LGBTQ, disabled, and ND people. It was very Cis-Het-white focused.

Irina 

Tenisha Scott

A great insight into why we feel trauma at the expense of our past or our family's. Very interesting concept of science. I listened to the audiobook, easy 'reading' to and from work.

Maryam

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Leena <3

Mattia Ilic

A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited—that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood. As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn’t Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

Rina

Amberlyn Holmes 

Ember Skies

Bria

daniela

Carmen Maria

Inherited family trauma is currently an area of growing interest, as science increasingly explores what we know intuitively- that the effects of trauma can pass from one generation to the next, and that the answers to some of our greatest life problems often lie not within our own story, but in the experiences of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and extended family. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on in those in the present. And while inherited physical traits are easily discernible, this emotional legacy is often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language. A pioneer in this field, director of the Family Constellation Institute, and creator of the Core Language Approach, Mark Wolynn focuses on identifying and breaking inherited family patterns. It Didn't Start with Youis an accessible, pragmatic, and prescriptive guide to the method with which Wolynn has helped thousands of people reclaim their lives. The book includes moving stories, the latest research, and extensive material on The Core Language Approach and how to map out family patterns to achieve greater insight into our lives.

Hayat &
It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn

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It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn