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

This ground-breaking book significantly changed my life! Having struggled with chronic fatigue for over 15 years, this book uncovered the missing link in my healing journey. I recently attended one of Mark’s Inherited Family Trauma workshops, and discovered I strongly identified with the history of women in the Middle Eastern culture who were victims of genocide and oppression. During the workshop, I was dealing with an excruciating back pain that dissipated once I witnessed and felt the truth of this family trauma. Two months later, the real miracle occurred, when I noticed more vitality, aliveness, confidence and clarity in my life, career and relationships.

As a Leadership Coach, who coaches business leaders in uncovering their genius, and strengths to better serve their teams and organizations, I was beyond excited to read Mark’s revolutionary book. The book is full of fresh new tools, case studies and a roadmap to break the vicious cycle of inherited trauma based on the latest epigenetic and neuroscience research. I already experienced great results using his Core Language Approach to support my client’s development process.

I highly recommend this book to coaches, therapists, teachers, or anyone experiencing physical or emotional health challenges. Thank you Mark for having the brilliance, humility and courage to share these powerful teachings with the world.

Wonderful Book and a different perspective from the usual talk therapy that may not lead to success. It gives exercises in the back of the book to do on your own that involve writing things down and can be eye opening when you are able to let your words flow onto paper without holding back then taking a step back to analyze those words. Very helpful for anyone with depression, anxiety, phobias, panic disorders....etc.

Excellent scholarly research on multigenerational genetic traits and other effects to be aware of. This work is critical and must be followed and included in current medical research, education and therapeutic treatment of psychiatric cases in with all multigenerational opportunities both in independent practices and in social service and group treatment centers. In Public Government Funded Programs as well and Private Independent Offices. This will take a concerted effort. If there is interest shown, I will volunteer to organize a team to look into whether or not their is interest in exploring something like for the County of Boulder. Another route would be to to to the Medical / Biology Department and ask them what they are currently working on and see if this dovetails with their current work? Maybe this would be a better fit down at CU Health Sciences in Denver ? If so, I could find a point of contact and drive down there and start there. It would be fantastic to have some energy in this from Colorado if they need extra hands and feet to help. I can certainly provide my CV / Resume.

Mark Wolynn's new book is a great read -- smooth, heart-felt, deeply personal. Drawing on decades of clinical experience, the author weaves in the latest in epigenetics to create practical tools that could change your life.
Really.

"...we can gain strength from our parents, who, even if they couldn't always show it, wanted only the best for us." This message seems to be repeated throughout the book -- the idea of reconciliation with parents as the ultimate goal and remedy. I agree with other reviewers who believe this is not a helpful suggestion (reconciliation) for survivors of severe abuse and neglect from parents, except in perhaps a few cases. It is hard to reconcile with a parent who was (and possibly still is) a serial sexual or physical abuser or who remains incapable of forming a genuine connection. I wish the author had acknowledged this and offered alternatives. He writes: "Even if you have the sense that you'd rather chew a handful of thumbtacks than warm to your parents, this step cannot be bypassed, no matter how long it takes." This would be fine if we were talking about slights and grievances, but he is distinctly referring to "trauma." The author presents no evidence for his thesis (for reconciliation as the best solution to pain from trauma), aside from what feel to me like incomplete patient anecdotes as well as tidbits from his own spiritual awakening and his personal experience. I was also hoping for a more in-depth discussion of epigenetics/genetics throughout the book, not just the introductory chapters.

Great book, but not for anyone with an abuse history. That story won't resolve itself so easily! If you had emotional distance from your parents, this is a good read. If you want to learn about people with that kind of history, then it's a good book. Just don't expect a formerly neglectful parent to meld with some perfect parent fantasy. Certainly there are a lot of books about children of emotional neglect and abuse. I highly recommend "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" which lays it all out without blame or compromise. It would work for people with these sort of emotional backstories, as well as it reads for those who were neglected or abused, or allowed to be abused.

This book starts out very helpful and informative. However, he quickly delves into forcing the need to heal your relationship with your parents - namely your mother (in a weird Freudian way). His overarching premise is that you must heal that relationship in order to have meaning in your life. He discounts talk therapy and suggests that the reader basically overlook/"get over" the abuse (emotional, physical, substance) or toxicity of a parent - at one point even suggesting emotional abuse is really just judgment from the child. I can't imagine any respectable mental health professional would suggest half the things he includes in this book. I quit reading halfway through. Don't waste your time or money.

Great book, but not for anyone with an abuse history. That story won't resolve itself so easily! If you had emotional distance from your parents, this is a good read. If you want to learn about people with that kind of history, then it's a good book. Just don't expect a formerly neglectful parent to meld with some perfect parent fantasy. Certainly there are a lot of books about children of emotional neglect and abuse. I highly recommend "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" which lays it all out without blame or compromise. It would work for people with these sort of emotional backstories, as well as it reads for those who were neglected or abused, or allowed to be abused.

This book starts out very helpful and informative. However, he quickly delves into forcing the need to heal your relationship with your parents - namely your mother (in a weird Freudian way). His overarching premise is that you must heal that relationship in order to have meaning in your life. He discounts talk therapy and suggests that the reader basically overlook/"get over" the abuse (emotional, physical, substance) or toxicity of a parent - at one point even suggesting emotional abuse is really just judgment from the child. I can't imagine any respectable mental health professional would suggest half the things he includes in this book. I quit reading halfway through. Don't waste your time or money.

Sigmund Freud already laid out the basic pattern that healing usually takes:

1. Repeating
2. Remembering
3. Working through

Mark Wolynn’s book provides a novel, and at times mind-blowing, contribution to the specifics of that process. He explains how it is not only traumas from our own lives that we repeat and that shape our feelings and behavior, but also unresolved traumas from our ancestors’ lives. He gives many compelling examples of this.

His Core Language approach is a tool for step 2, remembering, i.e. it helps us identify what it is we are repeating, and where it comes from. I experienced a few huge aha moments here, recognizing that I had been enacting with astonishing accuracy the life script of an uncle who committed suicide when I was three. The CL approach worked for me in this case but clearly has some limitations if information about the past is unavailable. (That uncle was almost never talked about.)

The book could also offer more for step 3, working through. Apart from gaining insight into the intergenerational patterns, Wolynn mainly mentions visualization and breathing exercises to process whatever emotions or mental states related to the trauma still remain. I think this may not always be enough. Also, he emphasizes that making peace with our parents is crucial, and he apparently takes this to mean reestablishing an actual relationship with them. Depending on the people involved, however, this may be neither healthy nor feasible. Plus, suggesting to someone who has been significantly abused by their parents to consider “healing sentences” like, “I’m sorry for how difficult I’ve been” or “You’ve given me a lot, thank you”, is positively insulting. You may not be ready to forgive your parents for a long, long time.

I personally have done a lot of healing work so I have many tools to resolve what was triggered. However, someone who is just starting on their path of self-understanding may want to consult a professional to help them work with this book, as you might open a can of worms. I highly recommend The Journey: A Practical Guide to Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free as the most effective way of clearing out psychological issues I have found to date, which works regardless of whether any precise knowledge of the ancestor's trauma can be obtained or not.

Let me just begin by saying, as a neuroscientist, Mark kept me enthralled by the obvious time spent researching and integrating this research with his clinical observations. In combination with this experience and sharing his own story, I was emotionally moved throughout the entirety of this book. His research is rooted in the widely accepted fields of epigenetics, neurodevelopment, neurophysiology, and neurobiology. It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to Break the Cycle is nothing short of a miracle. I have seen countless patients changed through family constellation therapy, however Mark Wolynn brings something completely superior to the table.
It Didn't Start with You is an incredible guide that everybody should read. It not only facilitates understanding of your own unconscious projections but also helps heal every relationship you have ever been part of. After integrating Mark's suggestions into my life I observed a substantial change in my health, wellness, and ability to sustain healthy relationships. Even my immediate family became shifting in this amazing way.
Thanks for all your amazing insights and leading me to my own illuminating insights and experiences. I don't highly "recommend" this to everybody I believe it is absolutely ESSENTIAL for EVERYONE to read and understand to live an amazingly fulfilling life.

There are SOME useful insights if you've never heard of the concept of generational trauma, but it's all available elsewhere in better, and more useful formats.

I don't own the book; thankfully, I borrowed it from my local library and didn't waste a cent on this load of saccharin B.S..

Wolynn seems to have entirely missed the fact that some people have legitimate trauma, rather than the I-wasn't-hugged-often-enough variety that he's experienced. His illustrations of "trauma" are in akin to "maybe your dad is a poor little league coach because his dad was a poor little league coach."

If you have a family history that includes violence, or drug addiction, or sexual abuse, or honest-to-god neglect, you're not finding anything useful in Wolynn's you-just-need-to-reconnect-and-hug-it-out approach, and it's rather infuriating to have your intelligence incessantly insulted by the suggestion that you aren't smart enough to have thought of, or tried to have some compassion for the people that hurt you mostly because someone hurt them .

For those of us who are estranged from irredeemably awful people who had the lack of foresight to birth us, we're likely better served reading the Wikipedia entry on epigenetics, or the CPTSD subreddit (even though it's an abysmal, whiny disaster), or shampooing our cat. Nearly anything is a better use of your time than reading this hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya drivel. At least you won't find yourself wanting to scream "someone ACTUALLY hurt me!" at the wiki.

From a client's perspective, I was astounded to learn of Mark Wolynn's new book! After years of minimal progress with other practitioners, I was fortunate to cross paths with Mark. I've learned a tremendous amount in a short period of time and healed in ways well beyond my own expectations. Mark has a remarkable way of unraveling years of suppressed emotional layers that allows you to connect with one's original core self. This process reveals family dynamic patterns that repeat themselves without you consciously being aware it's happening and you can opt for setting a new pattern in motion with his guidance. On a daily basis now, I've learned to implement the tools Mark has taught me. As a new mom, I feel blessed to have this book as a constant guide and grateful that Mark can share this gift to reach many more deserving people. My life has transpired in so many positive ways that it has been truly life changing and my goal is to tell others of the path that freed me and brought me to a comfortable place of acceptance, love and happiness.

This was not what I expected. Unless you know your family history from several generations, I would skip this book. I also thought it was a little far-fetched. I do believe we are shaped by our ancestors, but not to the degree proposed in this book. I cannot go back that far in my family tree, and some of the questions would be hard to know: Who committed suicide? Who was murdered? Who was a murderer? Who suffered financial loss? Aside from all that, I am not sure I could have accepted some of the ideas even if I had a complete family history from several generations. After skimming and scanning some of the topics, I returned it for a refund.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Mark Wolynn's book It Didn't Start With You. He does an incredible job explaining how many of the issues we face in life stem from trauma that we inherited from our family. He includes case studies and scientific research to support his findings. The book also has variety of exercises that the reader can do in order to discover and resolve the root causes of issues. This book is a wonderful resource that can be referred to throughout a lifetime. It's not the type of book you read once and then put on a shelf. I've been practicing many of the visualization exercises, and they are helping me to feel at peace and free from the inherited burdens that were creating blockages in my life. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is open and willing to heal wounds of the past and expand your heart's capacity to hold more for yourself and others.

I’ve read studies that document evidence that traumatic legacies can be passed down through family members over generations and I am fascinated by these new revelations. Mark Wolynn has taken this information and put it into an easy to read and simple to understand format providing readers with the necessary tools to heal from inherited family traumas. Once you understand how these issues came to be a part of your life, your perspective will change and you will become more compassionate – this is where the healing begins. It is then followed by forgiveness which allows you to completely get past all the pain and suffering that is holding you back from experiencing your life fully, in your own way.

An extraordinary book. Mark Wolynn brings clarity and insight to a subject of great importance to us all. Who knows what ghosts of traumas past still linger in our family tree--and in us? "It Didn't Start With You" beautifully helps to explain the inexplicable. I highly recommend this book to anyone with mysterious physical symptoms or psychological issues with no obvious known source.

this book is batshit crazy. he talks about how people inherit trauma. but not in the normal way of "my mom was an alcoholic so I'm an alcoholic". he talks about how you inherit your fathers trauma because you were inside him (as a sperm!) when it happened and that you inherit your grandmothers trauma because you were inside her (as an egg in the ovary of your mother who is an egg in your grandmothers ovary) when it happened. it makes ZERO sense. he tells a story of a young man who is suffering from intense insomnia and feels cold a lot. and then we find out its because that young man had an uncle (who he NEVER heard of before) that froze to death when he fell asleep in the snow. therefore this man inherited that trauma and its really his uncle who doesn't want to fall asleep and is cold. WHAT?!?!? !?!?!?

"It Didn't Start With You" is beautifully written with warmth, intuitiveness and scholarship. Mark Wolynn offers his readers the tools to delve into past, often unrecognized family traumas in order to move successfully beyond their fallout. I highly recommend this book.

Definitely an interesting premise so far there's already a major problem though. He claims that people with low cortisol levels like PTSD suffers have low cortisol so that's associated with higher stress. But then later says that mothers with high cortisol levels I have high levels of stress which then pass to the baby in utero ...

Maybe the cortisol levels are low in PTSD suffers because there repressing their stress response or something, but he never explores this

*I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway in exchange for my honest opinion.*

What a neat Psychology/Self Help book! Normally Self Help books are boring, but this one was really interesting! The psychology behind it was also really neat. The author did a great job at explaining the concepts behind family trauma and gave excellent examples of how the cycle works. Highly recommend to anyone who likes psychology or self help books.

First couple chapters are really interesting. They focus on the recent genetic research that points to how behavior (and trauma) can be passed down generationally from parent to child.

But it quickly turns into a "self-help" book, complete with exercises, and that, I did not like at all. And to be honest, I stopped reading it.

This is an amazing book and covers ground breaking work. It can have a profound and positive impact on you and your relationships within your family. I know it did mine. Everyone should read this book.

I love the book...Mark has deep understnding about Family/Systemic constellation work and i highly recomend to all my students and clients.
Maria Dolenc - Constellation traininer and facilitator... Congratulation Mark

This is what people of African descent have been saying forever. The general public does not understand something unless a face they recognize says it. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is real. Buy Joy DeGruy Leary's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing.

That being said, if it helped some people climb out of whatever hole they were in, is it necessarily a bad thing ? Think Jung would agree that a little Mumbo or Jumbo can be useful from time to time. The danger lies in developing the habit or mindset of externalizing responsibility for one's own state, even though the bitter pill of truth didn't cure you the sugar water still give you cavities.

[...]