Making Sense of the Senseless
So, my friends and I talk. A lot. Phone calls, in person, texts, IG messages... These conversations happen daily and I feel so lucky to have an incredible group of friends to be able to share honest and very (very) real things with. We talk about everything from career to family, relationships and health - the normal stuff. But lately, I’ve noticed a trend in our conversations. I’m hearing a topic pop up time and time again that, on the surface, simply doesn’t make sense. It’s this:
People I know and love who are very talented, smart, hard working, successful and by all accounts living a fruitful life - they worry about their future. They don’t just worry a little like, “well I hope I have enough money for that nicer car next year.” They “big W” worry. Like, “well I hope I don’t end up destitute and homeless on the streets one day.” Somehow, even in a time when so many of us are living abundant, blessed lives, there’s still this quiet, constant, undercurrent of worry that one day it will just all vanish. The bottom will mysteriously just drop out. Gone.
Right around the time I noticed this theme pop up in so many conversations, I learned something that really made me stop and think. It’s this:
A woman is born with every egg she’ll ever have (about 2 million of them) in her ovaries. No new eggs are created after she’s born. So what it means is this:
“You existed inside of your grandmother. I know. Whoa.”
Think of it kind of like those nesting wooden dolls where the tiny one is in the bigger one and so on. And if you believe that information and core beliefs live in our cells, then it would make sense that your grandmother’s traumas and experiences would be some of the first cellular data you ever received by way of your mother being in her womb. And it’s not just when she was pregnant with your mom, but her entire life’s experiences (which as you already can see came from her mom and grandmother…and on and on). Again. Whoa.
So then I took this common thread I’m seeing of an unfounded level of extreme worry and I looked at the (very approximate) ages of our grandmothers. And here we go. Many of them lived through the Great Depression and many also experienced the Holocaust either directly or indirectly.
Talk about “Big T” Trauma on a macro level.
I’m not an expert in this in any way, but when I started to connect the dots between what we might call unexplainable worries, fears and responses with not only our parents and the cellular impact they had on us along with our upbringing, but ALSO our grandparents generation and experiences…I don’t know. I think there’s something there. If anything, it’s a fascinating road to go down and explore.
So I’ve started to have very interesting conversations with my friends that usually start with, “what was your maternal grandmother’s life like?” I believe so much that information is power and knowing the “why behind the what” can often turn on the light in the dark room and give clarity to something that feels kind of scary and mysterious. So I invite you to get curious about your history and the cellular level data that was imprinted on you from the very, very beginning. And it doesn't have to all be traumatic of course! Maybe your history is also the reason you love the mountains or llamas or cooking or math.
It’s easy sometimes to forget we came of and from others. We didn’t just pop out blank canvases or empty robots just waiting to be programmed. We absorbed everything from the very beginning. So when you find yourself feeling a certain way that seems out of alignment with the situation, be easy on yourself. You are the beautiful creation of generations upon generations of those who went before you and you carry some part of all of their stories in you. And maybe next time you (ahem…WE) feel the feelings or have the thoughts that don’t make sense - maybe we can simply acknowledge the thought, close our eyes and honor our ancestors and thank them for everything they did and everything they endured. And then lovingly let the thought or feeling go. Because we can write a new chapter for our future generations.
Love you. Mean it.
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