Patriarchal Trauma

Patriarchal Systemic Trauma Recovery

Do you feel you have been controlled, oppressed, dominated, shut down, blamed at even you can’t clearly define and recall specific hurtful memory or incident? Or you have experienced systemic oppression because of 

“What is wrong with me?” – is this question always simmering at the back of your mind, all your life?

Do you feel like you’re failing as a woman, as a human being? Do you think you are failing as a parent, professional, as a woman who wants to be seen, make money, and have integrity and freedom or as a man who feels shame all the time because you are “too sensitive”? Well, it did not start with you, but it will stop with you when we do our work together. Emotional burden legacy of patriarchal trauma is often hidden from us but it is embodied in our nervous system. Feeling less, feeling small, feeling guilty and blamed at, feeling oppressed, feeling unsafe of being seen. From the moment you are born you learned you can’t express and live your truth without being conditioned by “someone above”  and this is a form of inherited trauma done in patriarchal society for thousands of years. Being woman wasn’t never safe, and also being a man with feminine archetype wasn’t never safe either.  Being in minority of any kind, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, skin color, immigration status, social status minority was never safe. 

How often you listen and lived by this : “Don’t be so smart, people don’t like it”. “Don’t stick out”. “ Don’t speak up, just smile”. “ You should be seen, not heard”, “ Don’t wear this you look like a slut”. “That? You look like a nun.”, ” You look good. You lost a weight.” , “ You look to skinny, you don’t look like a women.”, “Don’t make more money, he won’t like it”,  “ What will family say?”. “What will neighbours say”, “Boys don’t cry.”,  “ Compose yourself, you are hysterical”, “ You are too happy, what is wrong with you?” , “Don’t dim his/her light, it is not fair.”, “ Don’t make him feel less, it will not be good for your career.”, ” Respect elders, be quite”,  “Take his last name, it is a tradition”, “This is how we do in our family”,  “ This is our tradition, and you need to respect it”, “ Why are you so sure of your self?”, ” What do you need now?”, “Can’t you settled down finally?”.

Not big T trauma right?, but this is what defines deep layers of oppressive conditioning and this subtle blaming and subtle covert threats is an environment where our nervous system goes into a flight, fight or freeze state and it is how we move to trauma and pain bodies. Done in our families, our society, religion, countries, workplace, neighbourhood, done collectively, in a form of man and woman as well for thousands of years . It is collective, ancestral inherited trauma transferred down to your DNA and it is your individual trauma.

 Unresolved traumas, some going back up to seven generations, can entangle us in stress disorders and situations that don’t belong to us. This is why it’s called inherited, or intergenerational or collective trauma we are born into and we are born into rigid patriarchal system. No matter if you define your self as a she, he, or they you can have patriarchal stress disorder and you can be born into patriarchal trauma. Patriarchal Trauma can forge a blueprint for our life, and can be passed pass onto our children as it did past to you. It doesn’t have to continue.