Bonus Episode | Generational Healing – A Conversation About Generational Trauma with Therapist Iliamari Vazquez Houston

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Speaker 1

Thanks everyone for joining me for another bonus episode of DNA Surprises.

Today I am joined by Iliamari Vasquez Houston.

She is a trauma therapist in Arizona and she specializes in maternal mental health, anxiety, stress, family issues, and BIPOC first responder families.

Iliamari is a mom of two kids, a FIRE wife, a grieving daughter of a father who was her biggest support, and a Latin trauma therapist whose FIRE has not died down to help her community.

She is familiar with the cultural expectations that are held for her, but she is working on breaking those traditions.

We were so excited to welcome Ilyamari to facilitate a session on generational trauma at the retreat because she has a deep understanding of this.

During our time together, she's going to help us understand the impact of generational cycles and trauma and becoming a cycle breaker while trying to get rid of some of the guilt that comes along with that.

We'll also learn how to transform generational trauma into generational healing.

I love that while finding or improving our support systems.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

I appreciate being here.

I'm excited.

Can you share a little bit with us about how you you got to this point in your life and why you chose to become a therapist supporting people through some of these challenges like generational trauma?

Gosh, that has been a long, a long journey.

I think I'm still on it as a teenager.

I moved to Arizona when I was about 7.

And during my teenage years, I didn't really have a lot of support.

My parents were going through separation, divorce, eventually divorced.

And I didn't have anyone a, who looked like me and spoke like me and had a lot of expectations culturally like me.

So I kind of got lost, you know, did some, you know, teenage things that it probably shouldn't have done.

But that led me to my social work career.

I went to school, I got my bachelors in psychology, and I started working in community mental health.

I wanted to be that support for kiddos who had gone through things like me or we're currently going through things like me that I did.

So I worked as a case manager as a team lead.

I worked on training other case managers to work with kiddos in the community.

And then that led me to supervisory, to quality improvement and other roles in in this field.

I always told myself I was never going to be a therapist.

I was going to do more of the administrative thing.

But after being in the field, I decided I wanted to get my masters in social work because that also allowed some opportunity to do more than counseling if I ever wanted to.

Then COVID happened a few years after I graduated, and that really made me look at my life, my career.

I only had a son at that time, but it was really hard.

My husband is a firefighter for a big city, and he was out saving the world.

And I was at home trying to keep me and my son alive, you know, so to speak.

And talking to other fire families, there's not a lot of support.

There was, you know, the peer support that you could get from your close friends, people that became family, but there was not a lot of professional support.

So I think it was 2021, I decided, well, if there's no support, I'm going to go be that support.

And I didn't know how that was going to happen, but I was like, OK, we're just going to open up practice and see how it goes.

And the clients will come.

And they did.

But it looked a little bit different than what I thought.

But then I realized I was on the right journey.

I started taking trainings doing CE US and I really wanted to shift just from more of the general mental health to very specific intergenerational trauma, generational healing, BIPAC communities, and then also being at that point a mom of two.

I wanted to work with moms, anyone actually who was a caregiver who had more that mother role.

That's who I wanted to focus on in addition to the BIPOC first responder families.

It was very eye opening and humbling because here I'm hearing all these stories of people going through generational cycles and traditions and expectations and I'm a fixer.

I want to fix the world and there were times that I couldn't fix it because there's things that they're going to take time and I know that sounds cliche, but it's just going to take more than maybe one generation to fully heal from, if we can even fully heal from it.

So I, I've been doing a really deep dive into it, taking as many trainings, consulting with a lot of other BIPAC therapist, especially Latin therapist, you know, just getting as much knowledge support as I can and then giving that back to my clients.

I'm in year three of my private practice and I've never looked back.

I'm, I love what I'm doing.

I'm excited working with people again who look like me, who speak like me, who have those expectations and can understand some of the challenges that we are currently experiencing.

And then probably our next future generations will experience to some degree.

I love that kind of stepping into a space that you identified a need for, that you were looking for for yourself, and then becoming that.

That's really powerful and I think ties a lot into the whole generational trauma generational cycles piece.

And I think that term generational trauma is really making its way into the cultural lexicon.

Like we're hearing it a lot more.

But for people who don't know, who've maybe kind of only sort of heard of it, how do you define generational trauma?

Generational trauma is anything that you are experiencing or have experienced and other generations can relate.

That's where the intergenerational will come in.

So if we think of what we're experiencing versus what our parents caregivers experience versus what their parents caregivers experience and so on and so on, that gets passed down our lineage to some extent.

So anything that is community related, poverty, unsheltered people, war, those kind of traumatic events.

And again, trauma is defined differently by each individual, but when it's relatable in that aspect, that's where the generational trauma generational cycle will come in.

OK, so how might that apply to the DNA Surprise community?

Because I hear a lot of it when I talk to guests.

They talk about, you know, wanting to break generational trauma and those kinds of things.

So how might it apply to this group?

There's a, a new concept, epigenetics.

Anything gets passed down from DNA, right?

Maternal grandmother, maternal mother, maternal child and so on and so on.

So there's a component of DNA that will get passed down and there's also things that we cannot control that get passed down.

So that example of war of maybe unshelteredness, homelessness, if it gets passed down through generation, that could be a component to someone experiencing adna surprise where they may have like wondered what was going on.

But then after hearing, you know, that surprise or like, oh, this kind of makes way more sense.

There was something there that I didn't know and now it, it gives a little bit more explanation.

So the epigenetics is the the study, the research, the discussion of there's a lot of stuff that gets passed down biologically to our current generation that we couldn't control.

We may control and it's just it's that make up within us that that we're experiencing right now.

That's really interesting.

I'm curious about it maybe on on both sides.

So for example, for for myself, I definitely have some of that on my mom's side, but with my ethnicity shift, finding out that I am not of Hispanic descent, Latin descent, and then finding out that I'm of African American descent.

And obviously there's a lot of generational trauma associated with that.

Is that something that we can experience from maybe our paternal sides as well?

We're made-up of of both sides, right?

It's two people coming together and creating a, a biological child genetically, there's both of those components.

So while yes, there's more of the the prominent of like grandmother, mother, woman, they're still the other person that made-up that child.

So we're passing down things from each side, whether we fully realize it or not.

And how maybe does like the cycles of of secret keeping and shame and those kinds of things, how does that play into generational trauma?

So there and especially bike pack community, we don't talk about a lot of things, right?

What's, I don't want to say superficial, but it's very surface level and more of that superficial like, Oh yeah, we have a job, we have a house, we have children, but we don't talk about the challenges that maybe we experienced getting to that and we hide it.

We are very secretive.

There's a lot of things that are taboo that we shouldn't even speak of or shouldn't even think of because it's not great, it's not healthy.

So that gets passed down through caregivers, through parents.

Because while your parent might never say we shouldn't talk about this, you're also seeing that play out in the things that they do bring out, in the things that they don't bring up.

Mental health is a very big no no.

It's a very big thing that we don't talk about.

It's like you're sad, so you shouldn't be sad.

Why are you sad?

Oh, just put it away.

We don't get sad.

We don't do that over here.

Same with anger, same with disappointment, Same with jealousy, right?

Like, Oh no, we don't talk about that.

We're we're good, we're happy.

We have a house, we have food, we have clothes.

That's all you need to worry about.

So it's that constant cycle of maybe not even intentionally shaming the children into not bringing up, but it does happen.

If we don't see something, if we don't hear it, then that's the expectation, whether it's actually said out loud or not.

So if our parents are shaming intentionally or not, that gets passed down into then how the the children grow up, what they're being exposed to, what is being modeled to them.

Then they grow up and say, oh, no, mental health is not a thing that's that's made-up.

No, we don't do that here.

We're happy.

We have a house, we have food and we have clothes.

There's a lot of realization that that's been happening throughout generations, and now our current line of humans and people are like, no, we shouldn't be hiding things.

We shouldn't be shaming into how we're feeling.

We're complex humans.

We're complex people.

We have more than just one happy emotion.

We have the sadness, the anger, the disappointment.

And there's that conflict now of, well, why are you talking about being sad?

Well, because it's OK.

Oh, OK.

So it's like it's that back and forth of, you know, like, yes, we didn't talk about that, why should you?

But then the realization, oh, OK, maybe we should talk about that a little bit because it is impacting us.

Yeah.

So Speaking of that, how does generational trauma impact us?

There's a lot of physical manifestations that with my trauma work, I am also trained in EMDR and there's a lot of ways that we can ideally listen to our body that is telling us, hey, we're experiencing a traumatic event, so there's a physical component of it.

And then also the internal struggle of, man, that wasn't a good experience.

I feel like that was a traumatic experience.

I'm getting headaches or I'm not sleeping.

I'm getting anxiety all the time.

Like my chest feels super tight.

It's super, my heart is beating out of control.

So we're experiencing those things.

And then if we're not talking about it, that gets potentially passed down.

So that's where the cycle continues.

If we're not aware of it, if we try to avoid it, if we try to shame ourselves into I'm, I'm fine, I'm fine.

I'm just nervous, right?

What's more than that?

Your body is literally telling you something is going on and it's about trying to pay attention internally to to what your body is saying.

Yeah, I think that that's something that a lot of people within this community can relate to is those those bodily sensations.

What about the mental components?

The way we speak to ourselves is typically voices that we have heard, whether it's from caregivers or relatives, and that is also an internal struggle.

Any intrusive thoughts, any negative thoughts of examples like feeling unworthy, feeling unloved, feeling not deserving things that we've experienced in our life will add to those statements.

As an example, if there's a parent that shows you love by giving a house food and clothes, but they don't say it, we might internalize it and not feel worthy, not feel loved.

So that's the traumatic experiences that someone has gone through.

And then add the statements of, well, they didn't say they loved me.

I'm not lovable.

I don't feel loved.

And then that's that struggle with our thoughts of well, if I'm not worthy, if I'm not lovable, I don't deserve, you know, XYZ thing to happen to me.

I'm OK with status quo.

I don't have to share how I'm feeling because no one cares.

No one wants to listen to me.

No one, no one wants to show me love.

That's so interesting about the the inner voice and where that comes from.

And that's really resonating, has some things to think about.

But it's true.

Like where does that monologue come from?

Where does that critic come from?

The whole goal with the retreat is to focus on integrating these traumatic experiences that have happened to us.

And, you know, I think the generational piece is huge because it goes back so far and many times, especially the cycle of not talking about things and keeping secrets.

And that's kind of something that I think a lot of people in our community want to stop as they look at future generations.

But what are some of the things that we can do to heal from these cycles and experiences?

I would say the first thing, which I recognize is probably the hardest thing, is to recognize what's going on.

Validate your own experiences and your own emotions.

Sometimes feelings lie, Yes, I get that.

However, you, you're the only one that can define the traumatic event.

No one can define it for you.

And that looks different for each individual.

That would be the first step in trying to end or stop those generational cycles because maybe a lot of people have validated that, but they didn't do anything with it.

So if we validate, acknowledge it, then we can move forward and recognize, OK, well, that's an unhealthy pattern.

How can I change that?

If they work with a therapist or counselor or someone who has that therapeutic relationship with them, then we can figure out how to stop and end those cycles.

But validation is key.

If we don't validate it, then we're kind of hiding it.

We're kind of, you know, putting it away and keeping it a secret from even ourselves.

We, we can acknowledge, you know, what's happened.

Saying it out loud is the hardest piece, though.

After that, like I mentioned, working with a therapist or counselor to figure out how to end those patterns.

Is it that, do we need to speak up for ourself a little bit more and say, hey, that's not necessarily something that I want to continue with you?

Can we have a healthier relationship?

Can we speak in healthier ways to each other?

Can we just acknowledge that we have different opinions as well?

Do we need to set boundaries?

Do I need to not call you every day or not see you once a month?

You know, just different avenues to change that pattern that's been going on for so long.

That's how we start to stop some of the unhealthiness that we've experienced.

And then the even harder piece I think also is we might not be the only person that stops it.

It might take those future generations to stop it.

We might be the first cycle breaker.

We're working on breaking that cycle, that pattern, but also how we show up with our future generations.

That definitely can help end those unhealthy cycles.

You, you beat me to my next question.

And I was called, I was kind of, I was called out on a, on a previous conversation with our, with our facilitator, Vanessa.

When I said, how do we fix it?

How do we fix it?

And she was like, I'm going to challenge you not to use the word fix.

And, and I appreciated it because it's so true.

Like there's this tendency myself.

I instantly just want to make people feel better and kind of work through it and not from a toxic positivity standpoint.

But it's just like, tell me, tell me what are the steps?

What do I need to do to go ahead and start working on this?

So is it possible to break down a generational cycle in one generation?

Because I would love for my kids to not do some of the stuff that I do.

I wish I could say yes.

It's.

Possible.

It's not impossible.

It just takes a lot of readjusting how we think, how we show up, how we say things, how we interact with people.

It's just, it's very hard because again, we've had so many years of those patterns.

And I mean, Vanessa was right, we can't fix it, but we can improve it.

We can make those adjustments, make those changes to show up in a healthier way in our current generation.

So then our kids will show up in a different and healthier version of us.

This sounds funny coming from a therapist, but we also mess up our kids to some extent.

They're going to be messed up to some extent.

And I don't say that in a bad way, like, Oh my God, we're bad parents.

No, that's the reality of it.

How we're parenting is very different.

How our parents or caregivers did it, how different them and them and them, right?

So there's always going to be something that we don't do 100% perfect.

And if we think we're going to do it perfect, we're lying to ourselves.

As long as it's a healthier version, then that's what we want to strive for.

It's that progress over perfection.

But our kids are going to have some component of something because they also came from us and things were passed down.

But we're trying to change that and make the adjustment so then they can show up healthier versions with their future generations if they want to.

And speaking to, to something that, you know, kiddos might not be biologically of someone.

However, how we grew up, we impact our future, whether it was that DNA component or not as well.

Because if that's our comfort level and if we don't want to change it, that's how we're going to show up with our kids, no matter if they're biological or not.

Because that's what our parents did for us and it worked.

And that's what we're going to do with our kids.

And it's working.

And they might not be working, but that's how we show up, right?

What we know is comfortable to us to some extent, and if it's not comfortable, that's where we change the patterns.

It's interesting this point about, you know, whether whether or not we're biologically related to someone, we're still impacted by the generational cycles, you know, if we were raised in that environment.

And so people in the DNA surprise community, you do have the biological component where you may or may not have known these things that were impacting you for so many years for your whole life until you uncovered the truth.

But one or more of your parents is not biologically related to you, but you're still carrying this DNA element and the generational trauma and cycles that that you inherit, you know, biologically.

And then you also have to contend with the nurture aspect, so to speak, of you're raised parents, whether that's, you know, you were adopted by both parents or one or maybe nobody knew or, you know, whatever the situation is, you're impacted by by both.

So how do we handle kind of those two sides?

And is the approach the same when you are dealing with, I guess, biological generational trauma versus a raised experience?

General, like baseline, it can be we want to break and stop a cycle, right?

We want to break and stop a pattern that is no longer working, hasn't really worked, is no longer serving us.

So yes, as far as the approach, like, yes, we want to stop it now.

How we stop it varies individually, whether it's biological or not.

What works for me doesn't necessarily work for you.

What works for you doesn't necessarily work for another person, right?

So we want to make sure that it's really individualized and it works within the culture as well.

And when I say that is in Latin cultures, you know, we don't break up with our parent per SE.

They're still going to be around to some extent.

That doesn't give them full access to you.

However, we're very familial as far as like, yes, that's our parent.

They might not have been the best, but I can't turn my back on my mom, right?

There's a lot of that mentality.

So we have to also be very aware of that when therapists and counselors are suggesting certain treatment modalities, certain recommendations, because if you tell a Latin woman to break up with her mom, she's going to be like, no, and this is our last session.

Thank you very much.

Right.

Unless that's what she wants, but generally that might not happen.

It's how to work within that culture and what you're suggesting, that's where the individual piece will come in.

Maybe she just talks to her mom a couple times a year and that's what she is OK with to some extent, even though she might feel sad or disappointed, that guilt, that shame because our parent is no longer who we thought or wanted them to be.

But it works for her.

If that works for her, then that might not work for somebody else.

Again, that's that individual piece.

So it's, yes, breaking a cycle.

That's the general, you know, rule of thumb for the cycle Breakers.

But how we go about it can be very different.

That's such a good point that what works for some isn't going to work for all, and you really have to find what works for you and especially within the different cultural expectations.

Every culture is very different in terms of how they relate to their parents, and that's something definitely to consider.

We're big on resources around here and I know you mentioned before we started, I'm recording that you had a book that you wanted to recommend to people.

So I'm curious about any resources that you might want to point people to if they want to learn more about generational trauma and cycles and cycle breaking.

Yes, absolutely.

The first book that I would highly recommend Doctor Muriel Break the Cycle.

It's a guide to healing and intergenerational trauma.

Amazing work.

She's done a lot of research on intergenerational trauma.

I have the book personally and recommend it for clients and I feel like it's a game changer.

Some people might not be ready to dive deep into this kind of work, so maybe it's finding books that validate an experience but don't do like that super deep dive.

I also recommend another book, self-care for Latinas.

Obviously it's for a specific culture, but it can also translate to other bipod communities.

It's shifting the way that we care for ourselves versus the recipe of take a bubble bath, take a walk.

Yes, we can have components of that.

However, it's also very specific to our cultures too.

So that book is just a different way, a different lens to looking at caring for ourselves.

But the break the cycle book by Doctor Mario I, I highly recommend that book.

There's also a lot of, you know, social media information regarding generational trauma and cycles.

I would, I would suggest looking through that not to, but also recognizing that it's one person telling their story too.

If it's backed by research, OK, great, that's more more appropriate.

But if it's more of like, oh, this is, you know, my story and it doesn't fit you, then OK, find, find something else that could work for you.

We made that comment about generational trauma and generational healing.

We really are trying to heal.

We're trying to heal and start the healing towards future generations and it's a it's a very big deal.

It's a really great awakening is what I call it.

Oh, I like that.

It is an awakening.

We are really trying to break these cycles of secrets and shame.

And I know we'll dive much deeper into this at the retreat, but for people who are interested in attending, can you kind of give us a little more detail on what your session will be about and some of the things we'll cover?

I will definitely be sharing more of the epigenetics information, the DNA component, the biological component, and then also how culturally, whether biologically or not, how we show up, you know, as a community, as a generation, just because that's a really important aspect like we've been talking about.

One size doesn't fit all right?

It has to be very individual.

And at least if we can recognize what's been going on, then we can know better and do better.

So then we can start to break those cycles.

It's more of that just realistic, raw, transparent conversation and discussion of this is where we're at right now.

This has happened.

This is where we want to go forward, right?

Just recognizing that we do have some power to stop and end the cycles of shame and guilt and trauma and empower each person individually on possibly how to do so.

I can bring some techniques and tips and tricks that are more than just, you know, take a local bath or do XYZ because again, one size doesn't fit all.

So one approach might not work for me versus for you versus for someone else.

So I'll bring a little bit more approach on other things that we could try.

I'm so excited for this.

It's going to be incredible and I think it will be so helpful and I I think I'm going to learn a lot and I'm really excited about that.

Billy Mari, if people want to find you and work with you, where can they find you online or or other?

Places.

Well Full disclosure I have a social media through Instagram but I have not been keeping it up.

My Instagram is with an open heart LLC.

I do still have my information up there, it's just not very active right now.

But my website with an open heartllc.com I've been transitioning more into that iPod Latin trauma space.

It has information on my background, my passions, some resources as well on my website.

So going on the website they can reach out either via contact me form or e-mail or phone number.

Psychology Today Latin therapist directory, inclusive therapist directory.

I'm trying to make sure my information is in a lot of the BIPOC spaces as well.

Thank you so much for the incredible work that you're doing in this space.

I know that you are helping so many people confront some of the generational trauma and cycles that they've experienced and then helping them work through it.

And we're so excited to bring your expertise to the retreat.

Can't wait to see you.

And for everyone listening, I will be sure to link all of the resources Iliamari mentioned, including the books and her website and all of that good stuff.

Thank you again so much for joining me.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.