Teal Swan: Negative Ancestral Patterns Are The Byproduct of Extreme Trauma

Okay, so indirect inherited trauma is where you didn't have a direct interaction with some kind of a problem, and yet it's in your body. And they've done all kinds of studies around this. This is not like, you know, I'm telling you, some out of this world spiritual concept that people don't know about yet. They've done all kinds of studies with mice, for example. They've been doing even more interesting ones with worms. But these mice studies are entertaining where they. They introduce the scent of cherry blossom to mice, male mice, while they shock them with an electrode, then they separate the babies from both mom and dad immediately upon birth. What this means is that there's no way for there to be some kind of a mice communication, that we can't track. Those infants of those mice, they still show a reaction, like a hyperactivity to the scent of cherry blossom five generations later.

Yes.

That means that we are literally inheriting memory. Now, I'm going to go one step further and tell you that you have every memory of every single ancestor in your body, whether you have conscious access to it or not. And some of those fears are active because it makes sense for them to be active and some are not. Now, if you're in an environment, it just makes sense in terms of evolution. If you're in an environment and there is a threat in that environment, doesn't it make sense for that to be downloaded without you having to teach your young? Hell yeah. Makes sense. Okay, so this is where it gets really super entertaining with me in Wales, right? Because I've always had this issue, like a. Like a big one, right? And it's funny because I'm like, I'm complete animal lover, right? But whales, they come around, panic. One day, my dad just casually drops when he watches me have one of these reactions to a whale on the screen. He's like, what's that about? I'm like, what are you asking me that for? You know, you've only been with me for the last 30 years. Of course I have an issue with whales. He's like, hmm, that's kind of funny. I think if I remember it, we have a whaler in the family. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, you are just now telling me this? Turns out my dad didn't even know. So let's go. Two years later, I hire these genealogists. They go down the trail and they're like, oh, your fifth great grandfather was literally the father of whaling on the east coast of America. And it was four generations of whalers. I go out there, I walk through my family home, right, and turns out that I have one great grandfather who was actually lost at sea in a fight with a sperm whale. And like their entire. For so many generations of so many grandfathers of mine who were all in the whaling business, their nightmares would have revolved around this. Because the whaling gold, right, was the sperm whale. And the sperm whales were the ones who had this tendency to turn on boats. That's what Moby Dick was about, this Essex incident, right, where they went after a bull sperm whale, and it took down the whole damn ship. Whaling was intense business. It's not like these guys went down gently, right? And it wasn't like, you know, now where you're harpooning them, right? You would get out in this little boat with four men and try to spear this thing to death. And then it would drag you for miles and miles and miles and miles. And, you know, the whole time bleeding through the water. So at the end of it, you've got sharks that are up sort of trying to feed off the carcass. It was grisly. So, you know, these men, this would have been the bulk of the content of their panic attacks. And it is in my body, even though I have literally ready for this, never lived near the ocean. I have lived in the mountains my entire life.

So because of that inherited piece or. Yeah, that is so wild. Okay. So it fascinates me because it makes me inspired to go get a genealogist. And, you know, this trauma piece is like Mark Wolin. I've had on the show a couple times, and I don't know if you know of his work. He wrote a book called it didn't start with you. But, you know, regardless of it, not starting with us, it's our responsibility to heal it anyways. And so what I thought was so fascinating is that you and him both, whenever I get wisdom from different sources that are trustworthy, I start to really do my best to embody that. And one thing that you said is that, you know, healing relational trauma, if you have real deep relational trauma, you. You cannot heal it outside of relationship. It's just not possible. So you had this inherited piece with the whales, and I'm sure you did healing work on that. So I'll let you finish that actually first before I ask the other question. Finish how you actually healed that. Cause there's a take home there for all of us.

I haven't completely healed it yet. This is something that I'm in the ongoing process of doing so with Me, this is an intense enough fear that I have no intention of getting in the water with a whale right now. Like, it's that bad.

Okay. It's a work in progress. Yeah.

What it is is, like, I'm understanding. It helps a lot to understand where this fear comes from. Right. Which is not necessarily the nature of the animal. It comes from the ways they were responding to my antagonistic ancestors. Right. When I was in Sag harbor, which is where this whole family essentially settled and built this entire business, I went out into the water and the first thing that I did was to, like, send out this. It was like a very deep meditative prayer where I was sending out this apology to the oce and to the life in the oceans, especially the whales. Right. And I mean, this is going to sound odd unless you're really tapped in esoterically, but it was like the second that I set foot there, it was like everything knew that I was there. And it was like. It was almost like a rub, an energetic rub there with the oceans being like, are you going to be just like them? Of course not. I'm a total crunchy granola that way. Right. But I was, like, sending out this prayer to say that I'm. My. My promise is going to be the opposite. I know that I came from this line of people, but my promise is to do the exact opposite from the explo that. That you, being the ocean, experienced. And it was a really healing thing to experience that. Not only that, to have my son there with me. Of course, I took him on that trip, right? And he was paddling around in this bay where my ancestors used to be and his ancestors used to be. And he was, you know, totally the opposite of just going after things to the detriment of, you know, we've got this very gentle child who has been raised vegan and who is very much like a friend of all the animals and loves the ocean. Not like me, right? So he was paddling around and playing, and it was just absolutely magical. So we can go from there to, you know, I'm watching documentaries on these animals and, you know, every time that fear arises, it's like I'm trying to understand them. Instead, I am doing meditations where I'm going into their perspective, because the more you understand, the less you fear now, you know, And I'm assuming that this is going to lead me at some point to interacting with them. Most likely, I'm not going to go for the sperm whales first.

Maybe some dolphins. That'll lead you there. Okay. So thank you for sharing that and also thank you for your honesty. Like, you know, one thing that you've shared in the past that I want to touch on is like a couple years back you had this complex that you recognized in yourself, which is super humble and also just very trustworthy that you realize there was a superiority complex. You could sit here on the pod and be like, oh, it's healed, I'm good. But it's not like that. No matter. And this is what I said earlier, no matter what stage you are, you're very far along compared to most people on Earth. Very far along. And there's still work to do.

Oh yeah, always.

There's always going to be work. So I feel like, and I know you feel this way too, based on what I've seen and heard from you. We cannot, this is my earlier question. We just cannot heal certain aspects of relational trauma unless you're in a relationship, unless we are in committed relationship. And this flies in the fucking face of so many spiritual commodifiers out there who say everything you have is within you and it's just so not the case. And I've always, I've always felt actually an aversion to that statement.

Good.

So when I heard you speak it, it was like my spine said, yes, go deeper into that for us, please. Because there is one way of thinking where it's like love and light and everything you need is within your heart. Not the case. If you have trauma around relationships, you have to be in that round circle of relationship to heal it.

Exactly. Well, the first thing that I feel like people need to understand is that the vast majority of people who are pushed towards the spiritual field are pushed there because of relational trauma. They've experienced enough pain with people that they're no longer looking to people for their answers. They're looking to connect with something else. Usually that's when people turn to the spiritual realm. Right.

Or they get sucked in by a church.

Yeah, something like that. Now that can. I'm not going to be able to make that whole entire process negative because sometimes that's exactly what turns people towards their non physical self and towards the awareness of this whole other dimension of life. However, we can go towards that in rejection of. And that is very much something that I'm watching this huge demographic of relationally traumatized individuals do is they're like, oh, I can now disconnect from other people and human relationships and I can be in connection with myself and in connection with God and tell myself all kinds of stories Based on even true principles that exist about the universe that enable me to be avoidant of relationships and make it so that I'm never back in that vulnerable position that I'm in a relationship. As people, we are running away from the vulnerability of relationship. It's really as simple as that. Because it takes two to make a relationship work. And there's no way to get around that. You are dancing a tango, okay? So dancing a tango, you can't get around the fact that the other person can mess up the tango. That's what you're stepping into by virtue of getting into that in the first place. You say, I'm in a relationship, right? Then you're automatically in a vulnerable position because the other person can either dance with you in that dance or not. We don't want to accept that. And I find it kind of. I mean, I understand it because being in the powerless state is not fun for anybody. But people want to either think that they can do something to be able to control the entire relationship, so it's no longer about what the other person does or doesn't do, or that they can just withdraw from relationship entirely. And then all the needs they would be going for in relationship, they can get some other way. It feels more empowered, it feels less vulnerable. But you can't eradicate your needs that way, number one. Number two, that is not the mastery of relationship. The mastery of relationship is the mastery of the tango. That's. It takes two. And whenever you get damaged in relationship, you have to heal what was damaged in relationship. In relationship. That's what people don't want to accept about relationship damage. Whereas they would never think that way with any other type of damage. Yeah, you know we were just talking about whales, right? I got huge whale issues. Oh, good. Well, you can definitely fix that. Never going in the ocean again, Teal. I mean, that's essentially what you're saying when it's like, oh, I've got all kinds of relational trauma. Luckily, I found everything I need within. That's the same thing as me being like, I've got issues with whales. I figured out how to heal it within myself. I will never go near whales. And that's okay because I've got whales within. I mean, like, what the hell is that about? I mean, it makes no sense relative to every other subject.

So, yeah, it's a trap. People fall into this trap where it's like, well, if it feels good, do it. Hey, if you love that clip you just saw, watch the full video. That clip was just a taste, just a piece, the tip of the freaking iceberg of what you just witnessed and what you just felt. Click the link on this screen. Subscribe to the podcast. Click the link on this screen if you're vibrating, if you're resonating, if you feel what I'm putting down.