Josh TrentIdentity Transformation Architect and award winning Host of the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast—a decade-strong show with over 750 episodes and 15M downloads.

The generational trauma didn't start with you... #podcast

20 Aug 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:09

In this opening segment of the podcast, host Josh Trent introduces guest Mark Woehlin, a leading authority on inherited family trauma and author of the bestseller It Didn't Start with You. The conversation frames generational trauma as an “ancestral alarm clock” that can manifest as sudden fears or symptoms in individuals, prompting the question of how to recognize inherited wounds. Woehlin explains that trauma is not only passed forward but also backward; unresolved pain from ancestors can be transmitted epigenetically, influencing later generations. Healing work that resolves these deep‑seated wounds can alter the epigenetic signature, preventing further transmission to future descendants. The dialogue emphasizes that while the trauma didn’t originate with the individual, they have the agency to end its cycle.

It didn't start with you, but it can end with you. Many of us feel like we're carrying something that doesn't belong to us. I hear that all the time. This isn't mine. So we can begin experiencing a fear or a symptom that strikes suddenly or unexpectedly. It's almost like an ancestral alarm clock that buzzes when we hit that certain age. How do we tell if it's inherited?
Mark Woehlin is a leading expert in inherited family trauma and is the author of the international bestseller, It Didn't Start with You.
The healing we do extends backward, extends forward. It's almost as though what's unresolved from the past sends the energy of the trauma, the contraction, forward to heal because it's looking to heal. Once we do our inner work and we heal, that epigenetic signature no longer passes forward to the next generation.
Can you give a starting place to somebody that's feeling the pain? They're stuck in that cycle. What would be the first sign, Mark, that someone Everyone is carrying a wound from their lineage.