In this episode of Earth to Gert, I sit down with my sister Kim and my niece Reagan for a conversation about generational trauma, anxiety, survival mode, and how the emotional environments we grow up in shape us in ways we don’t always understand until later in life.

We talk about parenting differently than the generations before us, how anxiety and hypervigilance can quietly get passed down, and what it’s like to look back on childhood through adult eyes. We also dive into the idea of epigenetics and the growing understanding that trauma, stress, environment, and nervous system patterns may impact future generations in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

This conversation touches on counseling, EMDR, survival mode, emotional disconnection, single motherhood, grief, and the realization that sometimes our parents were just humans trying to survive too.

More than anything, this episode is about understanding instead of blame.

About asking “why?” instead of just judging the behaviors we developed to cope.

And about realizing that healing ourselves may also help heal the generations that came before — and the ones that come after.

As always, thank you so much for listening.

And a huge thank you to Kim and Reagan for their openness, vulnerability, humor, and willingness to have these conversations out loud.