Witnessing, Releasing, Remembering: The Three Phases of Healing Generational Trauma
When I was bedridden from burnout, unable to care for myself while my teenage daughter Rose became my caregiver, I thought I'd failed.
Failed as a mother. Failed as a woman. Failed at the basic task of functioning.
I didn't understand yet that my collapse was actually a breakthrough.
My body wasn't failing me. It was finally protecting me from the patterns I'd inherited—the belief that rest had to be earned, that boundaries were selfish, that my worth came from how much I could endure.
Those patterns weren't mine. They were generational.
My mother worked herself to exhaustion. Her mother before her. And the women before them. Survival meant pushing through. Silencing your needs. Proving your value through sacrifice.
I didn't just inherit my mother's eyes or her hands. I inherited her survival strategies.
And they almost killed me.
What I learned through my healing journey—through Reiki training, womb keeper certification, years of deep ancestral work, and building the Soft Hearts Society™ with Rose—is this:
Generational trauma doesn't heal through insight alone. It heals through a process.
That process is what I now call the Lineage Liberation Method™: three sacred phases of Witnessing, Releasing, and Remembering.
This isn't a program you complete in six weeks. It's a cyclical practice you return to again and again, each time at a deeper layer, each time breaking free a little more.
Let me walk you through each phase—what it is, why it matters, and how it works.
Phase 1: Witnessing — Seeing What Was Passed Down
You cannot heal what you cannot see.
The first phase of healing generational trauma is Witnessing—looking clearly at the patterns, beliefs, and wounds that were passed down through your lineage.
This isn't about blaming your mother or grandmother. It's about seeing the full picture: the context they lived in, the survival strategies they needed, the ways those strategies helped them survive but are now harming you.
What We're Witnessing
When you enter the Witnessing phase, you're asking:
What did my mother teach me about rest? About boundaries? About my worth?
What survival strategies did she use that I've inherited?
What was she carrying that got passed to me before I even had words?
What patterns show up in my life that I've seen in the women before me?
Examples of generational patterns we witness:
People-pleasing and over-functioning (the belief that your worth comes from usefulness)
Inability to rest without guilt (survival mode normalized across generations)
Lack of boundaries (belonging through sacrifice, saying yes when you mean no)
Silencing your voice (women before you weren't allowed to speak their truth)
Mistrust of your body (disconnection passed down through trauma, abuse, shame)
Financial scarcity despite hard work (the working poor, the immigrant struggle, the provider wound)
Anxiety and hypervigilance (nervous systems shaped by your mother's fear during pregnancy)
Why Witnessing Matters
Before I entered the Witnessing phase, I thought my burnout was a personal failure. I didn't see the lineage pattern.
I didn't see that:
My mother worked herself sick too
Her mother sacrificed everything for her children
The women before them survived by being useful, needed, indispensable
My collapse wasn't about me being weak. It was about a survival strategy that had outlived its usefulness.
Once I could see that clearly—once I could witness the pattern without shame—I could begin to release it.
Witnessing Practices in the Lineage Liberation Method™
In the Soft Hearts Society™, we practice Witnessing through:
Altar work — Creating sacred space to honor your ancestors and look at what they passed down
Ancestral mapping — Journaling the patterns in your mother line and father line
Womb connection practices — Asking your womb what she's been holding that isn't yours
Body scans — Noticing where these patterns live in your physical form (tension in shoulders from carrying everyone, clenched jaw from unsaid words, disconnection from your pelvis)
Circle sharing — Speaking the patterns out loud and being witnessed without judgment or fixing
The Witnessing phase is not about staying stuck in the story. It's about seeing clearly so you can choose differently.
When you witness a pattern, you break the unconscious spell. You stop repeating it automatically. You create space for something new.
But knowing isn't enough. You also have to release what your body has been holding.
Phase 2: Releasing — Letting the Body Discharge What It's Holding
Your mind can understand a pattern. But your body has to let it go.
This is where most healing modalities stop short. They give you insight. Awareness. Understanding.
But generational trauma doesn't live in your thoughts. It lives in your nervous system, your womb, your tissues, your breath.
The Releasing phase is where we move from intellectual awareness into embodied transformation.
What We're Releasing
When you enter the Releasing phase, you're working with:
Stored emotions — Rage you've been swallowing, grief you weren't allowed to feel, fear that's been running in the background for decades
Somatic holding patterns — Tension, numbness, disconnection from your body, chronic pain
Ancestral energy — Trauma passed down through the womb, patterns held in your DNA
Outdated survival responses — Hypervigilance, fawning, freeze states, constant scanning for danger
You can't think your way out of a freeze response. You can't journal your way out of generations of suppressed rage. You have to move it through your body.
Why the Body Holds Trauma (And Why It Has to Release It)
When trauma happens, your nervous system stores it. If you couldn't fight or flee, you froze. And that freeze energy stays in your body until it's discharged.
For generational trauma, it's even deeper:
Your mother's stress hormones while she was pregnant with you? You absorbed them. Her nervous system state became your baseline.
Your grandmother's unprocessed grief? It lives in your womb.
The collective trauma of women in your lineage who were silenced, violated, overworked? Your body remembers.
The Releasing phase honors this truth: healing is not just cognitive. It's somatic.
Releasing Practices in the Lineage Liberation Method™
In the Soft Hearts Society™, we practice Releasing through:
Reiki — Moving stagnant energy, restoring flow, releasing what's stuck
Sound healing — Buffalo drum, rattle, chanting, light language to vibrate stuck emotions loose
Womb work — Womb Reiki, womb breath, womb reconnection to release what's stored in the pelvic bowl
Breathwork — Intentional breathing to discharge trauma from the nervous system
Somatic practices — Shaking, rocking, grounding movements that let the body complete what it couldn't during trauma
Shadow work — Meeting the parts of yourself you've denied, shamed, or hidden and integrating them
Grief rituals — Crying, wailing, speaking to your ancestors, honoring losses held in your lineage
Guided meditations — Ancestral forgiveness work, cord-cutting, releasing vows or contracts that no longer serve
What Releasing Feels Like
Releasing is not comfortable.
You might cry unexpectedly. You might shake. You might feel rage you didn't know you were carrying. You might feel nothing at first and then everything all at once.
This is normal. This is the medicine.
Your body has been holding this for years—maybe generations. It needs to move. And when it does, you'll feel lighter. Clearer. More present in your own skin.
Releasing isn't a one-time event. It's a practice. You release layer by layer. Each time you do, you create more space for who you actually are.
And that's where the Remembering phase begins.
Phase 3: Remembering — Reclaiming Who You Are Beneath the Conditioning
Beneath all the trauma, all the conditioning, all the survival strategies—you were always whole.
The Remembering phase is about returning to yourself. Not the version your family needed you to be. Not the version corporate culture demanded. Not the version trauma shaped.
The you that existed before the world told you who to be.
What We're Remembering
When you enter the Remembering phase, you're reclaiming:
Your voice — The one that was shamed, silenced, or ignored
Your boundaries — The right to say no without guilt or explanation
Your softness — The part of you that had to harden to survive
Your pleasure and aliveness — Sensory joy, play, rest, embodiment
Your cyclical nature — Honoring your body's rhythms instead of forcing linear productivity
Your worthiness — The truth that you don't have to earn your right to exist, rest, or take up space
Your feminine power — Intuition, womb wisdom, creation, sacred feminine energy
This isn't about becoming someone new. It's about excavating who you've always been.
Why Remembering is Radical
In a culture that demands we produce, perform, and push through—choosing softness is rebellion.
In a lineage where women survived by being useful—choosing rest is revolutionary.
In a world that shames feminine power—reconnecting with your womb wisdom is sacred defiance.
The Remembering phase is where you become the cycle breaker.
You remember who you are. And you refuse to pass the old patterns down.
Remembering Practices in the Lineage Liberation Method™
In the Soft Hearts Society™, we practice Remembering through:
Inner child healing — Tending to the little girl who was abandoned, shamed, or told she was too much
Boundary work — Practicing "no" in real time with support and witnessing
Soft living practices — Rest without guilt, pleasure without earning it, cyclical rhythms instead of constant output
Womb reconnection — Listening to your body's wisdom, honoring your cycle, grounding in your feminine center
Reprogramming work — Affirmations, mirror work, rewriting old beliefs
Creative expression — Art, movement, voice, play—reconnecting with joy
Community celebration — Witnessing each other's transformation, honoring how far you've come
What Remembering Feels Like
Remembering feels like coming home.
You start saying no and it doesn't destroy you. You rest without guilt. You trust your body again. You speak your truth and the right people stay.
You feel like yourself for the first time in years—or maybe ever.
And here's the beautiful part: when you Remember who you are, everyone around you shifts too.
Your children see a different model of womanhood. Your partner relates to a whole version of you. Your community receives your authentic presence instead of your performance.
You become the ancestor your lineage needed. The woman who broke the cycle.
The Lineage Liberation Method™ is Cyclical, Not Linear
Here's what's important to understand: you don't move through these phases once and you're done.
Healing is cyclical. You'll witness a pattern, release it, remember yourself—and then a deeper layer will surface and you'll witness again.
Each cycle takes you deeper. Each cycle liberates more of your lineage.
This is why the Soft Hearts Society™ isn't a six-week program. It's an ongoing sacred container where you move through these phases at your own pace, held in community with other women doing the same work.
Some months you're in deep Witnessing. Other months you're releasing old rage. And always, always, you're Remembering who you are beneath it all.
This is the work. This is the medicine. This is how generational patterns actually break.
How I Use the Lineage Liberation Method™ in My Work
Every offering I create is rooted in this framework:
In the Soft Hearts Society™ Membership:
Weekly livestreams move through all three phases
Monthly Wisdom Circles hold space for witnessing and releasing
Resource library includes meditations, rituals, and practices for each phase
Community support as you cycle through the work
In Our Mother-Daughter Courses:
Ancestral Healing for Mothers and Daughters — Witnessing phase
Shadow Work for Mothers and Daughters — Releasing phase
Inner Child Healing for Mothers and Daughters — Remembering phase
In Our Circles and Masterclasses:
Every gathering includes elements of all three phases
Altar work to witness, sound healing to release, integration practices to remember
This isn't theory. This is lived medicine.
Rose and I walked this path. We Witnessed the patterns between us. We Released the mother-daughter wound we'd both been carrying. We Remembered who we are to each other when we're not performing roles.
And now we hold space for other women—mothers and daughters, sisters, friends—to do the same.
What the Lineage Liberation Method™ Offers You
Clarity about what you're carrying and where it came from
Permission to release what isn't yours
Tools to heal at the somatic, energetic, and ancestral levels
Community to witness and be witnessed as you transform
A pathway through the overwhelm of "where do I even start?"
And most importantly: hope that the cycles CAN break, that healing IS possible, that you don't have to stay stuck in patterns that are killing you
This is How We Break Cycles
Not through force. Not through willpower. Not through toxic positivity or "just choose different thoughts."
Through Witnessing what was passed down.
Through Releasing what your body has been holding.
Through Remembering who you are beneath all the conditioning.
This is the Lineage Liberation Method™. This is the path home.
Ready to Begin Your Lineage Liberation Journey?
Join the Soft Hearts Society™ and move through the three phases with weekly support, monthly Wisdom Circles, and a community of women breaking cycles together.
Or start with a free resource:
Download our Gentle Release Workbook to begin Witnessing the patterns in your lineage.
