It Didn't Start With You: How inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle Paperback – 30 Jun. 2022

A fabulously insightful book that has enabled me to look at the 'events' that have happened throughout my life through a very different lense, to the point that I couldn't put it down because I was intrigued to join up the dots of my history and discover insights and even answers that I never would have had I not read this book. I highly recommend reading this book and I thank the author Mark Wolynn for writing it 😊

Am amazinggggggg book. My teacher who’s a psychologist/ hypnotherapist suggested to get this. So impressed.

This book has changed so much about how I view my own issues in life and core complaints. So many useful tips and exercises whilst explaining the theory behind it in detail. Lots to pick apart and be thoughtful about, takes you through it step by step to understand trauma and root causes. Loads of examples to help you apply to your own life and research based evidence. Must read!

I read this after reading Body Keeps the Score. I wanted to continue my journey of exploring the physiological holding of trauma and the ancestral passing down of trauma.Unfortunately, Wolynn’s account didn’t live up to the scientific robustness that van der Kolk’s book did. I found this book to be really interesting, to have some very important and useful insights to consider when thinking about people’s journey to being where they are and the history and wounds preceding them that are undoubtedly affecting them consciously or completely unconsciously. However, information was often displayed as if it were fact, when it was more anecdotal in experience, and there was a lot of repetition that made it hard to engage and continue engaging at certain junctures.I found it to labour the same points repeatedly, to the point where I was challenging the author’s bias and personal feelings towards the concepts. It sometimes slipped into feeling like an opinion piece rather than scientific endeavours or explorations.It also has a pseudo-therapeutic approach to helping people explore their ancestral history and trauma that may affect them, with anecdotal examples that could be relatable. But it almost feels like every situation and every question are covered, in an almost coverall way, so everything provides evidence of the author’s hypothesis.I am a big believer in ancestral trauma and the passing down of visceral experiences through bodies (and minds and hearts and souls). I came into this book expecting it to be more scientific and critical than I felt it actually was.However, that all being said, I’m glad I read it, but I will be seeking out other books on the topic to provide a more rounded view.

Learning that trauma affects us right down to the DNA, the birth, the childhood of our lives, allows us the space to forgive ourselves and our parents for the pain we feel or feel has been inflicted on us.You learn too, that the imprints of events that happened to your families and generations play out like a score of music in your own lives.A tune of loss, grief or love, the emotions of fear, depression of ecstasy that make up the melody, play out across our lives as ripples from our ancestors.What tragedy befell a grandparent when they were thirty, may well elicit an emotional response in yourself at the same age. Perhaps intense anxiety, panic, or sustained depression.When emotions are seen as ripples or moving energies, as meditation also teaches us, we begin to let go of them more easily, to not internalise with a death grip our ownership of them, or some need to claim a solution with ideas or thinking.It’s when we acknowledge this that we can start to heal.Trauma is real and imprinted all over us before we can even know what has happened, before we are even able to speak, but it need not control our lives or our destinies.This book will help you reframe your relationship to trauma. To better understand it, change your distance to it and learn from it.I recommend without reservation, for those who wish to learn to forgive themselves and others for the pain they feel in their lives.

Great read & so informative about a fascinating subject!

This book is supposed to be brand new. It arrived half an hour ago and I’m not sure why I’ve been sent a damaged one.No pages have been written on and the rest of the book is fine but it’s just disappointing. Especially when you’re paying full price for a new book.

A very moving book. It teaches how to open your roots, clean them and close them filed with love. It’s a great read that will help you and your family.