Sheila D. Boynton, LSW, MDiv, CTCP, CAMS-I
Hello Soul Family,
There’s an old story of a woman who always cut off the ends of the roast before cooking it. One day, her daughter asked, “Mom, why do you cut off the ends?” She replied, “That’s how my mother did it.” When they asked Grandma, she said, “That’s how my mother did it.” Finally, when they asked Great-Grandma, she laughed and said, “I only cut the ends because the pan was too small.”
And just like that, we see how unhealed trauma operates. We inherit behaviors, fears, and pain without always knowing why. We repeat patterns because they are familiar—even if they are harmful. We repeat patterns we never question. We adopt beliefs and behaviors that once served a purpose—but no longer fit who we are or where we are going. So many of us are carrying emotional weight we never signed up for. Pain we did not create. Expectations we did not agree to. Traditions and trauma we never stopped to examine. But healing is what enlarges the “pan.”
The hurts, betrayals, and heartbreaks we have endured do not just disappear when we refuse to deal with them. As a therapist, I often remind clients – “unaddressed issues have babies—and they grow up in our relationships.” The truth is the things we bury do not stay buried. They hide in our habits, show up in our relationships, and sometimes pass silently to the next generation—unspoken but deeply felt. They show up in how we react, how we trust, how we love, and how we protect ourselves. Trauma is not always loud or obvious—it can be inherited, internalized, and invisible… until it is not.
Let’s be honest. It can be frightening to unload the learned behavior patterns and beliefs that have served as survival tools. But you can stop blindly repeating what no longer serves you or carrying the weight of unprocessed trauma. Healing does not mean forgetting. It means making peace with what happened, so it does not control you anymore. You do not have to carry it all. You do not have to keep pretending you’re okay. You are allowed to be a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time.
You’re allowed to…
- Acknowledge the weight of the wound without shame.
- Identify the patterns the trauma created – recognizing the pattern helps you break it.
- Pause and reassess what you’ve been taught that no longer serve you.
- Let go of beliefs and traditions that no longer align with who you are becoming.
- Be more than the wounded story you have been carrying.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
- What am I still carrying from my past that is affecting how I show up today? What would it feel like to finally set that burden down?
THE SOUL’S CORNER…
- A Letter to the Future written by Melissa Kirsch in The New York Times (8/2/2025) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/briefing/a-letter-to-the-future.html?smid=url-share
- Book: “The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love” written by Sonya Renee Taylor
- Therapy isn’t about life hacks. The best solutions are simpler – and more complex, by Moya Sarner in The Guardian
