SCH 088 Why You Need to Take Care of the Past Before You Can Have a Future

You can never underestimate the need to take care of the past if you want to have a future filled with mental wholeness.

“It’s so sad,” the gentleman said with a shake of his head after I told him I worked with Native American students. “So many Indians are obese.”

I cringed at his thoughtless, hurtful words. “Have you considered,” I asked as gently as I could (I wanted to punch the self-righteous look off his flabby face), “perhaps their obesity isn’t their fault?”

“What do you mean?” he said, “they’re the ones who each too much fry-bread and super-size their fast food meals.”

“But scientists have shown trauma changes our epigenome and adds tags to our DNA. Tags that determine how our bodies process and store food, react to loud noises, and a whole slew of other things.”

“Are you telling me every Indian out there has experienced trauma?” the skepticism dripped from his voice.

“The effects of the trauma, the changes in the DNA tags, get passed down from one generation to the next. Just like you can’t change when you go bald, the descendants of traumatized people can’t change how their bodies react to certain things.”

“Harrumph. Have you seen any interesting sparrows lately?” he asked with an abrupt change of topic.

I let the matter drop. Too much information wouldn’t help him change his prejudice, but maybe he would start thinking and do some research on his own.

In today’s podcast, you’ll learn more about epigenetics and the effect they have on both us and our children.

Carlisle Indian School

If you want to move forward, you may need to look at your past. #epigentics #selfcare
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Next week I’ll talk about how our bodies keep the score.

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