Breaking the Cycle:A Parent’s Journey to End Generational Trauma
- Oct 2
- 2 min read
By Reesa Morala
I grew up in a home that looked fine from the outside, but inside told a different story. My parents carried their own wounds, and those wounds spilled over as emotional and physical abuse. They were emotionally immature, driven by fear, and the cost was my voice. I learned to silence myself, to ignore my instincts, to people-please and self-sacrifice as a way to stay safe. It was survival, but it came at a price: I no longer trusted myself.
For years, I thought this was just the way life worked. Love meant walking on eggshells. Belonging meant disappearing parts of myself. Safety meant staying small. I didn’t have a language for it back then, but what I was experiencing was generational trauma. Patterns of hurt passed down from one generation to the next, shaping us in ways we often don’t even see.
When I became a parent, something in me shifted. I looked at my children and realized: if I did nothing, the cycle would continue. My silence would teach them silence. My people-pleasing would become their template for love. My disconnection from myself would become their inheritance. That thought stopped me in my tracks.
And then it sparked something I hadn’t felt before - determination.
I made a decision: The generational trauma ends with me.
That choice set me on a path of deep, painful, beautiful work. Therapy, reflection, and learning to trust my own voice again. Learning that conflict didn’t have to mean cruelty, that boundaries weren’t abandonment, that love could be tender and safe. Slowly, I began to rebuild the parts of myself I thought were gone forever. I discovered the kind of parent and partner I wanted to be. Not perfect, but present. Not self-sacrificing, but self-respecting. Not silent, but whole.
What started as survival became a calling.
Today, that calling is my life’s work through Embrace Renewal Therapy. I walk alongside parents who are tired of the same fights, couples who feel like the spark is gone, and families desperate for a new way forward. I help them identify the patterns that no longer serve them, and I show them that healing is possible - not just for themselves, but for the generations that come after.
Because when parents choose differently, everything changes. Children who grow up watching their parents repair after conflict, honor each other’s needs, and show up with compassion instead of control, carry a new legacy forward. They learn that love doesn’t have to hurt. That relationships can be safe. That their voice matters.
Breaking generational trauma isn’t about erasing the past - it’s about refusing to let it define the future. Every couple I work with, every parent who chooses to heal, is a reminder that cycles can be broken.
That families can thrive instead of just survive. That courage in one generation can ripple for many more.
This isn’t just a business for me. It’s a mission. It’s the hope that no child has to grow up believing they don’t matter. It’s the belief that every parent has the power to say: the trauma ends here, and love begins with me.
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