I had a conversation around generational trauma and something profound clicked... For so many of us, the way we move through the world today is shaped by how we interpreted our earliest emotional experiences, not just what happened in them. These early interpretations, made through the limited lens of childhood, become the story we tell ourselves about who we are and what we’re worth.

How Identity Is Formed in Childhood

Think back to your earliest memories, not just what happened, but how it made you feel.

Did you feel safe to express yourself?

Were your emotions met with presence or with disapproval, silence, or withdrawal?

Were you praised for simply being or only when you achieved, helped, or behaved?

As children, we make sense of the world by drawing conclusions about our place in it. If a parent dismisses your needs, withholds affection, or withdraws emotionally, the child doesn’t think: “They’re projecting their trauma.”

They think: “Something’s wrong with me.” “I’m not lovable.” “I’m too much.” “I’m not enough.”

These are not conscious thoughts, they are somatic, emotional imprints that become our inner blueprint.

It was never about you.. It was about them

This is the realization that changes everything:

The way our parents treated us often had nothing to do with our actual worth.

It had everything to do with how regulated their own nervous systems were, how trauma shaped their capacity to love, and how emotionally equipped they were to handle their own pain - let alone ours. Many parents never had the space or tools to process their own hurt. So what we received were the downstream effects of unprocessed pain expressed through emotional shutdown, control, criticism, or distance.

But because we internalized those moments, we now wear the wound as our identity.

The Subconscious Narrative

The Root Narrative: “I Am Disposable” If you grew up feeling like your needs were too much, or that love was given only when you behaved a certain way, you may carry a subconscious belief that:

“I am disposable.”

“I am only valuable when I perform.”

“My emotions are inconvenient.”

“It’s safer to keep my needs hidden.”

And here’s the part that stings: we carry those beliefs into adulthood, even if our adult mind knows better. We find ourselves in friendships where we’re always the one giving. In romantic relationships where our boundaries are dismissed. In jobs that exploit our loyalty but leave us unseen. Why? This is because we unconsciously seek out experiences that affirm the identity we internalized earliest, not the one that’s actually true.

Recognizing These Inherited Beliefs

Recognizing these inherited beliefs is where It starts. This is the first step to breaking toxic cycles and creating healthier, more authentic connections. These beliefs often operate beneath our awareness, like invisible scripts passed down through generations, etched into the nervous system. They sound like: “I have to earn love,” “My needs are too much,” or “I’m only valuable when I’m helping someone else.”

You didn’t consciously choose these beliefs, they were absorbed from childhood environments, family dynamics, cultural messaging, and unspoken expectations. But even when they aren’t yours, they still shape the way you show up.

When you carry these internalized narratives into adulthood, they quietly guide your relationships. You may find yourself overextending in friendships, staying silent in conflict, or clinging to emotionally unavailable partners, not because you lack awareness, but because your body is chasing what feels familiar. You attract what aligns with who you believe you are, even if that belief was born from someone else's wounding.

Awareness of these inherited beliefs empowers you to break the cycle. It’s not just about thinking differently, it’s about feeling safely rooted in a new internal truth. This kind of healing interrupts the patterns that keep you trapped in performance, people-pleasing, or emotional overfunctioning. And when you begin to rewrite those beliefs, when you start to remember that you were always enough, always lovable, even in your stillness, you make space for deeper, more aligned relationships. Relationships built not on fear of abandonment or the need to prove your worth, but on emotional presence, mutual respect, and soul-level safety.

This is the work that frees not only you, but everyone connected to you because when you stop passing down survival patterns, you begin passing down wholeness.

The Law of Attraction… Rewritten

This pattern mirrors what many refer to as the law of attraction but it’s much deeper than the surface-level “think good thoughts, attract good things” narrative.

You don’t attract what you say you want, you attract what you believe you deserve.

Affirmations can only work if your subconscious believes them. If you say, “I am abundant” but believe, “I am not worthy,” you’ll unconsciously sabotage opportunities that contradict your inner script. The subconscious always wins because it’s the filter through which you interpret every experience.

It decides: What you allow in, What you walk away from, How much love you’ll receive And how safe you feel being fully seen. So, What Do We Do With This?

You begin by asking: Where did I first feel like I wasn’t enough? Whose voice am I still carrying when I silence my own? What parts of me did I learn to abandon to stay loved?

And then: You grieve. You witness. You re-parent. You rewrite.

Not to blame the past, but to break the cycle.

You don’t have to keep proving your worth to the world, you don’t have to keep choosing people, jobs, or environments that match your wound instead of your truth. You are not the wound, but you are the one who heals It. This is the moment you reclaim your narrative. Not from a place of ego, but from soul sovereignty. Not to deny your pain, but to stop letting it define your future.

The truth is, you were always enough even before anyone failed to show you and remembering that is the beginning of everything.

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going:

If this resonates, I’d love to hear your story.

What belief about your worth are you in the process of rewriting?