Our Genes Have Emotional Memories Too

An old newspaper clipping posted in our family’s Facebook group made every cell in my body tingle. 

Published in the Humboldt, Iowa, local newspaper in 1921, the article described my great grandmother’s epic exodus from her war-torn Russian village to her safe arrival in her new American town. 

Here's an excerpt:

“Finally Mrs. Serber secured aid and six months ago succeeded in reaching Roumania. One of her daughters died, and Mrs. Serber and the remaining child finally reached Paris. Snuggling on their way, mother and daughter were helped to Belgium. She arrived in Antwerp and sailed on the steamer Lapland. After ten days at sea the mother and daughter were landed at Ellis Island.”

I already knew about my great grandmother’s horrific loss of her two-year-old daughter, Myala, who fell fatally ill during their treacherous journey over. But what I didn’t know, yet viscerally felt, was that my great grandmother had passed through Paris on her way to America. 

For as long as I’ve been irrationally obsessed with France I’ve wondered what hidden forces drew me to this culture, this country, and more specifically, Paris. 

Discovering that my great grandmother had once walked the City of Light's cobblestoned streets felt like a small clue. 

Maybe she loved the city, and wished she could return under different circumstances. 

Maybe she felt at home, but had to push on. 

Maybe something magical, or mysterious happened to her here. 

Maybe she saw the bustling boulevards filled with cafes and escaped her misery for a moment over coffee with some locals. 

In any case, I feel like she passed a Parisian seed through the family gene pool that germinated and blossomed inside of me.  

Often in my coaching a client is deeply attached to an emotion, narrative or system of beliefs that feels so entrenched that it could well be ancient history. 

In our exploration, we sometimes find that these feelings and thoughts have been transmitted invisibly over generations, like familiar hand-me-downs you’ve been wearing for years, but whose original owners are long gone. 

The latest research in epigenetics reveals that our genes have a “memory” and that unprocessed emotions and experiences can be transmitted from one generation to another. 

If you're curious like me  about the provenance of certain longings, behaviors and emotions, I highly recommend the riveting new non-fiction book, Emotional Inheritance. 

Written by Dr. Galit Atlas, an Israeli psychoanalyst who lives in New York, the book is presented as a fascinating series of therapy vignettes. In each chapter we go behind-the-scenes as Atlas and her patients unravel present-day problems by uncovering and processing emotional material that sometimes goes back generations. As Atlas explains "when we heal ourselves, we also begin to heal the generations that came before us: our parents; our grandparents; our great grandparents and beyond."

Run, don’t walk to pick up your copy.  It's one of the most thrilling, and mind-bending books I've read in years and I’m sure it will be made into a Netflix series! 

Neuroscience Nuggets #5: Emotional Guessing Game

Novak Djokovic, the world’s #1 men’s tennis player and potentially G.O.A.T, rarely shows emotion unless he’s smashing rackets, violently screaming, or accidentally hitting balls at line judges. (Honestly, I’m not a fan though I totally respect what an outstanding athlete he is.)

Yet on Sunday night, as he teetered on the imminent edge of unexpected defeat, the crowd at the US Open Final match rose to its feet to encourage him on, shouting his nickname "Nole, Nole, Nole" in unison. 


Novak smiled, waved to the crowd and then did something completely out of character: he showed he was a real human being. 

Peaking out from beneath his towel as he wiped the sweat from his face, viewers caught sight of a twisted, anguished mouth that looked like it walked off a Francis Bacon painting. 

It became suddenly clear that the typically stoic, unflappable super athlete was having a big, ugly, uncontrollable cry. 

And it was shockingly beautiful.
 

But what was it? What exact human emotion was Novak expressing?
 

• Was it joy from feeling the love and support of a hard-knocks crowd that usually jeers at him?

• Was it the dread of letting everyone down?

• Was it a release of the weight of expectation?

• Was it frustration and fear?

• Was it physical pain?

• Exhaustion?

The truth is that no one besides Novak could really know what the tears were about because, and here comes today’s neuroscience nugget: emotions aren’t uniform, universal reactions to life that have ready-made ways of showing up on our faces and in our bodies.


You can’t know what someone is feeling just by looking at them.

You may think that when you look at someone's face you can understand exactly how they feel. But in fact your brain is guessing, and it's using your own past experiences to make those guesses. 


We construct our own emotional experience, and our perception of others’s emotions, on the spot.

“Emotions are your brains’ best guess of how you should feel in the moment,” explains neuroscientist and author of How Emotions Are Made, Lisa Feldman Barret. 

They're your brain’s “creations” of what your bodily sensations mean in relation to what is going on around you in the world, and those “creations” are the sum of three distinctly subjective ingredients:

1. Your internal bodily cues (heart rate, muscle contraction, temperature, etc)

2. Your external surroundings (what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch)

3. Your past experiences (and how those past experiences compare to the present)

“Our emotion concepts vary widely from culture to culture. They come with a rich set of rules, all in the service of regulating your body budget or influencing someone else’s," says the founder of The Neuroscience School, Dr. Irena O’Brien. "That’s why we shouldn’t assume that we know how someone else is feeling from their facial expression or body language."

So what do Novak's mysterious tears have to do with you?

1. It’s easy to assume you know someone’s emotional state through observation, but you’re really just guessing through your own experiential lens. If you want to know what someone is truly feeling, you need to ask them.

2. Be it your boss, your spouse, your kids, your friends, you shouldn't assume that any one can correctly read the emotions you’re feeling either. Best way for them to know what you’re feeling is to go out on a limb and tell them. 

So, what emotion was Novak truly expressing on the courts? Click here to hear all about it from the "Joker" himself. 

Don't be afraid to catch feels

I'm feeling a lot of "feels" as I'm sure you are too right now.

Disbelief, anger, fear, disgust, grief, hope, enthusiasm, excitement.

Those emotions were all of the menu in 2020, but this week's painful, protracted American election has been serving me feels in XXXL containers.

I've flopped so quickly and deeply from one emotion extreme to the other that I've started to get very, very acquainted with the sensations my emotions create in my body.

When I think of Trump undermining the election process all of the way to the courts, that feeling of doom and despair comes through my chest like a heavy hollow swoosh. Almost like a blunt sword cutting through to my belly.

When I think of Biden's face on the cover of the The New York Times with a big "WINNER" next to his name, a joyful, fluttery swarm of green music notes fly across my chest.

Have you ever tried that before,?

Think of something and then feel that "event" emerge as a sensation in your body?

Since I learned I could deliberately think of something and then instantly feel its presence in my body I starting adding that practice to my arsenal of self-discovery tools.

The more you practice observing the invisible network of thoughts, emotions and sensations in your body, the more information you have about the patterns and triggers that set you off in one direction or another.

It's kind of like creating your own personal "Physical Feelings Glossary."

When you take the time to observe what your feelings actually FEEL like, you can assign the sensations you discover names, colors, textures, shapes.

For example, in my "Physical Feelings Glossary" I have the following entries:

• DESPAIR: A yellow hollow sword-like swoosh down my chest when I think of something truly horrific, like the demise of American democracy setting off the next World War.

• FEAR: A red, hockey-sized puck that thumps in my belly when I'm startled by a car alarm or suddenly realize I haven't sent my taxes in.

• HOPE: A fireworks display of fluttery music notes flying across my chest when I think of Biden winning.

• SERENITY: The blue tingling lightness on my skin after a mediation or yoga practice.

I love to do this exercise with my clients so that they too can create their own "Physical Feelings Glossary."

It's especially useful when you feel overwhelmed by the sudden shifts in the world.

Being able to observe those sensations without judgement makes you less reactive and more proactive.

For example, instead of immediately reacting to the feeling of fear in your belly, you can look to understand the cause of the fear. The thoughts or circumstances that are creating that feeling.

We're going to have a lot of intense feelings come up over the next few days and possible weeks, so as a "fun" exercise I invite you to try and locate those feelings in your body, give them a name, a color, a shape.

Below is a picture of mine.

It could be a fun (and useful) distraction to the addictive drama of the USA election.


PS. If you decide to create your own "Physical Sensations Glossary" and draw it or paint it or whatever, be sure to send me a picture at zeva@zevabellel.com !! I'd love to see what you come up with.

PPS. Unpacking the way thoughts, emotions and feelings shape our reactions and actions is a huge part of the coaching process. Want to know more about it? I've got some spots opening up for individual coaching so book a call if you're interested.