S1 E33 Shit2TalkAbout Generational Trauma with Ashley Cornelius
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Jenn Junod
Hey, Ashley. Thank you for joining shit. You don't want to talk about. Please introduce yourself and what shit you want to talk about?
Ashley Cornelius
Hello, my name is Ashley Cornelius. My pronouns are she and her and I am a therapist by trade and a poet and I'm the poet laureate of the Pikes Peak region. And just really love talking about how we get to heal whether that's through art or poetry or therapy. And today I'm gonna be talking about generational trauma and how to recognize it in ourselves and the ways that we can use our voice and message to shift our understandings and work towards healing.
Jenn Junod
Yay, I still haven't figured out like how to say this is shit. We're gonna talk about like, is it a yay? We're gonna talk about this shit or is it like a, we're gonna talk about this shit. But that aside, I am excited for you being on the podcast for our listeners. I I'm gonna hold up this cup. Hopefully you can see it. Awkward is my specialty. I think that's one.
So says, yay, it does. I recently found this cup and this really does go into how I met Ashley. She was did the TED X talk Cherry Creek in December 2021 and she came on stage and I totally gonna, she looks like an angel just like her outfit. She was glowing. I was like, I wanna listen and then she started talking about generational trauma and I was like, shit, this is deep like this is the type of stuff I want to talk about on the podcast.
And so we have like our intermission, our break and I'm like, awkwardly standing by her waiting for her to get off the phone. Like, I've never met her, I've never talked to her and I'm like, hey, I'm not like trying to follow you around. I just really need to make sure I can say hi and she was willing to even take a picture with me. So, and here she is finally all the podcasts I say fine because I've just been really excited since December.
So thank you for joining. And yes, everyone, her just what you talk about in your poetry and your TED X talk. And it's, you're very, very multidimensional and the fact of all the different pieces that you talk about and I feel that generational trauma is definitely shit. No one wants to talk about and how deep it really is. Could you define what generational trauma is for us?
Ashley Cornelius
Yeah, absolutely. So, generational trauma is experiences that happen across generations. It could be one generation or, or five back that then are experienced by like the person in real time. So something that might have happened to my great grandmother can have an influence on me. And what we know is that it can be something that I totally understand of like, wow, I know my great grandmother went through this experience and so it makes sense that a similar experience makes me
feel uneasy. But what is often scary in which people don't want to talk about is there are experiences, we have no idea. We have no connection, don't know what happened, but we're feeling these experiences as if they're happening to us with no real like origin point. And so this can look like generational trauma in terms of race, right?
So like a black experience and enslavement, it can look like a personal experience of abuse within a family. It can be religious persecution, right? Anything that kind of travels through our DNA and we have these visceral experiences to trauma that we may not have experienced ourselves.
Jenn Junod
Damn. And i it's almost like you, you don't even know what to say to it because it is such like a deep seated issue. How do people discover that what they're feeling is generational trauma and not their own trauma?
Ashley Cornelius
That's such a good question. And I think again, that's why it's really scary because sometimes we don't really know. I know for myself, it was like a physical experience of being scared of something that I had no reason to be afraid of. And so I, I mentioned this in my TED talk that I was in Vegas at a show and someone cracked a whip during a show and I literally no experience, no trauma with a whip.
And I felt as if I was going to be harmed or killed and my body went through this whole reaction and I was like, where is this coming from? Right? When I come from a lineage of folks who are enslaved. And so that makes a lot of sense. And in grad school, one of my professors was explaining this to us and she said when she was pregnant with her son, there was a really big fire in their house and the fire alarms went off and they barely got out and it was super traumatic after she had her son.
And he was kind of like, in elementary school, anytime a fire alarm went off, this kid freaked out and he was just like, I hate this, I don't know what's going on. He talked to his mom, he's like, what's happened. She was like, oh, when I was pregnant with you, I had a really traumatic experience with a fire. And so even though, right, this kid has no understanding was not out and about in the world, right?
The experience of his mother in that stressful situation was still with him, right? He has no reason to be afraid of the fire. He wasn't consciously aware of what was happening, but we can see it realized as, even as one generation, right, of parent to kiddo. And so it could be as close as that or as long as people I've never met before experiencing it.
And so a lot of it is introspection, which is what we don't like. To do a lot is thinking about what's happening for us and saying what's happening, right? Is this something that I'm experiencing? And if I don't have an origin to it, looking back, does this make sense that in my family history, I might feel some type of way. The other example I always give is there's like the stereotype that black people don't like water, we just like don't go into water.
And I always was like, oh OK, whatever. It's a stereotype I hear often. But right, when folks were enslaved, people jumped off the ships and decided to complete suicide rather than be enslaved, right? So water not only signifies right? Escape, but also a way in which people like left. And I thought that was a a better experience than being enslaved. During slavery, folks would throw young black babies into the lake of alligator bait. There were water hoses right during protest.
And so if we understand that, if we understand the ways in which water impacts my lineage, the way that it has been used as fear and torture. Of course, black people don't wanna be in water, right? It has nothing to do with our hair or who we are. It is a symptom of generational trauma that we have explained through stereotypes. And so starting to break those down and saying, oh, this has the origins in something that we are trying to reconcile in ourselves
Jenn Junod
you're making me speechless. This is because it is, it is so heavy and what I'm hearing is especially with stereotypes. It is a lot of, a lot of society does not realize what generational trauma can do and also that it even exists. Yeah. And for myself, I think that is one of the hardest things to explain to individuals even within my own, you know, family, that generational trauma is a thing. And I'm, I've been told that it's bullshit.
It's like, you know, and I've even heard the term black people just need to get over it and, and it's heartbreaking yet. The podcast is what I've tried to do to, you know, get this knowledge out there yet. You know, not everybody's gonna start a podcast, you know, I would love it. There's like a gazillion podcasts out there yet. How do we start breaking generational trauma? How do we support others when we see them going through it?
Ashley Cornelius
Yeah, I think a lot of this goes to history, right? Because a lot of generational trauma and why it feels not palpable, right? Not real for folks is because we often don't have that point of context of like my grandma was at a fire. And so that's why I'm afraid of fire alarms, right? We often don't have that really easy connection. But it's history, right?
And we actually have to be taught about what happened for real in history. We have to be taught about who did, what, what happened. And I'll give you an example. So I work in the the health care industry and I work in a hospital. And so as we're talking about vaccines and vaccines here, we hear a lot of like, oh well, bo folks, black folks and brown folks, right?
They might not medically understand what's going on and there's a lot of fear and we have to educate them and support. But in reality, if we understand the Tuskegee experiment, that was an experiment that took 600 black men with some with syphilis, some who did not have it and experimented on them. Once we knew how to cure syphilis, they were not given any any medication, they're basically left to die.
The last person of the Tuskegee experiment died in 2004 and it was a 40 year experiment, right where Black people trusted white doctors to support them for bad blood without really knowing what was going on. So if we understand the Tuskegee experiment, we can understand why there's vaccine fear, why people are afraid to go to the doctor, why they are afraid to do all of these things.
If we have that information, we can then support people who are going through this. Like, of course, you're scared. Of course, this makes sense and validate their experiences. So we have to know our history first and foremost, so that we can start to recognize those signs and symptoms of like, hey, you're, you know, you can't really put a finger on what's happening.
Let's not only look at what happened to you but what might have happened in kind of your legacy? So that's one way that we can start to do it and to acknowledge when it happens, right? It's scary and it feels kind of weird to be like, I'm going through something that I think maybe my ancestors went through that can sometimes feel like a silly conversation.
But if no one's talking about it, then nobody thinks it's happening, right? The same way we think as kids, everyone's having sex when actually no one is having sex, but we think it's happening, right? Those same kind of things that happen as we come into adulthood, we just assume if it's not happening, then it's good when we're experiencing it, right?
And we're experiencing it sometimes not to the level of, right? A whip cracking in Vegas and having a reaction. It could be Yeah, I'm scared to go to the doctor or you know, I feel uneasy around men or right. This environment going back to a certain place makes me feel weird. And so if we start to listen, when people say that and not say like, oh whatever, don't worry about it.
I don't know what's going on. There's no reason for you to be scared versus Yeah. How can we support you and help you navigate and your, you know, your second question was like, how do we start the healing? First we listen, then we validate. And then we understand the origins, right? Another example I'll share is black people don't go outside, we don't go into the woods.
We don't camp another stereotype when in fact, we are from the land. This is how we have survived, but this is a stereotype that has been told to separate black people from the land, right? We know that with indigenous folks of taking their land and making it inaccessible for folks. And so if we know that if we can start to find the origins, we can understand that we can walk back into outdoor spaces that we can walk into spaces of medicine with support that we can do this because we know
the separation, is about fear and control. And so as we understand what is happening to us, we can find out the ways to get support and walk towards what we need in spaces that it's safe, right? Not everything that is generational trauma needs to be like engaged with, right? If if it is gonna be harmful for you to engage in that.
Absolutely. But if I need to go to the doctor because there's something wrong with me and there's that like separation. How can we support someone to get the help that we need? How can someone go camping. How can someone enjoy swimming in a pool and reclaiming parts of themselves that they've been separated from?
Jenn Junod
You said that so well, and, a big thing that keeps coming to mind is how, and you spoke about this too of how are you each individual, how we will struggle with like the interest, like looking within ourselves. And I do also wanna call out, especially about history because worldwide yet I would say mostly within the US is our history books aren't written for the actual history.
They are very, very they're skewed to the narrative that somebody, the patriarchy, I don't know if somebody decides that they want the new generations to believe. And I know one resource that I really enjoy learning. And this is how I, I learned about the tests that they were doing on Black Men is through a podcast that Bailey Syrian has called Dark History.
And she actually talks about how this kept with syphilis and the that they would give it to people. And then they would say that they're getting better that they keep giving them the drugs and men in that community had no idea why they were dying when they were being told that they had the drugs that is also a huge form of gas lighting. There's also just on a touch base on her podcast because I think it's very valuable to see these type of resources.
She does give visuals if you watch it on youtube. Is this last this last week she posted a, her episode was about the history of rock and roll and it actually wasn't Elvis or white dudes that did it. It was a black woman that unfortunately I'm horrible with names and I will put it in the show notes because it was really, really bad ass and the same with like blues and jazz and why people don't make that shit, like, stop trying to say that you did.
I'm saying that to myself as well because like, we need to change the history and have these conversations how with generational trauma, I mean, we, we've dug it pretty well into that. Yet, even as I'm talking about Bailey Saran in her podcast history is not written for the truth and it can be very difficult and it's also we don't, all individuals don't need a token X and put that intellectual burden on them. You know, there are specific people like yourself that is open and wanting
to educate and Google is a great resource yet. even Google tries to white wi like and influence and guess what you want to find and have you found resources that like, I know there's multiple books about you know, white fragility and those type of books really help with underlying certain feelings yet that doesn't always teach history. Do you know, of any resources that do.
Ashley Cornelius
Yeah, that is so great. And an interesting answer, I'll share one thing I would encourage people to do is look at history within your own city or county or area. One, there are probably living human beings who have experienced it. And I would say, look at, right? Marginalized identities, identities that are historically left out of those books.
So that's bo folks, black indigenous people of color, that's queer folks, that's folks with disabilities, that's women, that's non binary folks. Right. That's folks who you know, struggle with mental health and mental illness because what we have lost, I think so truly is oral history. We only see history once it's edited and published and put in a book and I think like you said, those resources are so valuable, but you would be surprised how many people are living in your city
who were the first person to go to a integrated school or are the first people to experience something. And so I would check there, I think the other things too is going to like lectures or workshops where people are discussing because what you're bringing up, right is you kind of have one narrative and it's kind of hard to say is this true? Is this not?
And so in these discussions, people get to share and you get to expand your understanding of history, right? And I think there's some incredible books, the 1619 project. Absolutely fantastic stamped from the beginning. I had to be an anti racist. And also looking back at like older scholars, right? Folks who have been doing this work, Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, Audrey Lord, just like, I think there's such rich history and I would encourage people to not stop at one thing.
So if you learn something, find another source that backs it up, which is research and I know people are like, no, I'm done with that. I'm trying to research. I, I believed a lot of things. I'm a little bit gullible, but I love a Clickbait. I'm like, tell me about it.
Who did what? So I know that sometimes things look really shiny and beautiful and look at this cool fact about this group of people. And it's important that we take time and care about what we believe and then how we share it with others.
Jenn Junod
So I'm hearing a lot of like, you know, the what we should be doing and I love it and I'm, I'm gonna dive in a little deeper to ask these questions because I think it's just not my forte. But I'm like, so I love the idea of, of finding out more information from communities within, you know, your own city, your own county and diving in deeper there.
And I know like growing up, my grandparents would take me to old ruins and I absolutely fell in love and learned a lot there yet. Talking to a live person. I personally go with a, where do I start b who the fuck wants to talk to a little white chick about this stuff? Because you know, I'm like the odd one out and it does put a bit of an intellectual burden on them yet at the same time, it's to share those oral stories.
And I will say I used to be a fan of the library and that's probably a great place to start on history. So I will own that there and I can actually go probably next week. Yeah, like how I didn't know about the TEDX talks for Cherry Creek until I had a friend that was going to be in it, Louisa. And I'm also not from the studious or academic background.
So I also want to call that out because I feel like for those from academia, it really makes sense to go. Oh, you go to the library? You do X, you do. This is how you Google it. I talk to people which is great, but I don't always know where to do that research. So is it just show about the library and ask the library and I hope for the best?
Ashley Cornelius
Yeah. Nope. So here's how we do it. So maybe spicy content. I don't know one. Sometimes you have to pay people for this information, right? Because this, yes, there are some people who are educators and there are some people who are not. And first and foremost, you have to ask if you find this person, right? And I'll kind of share more about that.
Are they in a space to do this work? Also what does it cost to get this information? Because this is emotional labor and you should be paid for that, right? And so the question of like, who would want to talk to me? Hey, here's some money for your time. I think the library is a great resource. I think there's like tons of like, you know, museums and spaces.
And also if that's not your jam, what I would do and if social media is your jam is follow black creators, follow indigenous creators, follow queer creators. Because often in the creation of content, whatever that looks like there's often stories, there's often history, there's often ways to engage that doesn't feel so academic. No, I also say go to events, right in your community.
If you're trying to learn more about the Asian American experience, what cultural events are happening? How can you engage with folks who are in this space? And again, always asking for consent. I think they're, I'll be very honest with you in 2020 during all of the, the protests and the calls for justice, I got texts and phone calls from white people, I haven't, haven't talked to in 12 years.
And in that I realized I was their only black connection. Someone I met in elementary school had potentially no other black person but me to contact or write this kind of guilt and fragility came in through checking in on me when we haven't talked in 15 years. That doesn't feel good for some people. It did. For me. It felt weird and out of place.
So it has to also be organic and you have to ask these questions and education is not owed to anybody, right? It is in honor to get to share and learn from people's lived experience. But there are times where people think it's expected like you should tell me I'm trying hard, like give me the information, I'm showing up. and I always frame it like this if if you punched me in the face and then I gave a presentation on why it hurts when you get punched in the face.
That's, that's education, right? As I'm educating the person who just harmed me, why it hurt and why you shouldn't punch me. And so the onus is not always on the oppressed people. and finding the folks paying them and asking consent like that's how we have to do it and people have to be ok if someone says, no, I will not educate you. No, I don't want to talk about that, right? And I think that's often where we find conflict of.
Sometimes it's a no and you have to move on to a new person or find another way. But we, people who experience oppression are not, you know, a social experiment for you to learn more. It's our real lives and our real experiences and sometimes we're in a place to do that and sometimes we're not, but you have to ask and potentially compensate people for doing this big work.
Jenn Junod
Agreed 100%. And I, I do wanna call out that just because somebody says no, does not mean it's reverse racism. I, I say it like that. I giggle because it's uncomfortable and that's, that's a big default for myself of I had a podcast in 2016 and we had a guest on talking about the caste system in India. And she railed into me about intellectual burden and it was my first opportunity to learn about what intellectual burden is.
And at the time, I didn't know that was what white fragility is as well because I had, I, I hate to say it at the time I had like two black, two friends and I didn't know what to do. They asked me how my day was and I was like, reverse racism, reverse racism and they were so calm and supportive. Yet looking back at that, it's like, I don't know how they didn't punch me in the face for being like such a pansy about it and all the shit that they've had to go through.
And it's, it's something that what you spoke about is give people the opportunity to say no and give people the space to also not be ready. It like 100% on this podcast. We talk about shit. No one wants to talk about, you know, and not everybody is in that space to do so. And y'all I've had it where I've postponed on guests, guests have postponed.
On me, there's been one guest that took four months for us to figure out our schedule to get you know, together to record because life happens. And also we need to take care of our own safety and security and give people that space as a therapist. Could you give us a, how do we create that space for people?
Ashley Cornelius
Hm. Yeah. So one thing that I say and it's, this happens. A lot of people like this is a safe space. This is a safe space which I don't think there's no safe spaces. They don't exist. Safe space is co created with the people who occupy space. Ok. I'm gonna say that one more time. Save space is co created by the people who occupy space. Nothing is promised, no safety is just existing.
It is about co creation. So often we think about holding space for another person who is going through things or distressed. But it's less about a transaction and more about like holding each other, right? You are also adding to what feels safe for you because psychologically right, there's mirror neurons. So if I like cross my arms, sometimes people will cross their arms, that kind of stuff.
Same thing with, if I take deep breaths, it'll calm someone else down. And so it's the same thing with creating space. We have to be ourselves in a space where we feel it so that we can reciprocate and collaborate in a, in a space like this. And what I often think is important is allowing it to be organic, right? Sometimes it's like, tell me about this, tell me about that, tell me about this and allowing that person to share what they would like to share, right?
And so that it feels less like I'm deserving of these things or this is what I'm really curious about is, wow, let me let this person tell me a story. Let me understand who I am through their specific language because we don't want these interactions or spaces to feel like school, right? You ask me a question, I answer back and forth much more of like, hey, here's a discussion, here's a sharing.
And so what I believe we need to do is get better at recognizing in ourselves the space we need as the receiver and the giver. I was recently at a retreat for folks of color who are activists and someone said even the beautiful things are heavy too, right? So even when we are like loving it and, and caring for our friends and doing it, like we also have to recognize that this work is happy, even if it's powerful, even if it's making change and going in with that understanding is important
and that we're humans, we're just people and some and we are not monoliths of our culture, right? So you and I together I'm talking about the black experience, but that's my personal black experience and someone else may have something different. Another black therapist may say something else. And so not pinning the whole understanding of a specific identity or culture on one person.
But understanding this is how this person experiences it and not, right? This you aren't black enough, you aren't XYZ enough. Because I think that also when people tell them the truth about their experience, they're like, oh, well, that's not really what, what, what I wanted, I wanted something different, right? I wanted you to say more about being urban or you know, some bullshit like that. Versus here's my experience as a black woman who grew up in the suburbs of Colorado
Springs, still experienced a ton of racism, but it's gonna look very different for me than someone else who grew in the Bronx or someone who grew up in Denver. Someone who is dark has a darker skin tone than me or whatever. And so really understanding, we are humans, we are individuals and our marginalized experience, black experience, queer experience, disabled experience is unique to us and does not speak for everyone who is a part of that group.
Jenn Junod
Agreed, agreed. And what I'm really hearing you say is to realize that a people aren't tokens yet. There's not just one token person from each area and to create a safe space is as you said, is not transactional. It's co created. And I'm curious about one thing. So I'm 99% sure that my father is a psychopath. Like he like when he, when he says you shouldn't create a triangle.
And that means using a different person to communicate with another person to, it's a form of gas lighting. It is just hot mess. He always does that. But I'm really good at not creating them now. And but one thing he taught me and I think because he didn't do it, it really, really stayed with me is the love box and it's the way he always explained it and the way I at least interpret it now is both people need to put into the love box.
And if one person doesn't, it will the other will give too much that it will eventually it'll eventually cause them to burn out because they won't have anything left to give. Would would that analogy go with co creating that safe space or am I like, you know, mixing the two? like, at least that's what came to mind when you started talking about co creating.
Ashley Cornelius
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting way to think about it because it is, it's like you do have to give a little bit of yourself in order to make it work, right? Because otherwise it's super voyeur, right? If I'm coming like full vulnerability and energy and you're just like soaking it up, right? That's also not necessarily how human connection works, right?
It's like this reciprocation and listening and, and sharing. And so yeah, I think that is what it looks like and that we have to be just like really aware of what we're putting in that box and sometimes it's not love, sometimes it is judgment, sometimes it is projection, sometimes it is whatever we think we're coming with love and kind of like I said, in the beginning, this work is hard because it requires introspection.
It requires you to really assess what am I coming to the table? What am I putting in this box? And what am I hoping to receive? And I've been in a lot of spaces where that box was not filled with love. But they thought it was right. And so then we think that we're creating safety, but then I'm not giving as much because I'm not feeling it. And so we get into these spaces where we, we feel something's off.
Right. And I think that's the thing about generational trauma is it's typically a feeling of something being off. You can't quite know what it is. but we're like, intuitive people. Right. I think a lot of our inheritance is our gut. Right? Of like, I know something is wrong. Something doesn't feel right. And if we can understand that in the spaces that we create, I think we can opt in or opt out quicker, right?
Of like, hm, this doesn't feel right. And so I don't feel as comfortable to share tons of my experience with racial trauma versus other spaces are gonna feel that. So I would encourage people to tune into your gut, right? And to share when you feel safe and when it feels like the person who is receiving or giving, feels like, feels like that space can hold it right?
If we go back to this box metaphor, right? Does this space feel like it's filled with love? And in that case, awesome share express. But there is so much work that has to be done before we actually get to the exciting part of the, let's talk about it. Let's learn about history. Let's understand. So many big processing steps have to happen. And true question. Are people ready to hear what we have to say because it might be big, it might make you uncomfortable, it might freak you out. and
so really looking at yourself, people who are looking for that engagement to learn more. Can you hold it and what do you need in order to, hold that for someone and be ok because it's all about mental health. Right. It's, it's a lot to hold someone else's stories. I know as a therapist, like it stays in your heart. and so really being prepared for, I'm ready to hear and I can accept what's happening. And if I need it to stop setting some boundaries and same for the person who's sharing
Jenn Junod
that really hit home. And in the fact that we're on a podcast called Shit you don't want to talk about. And there's a lot of times where I would say my full time job, with the podcast is to make myself really uncomfortable yet I've learned that there's as, as much as I almost wish there weren't, but I even have my own boundaries in the fact that I've had people that want to come on the podcast and talk about sex and as someone that was sexually abused growing up and raped, I'm, I'm not ready
for it. Like I would love to be able to talk about it yet. It's not something that I can be in a space because I haven't worked through it yet. And I, I really appreciate how you talked about that. People think that they put into the love box and that they don't. And that includes for ourselves. I, I was speaking to a friend earlier this week and we talked about how he didn't feel in alignment with his job.
And he knows that I always use the love box analogy and I was like, it's almost like your box has a hole in it and yet you just keep putting in for yourself, yet it keeps leaking where if you're in alignment with yourself, you'll just fill your box. It won't go anywhere. And I think just how you explained, find it. Like, are we even as individuals ready to hear and deal with this?
Ashley Cornelius
Exactly. Now,
Jenn Junod
we talked a lot about generational trauma and how to get more education and not doing the, in, edu, intellectual burden. How did you decide or become, or? I don't know if people decide or become or which way did you end up in this space?
Ashley Cornelius
Yeah. I, so, and again, a lot of this is built into the TED talk that I did for Cherry Creek women. but I talked so negatively to myself. Right. Just like all the time. I was like, you could do better. You suck, you're dumb, you're ugly. Like it just was how I express myself and I'm sure a lot of other people know that feeling too. If something goes wrong, you're terrible, you're stupid, you're dumb.
and I was like, being so unkind to myself. And it got to a point. And I think my mom also heard me say these things out loud and she was like, you gotta like figure this out. And I think also sometimes when someone else sees your behavior and it's like the fuck are you doing? I was like, ah I OK, it is something I need to fix. And so I realized that me saying all that stuff to me is actually saying it to my whole lineage, right?
To my grandmother, great grandmother, everyone who has been through so much for me to exist here. And I'm out here being like you're dumb and you're ugly, you're stupid, right? And so understanding that connection to my ancestors, it was a beautiful way that I shifted the way I talk to myself. And now I think about a loved one. I think about my grandmother, I think about all that my family had to go through and that stops me in my tracks because I'm not gonna say, hey, you dumb and ugly
grandma. I would never absolutely. But I would say it to myself. And how am I any different from my grandmother? How am I any different from my ancestors in terms of like spiritual connection. And so that shift was really profound for me. And I realized in that Vegas show when I was in the bathroom trying to collect myself because I got scared of a whip that I have really no reason to be scared of that generational trauma for me.
And this is very specifically a personal thing. I realized that was also my ancestors taking care of me. That was someone who actually did get hit by a whip and couldn't run away being like, Ashley. Can you run away? Do you have the space and time to leave? Because I'm scared, what's happened to me will happen to you and like that was huge. And that is not true for all types of generational drama.
And so I, I wanna name that really clearly from my personal experience. I felt warmth and love of like I know what this is. I know what this has been for my family and I will do everything to fill your body with blood and adrenaline and make you scared so you can leave because I want you to not experience what I went through. And that created a warmth and protection that I didn't know I had from my ancestors.
And so I'm in this work because it worked so profoundly for me to know that yes, generational trauma is not a good thing. It is not something we should feel. And I don't want folks to confuse that. But when you experience it, it is often an experience of fear, this experience of, of pain. And for me, in that moment, it was an understanding that someone in my life went through this and someone is trying to protect me and that looks like fear and a physical representation.
And I, I know it worked for me and I wanted to share that with others. And again, it doesn't always work for each type of experience. But it shifted my understanding of when that comes up of OK, I get it. You want me to be safe, what am I looking out for
Jenn Junod
you that is so powerful and as you're talking about it, just for you knowing that making sure that you can leave that it is bringing on so much emotion and giving people the space to leave, especially when they weren't able to because they were treated less than humans. And it is the closest word I can come up with is beautiful that you have that space to leave now and that you feel it as a protection and instead of a hindrance and that you are doing so much in your life.
No, and I'm not calling your grandmother ugly and it's, it's so what I don't think so many people think about is how many of, especially those of the bop community were stuck indigenous for the reform schools, slavery and that is worldwide even within Africa. And it's people take so for granted the freedom to leave. And I, I just wanna say I am so grateful and appreciate you sharing that because it's, I don't think a lot of people realize how that generational trauma.
You can say how you reacted yet, even just being able to say that feeling of knowing that you need to have the availability to leave is relatable on a humanistic level of no matter what somebody's background is. And thank you for sharing that. It's definitely very, very powerful and I saw your, your TED X talk and was tearing up during that too.
So it's definitely you are a powerhouse and I am just so grateful that you are sharing and, and allowing others to, to learn from in a, in a safe space. Yes, that is very, very co created. It is also something that your vulnerability allows others to have to because we all pick up on vibes, you know, like no matter what i it's a vibe and people can pick up on that vibe if they can create that that safe space of that co creating because as you said, it's not something that necessarily needs
to be said a lot of times it's just that vibe that somebody's putting off and you exude strength and safety and share that vulnerability that so many of us are afraid to do. And I really just want to say thank you for that.
Ashley Cornelius
Thank you. It is and is it a true compliment? And I think is what I do, right? I serve in my capacity as a therapist and kind of in, in my role at my job. And I think poetry too. Right. It, it serves. And so I am always grateful when the things that I have experienced in the way that I heal resonates with others because like we said, we don't talk about this, we don't talk about how scary it is to, to understand ourselves.
It's scary to even talk about trauma, let alone trauma. We don't really understand fully or have never felt ourselves. And so I'm just really honored that I get platforms to share my stories and hopefully validate other folks who might have experienced generational trauma, right? Might have felt something and not known what it was because if we don't explain what it is, people are just like that's weird.
versus, you know, labels do and do. Help, do and do not help. Depends on who you are and what works for you. But sometimes knowing, oh this, this makes sense, right? Nothing is wrong with me. Nothing bad. It is the ways in which we as humans like protect each other, right? Like a lot of therapeutically, right? A lot of trauma symptoms are just hype like it's your body protecting yourself after something that's no longer there, right?
So it's the hypervigilance. It's the the anxiety around certain experiences because your body is like this happened before. These are the signs it's gonna happen again. And so we see that too when the trauma wasn't even ours that we experienced is that our body is saying this doesn't feel right. We know something bad happens when a person who is the man is around or when the lights look like this or when we smell a certain perfume, right? There are things that are in our bodies that
we don't even know that we take in when we have these experiences. And so listening to our bodies finding those people who can co create safe space, setting boundaries too, right? Of like, I don't know if this is the space for me to share. And yeah, doing that introspective work, figuring out what it is, what's happening for you so that you can heal and potentially be a space for others to support their healing,
Jenn Junod
right? And I know we do need to wrap up soon. Is there anything that because we've gone over a lot today? Is there anything that you wanted to share that we haven't gone over yet?
Ashley Cornelius
I think. and something we talked about too, right? Is generational trauma is often couched with in racial experiences and there's transgenerational trauma, there's intergenerational trauma, there's all these different ways in which we understand it. And so it is an experience that can be felt by any person, right? I think there are ways that it looks different, especially in terms of like race or sexuality and things like that or gender.
But it is something that happens and it is also a part of mental health, right? Like we're experiencing these things and we have to talk about it, we have to address it and we talked a little bit about kind of how to start the healing process. But really that healing sometimes is therapy, right? I again, I can have a whole other conversation about therapy and choosing the right person and finding the safe spaces.
But really, it's like taking care of what you need because generational trauma is generational. So if we don't start to address it, if we don't get help, if we don't seek support, then the next generation will influence that, right? We see kind of a lot. It was a generational thing until it stopped with me. Stopping with you is hard work, it is hard work, it is rough, it is not comfortable healing is gross, it's sticky and it's terrible, but it has to happen. And so knowing if you're in
that stickiness, if you're in the grossness, you're healing and it is worth it. It is worth getting support, knowing and making sure that it stops, right? And so that future generations, whatever that looks like it could be physically from you biologically or future generations of black people, future generations of queer people. the work starts with us and the work is hard but you are so deserving and so worth the uncomfortableness of it to heal you are worth of that.
Ashley Cornelius, Jenn Junod
And you deserve it 100% 100%.
Jenn Junod
And to echo what you just said, healing going through the healing process sucks. But it is, you are worth it. And y you learn how to heal from future things too and be able to handle more. So, as much as the healing process sucks, it is so, so worth it. And Ashley any words of wisdom or encouragement for our audience.
Ashley Cornelius
Yes. You are enough like you are also dealing with things in an authentic way with the resources that you have. So how you have dealt is the ways in which you needed to. And so I think sometimes we judge ourselves in the way so much we heal or process and that you are worth all of the ways that it takes to heal and healing happens in relationship. It does not happen alone, it happens with family, it happens with friends, it happens with community, it happens with the therapist and so find
the connections, find the support. because there is collective healing. I think you know, Bell Hooks named and I'm, this is a loose quote. But paraphrasing, right? It is, it is rare that we heal alone. It is through community and relationship that we heal. And I think that's what this podcast does and that's what I would encourage people to do.
Find the spaces, find the people who look like you sound like you share your experiences or are different from you so that you can heal and yeah, work towards being authentically who you are, which is an incredible person.
Jenn Junod
Thank you. And how do people reach out to you?
Ashley Cornelius, Jenn Junod
Follow you get some of your poetry in their life.
Ashley Cornelius
Yes, you can follow me on Instagram at AC C poetry now. And you can also find me on my website, which is Ashley cornelius.com. And I'm always excited for people to reach out. I post poetry and, and events and I'm doing 28 days of Black affirmations and I do a lot of affirmation videos for specific months. So please follow and connect and also watch my Ted X Talk of Ted X Dr Creek women.
Ashley Cornelius, Jenn Junod
I'll have links on my Facebook and Instagram and it will also be posted in the podcast description.
Jenn Junod
So that's definitely another way to find it. And last but not least, what is something that you're grateful for?
Ashley Cornelius
Hm. Oh, I am, I am grateful for my community. I always say self made doesn't fit for me. I am community made and my community and a lot of decisions have made it to a point where I can be here. So every opportunity I get to share, I am always grateful for the community that lifted me up and believed in me.
Jenn Junod
I love that and something that I'm grateful for is finding those who are open to sharing their experience and like you, there's something that I it's so important to share our experiences when we're ready and when we have that mental space, it's helpful for others. It can be helpful for you yet as powerful as it is.
It's never a requirement. And I'm so grateful for having guests on the podcast that are in that space to be able to share. So we ensure our audience knows that they're not alone. Thank you, Ashley for being on the show and talk soon.
Ashley Cornelius
Thank you. Bye bye.
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