The Vital Side Podcast 76. How to Tap into Forgiveness and Self-Compassion when Navigating Intergenerational Trauma with Selma Bacevac
Themes: Generational Trauma, Trauma Healing, Self compassion, Forgiveness, Family dynamics, Parenting, the Refugee/Immigrant experience
What does your ancestors’ grief and trauma have to do with your own healing? Selma Bacevac, a psychotherapist who specializes in intergenerational trauma, joins Cait & Lindsay to help us unpack this nuanced question and ignite a deeper conversation. Learn about Selma’s early life story growing up during a time of war; how this impacted her; and how the lessons she learned & now teaches others can be applied to all of our healing journeys.
Selma Bacevac is a Bosnian-American woman who has a powerful story of overcoming adversity and who has also dedicated her life to helping others do the same. As a former refugee and mother of two, Selma has a deep understanding of the challenges women face; and she uses her experiences to support her clients - specializing in healing generational and early childhood trauma. Selma's unique perspective and compassionate approach have helped countless women reclaim their power and heal from past traumas. Her story is one of resilience, dedication, and the power of the human spirit to overcome even the toughest of challenges.
Show Notes:
-Selma’s experience living through a time of war in former Yugoslavia, and becoming a refugee; how the trauma from this experiences shaped her future by stoking her interest in psychology and her desire to help others heal; her desire to better understand how parent-child relationships are affected by trauma from war/being refugees
-Generational trauma; as she went through her family tree, Selma began to realize how many attachments she was holding onto as she learned more about how generational trauma works
-Big T and little t trauma: either one can be held in your body as generational trauma
-Selma’s definition of what resiliency really is, and how it can either serve you or limit you
-Trauma is not about what happened to you, it’s about what happened inside of you when you experienced the event or stressor
-Why comparing your trauma to someone else’s is invalidating and limiting
-Defining intergenerational trauma and how it gets passed down
-The significance of being able to break these cycles; how uncovering and working through intergenerational trauma is so powerful
-Real solutions that can help you work through intergenerational trauma: forgiveness, self compassion, somatic work, community connections, inner child work
Resources:
-Visit Selma’s website here
-Click here to follow Selma on Instagram
-Click here to check out the children’s book Selma wrote
-Visit the Vital-Side Homepage here
-Click here more information about “Reset” (as mentioned in this episode)
-Sign up for the Rewire: The Vital-Side Membership
-Lindsay’s Instagram: @myvitalside
-Visit Lindsay’s Website
-Cait’s Instagram: @caitrossco
-Visit Cait’s Website
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