Transforming Trauma Resolving Cultural and Historical Trauma with Iya Affo
Iya Affo is a culturalist and historical trauma specialist. She has traveled to more than 25 countries and lived a life dedicated to cultivating love and inclusivity, facilitating decolonization, and healing indigenous people. Iya’s work focuses on a cultural and neurobiological perspective of historical trauma, and she presents the question, “What happened in the past, and how does that manifest in people today?”
Exploring cultural expressions historically used to manage adversity, Iya highlights a White Mountain Apache dance performed as a debriefing by warriors returning home. “That's what they did to restore their neurological regulation before they rejoin the community because we know that if we are dysregulated, we have behaviors that are aggressive and abusive and hostile.”
Iya points to the Cherry Blossom study, underscoring the beginning of one’s biological life as an egg in the womb of our grandmothers. Through the knowledge of epigenetics, we understand that trauma can be imprinted on us even before the birth of our mothers. Still, we can also pass down positive experiences, benevolence, and love. “What you do today and how you change your life today has the potential to impact the next 14 generations.”
About Iya Affo:
Iya Affo is a Culturalist and Historical Trauma Specialist. She is the founder of Heal Historical Trauma and the International Historical Trauma Association. Iya earned Western certification as a Trauma Specialist and is a descendant of a long line of traditional healers from the Republic of Benin, West Africa. She has visited more than 25 countries and resided in various Native American, Yoruba, Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist communities. While on pilgrimage in Benin, she lived among Medicine Men and Women to learn the ways of the Shaman and understand the truth about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. In China, Iya lived in the Shaolin Temple; in India, she sojourned in a Hindu spiritual community. Serving Navajo Nation and the Gila River Indian Community, Iya found a home among the egalitarian, indigenous people of North America.
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