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My grandmother was born in 1939, at the brink of World War II, when Korea was still occupied by Japan. She grew up with fighter planes flying overhead in the Korean countryside, without any running water or electricity. Her childhood was characterized by wars, colonialism, and constant fear. Concepts like “identity” and “belonging” were foreign to her, as the country kept changing.
At just 19 years old, she married my grandfather, whom she met on her wedding day. Soon after, she gave birth to her first child, who was thankfully a son. Next came my mother. Inside my grandmother’s womb, as my mother grew, the first traces of me and my DNA started forming.
My grandmother was our matriarch. My grandfather was an alcoholic, and my grandmother worked odd jobs and raised six children, with the help of her in-laws and my mother, the eldest daughter. The family eventually saved enough money to move to Seoul for more opportunities for the children.
My mother was left behind, in the country home, because someone had to take care of my great-grandparents. My mom continued to live there, in a house with no electricity or plumbing. Her chores consisted of chopping firewood to heat the ondol floors in the winter, helping her grandmother cook, and taking care of her younger sister, whom she carried on her back to and from school every day.
My mother and grandmother’s nervous systems adapted to the endless strains and challenges of life back then. They were often in flight mode, flying from one task to the next, fulfilling their duties to their family, putting the family’s needs first, repressing any negative emotions like sadness, and learning to ignore the abandonment. They lived in a patriarchal world where female submission was not just the norm but necessary for survival. They learned to freeze and fawn when men overstepped their boundaries. They learned to avoid conflict and to keep the peace in order to survive. These trauma responses were then all passed down to me, since before I was even born.
In Mark Wolynn’s bestselling book, It Didn’t Start With You, he writes:
Memories of trauma are imprinted in our parents’ and grandparents’ sperm and egg cells. The feelings and sensations of the trauma—specifically the stress response, the way the genes express—can pass on to the children and grandchildren, affecting them in a similar way, even though they didn’t personally experience the trauma. As a result, we can be born with altered brains that prepare us biologically to cope with traumas that are similar to the ones our parents and grandparents experienced
I’ve always felt in sync with my maternal grandmother’s nervous system. For me, she has always been a safe home, calming presence, and my stability. My grandmother is also impatient and easily bored—something that I have always resonated with. These days, she’s not as mobile and spends most of her days on the couch, but even still, she ventures off to the senior center every day so she can play cards with her friends.
My mother is a workaholic. She’s the breadwinner of our family, and it feels like she has spent most of her life at work. She acts like it stresses her out and that she can’t wait to retire. But the truth is, she would be lost without work. This is what her nervous system is used to—fly and be useful. She is the ideal Christian, submissive wife. It’s what her body knows. I get my workaholism and people-pleasing from my mother. She taught me that this is how to survive in this world.
Except now that I’m older, I’m finding myself wanting to do something different. I don’t want to keep living in this stress response cycle. I don’t want to have to keep flying. I don’t want this for myself nor for any future children of mine.
I was so used to being on the go, being productive, and having a million things to do that I didn’t know that there were other ways of living. It’s possible to take things slowly and to just be in the calm stillness. I don’t want to idealize this flight mode that is so rewarded in this capitalistic world. I want to be OK with doing nothing. I want to rest when I need it and say “no” when I want to.
And so these days, I work on befriending my nervous system. I am so grateful for my body for keeping me safe throughout all these years. Now I also work with my body, using somatic experiencing to build more capacity for the unfamiliar, sometimes unpleasant sensations that my reflex is to ignore. Instead of running off to the next task to avoid feeling useless, I’ve learned to sit in the discomfort.
I grieve for my younger selves, my mother, and my grandmother, whose nervous systems adapted to help protect them from the shame of not being useful. I allow myself to feel all the heavy feelings—including the sadness and anger. Once I let these emotions run through me, I allow the cycle to complete. I don’t need to run anymore. I feel like I’m rewiring myself—not just in my brain, but in my heart and soul—and the little girl in me is so happy for this chance to live the life she’s always wanted, full of curiosity and wonder.
