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! 

Guts you don't regret

Tis the season of report cards, graduation ceremonies, and mid-year reviews. A time to appreciate the gradual yet often excruciating achievements of the year (like future tense conjugations in French).

It’s also the time when a big day shows up in my calendar. Not my birthday or wedding anniversary or my kids' birthdays. None of that. 

It’s July 6th. The day I did something so scary I literally thought my heart would explode in my chest. Even thinking about it now makes me quiver a bit. 

On July 6th, 1999, I boarded a one-way flight from NYC to Paris, leaving behind my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my four cats, my job, my apartment, and my beloved Brooklyn. 


And for no real reason.


I mean, there were reasons. But they weren’t life-or-death reasons. This wasn’t anything like the exoduses my ancestors took to save their skin generations ago. 

It was just that I had this nagging feeling in my belly, this constant, flickering sensation since childhood that I had to live in Paris. 

And I knew that if I didn’t listen to this feeling I’d get sucked into the rat race of life in NYC and regret not making a move forever. 

So I wrangled up everything I had in me and boarded that plane. The poor woman sitting to my right was so worried about my whimpering that I told her the broad strokes of my story. Reassuring her that everything, really, was ok. That I was doing something I wanted more than anything, it’s just that I was a total emotional wreck.   

I landed in Paris the next morning and calmed down the minute I spotted my friend Jessica at the arrival gate. Jessica and I went to college together and did our Junior year abroad in Paris at the same time. She wasted no time sticking around the states after graduation and came right back to Paris where she met her soon-to-be husband Charles at film school.

They were the ones that made my Paris experiment a reality. Charles lugged my giant suitcase up the four flights of stairs to their cute flat on rue Leon Blum in the 11th and they set me up on their living room coach for as long as I needed. 

Every morning I’d wake up with a view of the gorgeous building across the street and marvel at the shirtless JFK Jr look-a-like who paced around his apartment all day.  

I needed no more convincing, this was where I belonged. 

For the next few weeks Charles and Jessica took me everywhere they went. We ate charcuterie and drank pitchers of cheap red wine at the local bistrots while I noted down bizarre French idiomatic expressions in my little carnet. We went to the public pools during the heat wave. We dodged the firecrackers thrown at our feet while heading across Place de la Bastille on Bastille Day. We bought some cheap tickets to Corsica and rented a little hut on the beach and made refried beans in a shoddy casserole to save our money—for more wine! 

I felt like I was living someone else’s life. I had no strings on me. No obligations. No job. No apartment. And my French was a disaster.


There were definitely moments of “WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?” panic.

But I was doing it any way. Taking it one day at a time with a mix of queasy fear and determination to make the most of it!

It’s been 20 years since I boarded that plane.

It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. And by far the most important decision of my life. 

I’m dying to know, what’s the scariest thing you’ve every done that you’re grateful for today? 

That when you think about it you say, “I’m so damn proud I had the guts to do that!” 

Just hit reply and let me know. 

How Do You Know When It's Time To Get On That Plane?

I’ve done two totally terrifying things in my life.

1. Move to France 18 years ago

2. Give birth to my second son sans meds

Every other experience I’ve had in my 43 years on this planet pales in comparison on the “holy shit I don’t think I can do this” spectrum. I’ve often thought about these two moments as seminal “warrior woman” milestones in my life. So massively hard but unthinkably rewarding they’ve come to symbolize a source of strength and determination in me that I didn’t know I had.

If anyone had told me as a teenager that I’d wind up living in France for 18 years and that I’d pop out a child without any pain relief, I’d had surely thought they were talking about a much stronger, braver, resilient person than I could possibly be. But how did that become me?

What is that power that lies in us that can lay dormant for years and then at some point, often when we least expect it, swell into an awesomeness that knocks our fears out of the way and takes charge for us?

I want to know that again. I want to harness that potential again. So as I explore the next chapter in my life, I’d like to try and pin-point what allows those leaps to occur. What are the elements in play, both consciously and unconsciously, that can move our mountain of fear and anxiety out of the way so that something magical can take its place?

MOVING TO PARIS:

When I moved to Paris I left everything behind: my whole family, all of my friends, my job, my boyfriend, my four (!) cats. It was leaping into a proverbial blank canvas. I had no job set up, no apartment, just my friend Jessica who offered me to stay in her place in Paris for as long as I needed while I figured things out.

I was a nervous wreck the months leading up to my departure. My heart and head were doing a hundred thousand pirouettes each day pulling and prodding me to question the decision I had made. I even had my first (and thankfully) last panic attack. But I knew I had to go. I was just going to vomit my insides out every time I thought of it. The logistical planning was a torturous, drawn-out perforated process with holes that I felt I would leap through, burrow into and hide within to escape the decision I had made.

Where would I store my stuff?
How and when would I quit my job?
How much money would I need to live off of while figuring my shit out?
What kind of health insurance would I need overseas? (I know, so American!)

The hardest part was not really knowing how long to plan for. What kind of good byes were required. Was this the big kick-off? Do I need to cancel credit cards? What about if I get called to jury duty, am I technically here or there? Of course there was some mega emotional drama with the relationship I was leaving behind. But that’s for another story (maybe).

So what actually helped me to finally make the leap? I remember two very clear “clicks.”

One, I had a distinct desire to clone myself and leave one of my clones in New York while the other ran off to Paris. It was a very logical solution that would comfort the people in NY who I cared about, who would miss me, and who I was scared to hurt by leaving behind. But where did the real Zeva want to be, I asked? My gut knew: SHE was going to Paris!

The second “click” came from my incredible therapist who I had been seeing for a year. Initially a bit dubious about the Paris dream which she thought was an escape from unresolved issues, over time she started to welcome the idea and help me visualize what that process would look like. What the steps would be to help me get there while continuing to do the work required not to leave any stones unturned back home.

When she and I were in synch with the plan and as the plot started to thicken with realness, as in my plane is scheduled to leave in a week and I don’t think I can get on it, she said the most powerful 8 words anyone could have said to me at that time: “You just need to get on the plane.”

I knew she was right. I needed to prove to myself that I had the guts to do it. To get on that plane. To confront my fears of change, of leaving everything that was comfortable to me to embrace that voice inside of me that was beckoning me elsewhere. What was helpful with her statement was that it removed “forever” out of the equation. What happens next, happens next, not now. Now, I just need to get on that plane.

I have used that term as a mantra in other situations, and it continues to serve me (and others) well. Sometimes, you just need to get on the plane. The journey is often as important (if not more important) then the destination. And what’s the worst thing that could happen? When you land, you can always turn back.