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.