Kill or be killed – the basic patriarchal equation 1 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , Patriarchy , No Comments In 2020, In a blog called The 3 laws of patriarchy, I suggested that the basic psychological laws governing patriarchal societies were these: The Law of Masculinity—the masculine rules the […]
Trauma-Informed Genealogy: where history and healing meet 29 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments There is a quiet convergence happening that is, as yet, largely unrecognised. On one side are therapists, working with the symptoms of trauma as they appear in the present: anxiety, depression, addiction; stumped by […]
Untold family stories: deliberate silence or dissociation? 28 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments There is a strange silence that runs through many family histories. It appears, at first glance, deliberate: names omitted, events blurred, whole chapters missing. We tend to assume that someone, somewhere, chose not to […]
How to drive consciousness into the unconscious 27 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: How-to & step-by-step , No Comments I often encounter people who are aware they have ‘issues,’ but have no leverage for resolving them, resulting in these issues circling endlessly. The reason for this is that most people don’t have […]
All trauma is survival trauma 26 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , Generational trauma , No Comments We tend to think of trauma as something exceptional—something that happens in extreme situations, to other people, at other times. This is a naïve and comforting illusion. Trauma is not the exception. It’s […]
The importance of context in genealogy research 24 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments Context, context, context. When researching our family’s genealogy, we encounter events that are familiar to us today—like births, marriages, and deaths—and other events that are different from the past yet whose context we understand. […]
Are you ashamed of presenting yourself to the world? 23 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Shame , No Comments Shame does not announce itself. It doesn’t arrive as a clear thought or labelled with a health warning. It dwells underground: buried in our unconscious, wrapped in denial, reinforced by silence and the […]
From “I AM the victim” to “This happened to me” – reclaiming identity through trauma release 22 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments Releasing trauma is not a one-shot deal. It’s a process—a timeline where the past gradually morphs into the present, and something clearer emerges. We reconcile […]
Humanity isn’t normal, it’s normalised 21 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , Generational trauma , Patriarchy , No Comments We are not normal. We are normalised. Those four extra letters matter—a lot. Because what we call ‘normal’ behaviour—our anxiety, our compulsions, our quiet shame, our obsessions with fame, status, and […]
‘Kore’ – the void where there are no clues 20 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments For thousands of years, Polynesian seafarers crossed the vast Pacific Ocean using astronomical navigation techniques handed down from their ancestors. The night sky was divided into 32 houses—the four cardinal points (north, […]