Ancestral trauma #9 – Apathy and futility 2 June 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , No Comments Photo by Iva Rajović on Unsplash In Ancestral trauma #8 – Fear of famine, I describe how long-term drought in the Sahara, Middle East and Central Asia led to desertification and famine. Apathy and a sense of […]
Ancestral trauma #8 – Fear of famine 1 June 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , No Comments Photo by Peter Muscutt on Unsplash When I was a child, I was sometimes puzzled by my mother’s food choices. She had a particular love of lard on toast—rendered pig fat on burnt, stale bread. Sweetbreads—the thymus […]
Escaping the present – trauma’s frozen fight-or-flight legacy 13 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments Whenever I used to call my father, he always began the conversation with the same question: “What’s new?” It’s twenty years since he passed away, yet only now do I see the pain […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Ancestral trauma #7 – The end of time 5 January 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , 1 Comment The climate change that happened from around 4000 BC—documented in the Bible as The Fall—shattered Neolithic human physiology. It created homo patriarchus, patriarchal man, hell-bent on conquest and the stockpiling of surplus to […]
Ancestral trauma #6 – Fear of the desert and desertification 3 January 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , No Comments As soon as the Toyota Landcruiser’s heavy tyres crunched onto the gravel road, I felt it in the pit of my stomach. Fear. It was only a few miles off-road to […]
Beyond ancestral trauma lies ancestral rage 18 November 2022 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , No Comments I have written extensively about ancestral trauma—the deep-seated, many-generations old traumas that we all carry a distant memory of from the dawn of patriarchy. I’ve also written about the inevitable consequences of clearing trauma—experiencing rage […]
Generational trauma is a frozen fight-or-flight response 3 September 2021 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Generational trauma , 2 Comments We tend to think of trauma as a psychological issue. Yet it’s an issue that’s very much rooted in the body. Research has shown a connection to chemicals produced by the fight-or-flight […]