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 […]
Are you and your family running on empty? 11 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments When I was growing up in the 1970s, the songwriter who spoke most powerfully to my sense of abandonment, depersonalisation and disaffection was Jackson Browne. His 1977 live album Running on Empty, recorded […]
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 […]
The silence of the lambs: silence as survival strategy 12 March 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments When families encounter hardship, something curious often happens. Just like lambs before slaughter, they fall silent. Not always immediately. At first there may be noise—confusion, blame, or frantic attempts to fix things. […]
Arrested development – humanity’s collective immaturity 28 January 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , No Comments As I write this, the 2026 World Economic Forum annual meeting is taking place in Davos, Switzerland. Eyes are focused on our increasingly fractured and unstable world. Giants of the global stage such as Donald Trump […]
If someone hurts you, can you accept it as a gift? 21 January 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Emotional principles , No Comments We’ve all been hurt. Deeply, unexpectedly, by those we love or trust. The instinctive reaction is to retract—to protect, to numb, to blame. But what if these experiences are not […]
Mother & father wounds – the arrested development of humanity 10 December 2025 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Generational trauma , Mother wound , No Comments The slightest critical glance at the state of planet earth reveals a human species in physical, emotional, and intellectual decline. This decline is due to a […]
Unanswered genealogy questions – the secret garden in Italy 13 November 2025 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments If you could go back in time and meet any of your ancestors, what are the unanswered questions you’d want to know more about? Unanswered questions I have several burning questions for […]
The slippery slope – multi-generational family fragmentation 11 November 2025 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments A simple, sepia-toned holiday snap from the 1920s or 1930s, probably a seaside hotel somewhere in south-west Britain. Who took it? Probably my grandfather Charles. What the photograph doesn’t convey is that a fracturing […]