A double board-certified physician in Preventive and Addiction Medicine, with advanced training in biochemistry, public health, and functional medicine, Dr. Aimie’s bridging of functional medicine, attachment science, and trauma therapy makes trauma healing both precise and deeply human.
Rooted in the lineages of Animism, Depth Psychology, and Mysticism, Solea’s work bridges the inner and outer worlds through embodied awareness and relational attunement. She founded ANAM, a living sanctuary devoted to supporting emerging human relationships with deep Soul intelligence.
In this excerpt, science and spirit converge on a quietly radical idea: We are born into the wound and equipped with everything we need to tend it. Hear the full conversation on The Gifts of Trauma Podcast.
Johannes Plenio
AIMIE: We call the molecular memory of ancestral wounding “epigenetics.” Epigenetic marks on our DNA guide the body to read certain genes and ignore others. For example, if we have less serotonin and dopamine activity as a baby, we’re less available for the relationship and the bonding. We can have the best parents in the world, attuned, relationally and emotionally connected, but we don’t feel the connection or the safety. This can become a family trait that expresses as a lack of personal displays of affection, of connection… and this trait can self-perpetuate. Epigenetics is also so much more than family genetics; it’s how we learn to relate to each other, the way our parents model how to navigate change and stress and grief. All of that gets passed on.
The epigenetics mechanism most able to be changed in our lifetime is oxidative stress. Think of this as wear and tear on the body. When we experience stress at traumatic or toxic levels, oxidative stress can overwhelm our repair systems, and that damage affects how our body reads genes. When I see someone who’s developing an unusually early diagnosis, I will ask, “What has been passed on? What came with your immune system?” Because if it’s oxidative damage, I want to help your body clear it out.
ROSEMARY: Across this series, every guest has named the same shift, from doing to allowing, from fixing to witnessing, from knowledge to presence. From bracing to healing. Can you explain this last point?
AIMIE: Our bodies are designed to heal and repair themselves, to fully recover, not just push through and survive. Many things can block our bodies’ natural ability to move through the phases of healing. One block is the bracing that can happen when we are so scared that our nervous system only detects danger. That’s a block because our body’s natural ability to heal requires safety.
I am actively grieving my companion of eight years, my dog, who died unexpectedly two weeks ago. It devastated me, and I noticed that my body was bracing, which blocks the feelings we need to feel to be able to move through them and heal. So I sat in a chair that supported my full body. I let it hold me so the sadness could rise, so I could feel it and move through it.
SOLEA: We’re all born into a karmic bundle that pre-exists our incarnation. Science looks at epigenetics, genes and DNA, but there are many other spectrums not visible at a scientific level that I’m referencing as our karmic bundle. Being born into fragmentation, into that karmic bundle, we are also born with the tools and the skills to unravel it. To the degree that we land in the body, we have access to these skills: presence, compassion, attunement, the ability to feel another within our field… These are the kinds of skills and tools that we’ve been cultivating for multiple lifetimes.
ROSEMARY: How do we tend our inherited wounds? How do we invite healing?
SOLEA: The first piece is becoming aware that there is a wound. Wounds show up in variant ways, and many have deep intelligence. If they don’t want to be seen or felt, they may have trickster energy. So it’s about developing a relationship with space… the space within the body and around the body, which is an extension of the nervous system. Activating stillness and presence by keeping an open aperture and abiding in that space without any agenda. Then setting a clear intention and inviting a conscious relationship with your inherited woundings. The wound is conscious, so it will begin speaking once the space is created. It speaks to your most open channel, which could be your emotions, your mind, a visual or a spiritual channel. The next step to making contact is abiding in humble sincerity. “This is me acknowledging that I’ve descended into my human incarnation and want to participate more directly with it.” And then the wound or the fragmentation or the inherited patterning will begin to speak and show you how it wants to be tended to.
ROSEMARY: What are we actually doing when we think we are healing ourselves or another? And what does Chiron say about the moment the wound has finished its teaching?
SOLEA: Healing and longing coexist in a similar movement. And healing is something that doesn’t fully complete. I find it has radii of information and wisdom that it continuously brings into our lifeforms. And from the Chironic perspective, being wounded unintentionally… His commitment to finding an antidote leading him to become more human, to releasing his godly nature… What feels true is coming back to the simplicity of allowing ourselves to be fully human. To proudly carry our wounds, be with our grief and with the places in life that are messy. There’s always that drawer in the kitchen, no matter how we try to keep it orderly, that’s a little chaotic and messy. And there’s beauty to that. To let ourselves be our wild, undomesticated selves… to get messy, be playful, and stay simple, yet innovative.
ROSEMARY: It all works together. Thank you. Solea, your presence has held the entire series. Might you be willing to close the circle that you opened five weeks ago?
SOLEA: I’d love to. We begin with silence. And recognizing that nothing really ends but morphs into another movement, inviting silence in, once again. And as the silence permeates our being, recognizing the ancient intelligence of Chiron, the wounded healer. Recognizing this intelligence in our lives and taking a moment to feel the ways we have been wounded. And sensing into how those wounds have shaped our humanity, as we sense into our humanity also aligning with the constancy of light and grace. Honouring the mysterious fabric that unites and collaborates to make us whole and free. And I offer a deep vow of respect for all the ways everyone listening and not listening is creating new antidotes inside of a world that’s being birthed anew. Honouring the antidotes coming in from all the sacred dimensions and other ways. In uniting our antidotes, we are alchemizing a new human that’s connected, open, and free. Thank you. To the spirits of land, intelligence of our ancestry, the rhythm in our hearts. Thank you, Ashe. Gracias.
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, transformation, healing, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the full conversation, and if you like it, please subscribe, rate, review, and share.
Editor’s Note: This post is comprised of edited excerpts drawn from The Gifts of Trauma podcast transcript. Selected passages have been carefully woven together to create a cohesive narrative that speaks in the guests’ voices and faithfully represents their perspectives. – Rosemary Davies-Janes
