Welcome to episode 320 of Live Happy Now.

Stress and anxiety is something we're all familiar with, but what of some of that was actually inherited?

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and today's guest, Dr. Valerie Rain has used the signs of epigenetics

to discover how stress and trauma from previous generations

is affecting us today. Her book, Patriarchy Stress Disorder, the invisible inner barrier

to women's happiness and fulfillment, looks at the research behind this reality and provides

tools for identifying and managing intergenerational stress. Today, she's here to talk about how this

works in our lives and how we can identify and overcome it. Valerie, welcome to Live Happy Now.

I am so happy to be here, Paula. This is something brand new. We have not talked about before,

and you pretty much have discovered this and are creating our solutions

for it. Can you tell us what patriarchy stress disorder is and why we're just now learning about it?

Yes. Women have been oppressed for thousands of years under patriarchy. Our bodies did not belong to us. We didn't have legal rights over our

children, over our own decisions. We couldn't make our own money. We couldn't love who we loved,

but we couldn't get a divorce, et cetera, et cetera. Oppression is traumatic. And now we know from the

field of epigenetics, that trauma is genetically transmitted.

So that laid the foundation for my discovery of patriarchy, stress disorder, which is intergenerational,

selective trauma that creates an invisible inner barrier to women's ultimate success, happiness and fulfillment.

And how did you start doing work in this area and discover this?

It probably began when I was a little girl and I kept getting messages that something was

wrong with me. Don't talk so loud. People don't like that. Don't act so smart. No one would want to marry you. I went down the road

of studying psychology. What else? Would I study to help me figure that out? And after two

graduate degrees, I thought I really had it all. I had everything I had worked so hard for.

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