and the common thread that has been coming up has been around
around how to heal familial trauma wounds,
and navigate the "pressure cooker' terrain of the holidays
with family.
“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”
-Ram Dass
I have spent a lot of time over the past weeks doing my own
shadow work and cycle breaking since the
death of my sister brought a lot of unresolved hurt
between my sisters and mother to the surface.
And because we share common threads in our human beingness -
In our family dynamics, attachment styles and need for safety,
conection and belonging
The story in the bible about Cain and Abel came to mind.
And yes, I say this with compassion
We choose our family to grow us both in what they give us
and what they didn't.
life gives us people and situations to show us
where we are NOT free!
We all do the best we can with what we have and
our parents and their ancestors didn't have the tools
or the support that we have now to break these
intergenerational famililal trauma wounds.
We are the ones who change this for future generations so
they get to be free and we get to live well so we can
die well.
So back to the the story,
are you Cain or Abel?
As a child did you feel:
- Chosen, acknowledged, praised, loved?
Or were you the one who was invisible, dismissed, punished,
or misunderstood?
Were you the golden child or the scapegoat?
The one who was received no matter what…
or the one who didn't get your needs met the way you needed?
This story about the biblical brothers This is about the archetypes we internalise when we grow up in homes
where love feels uneven, attention feels scarce,
and fairness comes with emotional price tags.
It’s the wound beneath every wound: the belief that love is limited — and you must earn your share.
And yet… that belief isn’t the truth. It’s the story your nervous system built to survive.
— is about the nervous system blueprint every child
develops inside their family system
where there are unresolved intergenerational trauma wounds.
The real wound under the Cain and Abel story isn’t rage. It isn’t jealousy. It isn’t betrayal.
It’s this:
The belief that love is limited,
approval is scarce,
and someone else’s blessing
means there is less for you.
That you are NOT ENOUGH.
That belief shapes entire lifetimes.
It turns siblings into competitors. It turns families into tally sheets. It turns childhood into emotional economics. And it turns adulthood into a series of unconscious reenactments
where we try to “win”, to be enough,
to feel loved, accepted and seen just as you are.
If you grew up in a home where attention was unpredictable,
affection was conditional, or fairness was inconsistent,
your body learned the original Cain-Abel equation:
If they are chosen → I am unwanted
If they shine → I am invisible
If they receive more → I have to work harder
If they succeed → I am a failure
If they are loved → there isn’t enough for me
If they are right → I must be wrong, broken, awful.
This is the Big Lie that erodes relationships from the inside out:
“Love is a limited resource, and I have to earn my share.”
But here’s the truth your adult self needs to hear:
**You are neither Cain or Abel.
We all carry both Cain and Abel inside us. Not because we are contradictory or broken, but because contrast is how consciousness learns itself.
Your jealousy? Not you.
Your rage? Not you.
Your resentment, your comparison, your “it’s not fair” reflex? Not you.
These are parts
— intelligent, protective, survival-shaped parts
— that formed before you even had language.
Shadow and light aren’t opposites. They’re companions. Each reveals what the other cannot.
The shadow exposes where love felt scarce. The light reveals who you are beyond the wound.
And neither defines your identity.
What we call “Cain” is the part terrified of
being unseen, unloved, unchosen. What we call “Abel” is the part longing to be
received without performing for approval.
Both parts tell the truth of your experience — but not the truth of your essence.
This is the revelation:
**You are neither Cain nor Abel.
You are the awareness that holds both without collapsing into either.**
That’s where freedom begins.
You are the one who inherited their story
— and the one who gets to end it.**
You are not the overlooked one. You are not the favoured one. You are not the burdened one. You are not the rejected one. You are not the responsible one. You are not the broken one.
You’re the cycle-breaker who sees the wound clearly enough to
do the work so the cycle of abuse, of NOT enough stops with YOU.
Enquiry: Shuttles Into the Family Blueprint
What role did I take on to secure love in my family system?
Where do I still collapse into the “unseen” part?
Where do I overcompensate as the “chosen” one?
Whose approval did I believe controlled my worth?
What part of me still thinks love must be earned?
Who did you have tobecome to survive the emotional landscape
of your childhood home?
What emotions and desires did you bury to keep the peace?
Where are you still living from lack and scarcity, in all areas of your life?
Let your answers come as sensation, not logic.
Somatic Practice — “Rewriting the Cain/Abel Reflex”
(3 minutes — simple, effective)
1. Sit. Ground your feet. One hand on your heart, one on your diaphragm.
2. Inhale: “I stop competing for love.
I let go of the need to for approval”
3. Exhale and shake your hands, jaw, shoulders. Let the old hierarchy melt from your fascia.
4. Whisper: “I choose the lineage of enough.
I choose to lead with love.”
I choose a new lineage of enoughness.
I am enough.
I am love.
I love you,me I love you,me I love you, me”
Feel your body stabilise around the truth.
Mantra for Integration
“I forgive myself for buying into the misunderstanding
that someone else’s blessing diminishes mine.” “I choose truth over comparison,
connection over competition,
sovereignty over scarcity.” “Love is not limited. I am not limited.
I am a limitless, boundless, timelesss, being of love.”
Soul Prayer
May I lay down the story that taught me to measure
my worth against that of another. May justice soften into clarity. May jealousy become a compass, not a curse. May betrayal become my liberation, not my identity. And may the ancient wound of “not enough” end with me — the one brave enough to see it, name it, and transform it.
A Question to Carry Into the Week
Who am I becoming without my resistance to what is?
Much love always!
P.S.
If this hits your hearts like a truth you’ve always known, it’s time. Book a Turning Point Session and let’s dissolve the survival patterns
of adaptation your body still carries and
set yourself free of old kharmic family imprints
— so you can finally live beyond the Cain/Abel script.
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SARAH farrell 
