WPC Ep. 6: Exploring Intergenerational Trauma with Middlebrooks Academy Principal, Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks, M.A.Ed

Dr. Aurélia Bickler discusses the different stages & stories of students’ generational trauma, through the lens of a school principal. Guest, Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks.

Resources:
Director/Life Coach
Middlebrooks Mental Health Group
https://middlebrooksacademy.com/principal/

Life Coaching Resources:
Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
Life Coach
Middlebrooks Mental Health
(626)394-6433 Call or Text Us! 

Book on Generational Trauma:
It Didn’t Just Start With You
By Mark Wolynn
https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/it-didnt-start-with-you-mark-wolynn/1122454959

Transcript

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
0:00 
Welcome to the whole person center podcast. Our mission is to improve the human condition by providing direct health and wellness services while supporting the development of highly competent professionals. I am Dr. Aurélia Bickler, the director of the whole person center, and it is my pleasure to welcome today's guest, NIA Alexia Middlebrooks. Leah comes from Middlebrooks Academy. She is the principal there and has so much to offer so much to tell us about and I cannot wait to speak to you today about generational trauma. Again, I am Dr. Orelia. bickler. I am the whole person centers director, and it is my honor to be here with you all today. Hi, Nia, how are you today?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
0:45 
Good. How are you?

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
0:47 
I'm good. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about yourself both from a personal standpoint and also in your professional life.

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
0:57 
So I'm the principal of Middlebrooks Academy and Middlebrooks Academy is a preparatory school for ninth to 12th graders. And we specialize in student athletes who want to play basketball. The special part about Malpass Academy is that we're heading into our 12th year. And so we have had a lot of different types of students, both international and domestic. And over the years we have listed and written and put together their stories.

And so that's some of what we'll be talking about today, just how they have dealt with generational trauma, and how they've gone forward from it. I'm also the director of a newly launched program that works Mental Health Group, I'm very excited about that, because it's really looking at how people's brains developed and making sure that we understand how to handle student athletes in the best possible way. So making sure that we understand learning disabilities, making sure that we understand and help them understand and identify any type of mental disabilities that they may be having, and so forth. That's beautiful.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
2:08 
I love all the incredible work that you're doing. And it's it's, it feels like we live in a time where we need so much of that wholehearted loving, supportive, kind, helpful, F effort, you know, and so it means it means so much to me that you're that you're doing all that you're doing and that you're sharing about it with us. Tell me a little bit about generational trauma. How would you explain it?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
2:40 
Generational trauma to me are traumatic experiences that take place and move or transition from one generation to the next. It's a very big topic, and most people shy away from it because they don't understand it, they don't even know exist. I think the biggest thing is understanding that generational trauma produces stressors. And these stressors have an ability to make us a trigger us into acting certain ways triggering our families to have cycles of poverty cycles of, you know, domestic violence, things that we just don't need in our lives, but are subjected to it because of some of the things that our families have had to go through societally.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
3:25 
Yeah. It's so interesting when you say, you know, most people don't even know what it is or that it's happening to them. I have to tell you, and I and I know we briefly spoke before about this, but like, I feel like I I had some of that I never really realized it until much later in my life when it was something I learned about outside of even understanding that it would ever be something that I would feel directly impacted by.

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
3:52 
Yeah, most people most people feel that way. I mean, the World Health Organization this year, made sure everyone understood that 70% of people are experiencing generational trauma 70%. So it makes it a societal issue for everyone.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
4:10 
Wow. Wow. And do you feel like most people leave? Like I knew you sort of talked touched on this. But do people even know that they're impacted by some generational trauma, generally speaking?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
4:25 
No, they don't know that they are suffering from it. I think the biggest thing is that when you live in it every day, it's extremely hard to know that you're in trauma, because it's what you're used to. It's what you see as normal. And so it takes outside people to really be able to say, Hey, listen, something's happening, and lead them through a thought process of figuring out what it could be why, yeah.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
4:54 
How can someone become aware that they're suffering from it?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
5:00 
That's a great question. And we just had this conversation with our kids, the biggest thing is to learn how to be your own medicine. And that simply means you have to be quite aware of what you're feeling, and what's happening around you. And one of the things that we're trying to do is make sure our kids are a lot more emotionally intelligent, to be able to say, hey, wait a minute, this isn't, something's wrong, something's not working well, or I'm feeling very angry about this, or that that's really half the battle, to be able to get people to understand that when it's not, right, it's not right, and you have to speak up and figure out why.

So that's the first big piece. The second big piece is making sure that you understand that you need people around you to help hold you accountable to understanding what's going on. A lot of times, it should be family, but it's very tough for family members to do that. So you often have to go outside and find someone who can help, you know, push through that.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
6:04 
It's interesting, you say that, because if they're from the same family, I wonder if they themselves are going through that same generational trauma, and therefore can't even see it, you know?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
6:13 
Sometimes, but sometimes they don't react to the same things. You know, there's always these variables that enter into the equation that change how one person would you know, react to a trauma versus the other. You know, there are some families where a member of the family, they go through the same exact thing, but one member of the family ends up on drugs, and another member of the family is actually resilient and able to get up and go. So it just depends.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
6:42 
Yeah, so interesting. And I, you know, as a trained Marriage and Family Therapist, I often tried to think about, like, how does an MFT, you know, work through what, you know, what are some ways that family therapy impacts? Or addresses this, this generational trauma, which is a whole other thing that you can talk about it a different type as well, but what in your experience, and I know, you work with a lot of kids that in many of them have, you know, experienced generational trauma or continue to experience it and suffer from it? What are the symptoms that you tend to see? And how do we, how do we address these symptoms?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
7:24 
So the biggest thing is anxiety, that's really at the forefront. And, you know, it comes on and is triggered by many different things. I had a student athlete recently who, you know, went home had a conversation with his mom went to sleep, ended up having dreams that weren't really dreams, they were memories of, you know, traumatic experiences that had happened before he woke up, he saw that he came to school the next morning, and that was it.

And so we had to walk him through that whole scenario to figure it out. So anxiety is really one of the biggest things. Depression is another one. You know, you see it there. Another big thing is watching to see whether or not they're addicted to substance abuse, because most often people don't have the words to tell you what exactly is happening. And they don't want to discuss it because it's very scary. So what they'll do is smoke and drink. And a lot of times just through those efforts, they're their darling themselves. And so they don't necessarily even think about it because they feel good at that moment. But I have a, you know, student athletes who always tell me when that goes away, then I'm faced with it again. So what do I do? So those are some of the things that we see right away?

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
8:45 
Yeah. Do you tend to bring families into these these situations? Or?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
8:53 
That is a great question. It can be very sticky to do that. For a couple of reasons. Number one, every culture faces trauma differently. In Yeah, for many cultures, talking about trauma is a sign of weakness. Yeah, so instead of talking about it, they'll tell their kids tough enough, it'll be fine. And it leads to them really not being able to understand what's going on. There's a lot of shut down on questions that should be able to be answered. You know, how about this? What happened here with grandma would happen with this person? How come this person is different than this? There's a lot of things that happen. And when a student comes to you and starts asking you those questions, we need to be able to be responsible adults and answer them. Typically, though, we're taught to sweep it under the rug because we're embarrassed by what it is that either we've gone through or generations before. And unfortunately, that doesn't lead the student athletes to be healed. doesn't lead anybody to be healed.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
10:00 
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. So do you happen to have resources for people to, to, to address and to explore ways to, you know, work through generational trauma. But also, even before that, I'm wondering if you have resources to share with our listeners about even identifying that we have these traumas that we carry these on?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
10:26 
Yeah, I absolutely do. Let me go back to your point, though, about, you know, what they can do. And I'm gonna give you broad strokes on this. Because like I said, everyone's a bit different on how they want to approach it. But the biggest thing, and I think this, especially for students, you know, young people, and definitely for adults, you have to be able to connect with other people who have gone through it, and they're everywhere.

And sometimes we are just not clear about how to approach those conversations. But the more that we work with our students, we start to understand that they honestly help each other, they can start to recognize in an incident now, why someone's feeling the way they are, they'll come to me and say, hey, this person is looking like they have some anxiety today. So they take care of each other. And I think that is, the biggest thing that we can do for each other, is make sure that we're connecting with other people, making sure that, you know, we allow deeper bonds to be developed on those levels, and understand that those bonds can definitely be for life, you know, when you're sharing with someone, you know about something that happened to you, there's a bond that just automatically takes place. And if you nurture it, it can help. So definitely, that support groups are great.

And that's one of the things that I think is, is amazing, and we've seen it work a lot for our parents and for our student athletes connecting, like I said with each other, but having a place to connect, being able to go back and, you know, look at their notes and call each other on the phone and just really be there. So that's a big one. The toughest part to this is, you know, understanding that therapy works, a lot of cultures still don't believe in it. And it's very difficult to have those conversations, they still believe that therapy is let me lie on the couch. And someone talks to me, and it's become so much more interactive and so much more helpful. For instance, cognitive behavior therapy, as we all know, really does help with the RE formation of habits. And that's something that everybody needs. So I think it's also having conversations about what that looks like, and the different types of therapy that one can use. In the event that someone does not want to do that.

One thing that I've seen recently that majorly helps and is something that I do as well is life coach, because there you have an accountability partner, you have someone who is watching to see what the dynamics are. And they specialize in being able to not just bring you through that day by day with measurable objectives. But they're also able to speak to family members, one on one versus bringing everybody together in a more interventions, Outlook. And it helps it's helped a lot. You know, we have a student who, I've been life coaching for quite a while, and he was diagnosed with ADHD about bipolar disorder, but no one would get him to the doctor 100% to figure it out, because he didn't have any clues as to what was wrong? Well, you know, he's gone through many, many types of generational trauma.

And so even getting those diagnosis, to become you know, better can put you in a place to be able to really treat some of the things that are happening with you. So I just think that, you know, all those things are, are completely important and really overlooked.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
14:12 
Yeah, you know, it's so interesting, because everything that you just mentioned is ways to address it. Go back to people, community and people. And there is nothing more meaningful to me as a human being to think of the importance of than to think of the importance of community, like the idea that when somebody is there to accompany you when somebody is there to validate you to see you. And you know, you're not alone. You can really face almost anything. I agree.

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
14:46 
with you and I think the bigger conversation out of this is are we becoming better versions of ourselves to be able to do that from a community perspective? Because we live in a time where It's very easy not to care about someone else. Right? You know, there are tons of homeless people that exists all over. And the biggest thing that, you know, we know how to do is complain about it. But we forget really quick that one day that could be us. It takes one time.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
15:19 
Yeah, yeah, you're right, we live in a very judgmental time where people just love to think that, you know, I can do better, I am not that person. I'm not in that situation. But the reality is like, we are all so much more vulnerable than we even allow ourselves to acknowledge sometimes, but again, that sense of community, right, that homeless person might be able to get out of it with the ability with the support of other people, whether it is one single person that sees them and pays attention to them and helps them and support some more, whether it's an entire community that does that. The the power of humans is really unmatched. Right.

It's, it's just a beautiful thing. So going back to resources, I what I hear is, you know, therapy, I hear life coach, I hear a sense of community. Are there other things, let's say somebody is listening right now and thinking, Well, why, you know, my grandparents talked about going through something, I wonder if I carry something, some of that in me? Where should where might that person turn to what resources are available.

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
16:27 
So one of the biggest things and you know, it's a resource, but it's also right in front of you, your biggest resource is your family. Because you have to be able to approach and get information. Nothing can change until you know the historical things that have happened. Because then when you're going to get to help, you're able to articulate a little bit more about, you know, my grandparents went through this, they went through this war, they were refugees, and it can help set up who you're talking to, and what you need. So I just necessarily believe that historical content, not just culturally, but through your family, and being able to speak to, you know, the elders, older folks about what's going on is your key resource.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
17:16 
So let me ask you a question about that. Because I, you know, I am the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, yes. And I never got to meet them, they passed away before, before I was born, but my mom never knew what her parents went through. Because they were so traumatized, they would never speak about it, it was not even a possibility for her to speak to them. And in fact, some of the survivors that now are gone, but we're alive throughout our lives my life, they refuse to speak about any of it. So I'm thinking about cases like these more, maybe even cases where somebody doesn't know or doesn't have any living family members that could help them or maybe their family is not supportive, you know, how, how might they go about seeking support?

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
18:03 
I think the biggest thing is, if you know, you're a survivor, then find other grandchildren of survivors who you can talk to, because even if you can't, if you don't have all your historical data, you can definitely have cultural historical data. And then you can infer from that, I mean, for instance, you know, I have a, I have a student athlete who, who just mentioned, that their great grandmother was, you know, the end product of, you know, slavery.

And so he got the opportunity to ask her certain questions. And she couldn't remember everything, but there was enough historical data, culturally, to be able to go okay, well, I know, you know, in the south, they had to do this. I know, in the north, they had to do this. And so it gave them a lot of information to go by. And I think you have to do that, you have to put together pieces of the puzzle. Because in order for you to move forward, you have to have information, that information is free, it sets you free, because you're able to go okay, so I have a picture. You know, even if it's not 100%, the exact thing, you take that picture, and now you can walk into your therapy sessions, or your life coaching sessions, and they can help you filter the rest.

Speaker 2  19:19 
So I think I think the moral of the story or the the main lesson to get from this is the idea that people and knowledge really are the source of freedom

Speaker 3  19:32 
is everything. Yeah, everything. Because without it, you cannot speak intelligently to your own children about what you may have gone through, you know, this is also the error of what is it ancestry.com And what happens So, being it's a lot of people, especially in my culture, you know, they aren't always able to get certain types of information. You know, that's one of the things that I think should be addressed too. We have to get Out of this, let's take it to the grades, you know, thought process we don't want anybody to know.

So we're just going to let the information die with us. Right? And, and so when you have these other things like your ancestry.com, you end up with information that you wouldn't know nothing more about, you know, had you not done the process. So it's not that we don't have the information. We have to be creative and help people get creative and get it.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
20:26 
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. But I can't thank you enough for taking the time. I know it's very early on your side of the world. I really appreciate you waking up early for us. For our listeners. It means so much to us. Again, I want to you know, emphasize that the I'm so grateful that you're sharing your knowledge, your experience with us, and ways to address this really important topic. So thank you again. Yeah. And I look forward to catching up with you very soon again.

Nia Alafia-Middlebrooks
20:58 
Thank you for having me. Appreciate you.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
21:01  
Stay tuned for our next podcast. Until then, breathe intentionally, laugh wholeheartedly. Connect within and towards people who inspire you and who bring you joy.