For millennia, women have been oppressed. Oppression is traumatic. Trauma is genetically transmitted. I termed my discovery of this collective inherited trauma, “Patriarchy Stress Disorder” or PSD.

And that is how this body of work came to be. I’m going to illustrate how PSD is created and passed down so that you can understand along with me, how this works in your system. Because it works in very similar ways in all our systems.

In a groundbreaking study, researchers introduced the smell of cherry blossoms to mice while simultaneously zapping their feet with mild electric shocks. The mice were then bred, and their children and grandchildren, when exposed to the smell of cherry blossoms, showed a strong fear and anxiety reaction. Let that sink in. The researchers saw that these traumatic experiences had been genetically transmitted.

So what is PSD? PSD is women fearing the smell of cherry blossoms. What are the “cherry blossoms” in this context? For us, they are everything that we desire and everything that has historically been forbidden and dangerous and punishable for women: shining brightly, expressing ourselves unapologetically, being in touch with our desires and going after them, loving who we love, being wealthy, being visible, being powerful.

These are all cherry blossoms, that women have been taught to fear, through oppression, that have spanned countless generations. Women who reached for cherry blossoms were burned at the stake, drowned, and locked up in asylums. Our inheritance of this trauma came with survival instructions:

“Be seen, but not heard”

“Don’t be too smart”

“No one would want to marry you” (as my mother used to warn me)

“Don’t be too sexy or you’ll be raped”

“Don’t be too powerful or you’ll suffer and die.”