Five Things That May Help When Coming First Has Not Felt Allowed

You know the moment. You've snapped at someone over something small, something that didn't deserve that and you hear it. Not just the words, but the echo underneath. A voice that isn't quite yours. A tone you recognise from somewhere older and perhaps somewhere you promised yourself you'd left behind.

That's the moment many people reach out and look for help.

Research confirms what you already feel: intergenerational cycles of trauma don't just affect you, it shapes the environment and without intervention, the patterns continue.

However, here's what the internet won't tell you. Interrupting the cycle of trauma doesn't require you to become a different person overnight. It asks something much smaller and much harder: that you start to come first. Just a little.

If this keeps repeating, here are five things that may help.

1. Take One Minute Back

Why this helps: The person who has spent their whole life putting everyone else first hasn't just neglected themselves, they've handed over their sense of self-authority so gradually they barely noticed it happening. One minute isn't about self-care in the bubble-bath-and-300-candles sense. It's about the decision to take it.

That decision is the first act of self-authority many people have made in years. Research shows that 79% of people reported an increase in self-esteem and a more positive self-image following art therapy and much of that change begins with the smallest repeated acts of creative self-expression. One minute and it will grow.

How to do it: Automatic writing for sixty seconds, don't think, just let the pen move. Tear up paper and stick it down. Paint or draw. Dance to one song in the kitchen. Sit in silence before anyone else wakes up. In sessions, I give clients a small book from the room, a sketchbook or notebook and the only instruction is: try one minute. Bring it if you want. Leave it at home if you want. There is no right way to do this.

2. Let the Land Ask Nothing of You

Why this helps: For someone constantly attuned to the needs of others, the natural world offers something rare, it receives without requiring much back.

A 2024 meta-analysis of 40 studies found that gardening had a significant positive effect on mental wellbeing, with an effect size comparable to exercise interventions. Beyond the data, there is something older at work here. Sue Stuart-Smith's The Well Gardened Mind speaks to the ancient, pre-verbal relationship between humans and the earth, the burnt umber and the ashes we return to. You can plant something and it might die. That's allowed. There is no shame in that. For someone who has spent their life terrified of failing the people around them, that is an enormous relief.

How to do it: Buy one houseplant, or something for the garden. Water it once a week if that's what it needs. You are practising tending to something living without it needing you to be okay first.

3. Give in a Way That Also Fills You

Why this helps: Many people who put everyone else first are wired to give and telling them to stop entirely doesn't work. The question isn't stop giving. It's give differently. Chosen, bounded, completable acts of help feel entirely different to the compulsive, survival-driven caretaking that drains you at home. One is chosen. The other is survival.

Research published in 2024 found that community-based collective activity boosted confidence, self-esteem and sense of purpose, particularly in people managing depression and anxiety. The same principle applies more broadly: doing one small thing for someone else, on your own terms, can restore a sense of agency rather than deplete it.

How to do it: Low level. Bake something for a neighbour. Make a meal for someone who is unwell. Call an older relative for ten minutes. Fix something small for someone who needs it. In Berkhamsted there are gardens, schools, libraries, community arts groups, mentoring, sports clubs, places that need exactly the kind of quiet, reliable presence you already know how to offer. One small act if you desire.

4. Give Your Anger Somewhere to Go

Why this helps: Anger is not an emotion our society welcomes, particularly in women. Research consistently shows that women are more likely to internalise anger, holding it longer, converting it into shame or withdrawal.

For someone carrying intergenerational fear, terrified they are becoming the volatile or cold parent they grew up with, unexpressed anger doesn't disappear. It leaks. Into the people closest to you. Into the very pattern you are trying to break.

Sometimes stillness isn't the right container for that. Yoga and meditation are powerful but for some bodies and some histories, what's needed first is sanctioned, physical release. Somewhere to put what has been swallowed for years. Research has found that body-engaged therapeutic approaches produce a significant decrease in trauma symptoms. The body needs to be part of the process, not bypassed.

How to do it: I have worked with Lewis Taylor, a mind-body activator or boxing instructor based locally, for many years. My own therapist pointed me toward contained physical release rather than stillness and they were right. I find Lewis extraordinary in his capacity to hold both the body and the mind in that space. Try boxing, with an instructor. It might not be for you, but it might be exactly what your body has been waiting for.

5. Find the Child You Once Were and Put Them Somewhere You Can See Them

Why this helps: Underneath the fear of becoming your parent is often a child who never got to be seen. Not heard or cherished, just the child who had to cope, who made themselves small, who learned that everyone else came first. Research into trauma-informed art therapy has found that identity integration, reconnecting with earlier versions of the self, is one of the lasting outcomes of the work, with self-esteem scores rising significantly.

How to do it: Find a photograph of yourself as a child, any age, wherever you can find one, and put it somewhere significant. On your desk. On the fridge. On your bedside table, wherever. What you do when you look at it is entirely up to you. You are allowed to feel nothing. You are allowed to feel everything. You are allowed to turn it face down. You are allowed to grieve. There is no instruction here, only permission.

You don't need to try all five. You don't need to get them right. Change in this kind of work happens slowly, through small and repeated experiences of being allowed to exist in your own time and way.

I'm Debi Magonet, an integrative art psychotherapist based in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. If you'd like to explore this in a space that works at your pace and doesn't rely on words alone, I'd love to hear from you at debi@theartpsychotherapist.com.

References

Haeyen, S., van Hooren, S. and Hutschemaekers, G. (2025) 'Effectiveness of trauma-informed art therapy on dissociation and self-esteem', PsychNexus, [online].

Kaimal, G., Ray, K. and Muniz, J. (2024) 'Active visual art therapy and health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 50 studies', JAMA Network Open, 7(9).

Orth, U., Schultheiss, L. and Mayer, S. (2022) 'Intergenerational transmission of trauma: the mediating effects on parenting behaviour', PMC / National Library of Medicine.

Puetz, T.W., Morley, C.A. and Herring, M.P. (2025) 'Colours of the mind: a meta-analysis of creative arts therapy as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in adults', PubMed / National Library of Medicine.

Soga, M., Gaston, K.J. and Yamaura, Y. (2024) 'The impact of gardening on well-being, mental health, and quality of life: a meta-analysis', PMC / National Library of Medicine.

Smith, S. (2020) The Well Gardened Mind: Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World. London: William Collins.

Thomas, J. et al. (2024) 'New research shows gardening improves mental and social well-being', Michigan State University Extension.

Travis, C.B. and Meginnis-Payne, K.L. (2003) 'Anger across the gender divide', Monitor on Psychology, 34(3). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Royal Horticultural Society (2026) Why gardening makes us feel better — and how to start [online].