How Intergenerational Trauma Perpetuates Poverty — And How to Stop the Cycle

What if poverty isn’t just about a lack of resources — but also the result of inherited emotional wounds?

This transformative workshop, led by Danielle Forward — Indigenous emotional fitness trainer, intergenerational trauma expert, and CEO & Co-Founder of Natives Rising — uncovers how trauma passed down through generations fuels cycles of poverty, chronic illness, and disempowerment, particularly in historically excluded communities.

Drawing from both neuroscience and lived experience, Danielle offers a rare lens into how chronic stress reshapes the brain, distorts decision-making, and erodes the confidence and focus needed for economic mobility and financial inclusion. She also explores how these internalized patterns manifest physically — contributing to chronic illness and fatigue that further limit one’s ability to sustain employment, access opportunity, or fully participate in the economy.

Through a powerful, interactive demonstration of her emotional fitness method — a holistic, culturally grounded approach designed to interrupt trauma responses, rewire stress patterns, and restore personal agency — participants will not only understand the problem, but experience part of the solution.

This is not a passive session — it’s an embodied experience that invites changemakers to move beyond surface-level equity work and address the deeper, often invisible forces that shape opportunity and long-term community prosperity.

Takeaways:

– Understand how intergenerational trauma impacts brain development, behavior, and economic outcomes
– Explore how chronic stress and physical illness impede mobility, ownership, and participation in the workforce
– Experience a live demo of emotional fitness as an empowering and healing practice
– Learn trauma-informed, culturally-rooted frameworks for fostering justice and economic resilience