Legacy Burdens
Generational Trauma, Ancestral Healing, and Legacy Burdens
This is where it gets really juicy.
Every single human on this planet has ancestors and every single one of us has inherited our ancestors’ particular stories, strengths and struggles.
In IFS, we refer to these as “legacy heirlooms” (the gifts) and “legacy burdens” (the pains).
A legacy burden is a heavy bundle of emotional, psychic, energetic sh*t that’s been weighing us down, clouding our vision, dragging behind us like a ball and chain, and stinking up our vibes for years and years — like since the beginning of our lives — and everyone in the family probably feels it.
Legacy burdens can be:
limiting beliefs
fears
horrible memories
trauma
unhealthy behaviors
addictions
repeating patterns
emotional pain
fake news about how life works etc…
It’s all been passed down. It feels like it’s your problem until you realize actually… it’s not. It was never yours to carry. It’s a problem that originated in someone else’s lifetime.
Our ancestors didn’t have the time/tools/resources/support to be able to process the pain or heal these wounds when the occurred.
Our ancestors had parts too. Their parts carried the burden first and then when you were born, your parts inherited that burden through nervous system communication, epigenetics, storytelling, lessons taught; a subtle blend of nature and nurture.
The wounds have been passed down from one human body to the next body, carried by our families of parts, hanging around, waiting for someone in the family, you, to finally take the time to slow down, hold it, and look it straight in the face with love.
It’s your opportunity to catch the burden before you pass it to the next generation, to heal the parts of you who have been burdened by this, to liberate yourself and your family.
Legacy burdens can be tricky to identify. They’re sneaky because they masquerade as our own pain or identify. We often work with a part for years before we realize it’s pain is actually a legacy burden.
Legacy burdens took a long time to come into existence. They’ve been hanging around for a long time. They take a long time to be witness and fully released. Finding and releasing legacy burdens, aka healing generational trauma, takes a long time, and requires patience and persistence.
Patience and persistence are qualities of Self, qualities of the healer.
I can show you how to spot a legacy burden and begin the process of helping the part of you who's carrying it. Schedule a 60 min guided breakthrough IFS session customized to bring you clarity.
SPOTTING A LEGACY BURDEN
Legacy burdens are deep wounds that feel like they’ve always been there.
When you hear yourself saying,
“I just feel like it’s always been there…”
“It’s always been this way."
“This pain has been here forever.”
etc….
ALWAYS. FOREVER. These are the legacy burden keywords. When I hear a client say “This pain has always been here,” a red flag shoots up. I smell a legacy burden!
Legacy burdens have been in your life since you were born…since before you were born! Maybe it came into existence during your parent’s life or many generations before.
I recently worked with a woman whose part was carrying a 400 year old legacy burden. For 400 years….this pain has been passed down through her family!
HEALING LEGACY BURDENS
We begin with witnessing.
Healing happens in the witnessing.
When you’re in Self energy, you’re going to meet your parts and let them show you all the stories and pain they’ve inherited. Hold space for them to express themselves fully. You witness them with compassion.
This is all any of us ever needed. We just needed someone to hold us, hear us out, listen deeply to all the details, and just let us fully feel our life experience without trying to fix or change us or make the pain go away.
This can be very tricky to do on your own because the emotions grow intense. Often when we dig these deep into our psyche, our memories, our cells, we need support from another human, a trained healer, who is capable holding the space, asking the most effective guiding questions, and also witnessing from a place of open non-judgemental and non-reactive Self energy.
If you’d like my help with this, apply to work with me as a client in private coaching. If you’re interested in transformation and working with generational trauma (which takes time), I recommend working with me for 3-6 months at least. I offer these long-term coaching containers so we can build trust and go on this deep soul journey together.
love & rainbows
chamonix