What Did We Inherit & How Do We Let It Go?
Highlights from the Be Write Hear Call 11.3.24
Join me next week for another "Be Write Hear” women’s circle on Sunday Nov 10 @ 4-5pm ET Sign me up! Currently it’s FREE.
We begin with an 18min guided somatic meditation to search for tension in our physical bodies and release it with each breath. This increases our awareness and opens space within us for Self embody. Embodied Self is the calm compassionate healing energy that is inside of every person, available to all of us.
The body knows how to heal itself. We just have to relax so it can let go of what it has been storing. Relaxing takes practice. Relaxation is the path to enlightenment. As you inhale, you search within yourself for tension. As you exhale, you visualize that tension draining out of you. Let the earth absorb it. Give back to her what you no longer need to hold.
If your don’t feel ready or able to let go of the tension, there is no rush. It’s only an invitation. You’re slowing down to give your body the opportunity to release when it’s ready. A part of you may feel it is important to keep holding on. The tension may be a way you’re still protecting yourself and it doesn’t feel safe yet to let go. You can’t force relaxation.
Instead, speak to this part of you that is working so hard to protect and help you. Thank it for its effort and ask if it will share more with you. What is it trying to protect? How long has it been doing this job? What is it afraid would happen if it stopped holding all this tension? Thank it again and again. Appreciation is medicine. Ask it what it needs from you in order to feel more safe. What would help it trust you more to take the lead so it wouldn’t have to work so hard?
As the part shares its stories with you, you may feel other parts show up. If you feel afraid of what this part says, ashamed, embarrassed, angry, resentful that you feel this way, or wish this part would go away or disappear….that’s another part showing up. If you feel like a cheerleader, in a hurry to rescue this part or somehow fix it…that could be another part too. Self energy simply witnesses with compassion, listening listening listening. Self energy has all the time in the world to hear all the details of the story and still ask for more. We open up space so the parts that need to share feel safe to open up and tell their secret histories, to unpack their suitcases full of heavy burdens. We welcome everything they have to share and as they do, they feel lighter and lighter. Healing happens in the witnessing.
JOURNALING EXERCISE
What is a heavy burden you inherited from your ancestors?
When you reflect on it, what do you feel in your body?
Is there a part of you that resists even thinking about ancestors or this burden?
What is this part afraid would happen if you let go of this burden?
Invite this part of you to tell you more.
Tell me more. What else? I’m here. I’m listening.
As your parts tell you their stories, you may realize that they are telling stories that have been around for a long time. You may have heard these thoughts and feelings before many time. It might even sound like a broken record. It might sound like the voice of someone else, a parent or grandparent. We carry their stories, limiting beliefs, shame, guilt, fears, traumas within us, thinking they belong to us until we catch it. We realize there’s a cycle happening and now we can do something about it.
As you talk to your parts, listen for words like “always” and “forever”. If a painful thought or troublesome feeling has “always been there”, chances are it was a burden for your parents long before you were even born. In IFS we call this generational trauma “Legacy Burdens”
The good new is that you don’t have to hold onto legacy burdens forever. You have the power to liberate your parts and to break the chain before the burden passes on to someone else. Once you realize it’s there, you can begin the healing process. Healing happens in the witnessing.
Your parts may take you back to a memory that feels horrible. Parts can be stuck in a moment of trauma, trapped in time. When we find them, when you feel their emotions rising up or hear their voice calling out, you may feel other parts of you step forward to protect you or try to get rid of the pain. We all have many parts inside of us — sub-personalities, different parts of our psyche — and they function (or disfunction) in a system…just like parts of a family.
Internal Family Systems is a way to get curious about these parts and how they relate to one another. It helps us understand what each part wants and needs. Then we can lead the parts with higher Self energy. When Embodied Self is the leader, the parts are guided into harmonious inner relationships and you will experience life with more peace and freedom. Self loves and cares for every part of you and every part of you loves and trusts Self. This is what Self-love and Self-trust means.
What is IFS?
Internal Family Systems (official IFS website) is an evidence-based psychotherapy approach that is highly effective for healing trauma, creating inner peace and freedom, and restoring clarity and playfulness to your life.
Want to learn more?
Join me next week for another "Be Write Hear” women’s circle — Sunday Nov 10 @ 4-5pm ET Sign me up! It’s FREE.
If you'd like to see how I help people let go of deeply rooted generational trauma, watch this recording of a real IFS session with one of my clients. I guide her through an "unburdening" process, helping a part of her finally release a legacy burden tied to religious trauma from growing up in a cult. She gets to redefine god and bury a box in the sand beneath her favorite palm tree.
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60 min guided breakthrough IFS session ($333) customized to bring you clarity + 30 day text messaging support.
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love & rainbows,
chamonix penelope