Listen to Confetti All Around Season 2 Episode 11 "Legacy Burdens and Legacy Resources"
In this solo episode Cynthia highlights her latest workbook The ABC's to Protecting Your Inner Child's Peace using the current active aggression in Gaza and the trauma endured as the example of legacy burdens and legacy resources throughout lineages.
What ARE Legacy Burdens? Cynthia quotes her definition in her book,
"Legacy Burdens are spoken or unspoken responsibilities or inherited burdens you are expected to carry on despite the toll on your spirit. Our inner child often feels it is their job to uphold these burdens to be loved. This can feel like guilt, shame, deep grief, hustle mindset, humble and forever indebted of the sacrifices of others in your lineage." Expanding to give examples like women being monitored on what they wear, their pregnancies, whom they marry, whether they go to college or stay home with children, those are some traditional cultural and familial burdens generations of women or their mothers may have had to carry.
So why consider our legacy burdens and what does our past lineages burdens have to do with us now?
Legacy burdens vary on your social status and the way systems treat you based on historical oppression in your lineage and the current political climate. Legacy burdens passed on can be invisible knowings and nuanced like family members pushing female family members to marry and have children every time they gather with family (sounds like: "When are you getting married? How many babies do you want to have? You better start having babies soon, you're not getting younger") .
The burdens can be more obvious like males in an urban working class family growing up in a gang neighborhood with possible family members as gang leaders, the burdens of the male children can be life or death and can impact the way the world sees them and how they ultimately see themselves and, their worth and ultimately, their inner child (sounds like "don't cry, don't be a wimp" "Protect your family. Be a man" "Real men don't respect women").
Author and IFS Therapist Natalie Gutierrez, LMFT writes in her book, "The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color", "...due to these painful and perhaps prolonged occurrences, you have naturally developed negative beliefs about yourself and the world. These beliefs and the energy accompanying them, are burdens that you internalize and carry within, both consciously and unconsciously, that dictate how connected, protected, and safe you feel-or don't feel. "
-- The Pain We Carry- Healing from Complex PTSD For People of Color
So what can we do with doom and gloom news of our intergenerational trauma being passed on to us as "Legacy Burdens"?! That feels like a lot to carry and with good reason.
When considering your epigenetic switches, the balancing of the genes that have not been utilized enough (joy, rest, wonder, creativity, expression, movement, safety). those genes can be nurtured and embodied. This allows your epigenetic gene to evolve into a new code to pass on, one that is created in your gifts, your resources, not just your burdens.
"Consider your Legacy Resources as a rite of passage between you and those who came before you. Tap into your legacy resources.
Epigenetics proves our intuitive knowing and creative resilience as a superpower that has not only helped us survive but it is our birthright and opportunity for an expansive and joyful life. Consider that you not only carry legacy burdens but that you also have legacy resources within you waiting to help you step into your epigenetic flow and ancestral wisdom."
Take aways from this episode:
Recognizing and releasing legacy burdens is essential for tapping into one's legacy resources, which are intuitive knowing and creative resilience passed down through generational traumas.
Finding one's medicine and embracing the joy of the inner child are powerful tools for healing and accessing ancestral wisdom.
Working through epigenetics and embracing legacy resources allows individuals to live in their highest selves and create a more expansive and joyful life. Stepping into legacy resources allows individuals to tap into their ancestral knowledge and gifts to create positive change.
Unburdening oneself and embracing legacy resources can lead to personal and collective healing.
Epigenetics offers individuals the opportunity to unlock their creative and joyful potential.
Embodying epigenetic flow allows individuals to live in alignment with their purpose and create a balanced life.
Cynthia shares her theory on the importance of having "Multiple streams of joy in epigenetics" which can be cultivated by exploring ancestral practices and embracing one's gifts.
Embodying epigenetic power as a legacy resource can lead to personal growth and the ability to positively impact future generations.
Immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the protection of people using their voices to speak up against injustices and violence are crucial actions.
Show Notes:
In this episode, Cynthia discusses the concept of legacy burdens and legacy resources. She explores how legacy burdens are spoken or unspoken responsibilities and inherited burdens that individuals are expected to carry, often leading to feelings of guilt, shame, and deep grief. Cynthia emphasizes the importance of recognizing and releasing these burdens in order to tap into one's legacy resources, which are intuitive knowing and creative resilience passed down through generations. She also highlights the significance of finding one's medicine and embracing the joy of the inner child as a means of healing and accessing ancestral wisdom. In this conversation, Cynthia explores the concept of legacy resources and how individuals can tap into their ancestral knowledge and gifts to create positive change. She discusses the importance of unburdening oneself and embracing legacy resources to be of service to one's community. Cynthia also delves into the topic of epigenetics and how individuals can use their genetic code to unlock their creative and joyful potential. She emphasizes the power of embodying epigenetic flow and the impact it can have on personal and collective healing. The conversation concludes with a call to action for immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the protection of people using their voices to speak up against injustices and violence. Scroll down for a snippet of the show transcripts where Cynthia talks about Epigenetics and the impacts of Marianismo and finding an epigenetic flow in the kitchen. (scroll to bottom)
Free Resources: If you'd like some coloring pages to express your legacy resources, here are some free coloring pages by featured artists at the Riverside Art Museum The Cheech Cheech for the curated all femme show titled Indigenous Futurism. This cosmic show was curated and hosted by Pearmama Denise Silva. This show is an eclectic and colorful display of the story of our #legqcyburdens and #legacyresources.
Transcripts from Confetti All Around Season 2 Episode 11 “Legacy Burdens and Legacy Resources” with Cynthia Perez, LCSW (do not reuse with out credit).
“Latinos, a lot of documented and also first gen, right? So there's differences in that experiences, in those experiences and yet, you know, we're all kind of connected. But oftentimes clients and myself, we say things como si nada, like it's not a big deal and it's an absolutely big deal.”
Cynthia (01:08:44.298)
Right? Or they'll say like, I've been feeling like I want to cook this food and I don't know why when it's cold outside but this food is like a summertime food. And maybe consider that gene inside you is like, I know what I want to cope right now. I need this meal that reminds me of home so that I can feel calm. Consider these little inner knowings, these intuitions as a sign of where you could go deeper.
but you gotta love yourself to allow yourself to unravel. Like for me, it's been creativity. I realize that the women in my lineage, they didn't get to be creative. I mean, they are creative. Don't get it wrong, everybody's creative. Everybody is a creative, but to which extent do we get to master that gene or train that gene? And so I think about my abuelas who definitely were creative. They were shop owners. They...
sewed hamaca (hammock), they weaved hamacas and they sew dresses, huipiles (embroidered blouses). They made purses and bultos, they made wallets and shoes. They created stuff, but this stuff was to sell. And sometimes they would make me stuff. And that's when they showed their creativity. But who could these women have been if allowed to be an uninterrupted joy?
and safety. You can't have creativity without safety. You got to feel safe to create.
So when I allow myself to be creative, I'm working that gene like a muscle. I'm sharpening my blade. I am making a stand. And in that, I start to unravel.
Cynthia (01:10:32.75)
past experiences of my lineage being creative. I get goosebumps just thinking about that. I have called that being an epigenetic flow. Being an epigenetic flow. When I'm an epigenetic flow, my joyful, creative epigenetics are flowing. I am in sway, I am aligned with all of my gifts.
And it's not just resilience, it is living, it is creating, it is crafting a life for myself, a balanced life. When I am in epigenetic flow, I feel whole bodied, I feel fullness, I feel connected to all the parts within me that have been here before. Right? I feel like I know this feeling. And it feels really beautiful.
And that's always going to make me feel just aligned with my purpose. And then I'm going to, I'm going to be in flow more often and more easily. That is going to make my bandwidth of tolerance bigger. I'm going to be able to tolerate more because I've allowed myself to be in my epigenetic flow.
Does that make sense? Isn't that exciting? And so I wanna give a little story. See if you can relate to this. See if you identify with this feeling and see if you can come up with your own stories. So one of my stories is, I like to cook sometimes and just let myself cook.
and feel like, oh, one beautiful way I've reconnected with my epigenetic flow is I know that my abuela was a really delicious cook. I've had her food and it was delicious. But what I didn't realize was that my grandfather on my mother's side, he was a chef for braceros and he cooked for them at a young age. And his wife,
Cynthia (01:12:55.666)
Marianismo was very much a part of their lives. She always had dinner ready for him too. So she was always cooking and she had seven kids. So you have to imagine, on one side, my paternal grandmother, she was always poor. So she had to get creative with the amount, with the servings, with what she made, with where she sourced her food. She got creative and she was good at it. My tia says that she would serve them on a good night.
some cacao, warm cacao after, like if she didn't have a lot for dinner, she would grind up the cacao beans and give them warm cacao with one galleta each, one graham cracker galleta as a treat. And it's funny because when I drank cacao in Puerto Rico on the spiritual retreat, I felt connected. I was crying. It was something beyond me. And I believe that was me in my epigenetic flow. Do you feel it? Do you see it?
And when I told my aunt that story, she cried. She said, thank you for telling me. It reminds me of me as a child and what my mom offered us. And I thought that day on the trip, when I drank the cacao, it was like I was giving that cacao to those parts of my ancestors that have missed it, have missed those multiple streams of joy, right? And then another side is my maternal.
grandparents, my abuelo and my abuela, who both cooked a lot, right? I told you my grandmother had seven kids. You imagine she had to be like making all kinds of things, almost like octopus arms, right? But one day, a little bit of a backstory is that I come from a lot of women who cook good. My sister cooks good, my cousins cook good, my tias cook good.
My dad cooks good. I mean, he makes such a bomb ceviche. My dad makes the best ceviche. Don't ask, don't say your dad does, because my dad does, I'm just kidding. But my dad makes a really, I mean, that's a pretty good ceviche. But he also makes a lot of delicious food. But I always was like, oh, that's not me. Everybody else in my family cooks. I'm the one who eats, I'm the one who enjoys it. Cooking's not really my thing.
Cynthia (01:15:09.662)
Uh, laughing is my thing. Being jovial is my thing. Comedy is my thing. But not cooking. That's not me.
And so finding my flow, asking more questions, feeling deserving enough to be curious with my gifts, I get emotional just saying that because it really does take you being curious.
to what your ancestors did well and when they were in their flow, when they were in peace. And so my Tia Sara kind of boosting me up saying, you can cook. She's so cute. She's a teacher by nature. So I would tell her, okay Tia, I have got a molida, un huevo, some breadcrumbs, bell peppers, ajo, what can I make? And she would voice memo me back on WhatsApp like, oh, Mija, you have...
all the ingredients to make sopa de albondigas. And then she would like voice memo me step-by-step ingredients to make sopa de albondigas. And mind you, I would go into these WhatsApp like, oh, she's just teaching me, but I don't know. And oh my gosh, when I started to become intentional about how I was allowing myself to just be in my flow, believing that these gifts are within me, oh my gosh. Mi comida me salio, pero rik-
Guisimo, okay? And here I am speaking in Spanish, it's that good.
Cynthia (01:16:37.67)
That's how much I'm in love with this flow side of me, my epigenetic flow. And one example is this. So I was like, this is what epigenetic flow feels like. Being in my legacy resources, allowing myself to be an epigenetic flow looks like this. I was making omelets one morning and I've never been someone who can crack an egg one handed. Okay, it's always crack, open, drop, scramble.
But this day, I got my music on, my boleros, right? So I'm already in my flow, I'm excited. You know, music is gonna tap me into my epigenetic flow off the bat. So I'm in the kitchen, barefoot, in my flow, letting myself just think about the omelets. And I find myself not paying attention, cracking, cracking the egg, and bam.
Cynthia (01:17:35.958)
completed a one-handed egg crack into the bowl.
Cynthia (01:17:44.942)
I know you're thinking like big deal, but for me, I was like this. Ah, I had never done that before. I wasn't trying to, I didn't think I could, and I had never done it before. And in fact, I tried to do it again, and I got too nervous, and I got eggshells into the next batch.
And then I thought nothing of it like we do, Latinos, we always be minimizing our gifts, we always be humble, we always try to just like, get past the like feels. And so thought nothing of it, okay, went on. I was like, that was kind of cool, whatever. And then a couple of weeks later, again, music on in my flow, feeling good. And my epigenetics come rearing to remind me of my little gifts, my ancestral knowings. And I'm just like, ah, ba ba.
Cynthia (01:18:38.462)
And that's where I got to pause and pin my awareness to say, that is me in my epigenetic flow. The one-handed egg crack was an ancestor.
was an ancestor in their flow like oh girl you got my music you're making sopa de albondigas we're in our flow yes
Do you see it? Do you see that switch within me? Because it's within me, I just hadn't been using it. I haven't been resourcing it. That was the one-handed egg crack. That's also when I'm in my epigenetic flow, my garden grows brighter. I know where to plant things, right? When I'm in my epigenetic flow, I can sense what my children need because I'm connected to their epigenetics. When I'm in my epigenetic flow, I am...
able to invite community and be, you know, and create these spaces because that's what the women in my lineage did. I'm in flow. I'm not resisting. I'm in flow with it. Think about how that sits in your body to invite flow, invite this epigenetic flow to unravel your gifts for you. We don't have to be like, oh my gosh, what do I need to uncover? I don't even know. Let it flow.
One thing I always say is try being outside, being with animals, being with nature, being with the four elements. Try learning about your lineage, being with people who are in their cultural awareness, who honor yours. Read lots of books that you enjoy. If a book calls you, why is it calling you? If something is calling your intuition, can you believe that you are worthy enough to go find out why? Whether it's a...
Cynthia (01:20:31.038)
mistake which that's a or not it's your mistake to go see or maybe the mistake you think is a mistake is actually a nugget a breadcrumb to get you closer to your flow.
Cynthia (01:20:45.822)
right? One thing I've noticed is I love bird watching. Love it. I love bird watching and it's funny because I used to not like birds. I used to say I didn't like birds and yet I have three bird tattoos on my arm. Isn't that funny how my self-conscious has been like ruling and I was like I don't know what to talk about. Oh these birds? I guess I do.
But I didn't like birds, I said, because a friend in middle school, she used to keep parrots and the way she kept them when I would sleep over was so dirty and weird to me, not weird, it's kind of filthy. And so when we would go to sleep, I couldn't sleep because the birds and the roaches eating the food on the bottom of the birds would just gross me out. But the whole point is, is I changed the story to like, I don't like birds, they creep me out.
But that's actually not true. I love birds. And so once I allowed myself to be in epigenetic flow of like, okay, why do I like being outside? I don't think it's the walking, even though now it's the walking, right? But I think it's the wind. I love to feel the wind. I love to feel cold land. But the wind kept calling me up and it was birds. And it was, it's the color of birds for me. It's the song of birds. It's Googling their backstory and like their habits.
And ever since I accepted that to be part of my ancestral knowing to invite that into my epigenetics, I notice that I go in flow when I'm outside. I'm like carried away by the birds. I am able to tap into my peace when I'm outside because I don't feel alone.
I feel like the birds that I see are like my grandmother being in her garden, picking oranges from her tree and talking to the birds. That's another stream of joy I carry within me. It makes me emotional saying it, so it must be true. I just wish this for all of us. I wish us to be in our epigenetic flow, unlocking the peace and the joy within us that has not had enough time, not had enough moments in joy. And our ancestors had joy.
Cynthia (01:22:59.934)
Look at people in Gaza, they find joy, they create it. It's within them. It's between them. It's collective.
Cynthia (01:23:10.966)
So our ancestors, as much as they suffered, they also had joy. It was these little pockets of joys. It's resistance as joy. It's hidden joy. It's personal joy. It's sacred joy, but it's there. And it's our job to find it and live through it for them. So I believe when we honor that joy, we can stop and go.
ancestor, thank you for leading me here and I hope you're enjoying this. And you might feel lightness and maybe that's unburdening. You might feel a glow within you and maybe that's just your epigenetics going, oh you like this? Oh we're going to file save. We're going to tap back into this. I'm going to ease up on the other switches and lean into this switch, creating multiple streams of joy in your epigenetics. Do you see that?
Another thing I really love about epigenetics is when you choose to heal yourself, your inner child, you are helping the epigenetics of other people. Because when I heal my epigenetics, I'm going to be parenting my kids from a higher place of goodness, from a place that honors their joy. So I'm going to think about, ooh, I'm stomping on his joy right now.
That's gonna change his DNA to be soft, to be shrinking, to be humble, to be ashamed. I don't wanna do that. So when I honor my epigenetics, I can then honor my kids. So there's lots to be said about epigenetics. It's really exciting, but you can do these things by being in your joy, expanding your tolerance for quiet and rest, opening yourself up to soft love and deep discussions, believing that you are worth
worthy of it and deserving of it, even if you're uncomfortable, allowing yourself to complete, to complete that moment that you set out for. And see how it feels. See what gets unburdened in you. So lean into the creative and spiritual ways your grandparents, your ancestors, your lineage practiced joy and calmed the restlessness, dance, music, cooking, building, storytelling. And remember these things.
Cynthia (01:25:29.662)
It calmed their vagus nerve. It toned their vagus nerve. And in that, it creates epigenetic power. It creates a powerful presence that we pass on.
Right? And it becomes a legacy resource that we can live in and feel good about passing on.
So I'm gonna end with this. There's so much that I can go on and say, but you know what's best for you. And you are deserving to go find what you need to fill in your medicine bag. If you think about it like a backpack, and you're like, you know what? I to empty my backpack. I need to unlearn all these things. But now I gotta learn new things. What does that look like? Consider, and that's the letter M (for Medicine Bag) in here. What are you gonna fill up your medicine bag with? What's gonna be in there? You're gonna put a hammock in there to sway?
