34 - Legacy Burdens: Hand That Sh*t Back!—with guest Kay Gardner, LCPC

Anne and Alison talk with Kay Gardner, LCPC about her work helping people hand back their legacy burdens to their ancestors where they belong. Not all of the trauma we carry around is ours to carry. Learn about Kay's healing work helping us unburden our trauma.

Guest bio

Kay Gardner has over 40 years of clinical experience and 30 years in private practice. She is a senior Lead Trainer for Internal Family Systems (IFS) and has been involved with IFS since 1991.  Prior to her work with IFS, she was a therapist and a teacher of Hakomi Body Centered Psychotherapy.  She has also been a student of yoga and meditation for over 40 years.  She is a gifted and heartfelt presenter who brings a body centered and spiritual approach to her work.  Kay is also a founder of The Women's Circle, a women's program in Chicago and has also led various successful workshops around the country for men and women including Persephone's Journey; Men and Their Mothers; Women and Their Fathers; and Legacy Burdens. Her most recent work is Sacred Theatre for Couples.  She has a passion for bringing a body centered theatre approach to couples and has found it remarkably beneficial to the couples she's worked with - in groups or individually.

http://www.kaygardnertherapy.com/

Show Notes:

Introduction:

A Little Bit Culty Teal Swan Episode

Teal Swan podcast with Jennings Brown

Conspirituality podcast

Suicide hotline

Recovered Memories

Jennings Brown other podcast about Fellowship of Friends

Will Be Wild podcast

David Snarch Passionate Marriage (Book)

Differentiation

Differentiation podcasts

Interview:

LatinX Parenting Instagram

Attached by Amir Levine

Neither Wolf Nor Dog (book)

Transcript

Alison Cebulla 0:05
Welcome to latchkey urchins and friends Podcast. I'm Alison Cebulla.

Anne Sherry 0:10
And I'm an Cherie. We are healing trauma with humor, humility, authenticity, imperfection, messiness, and compassion.

Alison Cebulla 0:19
Each week we interview someone on a different childhood trauma and neglect topic. Our hope is to reduce the stigma of talking about mental health and offer some tools to heal.

Anne Sherry 0:28
latchkey kids are children who came home to an empty house after school each day and watch themselves. We are the children who fought viciously with our siblings. We set our toasters on fire making cinnamon toast, and aimlessly roam the neighborhood hoping for something to do

Alison Cebulla 0:45
Urchins adapted to not need anyone. Our Spidey prickly parts keep people at a distance.

Anne Sherry 0:51
Sometimes we were the kids, other kids parents warned you about.

Alison Cebulla 0:55
Sometimes we were the kids who held it all together, saved our families and got perfect grades in school.

Anne Sherry 1:00
Sometimes we were the kids who were comforted by drugs and alcohol.

Alison Cebulla 1:04
Sometimes we were the adults who grew up not realizing what we didn't get

Anne Sherry 1:08
whether you're a latchkey, an urchin or a friend you are wanted here

Alison Cebulla 1:24
Hey, on our two week break

Anne Sherry 1:30
is like I'm like, not that I didn't love seeing you weekly, but I like really like seeing

Alison Cebulla 1:41
I kind of hate I kind of hate just doing it every other week though. Oh, really? Yeah, weekly is nice. Really? Okay. Okay, well. I'll play the lottery today. And I'll hire us a producer so that we get to just show up and I'm so excited to get a real job soon and hire a producer. We just I need a job. Someone gives me a frickin job.

Anne Sherry 2:07
Give Alison a job. You all know how amazing she is. Yeah, lucky to have her.

Alison Cebulla 2:13
But I did finally get I'm going to be freelancing for pieces connection where I just left as a writer and I really really want to write a piece about that a little bit culty episode that just came out about Teal Swan.

Anne Sherry 2:28
Oh, I haven't listened. Yeah. But I know I can spirituality has covered Teal Swan.

Alison Cebulla 2:35
Oh, they have okay. Oh, yeah. There's because I listened I she popped up somewhere on my feed, Instagram maybe. And I listened to a bit of her talking. And I thought she sounded pretty good at actually everyone that talks about her agrees the content is pretty. It's pretty good. She's you know, she talks about trauma. And she's pretty much the only person out there addressing suicidal ideation. And they, for the investigative podcast, they interviewed the investigative reporter on a little bit culty Jennings Brown, I think and he did a whole series on her a podcast, I'll link to in the show notes that remember what it's called. But I listened to that whole thing. And he interviewed someone a professional in mental health, about Teal Swan. And what she said is, you know, Teal Swan is not as problematic as you might think. Because our mental healthcare system does not offer anything to anyone. And so in that kind of society, these people have to come in and fill in the gaps. So she was just like,

Anne Sherry 3:36
she is not a trained therapist, though. Right? Like

Alison Cebulla 3:40
totally, totally. But I think you need to look systemically Why does someone like Teal Swan need to exist because people don't have access

Anne Sherry 3:47
100 I was just saying to Tom this morning I was like this is really scary because lots and lots of people are now ready for therapy we're talking about it and the the demand we're not able to meet it with trained therapists and right mental being able to cover costs for it or

Alison Cebulla 4:09
Yeah, but we're not there. Exactly. And so that's I really appreciated that kind of balanced take but the problem with Teal Swan is that she she is like a narcissistic cult leader. Unfortunately like she she has a lot of problematic like she she thinks she can Oh, the thing that Jennings brown brought up that he thought was problematic was the implanting memories that stuff socks, that's just socks, she should not be doing that. One could

Anne Sherry 4:39
spirituality like her. One of her things that there's they are questioning like the level of abuse that she says that she went through I think she talks about Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. sewed up in a human body or something. That stuff is nuts. Yeah, yeah, but I'm that you keep having to up your trauma story, because that's what makes people come and be with you. And it's this in so short, it just gets wilder and wilder rather than like, why isn't it just enough to have? It's enough to have trauma, like you don't have to keep embellishing your trauma story, you know, but then other people say, well, I need a story as big as hers.

Alison Cebulla 5:25
So totally, totally

Anne Sherry 5:28
messing around. And there's just no need to mess around in that area. It's enough being ignored as a child is enough to do your work and say, Hey, I'm not a full human being. And I'd like to become a full human being. And

Alison Cebulla 5:42
yeah, yeah, but so, I mean, it's interesting, because I feel like if I were to write about that my angle would kind of be like, as you're doing your trauma work, watch out for cults, you know, yeah. And, yeah, it's so interesting, because what she's providing people is a sense of belonging, which is what a lot of cults do, which is just like, such a fine line, you know, because people deserve belonging. But then there's just always all this predatory. Because then I went and listened to his other one, James Brown did another cult called the fellowship of friends in Northern California, they have like this biggest state where they grow and make wine. But the guy, the guy running it, the so called Guru is just like, a sexual predator of all these men that come from all around the world. And it's so heartbreaking. So heartbreaking. And and so it's just so it's just, I don't know, there's just a lot of darkness around explore exploiting people's spiritual quest, their healing quest, their need to belong. So yeah, yeah. It's like, I totally get why, why people are drawn to TEALS work, like if you're just suicidal, and you just don't think you could go on and you finally find this community and then it helps you live i so get that. But then it's just like, but then she's abusing your power.

Anne Sherry 7:11
And not me, but there's no one prescription for all of this. So yeah,

Alison Cebulla 7:18
what are you That's my listening to. That's my listening to Okay. Oh, that's your Yeah.

Anne Sherry 7:22
What are you What are you? Again, so 70, Enneagram, seven and diffuse, but what I'm, I am honing in on what you say because it is about this belonging and this is where my deep compassion comes for. There's a podcast of eight, eight series, eight episodes called will be wild. And that was a statement that Trump made about the January 6, you know, come to the rally will will be wild, I don't know. And so two really good in depth coverage of what was happening and who went and they the one the one piece that I really loved was a guy who was taped, he was caught teasing one of the officers on the steps and they found him. And when you listen to this guy, because we were listen to one episode, I'm like, Oh, this guy needs to be in jail forever. Fuck him, blah, blah, blah, you know. So that's that part of me. But then when he the FBI interviews him for four hours, and you get to really hear it was belonging. When you hear this guy's story, he was like, I was in and out of jail. Data, you know, I grew up poor. I had this trauma, this piece, that piece, and it was just he just start in the pandemic started. And then he just glommed on to I can't remember what I was Alex Jones, actually, yeah. And whatever. Alex Jones started to make sense. And then he went to a meeting, and then he connected. So it's this radicalization, it's the same techniques that al Qaeda uses, you know, like, yeah, and when you're just Yeah, people that have no belonging, and he felt seen, heard understood, and I'm like, I get it. So again, my curiosity is how do we do this on mass? Where, you know, the benefit of it is kindness, tenderness, there's enough I accept who you are. Yeah. So that went on, it will be wild will be wild. So

Alison Cebulla 9:23
what's your let's do struggle party. This is a great segue.

Anne Sherry 9:31
It is about starting couples therapy, and working. Working with this concept of differentiation. It's David Noach. He wrote passionate,

Alison Cebulla 9:46
his last name sorry, David, your last name is weird.

Anne Sherry 9:49
He's dead. Don't worry about it. He died in 2020 I think suddenly. So it is a strange lag time. but it is like basically, is it a struggle, it's been a struggle to want to go to couples therapy. And for the longest time, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna be in trouble I'm gonna have they're gonna, I'm gonna be told. It was just so curious why it would show up with like me told what I was doing wrong. Tom's probably holding this secret cache of resentments. But she might be actually but in this couples therapy of differentiation, there's no room for that. I mean, one is acknowledging that you, you fucked up, it's fine. You grew up with emotionally immature, probably raised by emotionally immature people. So How the hell would you know how to be emotionally mature. And really, it's this formula of Get the fuck out everybody's head, like just work, just come home to your own experience, and be brave enough. And it really is braving into these waters of anxiety, she's like, you're just going to have anxiety, if you're going to speak your truth. It's going to be anxious. So just know that and this, this work is about bravery to like, I don't like that, or I, I am going to do this on Sunday. But and the you guys are gonna have to just figure it out. But what I noticed I do it all backwards. I'm forever in everybody's experience. Making it Okay, so then I can get to do what I want. Like, it's so weird, like Tom and I said, Oh, we're independent personality disordered, we're just way in our own orbits. She was like, You guys are so unmatched. We and so it's just, it's hard, because it's like, I should have known this a long time ago. And she's like, just don't worry about it. Like, who cares? You know what now like we're doing this now, I

Alison Cebulla 11:48
don't know why you should have known out. I really don't.

Anne Sherry 11:51
I don't know, it feels so simple on some level. But in practice, it's really hard. But what I am noticing, if I stay home and my system, I'm less knocked off course by what I just, you know, really is just come here. And then there's more than others are allowed to do be whoever they want to be. And it doesn't have to, you know, somebody is really angry with me, kind of was like, I really can withstand that I can like stay in my system brainstem connected to the frontal lobe, it feels like and say, Well, what are you upset about? But if you know that, that, Oh, somebody's mad at me, like, that's the habit of like, I gotta fix this, or I gotta disappear them or I'm gonna move out of state or, you know, I mean, I, my history is just littered with weird conflicts that are unresolved and just, you know, so anyways, those, I'm just gonna let those be compost, and I'm gonna move on, I'm gonna grow up. And I can feel that I was like, parsimony or just, I don't want to grow up. I don't want to be an adult, I don't want to take responsibility for my actions and words,

Alison Cebulla 13:03
what is being an adult mean, in this context?

Anne Sherry 13:09
I think what it feels like it means is stepping into the fire of anxiety, and tell the truth, be vulnerable, and just say, Gosh, it's really hard to be here right now. My chest is it's really hard for me to connect with you right now. That's my truth. And if somebody's like, Well, God, why oh, I don't have to explain myself to that person or worry about their their response. To know that I can say something hard and I don't have to get all up in somebody's how they're responding to me like

Unknown Speaker 13:50
it. That's hard to say, it's

Anne Sherry 13:53
fucking hard. I think this is gonna be the rest of my life. Yeah, but I'll say that because I'm, I'm projecting that this person is going to respond in a certain way. So then I I changed my words, I changed my tone, I change everything. So that I get the response I projected rather than just say, Okay, turn that around, just fucking say it. And let the chips fall. Like,

Alison Cebulla 14:18
I know, it's been interesting. I'll piggyback off your struggle party because you Tom started couples therapy. So that inspired us. And so we went to couples therapy this week, and I'm not going to share too much just because I need to keep it focused and centered on me. But um, he said this thing or therapist about like, you're either feeling safe, and that's when you can play and that's like your good days and you're feeling playful and loving and you can show up for your partner or you're feeling unsafe, and you're doing things to protect yourself. Right. And I love I just love kind of thinking about it. Like what space Am I in right now? Am I protecting? And that's when we do all the weird shit Totally and interesting is to think about what is it that we're protecting. And like, for me, what I don't like to admit, so this is my struggle party, about myself is that I have abandonment issues. And it's, it's so stereotypical that I really just hate it. But I'm like, gonna, I'm gonna cry just thinking about it. My fear of rejection is so deep, and it is so hard. And I don't, it feels like almost sometimes, like, just impossible to work on. But as soon as I think I'm gonna get abandoned or rejected, I mean, it's just, it's insane what I'll do.

Anne Sherry 15:41
Right, right, right. Well, that that's it, too. I kind of forgot the vulnerability piece of this. It is saying right there. That's what you would say. Yeah. Like I'm on the verge of. I mean, it really is she was saying, what you're being asked to do is go to your developmental edges. Each person is being asked to, to be at their developmental edges in a relationship and they're different.

Alison Cebulla 16:07
Man, life is so much worse. And even no one told me I now

Anne Sherry 16:12
know what totally I mean, I'm in this like, I feel like this is a red pill or blue pill or whatever the hell pill like that, by going to this therapy, learning about differentiation. I've taken a different reality pill and I'm like, Oh, shit, I can't go back. It'll be really painful if I don't keep differentiating and it's and it's gonna get I'm like, doing minor little bets, but like to move into the world. And really do this. I'm like, I longed for that. But yeah, so I feel like I'm kind of in kindergarten of differentiation.

Alison Cebulla 16:49
So we're gonna link in the show notes to some I've been listening to a couple good podcasts on differentiation and books. And the passionate marriage book is Davidson arch. So we'll link to all that you guys if you're in a relationship, or you ever want to be in one any kind of relationship did a couple of

Anne Sherry 17:08
Yes, not any couple, but somebody who's working on that. Yes. Is

Alison Cebulla 17:13
differentiation is the work. Yeah. So today's episode is an interview with you this is your person that you knew.

Anne Sherry 17:24
Yeah, it is Kay Gardner. She is a lead master trainer in internal family systems and, and legacy burdens is legacy. Yeah, main legacy burdens main focus, if you can't work on your mother's and your grandparents and their grandparents that all that baggage doesn't belong to you, but to probably have a certain amount you need to metabolize or process or own so it helps differentiate from your ancestors bringing grow proud of that. Yeah, so

Alison Cebulla 17:59
enjoy the interview. Yeah,

Anne Sherry 18:02
he's amazing, okay.

Welcome, hi. Hi. Hi, we have Kate Gardner here with us today. We're gonna be talking about family trauma legacy burdens. All the good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah. So let me let me just read Kay, I'm gonna read your bio and you can add anything you want to it. Alright, little bit of my reading trauma comes up so I just I just go with it. I had a second grade and you know you do I always get all this encouragement. I had a second grade teacher that I was like, following with my finger when I was reading in the book, and she kept slapping my hand away like I now 19 My

Alison Cebulla 19:21
secondary teacher was also a shit show. Ever I after school? Yes, I tried to get her fired.

Kay Gardner 19:29
Oh, third grade teacher.

Anne Sherry 19:30
Okay. All right. So I'm gonna

Alison Cebulla 19:32
do this. You had a traumatic third grade teacher.

Kay Gardner 19:35
Third grade second was so sweet.

Alison Cebulla 19:37
Well, we've all had one. We've all had that one teacher

Anne Sherry 19:41
who Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna use my damn finger and I'm following along right here. You are away. Okay, now we go

Alison Cebulla 19:51
away in our minds right now. We're swatter right here.

Anne Sherry 19:55
Whatever you're out of here. What

Alison Cebulla 19:56
was her name? Whatever.

Anne Sherry 19:59
Yeah, Get out of here. Okay. Smoking door for my finger alone. Okay. Where our missile bahkan

Alison Cebulla 20:13
that was yours that was yours. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 20:18
Okay. You might have been having a lot going on in your life, blah blah blah, whatever. Okay. So, Gardner is the LC PC. That's counselor in Chicago, right? That's how y'all say,

Kay Gardner 20:33
Clinical Professional Counselor.

Anne Sherry 20:35
Okay. All right. So Kaye has over 40 years of clinical experience and 30 years in private practice. She is a senior lead trainer for internal family systems, and has been involved in ifs since 1991. Prior to her work with ifs, she was a therapist and teacher of hakomi body centered psychotherapy. I know about that

Alison Cebulla 20:58
was to start

Anne Sherry 21:04
you She has also been a student of yoga and meditation for over 40 years. She is a gifted and heartfelt presenter, I can vouch for that. Who brings a body centered and spiritual approach to her work. She's also the founder of the women's circle, a women's program in Chicago and has led various successful workshops around the country for men and women. Including for Stephanie's journey men and their mothers. Ooh, can we talk about that?

Alison Cebulla 21:29
Oh, we are gonna be asking you

Anne Sherry 21:34
man. Again, oh, shit, and I did not trauma

Kay Gardner 21:40
that was drama.

Alison Cebulla 21:43
Leading those Yeah. Okay, wait the next

Kay Gardner 21:48
time became the mother.

Anne Sherry 21:50
Oh, man. Oh, here

Alison Cebulla 21:52
we go. Friends.

Anne Sherry 21:54
And then women and their fathers. Another less left. Turn into that.

Alison Cebulla 21:58
Oh, I have a girlfriend. That's like y'all need to cover that on the

Anne Sherry 22:02
grill for real. Okay, this will be part one. We were booking K for

Alison Cebulla 22:06
like 4k. You're coming? Yeah, we're gonna do 70s journey

Anne Sherry 22:11
men and their mothers. Session Three will be women and fathers and then like, girls,

Alison Cebulla 22:18
yeah, the freakin daughter father dances they don't do that with women and boys what the app is that?

Kay Gardner 22:25
I know what it is that

Alison Cebulla 22:27
I'm gonna I want to shake my hands with the world again. Just like your second grade teacher. Get out of here with that shit. If you are listening and you are taking your daughter to a father daughter dance, I need you to take a hard look at the toxic patriarchy you are perpetuating and cut that shit out right now. Right? Yeah, their daughter is not your girlfriend.

Anne Sherry 22:51
Yes. And then we need so another topic today then with that could be emotional incest. That is a topic with Yes. mothers and sons. Yes.

Alison Cebulla 23:04
But that's such a big, big old topic. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker 23:09
Okay, date. Okay, stay tuned. Okay.

Alison Cebulla 23:12
This part one? Okay. Okay, were you a latchkey kid? What was the emotional environment? Were you an urchin? And it's okay to say no, we were frightened about it.

Kay Gardner 23:22
No, I wasn't. I wasn't you know, I'm, I'm a little older than you guys. You know, it's like, Are you a women? Really?

Alison Cebulla 23:30
Are you a boomer? Okay. I'm

Kay Gardner 23:31
a boomer. Yeah. Okay, so the women weren't really going back to work yet. Right? Like they were

Alison Cebulla 23:37
my mom. Mom. The whole time?

Kay Gardner 23:39
Yep. Oh, my mom. Yep. His

Anne Sherry 23:42
mommy and

Kay Gardner 23:46
my mother just ate a lot. You know? Okay, okay. And so and got depressed and laid on the couch. So that was kind of my deal was okay, I have another deal but that wasn't

Alison Cebulla 23:57
Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you were an urgent though you were you you had some emotional neglect where mom was kind of like I can't quite I can't quite

Kay Gardner 24:08
I know mind is a little different. So funny that I'm doing this today because all morning. I got trapped in with my husband around my stuff because Okay, can I just tell you about this?

Anne Sherry 24:20
Yeah, yes, he hit you even if you whisper he can like hear this podcast

Unknown Speaker 24:25
when? He's at home.

Alison Cebulla 24:29
But no, but I love that whisper I love it. That whisper towel. No, seriously those tick tock you know those whisper tiktoks I can't get enough. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 24:38
All right. Okay. What was he up to?

Kay Gardner 24:40
He like had he had this emergency thing where he had to go to the hospital because he was on new add meds. And they had a reaction to it. Oh, I took them to the hospital. This No, no, no. Okay. He was fine. He was fine. Okay, fine. It was just a reaction to the meds But what he said to me in the middle of the reaction to the meds was maybe I'm getting too old, maybe you should never leave me. Maybe you should never go away. Like, I

Anne Sherry 25:12
leave your president. Like, never leave him alone. Like you're fooled like

Kay Gardner 25:16
I travel all the time, right? Of

Anne Sherry 25:18
course. Oh, right. Right. Right. Right. So that didn't go over

Kay Gardner 25:23
my family trauma, right, right. Because my family trauma was my mother. Mother died in a mental institution. So she didn't have a mother. I'm the mother. Like, I am the mother. I'm the one who takes care of her. I sacrifice my life for her and I don't have a life. So the husband says,

Alison Cebulla 25:48
oh, it's funny how the partners will just get in there.

Kay Gardner 25:57
And then, so for a week, I'm walking around my house going, get out here. I gotta get out here. I gotta run. I gotta, like, where am I gonna go like, Oh, and I'm coming to sit with you for a week like? Yeah, yeah. So finally this morning, I just had a big and then shame like, Oh, if I was really good wife, I would just stay home. Right. So all the trauma came up just in time for this podcast. Good.

Anne Sherry 26:28
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you read here? No.

Alison Cebulla 26:32
What did you find? Did you find closure? Yeah. Did you? Are you still working through it?

Kay Gardner 26:39
No, no, we're good. We're good. We had to do a lot of processing. This man. This particular marriage has a lot of processing happens in it.

Anne Sherry 26:47
Yes. I witnessed a workshop. Okay. This is how I know. Okay, and I

Kay Gardner 26:53
ended up that workshop because of this marriage. Okay. Okay.

Alison Cebulla 26:57
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Teaching Tom and I got

Anne Sherry 27:01
from that. Yes, yes. Or just enough to the rails? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So

Kay Gardner 27:10
I love how that happens in couples, right? Like, it's like, one person says, or does this very thing that just triggers the whole?

Alison Cebulla 27:19
There's no other way. There's no other way? Yeah. And we pick the people who are going to show us our trauma. We pick up we're magnetized to him, you'll walk into a room of which book was it that kind of laid this out? I think it was a general theory of love, where you'll walk into a room of 500 people, and your brain knows exactly who you're attracted to you within seconds, milliseconds, you go to a person, you know, just the person that's going to trigger every trauma response you've ever had.

Kay Gardner 27:52
What's interesting about it is this husband number two, because my first husband died 10 years ago, as his wife did awesome, but my first husband was my father. Okay, the tea like Oh, yeah. Oh, my. My father. Yeah. And then this one brings up all the stuff with my mother's

Alison Cebulla 28:09
amazing, I do that too. But I just switch back and forth. I'm like, Well, I got I'm time dating my mom, why don't I try to be my dad?

Anne Sherry 28:19
Yeah, yes.

Kay Gardner 28:20
Yeah. And so that we can do the work that's underneath there. Right. Like that's really I think that's what marriage is really for. That's sort of I you know, I don't know about you guys, but like this many years, like searching for the soulmate. Like where's the soulmate? Like, what does that mean? Like we gotta find somebody who's just we're gonna be happy with the mother

Alison Cebulla 28:41
doesn't exist

Anne Sherry 28:42
know what Tom and I, Tom and I tricked ourselves because we both had marriages that we didn't want to be in and then we got together and we were like, cake. We got the marriages that weren't supposed to be there out of the way. So we shook out being shitty partners. Were both therapists like Yeah, send me a clock. I have wanted Him dead so many times. He has broken like, we buy him reading glasses at what point we we have settled down a lot but like he would he would smash reading glasses. I would just find pieces of reading glasses all over the place. T shirt. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 29:29
That is such a good affordable reading glasses.

Kay Gardner 29:35
Not too bad. Once you get something

Anne Sherry 29:39
Yeah. And like his T shirts. I'd find T shirts ripped to shreds. Like yeah, I was infuriating. I still sell that saying because Okay, I have the untrapped thing. So

Kay Gardner 29:52
you have that too. I do know where

Alison Cebulla 29:59
you guys want I gotta like yes.

Kay Gardner 30:04
No the years. Go to your Yes.

Alison Cebulla 30:07
It's far away. Away perfect. New Zealand sounds amazing. Yeah. remote island in the middle of the Pacific. Oh, there

Kay Gardner 30:15
was a there was a television show called Top of the Lake. Did you guys see this? It's a great show. But these women had yurts, all the women who were titled living with men went to live on yurts on the land.

Alison Cebulla 30:26
Okay, amazing. The beautiful thing.

Anne Sherry 30:29
And then they got like little campers, and they're driving around to like those little Yeah, beautiful little like lime green painted, and they go on camping caravan.

Alison Cebulla 30:38
Well, what about that? Because

Anne Sherry 30:39
we, we had this thing of like, women in that sort of legacy of what you experienced, which was a mom who you had to be her mom and their identification. Yeah. And then the women are going to work and like me, I'm I was left alone. So there's rage from from being left alone. Like, what is yeah, what's happening? Okay,

Kay Gardner 31:05
well, well, it's like, it takes

Anne Sherry 31:07
ages. It's

Kay Gardner 31:10
Hmm. In the realms. It is. It is interesting that I, one of the things that is a specialty of mine is actually working with legacy burdens. Because about that. I, when I first heard about this concept of legacy, Burton was probably like, 25 years ago or so 20 years ago. And there were somebody who came through the IFS community, and she was talking about this and I thought, Legacy burdens like, I know I have one. I know that because my grandmother was mentally ill. And then my mother didn't have a mother. Right? So then all of that stuff got passed on to me like fear of intense feelings. Fear of fear of depression, fear of anger, feel of darkness, fear of all of that my mother, like couldn't handle any of that because that meant she was going crazy. Right? So she passed all that down to me. Fine, and I just had to be this little girl who just took care of her and was always happy and

Alison Cebulla 32:18
nice. always perfect.

Kay Gardner 32:20
Well, not perfect. I didn't have to do everything right but I had to be happy you to be happy and caretaking and loving and nice. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. was not for me, but

Alison Cebulla 32:32
Oh, okay. Maybe that's my Enneagram one and your

Kay Gardner 32:35
your one, too. It's like, be loving and kind. And, yes,

Anne Sherry 32:41
yeah. So unlike a burden reel, I mean, it's this. It's a lot of our listeners probably don't know that term. But specifically, it means like a belief that you carry somewhere in your internal system, like in your

Kay Gardner 32:56
Yeah, it's how you organize your life beliefs, right? Yes, yes. I believe that I have to always be happy. I believe that I did. I also that I was going to be abandoned. Right. And that in that abandonment was like, in the air, like my mother's mother dying on her. Like, it might as well have been my mother dying. Right, right. Like I took that on. Yeah. And as I work with this as I work with legacy burdens, you know, I see this. I have a very close friend whose parents were Holocaust survivors like it. Like for her it might as well have happened to her,

Alison Cebulla 33:34
right. Like in her epigenetics. It is in there

Kay Gardner 33:38
definitely epigenetics, it's, it's inside of her, like, she gets freaked out if she if she moves, or if something changes, you know, it's, it's in us. And so, you know, we're doing all this work about our childhoods, and we're working with our parts, and we're doing all of this. But if we don't extend that out, to start to see where some of this energy comes from, right, and start to understand that it also comes from our parents, sometimes it comes from our grandparents. And as now I'm, I've been I've been doing working with Daniel for who's actually from Asheville, he's Oh,

Anne Sherry 34:18
yeah. And yeah, yeah. And

Kay Gardner 34:22
solar medicine guy, and I've been doing his training just to see like what he knows, which is quite a bit actually. And so really exploring these legacies that go way, way back. Like if you want to follow patriarchy. You know, how far back you have palace and die.

Alison Cebulla 34:45
of variation of patriarchy. Did you read that? Gerda Lerner? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, she's a historian. She was published in 86. She's a historian and she looks at our first record of civil accusation Mesopotamia and other early civilizations? And how we switched from having goddess worship to one male god.

Kay Gardner 35:08
Yes. The thing so, so if we start to look at women, it's like, it's like, we we this like sense of not unworthiness that we carry are not good enough or go one down. You know, if I

Anne Sherry 35:26
getting a little hopeless as we talk about this,

Kay Gardner 35:29
no, no, but you know, I understand. But yeah, there's honestly ways to heal. There's honestly Wait,

Alison Cebulla 35:38
what are we do?

Anne Sherry 35:40
We're still dark time right now, Alison, don't skip ahead.

Alison Cebulla 35:44
Oh, tell us more about the dark times.

Kay Gardner 35:49
But this idea big that? Oh, it's huge, right? Yes. And if you follow this back, you know, you follow up back to your mother. And then it goes back to your grandmother. And then it goes back to your great grandmother. And if you just kept going absolutely. The women who were hung and murdered, born just witches and the heretics who had their heads cut off, you know, it's like, so if indeed, we really are to honor the goddess and are in our given power is women. We were tortured for that.

Alison Cebulla 36:27
Yeah. Yeah. you for saying that? It's true. Yeah,

Kay Gardner 36:32
it's true. So what did women start to learn? It's like, it's like in this work that I'm doing with Daniel for he has us follow these ancestry lines, and just feel into the burdens and blessings for them. And then as I follow into the men, I feel, you know, power over power under power over power under that whole thing that the men do, right? Like, I got to some power, now I'm taking your power buffer, you know, taken years, and wars and all that stuff. But when you start to follow the women, at least my women, it's like disempowerment. Okay. Know, how do I find some sense of power? And it's like, kind of, we can't really do it in the big world, right. So we try to do it in the family or with the kids or, you know, some offhanded way to get some power back. Yeah, right. Yeah. Do you think?

Anne Sherry 37:30
Because we've talked us up there was a guest that it was the it was a male saying, We got to look at the women he felt more abused by the women in his life.

Alison Cebulla 37:41
boys grow up boys by moms. Yes. So that was mind opening. Yeah, for us to consider.

Anne Sherry 37:49
And I wonder if yes, just year at that, like, Where can I take power? Like you don't even

Kay Gardner 37:54
know where can I take power? Right. Where can I take our power is because because it is the fucked up thing. Yeah. Unless we know true power unless we know how to get back to our own sense of to power and I'm not sure we can do that without the Goddess.

Alison Cebulla 38:13
Yeah, right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Kay Gardner 38:14
I think we need that. I think we need that. What are

Anne Sherry 38:18
we talking about? A goddess event? Oh, yeah. What are the quality?

Alison Cebulla 38:22
Let me yeah, let me throw in the economics to just before we go goddess to just because like, as a social scientist, and if you take just like intro to sociology, every place in the whole world when you economically uplift women, so they have just as much or more economic power, you know, then then literacy, right? We're looking at literacy going up for women, and then we're looking at birth rates going down, we're looking at diseases going down, we're looking at mental health. You know, we're looking at longer life expectancies. So the like, this is scientific, you know, fact to, yeah, now tell us about the Goddess.

Kay Gardner 39:03
No, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. All that like, like, that's why that book that you mentioned, like she'll talk about marriage and what marriage was once upon, it was

Alison Cebulla 39:13
slavery. It was the first it was the first record of slavery, because it was a monetary transaction. You were by a woman's right.

Kay Gardner 39:20
That's right. you'd buy her? Yes. You know, and you would own her. Yes, she would. Yep. She would give you sexual favors, right. So, so all of the you know, all of the things that happened in the 60s in the 60s and women giving birth control, you know, and all of that, like all helped so much. Yes. And, and but way, way, way back, way back 1000s of years back, was this whole nonsense about there is no goddess, there's only a god. And we're taking this from you. And if you believe in this, we're gonna kill you. Exactly. And we're gonna enslave you. Yes. And it's like oh, Okay, you know,

Anne Sherry 40:01
so So underground? Yeah.

Kay Gardner 40:04
Yeah, I guess we'll go underground. Yeah. Right. Underground and what and we'll try to get power and other ways like, how are we gonna get power? Right, so, so teaching that I mean, that's why I love is I actually think it's an empowerment model of psychotherapy, it's like we really are empowering ourselves, to heal ourselves from our higher self and to work with our parts and help them to heal, and to have the opportunity to work with the legacy burdens with that, yeah, to be able to see that some of the burdens that we carry are not just ours, right, and to be able to, you know, pass that back and unburden that through time and place and help are in the even, you know, what I love about TANF words, he's actually helping the ancestors to also heal. I wasn't aware. I mean, I was helping individuals to heal from their ancestor burdens, but he's actually helping the whole line of ancestors to heal. I like

Anne Sherry 41:11
beautiful thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a really, when I go in now, it feels like when I do deeper work, more generally, finding lineages like what I've recently found is just gotten curious. Just the level of poverty that my people are from, like, insane amounts of poverty, which is kind of like this patriarchal structural, like, I thought everybody was poor. Like I thought all my Yeah. Oh, my colonial Yes, but it's just awful, like imagery, you know, just bought out the body sensation, which for me, brings up like, sort of imagery. So I don't know if I'm, you know, whatever, whatever it is, but it's this I can like sense into just horrible torture, and like being banished from places you know, like and having to come to and it wasn't this like, Oh, were these just freedom seekers coming to the US? It was like, no, no, no, I wasn't there. I wasn't insured servants. And yeah, so alright.

Unknown Speaker 42:15
Irish.

Anne Sherry 42:17
Yeah. Scotch, Dutch. A lot of a lot of people I've visited cousins this past weekend and, and got some a lot of paperwork on stuff. So I'm going to delve in but it looks like a lot of being cast out from that. I guess it wasn't the Netherlands at that time. My history is terrible. But that region. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 42:39
Yeah, yes.

Anne Sherry 42:41
Get the fuck out. Yeah, you're basically right, you. Yes.

Alison Cebulla 42:45
But I want to read this post by Latinx parenting. It's a great Instagram account. And she's reposted a quote by Andrea Landry. And it says colonialism has mastered the crime of stealing our children and punishing our parents. While then renaming and rebranding our sacred original parenting instructions as Attachment Parenting, conscious parenting, gentle parenting, positive parenting, and more, and people love it. Yes, that was an interesting that was that really made me think because I've seen that in the agricultural world because I studied indigenous agriculture in Peru. And then I would see all these like hippie people, like we're gonna go down to Latin America and teach permaculture. And I was like, permaculture, you need to go down there and learn from the indigenous people. Yeah, not go down there to teach. Yeah. And so I remember that, quote, really made me think about colonialism and parenting and how much we've stolen from indigenous styles of parenting. Yeah, I don't have Do you ever think about that?

Kay Gardner 43:47
Totally. Well, I one of the things that this really, really wonderful book, neither Wolf Nor Dog. He knows. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book, but that it's a indigenous guy who had this white guy from Minnesota write the book for him. And basically, he was talking about how so many white hippies come to New Mexico to try to steal, you know, his their ideas to use that language. And it's like, one of the things that I've been interested in and kind of tapped into is trying to think about my indigenous roots as a waspy. White woman like that's interesting. I'm, I'm Celtic, right like French, English and Irish are my my people are from there. It's like, it's like, okay, so what are my indigenous roots, because I have them, but it's been so many 1000s of years, since my people were indigenous that I get attracted to Native America. I went and studied shamanism in Peru. Right? Like, right. I'm attracted to that because I want that wisdom. Yes. But But I can't go taking it from other you know? Yeah, right. Right. Right. Right. So so how do I start to tap into my own indigenous roots? And so I'm doing that I'm spending hours like watch

Alison Cebulla 45:20
midsummer. Oh, god, it's summer. No, no, it's a joke. It's a joke.

For our listeners who haven't seen it, I think people know what we're talking about. But it's a horror film about what sort of like what, like indigenous Swedish folk culture could be like, and

Anne Sherry 45:46
it is. Yeah, I felt every time you say the word it just it was awful. Yeah, it was very clever. Yeah, it's M M I D S O M. M er, right. mid summer. Yeah, yes. Yeah. Okay. My

Kay Gardner 46:00
daughter told me about it.

Anne Sherry 46:03
Yeah, yeah. Okay,

Kay Gardner 46:07
all right. Yeah, but that but that like, like, somehow gaining back that wisdom. Okay, so that so that we do know how to empower ourselves. Yeah. In a way that's really fully that is power. You know, real power, not power over power under one down one up?

Anne Sherry 46:28
Yeah. Well, and the body like we finally have brought the body fully. I mean, that was new in the ad, body Senate. Like how Comey was, right. I mean, saying and all that. And so I every I hear it everywhere now. Like mindfulness and body centered, which is fairly new. Body. Yes, yeah. Yeah, we were

Kay Gardner 46:54
we were current edge, right. Yeah. Well, in our just mainstream.

Anne Sherry 47:00
I know. I have so much hope that people are starting their therapy. Now. Where the body is being incorporated early, early, rather than

Kay Gardner 47:12
the body was another thing that got taken out of the equation. Right. It was another disempowerment. Yeah, emotions were disempowered. Yes. The body was just empowered. Yeah. And so it's like, Well, no wonder we have all these burdens from our parents, because they were so disempowered and think about their parents. And how far back does that go?

Anne Sherry 47:33
Yeah, forever? Well, that's the way to claim a heritage, if you can get to know your body, like the bodies always. Yeah, that is a direct lineage.

Kay Gardner 47:46
That's right. To, to being,

Anne Sherry 47:48
I mean, being a human. So it's incredibly important. So,

Alison Cebulla 47:52
Kay, for folks who are listening, and are kind of curious about starting or doing more of this legacy burden work? Where should people start? What they should? What should they be thinking about? How can they how can they dive in?

Kay Gardner 48:10
Well, I think to start thinking about where your people are, from a kind of where, where did they? Where did they come from, you know, there's, there's all this, you know, ancestor.com and 23 and Me, you can get that information from there. But I think just just spending some time thinking about that, you know, doing a little bit of research about, you know, whether it's books or movies or, you know, really tracking like, what what did your people go through, you know, what kinds of things were happening for them? And what kinds of burdens do they carry? And so, so, so it's a, it's a both and thing, right? So, so kind of tracking that, like, what came from the past, but also really noticing for yourself, like, issues that you carry, some of them are from your childhood, you know, and to and to pay attention to that. But also to realize that these, these issues may not be just yours, right? You know, they may be something that you inherited from one of your parents, you know, or a grandparent. And so to keep that keep an open mind about that, you know, we're so psychology oriented, where it's just, you know, it's just, it's the psychology of your childhood. It's Sigmund Freud, right. Like, it's, it's bigger than that.

Alison Cebulla 49:38
Right? Right. Right. It's

Kay Gardner 49:41
a bigger picture than that, like we're, we're we're a big we're a very big system.

Alison Cebulla 49:46
Well, I was chatting with my mom this morning, about cuz the, you know, kind of the like the tiktoks and the memes are a lot about how the boomer generation is maybe in a macro way struggling to care a little bit we talk about that a lot on this podcast, there's been a big focus on achieving wealth and owning things. And the earth is dying. And the boomers are not coming to the rescue for the most part on a macro level. And I'm not talking about individuals. And I was like, what happened where boomers don't care, and they don't care about the future generations? And I was like, Was it like the lead paint the lead and everything? Was it the morphine verse was that the moms were on? Was it the because my mom and none of her siblings were breastfed, and I'm not shaming anyone who has to bottle feed at all. But that was a whole era. No, no, babies don't. Don't get Don't get in my mind

Anne Sherry 50:45
from you. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah. Like, I wonder if it just Yeah, hearing. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 50:51
just lack of caring that boomers experienced. That if you look, and then my mom and I were like, well, what's beyond that? It's like, you know, we had World War One. We have the Great Depression, we have World War Two. And all of my grandparents were born in the 30s. So they were children during World War Two. And then, but they they were born into the depravity of the Depression, you know, and then they experienced that war. And there's that historical legacy of this stuff is it's built in there, you know?

Kay Gardner 51:26
Well, I actually think, I mean, if I think about because I am a Boomer and it's like, I was raised by people who taught me not to have feelings. Yeah, right. Yeah. So I had to spend my whole life recovering my feelings, right, like, oh, I sad. Oh, I'm sad. You know? Yeah. Like, it took me a million years to realize I was sad. Like, I couldn't be sad. Hey, man, same right. So, so maybe it's a Maslow's hierarchy. Yeah. And the thing, right, like, well, we're so busy trying to recover ourselves.

Anne Sherry 52:04
Right. But yeah, baby. I don't have that thing I've talked about before that Daniel Sherryl book. I'd love to have him on the podcast. He wrote the book. He's, he's a, I don't he may be Gen Z. He wrote the book warm. Yeah. But he was probably Yeah, millennial. Yeah, I think he is. Yeah. But his big thing was like, if you can't grieve, and I think to really grieve something, you have to feel it. Nothing is real. Yeah, you can't feel it. Things aren't real. So the environment is not a real thing. People struggling. It's not a real thing.

Alison Cebulla 52:39
You're not in your body. Yeah, it doesn't exist. Yeah, we've only

Anne Sherry 52:44
just started to get back into our bodies. Like we said, Okay, right. I mean, how come? Yeah, that was my first type of therapy. Experiencing it, but that was weird. I would tell people about that. Like, what are you doing? You know, you just talk about it. I remember Ron Kurtz saying it. Yeah, that's just an expensive conversation. If you're just going to talk about it. He was saying, you got it.

Alison Cebulla 53:06
Got to get in there and feel it. Feel your feelings instead of think you're feeling? Yeah,

Anne Sherry 53:10
yeah. Things are only now becoming real. Maybe that's it?

Kay Gardner 53:15
Well, yeah, I'm appreciating this conversation. Like, I don't think I ever thought about that before. Like, the boomers like not like we really were like, if you look at the world war two generation, they were all cut off from their feeling. Yeah, everything was supposed to be good and nice and happy and good. Yeah. It's like they raised children. Yes. Yeah. And they raised children that that's how they had to be. And so that would make sense that that if we can't, but can't feel it, yeah, home enough to feel it. Right.

Alison Cebulla 53:50
It's interesting that contrast between what was shown in the media of like the perfect family versus like, all those Trump all those hard things about life, we're still there in the past. It's hard to conceptualize sometimes, but like, for example, my grandfather, on my dad's side, his mom was pregnant before she was married with she was pregnant with him. Now in the 30s. That was a giant giant taboo. scandalous. Yeah. And that was the emotional environment that he was born into. Where we're wondering, was violence involved was, you know, like, Did she really want to marry his dad? Is the dad even the dad, like, like, we have questions. And that's just as messy as what we know our current life to be. But I think sometimes we forget to apply, like the messiness that we know of current life to the past, where they didn't have tools. They had way like you couldn't just go get an abortion have birth control, and you know, there was like real repressive religion. Okay, it was just yes or now

Anne Sherry 54:58
we're only Then what happens if we keep following that? Who the fuck bad feelings like that? Okay, indigenous who lived on the earth? Or like where were the feelings? Right?

Alison Cebulla 55:13
Do you guys ever read like Silas? Marner or whatever, you know, Dickens feelings existed? They existed. So I'm like, did they go away? Like, away? Is it an evolution? Like now we have more of them? Or is it more like if they come and go in waves?

Kay Gardner 55:30
Well, but I think the feelings I think the feeling, especially if you're talking about England, you know, I think the feelings were like really wrapped up.

Alison Cebulla 55:38
Oh, yeah. Maybe you could

Kay Gardner 55:40
write about them. Yeah. You couldn't talk about them?

Anne Sherry 55:43
Yeah. You know, you couldn't even breathe in England. I think those courses No. Yeah. Like, I think women

Kay Gardner 55:51
know. And if you had earlier, yeah, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 55:54
So it's not we're experiencing progress. It's not like,

Anne Sherry 55:59
I think, I think

Kay Gardner 56:00
we're definitely experiencing progress. I do, even though it looks horrible. Everything was horrible. It's like, it's like I've had we're in a pandemic. And it's like, all kinds of shit is hitting the fan. But I think we're, I think we're progressing. I do,

Alison Cebulla 56:15
I want to do but I once Googled because of my work in child abuse, Health, Science Communication. I had this thing where it when we were talking about, especially like, when we were all worried that Trump was going to, you know, do you serve to our government, and that it was going to be the fall of of our society as we knew it. I decided to Google. Did child abuse cause the fall of the Roman Empire?

Anne Sherry 56:40
Whoa, what did you find? Wow, what do you find?

Alison Cebulla 56:43
It's not a no, it's not a no, that's for sure. So I found some really interesting stuff. So I guess at that time, if you felt like you had too many kids, you know, like, you weren't gonna you couldn't, they didn't have the technology or whatever, for an abortion or whatever. So you just have the kid. And if you didn't want to keep it, you just set it out on the curb, and someone would come by and enslave your child. So this, this is really interesting actually helps me have more compassion for like fundamentalist Christians who are anti abortion because what happened is the church came in and, and originally the church said, No, you have to care about your children. So that's kind of the origin. Yeah, that light. Yeah. Yeah. Don't you can't just stick your kid out there on the curb. Your kid matters. Right. So the church, the Christian religion offered that so that was that was an interesting finding. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 57:39
Did it is that are because they really care. They wanted to make sure that was gonna be a good tie there. Like you have to keep.

Alison Cebulla 57:48
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I still think it's progress.

Anne Sherry 57:51
Yes. Oh, sure. Okay, that's what we were talking about progress. Yeah. It's better.

Kay Gardner 57:59
Yes. Well, in progress all the way along. Like if we look way, way back, like we I think we are making progress as a developmental species.

Anne Sherry 58:09
Yes. Yeah. I

Kay Gardner 58:10
think we're making progress.

Alison Cebulla 58:11
Yeah. And so how do you see legacy traumas show up in your life or your clients? You've just spoken a little bit about you and your mom. But what are some of the ways that tangibly This is showing up for people?

Kay Gardner 58:26
It's like all the time. So I think more and more, I think, I think I don't know, if you find the sound in your practice, but I'm finding more and more people are coming to me with legacy burdens. And and what they, what they find is, you know, as I have them kind of go inside and feel into a part of them and get to know it. I always ask the question. So see if you could get a sense of how long has this part been with you? And people will say things like, always been there. It's I've had it forever. This part has always been with me. And that's a clue for me. Yeah. It's like, Well, did you come in with this? Were you born with it? Or didn't? Did you come in with it? And they'll say, You know what, I came in with it like I can't. And then I'll say, so check and see, does this belong to somebody else? And then the light bulb goes off. They're like, Oh, my God, this is my mother's like, my mother had this in spades like, yeah, suddenly, I'm carrying this, but this was hers. Damn. Right. And this happens over and over. And so then what I'll do is I'll say okay, so how much of this is yours? And how much of this belongs to her? Yeah, so they might say, you know, 5050 I have 50% of it, but 50% and this is hers. So then I'll say okay, so let's see if we could work with this will work. The 50%, that's yours. But first, let's see if we could work with this. That's your mother's. And so then we, we call in the mother's energy. So maybe she's dead. But we, we invited in. And then we asked the mother, does this belong to you? Or does this go back even further? And the mother knows, right? So she'll say, oh, yeah, this is 50% mine, but it's also my grandmother's like, and then it can go back and back and back and back and back. Right, you could follow the spec, or it could go back just two generations, or it could go back several generations, but people can name that. They can feel it. And then you start to work with it as an energetic process, right. So see if you could take that energy that doesn't belong to you, and see if you could pass it back to your mom. And so then your mother takes it. And then see if your mother can take your energy and her own, pass it back to her mother. And it might go all the way back. And what I'm learning from working with down the force work is he's, he's inviting you to connect with guides from your ancestor line, way, way back. So I'm starting to invite them in to help to resolve some of this legacy burden that goes back and forth between the generations, and they're more than happy to do it because yeah, they want to see us healthy too. Right. So and if they don't work with that, if that doesn't work for a lot of people are like I don't know what you're talking about, you know, doesn't matter. Ya know, they still pass it back and they can do an unburdening.

Alison Cebulla 1:01:46
Yeah, I mean, what are the benefits? I'm we're done. What are the benefits of doing I mean, to me, it sounds very nourishing. I'm getting it sounds like it's um, like you said, unburdening yourself and seeing where the where, you know, so I'm getting it. But if someone's a little more skeptical, why would I want to talk to my ancestors? Or why would I want to work with an energy? I can't see? What are some of the benefits of doing this work?

Kay Gardner 1:02:10
So well, some of the energies of doing that. If they disagree, mean, or someone says it to me? What are the benefits?

Alison Cebulla 1:02:20
If it's well, so it's a

Anne Sherry 1:02:22
little intense. I know what you're talking about, like,

Alison Cebulla 1:02:24
why would someone want to do this work?

Kay Gardner 1:02:27
Yeah, yeah. Well, so that they can let go of any beliefs that they carry, like, okay, let's say let's say you have a belief of, you're not good enough. Right? Yeah. Which a lot of women have this, right. Yes. So you have a belief that you're not good enough? You track that? When did that belief first start to come to live with you? It goes, I don't know. I've always had it. Then it's your van. It turns out your mother had this to write, and her mother before her. So the benefit of this is to let go to begin to let go of that belief that you have that you're not good enough. There's a great benefit to that. Like, who wants to walk around feeling not good enough, right in your life? And all these ways?

Anne Sherry 1:03:16
Yeah, it to me, it's that piece of whether you believe in ancestors or energy or whatever, but just to get clarity, like, Oh, this is bigger than me. Not good enough. Is it something I did? Or I didn't just try? I couldn't I can't just try harder on some level. Yeah, I think to tell the truth about that. Or at least, I mean, this is what Allison has been eye opening to me, even you and I coming together, like Alison brings a tremendous amount of just the structures that are in place. Yeah, it's been really helpful to say, oh, like, Well, where do these women get beliefs about not good enough? Well, unnecessary poverty, like unnecessary, you know, imprisonment. Being shot killed, you know, just, it's in there somewhere. And I think we could just say, like, well, genetic code exist if we want to go on, you know, totally scientific here. Yeah, and it's just not all mine. There's a way you know, sometimes, you just need that person to hate for it to that was my thing. I just, my mother couldn't show up. So I gotta hate her. Like, and that's an energy to survive, you know? And so, yes, but that ability to work with that energy, but also say, you know, and that really happened, so that's sort of working with my childhood, but I think I can also hold that oh, God, she was covered up and all kinds of shit too. So they don't cancel each other out to have compassion for a parent who couldn't show up. I think you can work yeah, I think the legacy is sort of the bridge to some of that stuff.

Kay Gardner 1:04:54
Yeah, kind of freezing not even. Fashion could come even later, but just like Not wanting to hold this like, yeah, I don't want to be holding. This is yours.

Anne Sherry 1:05:05
Yeah. That's right.

Kay Gardner 1:05:10
Yeah. And also offering them a way to let go of it. Yeah. So you're not dumping it on them. You're not just giving it back from here, keep this, ya know, then they can take it Nick and pass it back. Yeah. And then it can get passed down to a place where they can unburden it, you know, a healing space. Yeah. You know, and to allow some healing to come back to them so that they can take that healing back into their own bodies. And,

Alison Cebulla 1:05:39
yeah, yeah, cuz I'm thinking like, um, you know, you were saying earlier about how as white as descendants of white settler colonial people, we don't really have cultural tribal cultural practices anymore. And that's why we do borrow from people with more recent indigenous history

Kay Gardner 1:05:58
steal, or you know, car intention. Yeah, co op. Right. I would I think our intention is like, We're lost

Alison Cebulla 1:06:08
or lost. That's yeah. So because we ritual and maybe you could speak to the power of ritual, but it's like, so important to say, like, even like, say, like, coming of age rituals, which we don't really have, except for like, hazing in college or something. That's, you know, really harmful. We don't we just it's it's, there's there's not space to process our grief or to or like you're saying to unburden that energy you know, of like, yeah, or

Anne Sherry 1:06:39
honor transitions, right. Yeah. All from one to the next. Yeah, like

Kay Gardner 1:06:45
Yes. And I've been rituals been very strong in my life. It's a very strong part of my life and I like I'm doing a May Day ritual next week and

Alison Cebulla 1:06:53
midsummer again

Paul, they have a maple now No, no, you're

Kay Gardner 1:07:10
lovely. But But I but you know, I had to I first I study with Native American people on borrowed from them, and then Peruvian shamanism, and, and now I'm, I'm, I don't, I don't I want to do as best I can to try to get it from my own people. Yeah, I'm trying to study as much as I can and get that information like

Alison Cebulla 1:07:32
pagan pagan things. Well, yeah, like

Kay Gardner 1:07:35
on animism, you know, more like Celtic shamanism? Yeah, that's yeah, I'm Celtic. So I'm trying to be like, okay, my people are Celtic. Like, how can I get as much information about what that looks like? So that I am, I don't want to dishonor anybody. I don't want to be stealing from anybody. I want to try to bring my own roots back in so that I can, you know, be honoring of my ancestors. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:08:04
I got some stuff around. I don't know. I don't know where but my, my people are people of the dirt. And I kind of got that in, like farmers. It's hard scrabble. And I've been trying to get away from that. And what's so crazy is I married Tom and he's a, you know, a gardener. And I almost like a farmer. And, and drove him away from it. I just got information from him that like he has some stuff about me, like, having us move off the farm and moving in town, because I want to be close and everything anyways, okay, wherever I get that out. But I was like, oh, as soon as I got that, I was like, Ah, I'm going to start planting and I'm going to be interested in learning. And I'm like, Hey, and like, oh, yeah, I remember. Yeah. says, you know, so don't have to know. Yeah, we had these rituals, but just getting your hands in dirt with plants? And yes, and yes, yeah. Well,

Kay Gardner 1:09:00
yeah. Well, especially when we when we were like, you know, our parents were, you know, whatever. And we had to reject them. And we had to get away from them. Yeah. heal ourselves and do all that. Yeah. It's like, we're like, kind of anti ancestors. Right. Yeah. But if we feel into those ancestors way, way back, there are some very wise, you know, beautiful ancestors that we have access. Yes. And then in Taiwan are some of the things

Anne Sherry 1:09:27
right, right. Well, in that toxic Yeah, what

Kay Gardner 1:09:30
a blessing, right.

Anne Sherry 1:09:32
Yeah. So I think it's helping with like saying, we don't have to stay disconnected. That's what Oh, but

Alison Cebulla 1:09:38
that, you know, that brings me to another question that I always have when it comes to this type of work, which is like, what if there's a lot of abuse in your family? I feel like that makes it tough to try and connect with your ancestors, like why not the grandfather artists spoke about but the other one was a pedophile who molested me and Other members of my family. So in a sense, I can imagine myself trying to find more of like the human spirit to connect with and see his pain. But on the other hand, I can I definitely can understand people who had so much abuse that was horrifying being like, I'm done with my ancestors. Yeah, ask themselves.

Kay Gardner 1:10:21
Well, well, the beautiful thing about the work that Daniel four does, which I've been studying, which I just really like, what he does, like, you, you on my list, bypass all those people like, Yeah, seriously, it's really good. And so but you bypass all these people, right? You okay, you, you, you're going you're going through your ancestors, a lot of dark fuckers in our energy and all of us, you know, and really unhealthy. You know, all kinds of pedophiles, perpetrators colonizers, you know, I mean, killers, you know, like, you name it, you know, we have a lot of that. Yeah, so what we're trying to do is feel better, what Daniel is trying to do, is like, feel back through those ancestors all the way back to you can get to the healthy ones. And sometimes you have to go 1000s of years back to get to them. And then those ancestors are helping you to heal this ancestor line. And, and so and so you don't have to do it. It's not, it's not your job. Okay, your job, your job is to get yourself clean, clean, clear of them. Yeah. And that's the ancestors in the way back who are doing the work to help heal the ancestry line. So it's a you don't have to deal with that.

Anne Sherry 1:11:45
Kind of bypassing you can do like we talked about. Good. Yeah. Yeah, spirit bypass ancestor. Right.

Alison Cebulla 1:11:56
So we have a fun game to play. And I just have one more question. Which is how? Because I think you touched on it. But how? Because you're an ifs specialist. How do you see ifs integrating with this work? Ifs for everyone listening as internal family systems? Well,

Kay Gardner 1:12:15
perfectly. Like I said, it's, it's, you know, as we're working with our parts, we always ask the question, so when did this part first come to live with you? How long has it been with you? Right? Okay. Yeah, so So what we're noticing is that these parts start to name. Oh, I see more and more. They're saying I came in with this. Yeah, so it's a natural.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:39
I gotcha. I gotcha. Figuring out does the part does it have a historical legacy here? Yeah. Okay, got it. That makes

Kay Gardner 1:12:48
ifs therapists really need to learn more about how to work with this because it's coming up more and more everybody has supervisors like oh my God every day I get you know, people with ancestor legacy burdens

Alison Cebulla 1:13:00
so I think everyone in the US has one this is a violent

Anne Sherry 1:13:08
dis we have

Kay Gardner 1:13:13
power over all

Anne Sherry 1:13:15
millionaires. However, we're letting that happen. You know, all that hoard, money.

Kay Gardner 1:13:22
All of that is up for healing and we can't do it. We can't it's not just us. We have to we have to help them to you know, know like that.

Anne Sherry 1:13:33
Yeah. Here comes here comes our game Kay.

Alison Cebulla 1:13:49
Are you ready for that? Like I guess it is. So I have in front of me, you've probably seen it. It's a big colorful wheel and it has feeling words on it. And so I'm just gonna spin my finger around and you tell me when to stop. And then that's the feeling that will be yours. And we don't want anyone to have to participate without their consent. So if you want to just share, maybe we do it opposite what the feeling feels like in your body first. We've been doing it the wrong way. Right. I think you need to name what it feels like in the body first, then a time you've recently experienced it. You can do it either way. Yeah, I think.

Anne Sherry 1:14:32
Yeah. Liking the body first. I've noticed that okay, that's work because I didn't leave my feelings. Yeah, I tend to think

Alison Cebulla 1:14:39
if I remember when I felt it that helps me like when I'm like, oh, that happened on Saturday. And then I like feel either way. Either way. Whatever. Yeah. Do you do you consent? You consent? I consent. Okay. Yeah, okay. So, um, just tell me when to stop. Stop. hostile.

Kay Gardner 1:15:02
Woof woof. Wow it's right here. It's like a block in my heart. So it's funny because I have felt it a few times today

Anne Sherry 1:15:25
Well, yeah,

Kay Gardner 1:15:26
the fight the fight with the husband, right? Like, yeah, like, you know, you did say this to me, Dennis, you did say, you know, yeah, that you want me to stay home and never go anywhere? Yeah, you know, and then he's like, Oh, I didn't really say that.

Anne Sherry 1:15:40
Or Yeah.

Kay Gardner 1:15:43
So that's it.

Anne Sherry 1:15:46
Yeah, no blocking the heart like

Alison Cebulla 1:15:52
yeah, I really feel that way. And I yeah, I've had some some heavy hostile discussions with my partner lately as well. And I don't want to ever share too much. But, um, hostile is such a good word for like, it's almost like we're, well, the book attached by Amir Levine, such a good book about relationships. They said that if you have insecure attachment, you're treating your partner like the enemy. And if you have secure attachment, you're treating your partner like royalty. Oh, I know. And every once in a while I catch myself where I'm like, you're treating your partner like the enemy. And no one has ever been more on your side on the whole planet Earth than your partner. What are you doing?

Anne Sherry 1:16:40
Yeah. Yes. You're in a childhood flashback. Yes.

Alison Cebulla 1:16:46
So yeah,

Anne Sherry 1:16:48
yeah. Nice. Okay, you're good. Thank you. Okay. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:16:53
I got it. Yes. Yeah, I

Anne Sherry 1:16:58
have to go. Okay. So much of you. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:17:01
Okay, so, so a we're gonna do it, too. We're gonna do it. Yes. Okay. What are we doing? We're gonna do? Yeah, good. Yeah. We do it with you. Okay, so, so an, okay, I

Anne Sherry 1:17:12
don't like this game. Learning to like, okay, stop, Allison. I still that was hostile the way I said that. Crowd. Oh, okay. I immediately had, like, we don't do that word, like proud is not okay. So that's a part that just showed up like, crowd is something you don't do?

Alison Cebulla 1:17:40
Yeah, that's a Gen X. That's not millennial. Yeah, that's not millennial energy. Yeah. Millennials.

Anne Sherry 1:17:52
Okay, so proud. What is proud feel like I have, let me get the feeling first. So funny trying to get that part that step out of the way, it was like lit, don't do it. I can feel bubbliness in my chest, which feels like good, like almost good energy coming up. I'm liking looking at the two of you, like I'm about to tell you something I'm really proud about. So I can like stay in contact with you both. I'm getting giggly or the bubbliness. And my chest is just coming up. So that's what's happening in my body. That I went and visited cousins this weekend, I've had the narrative that I don't have any family. But I have cousins first cousins that live two hours away that I really like they're big fans of our podcast, too. And I finally was like, Hey, I reached out and said, I need family. Can I come visit? They're like, Oh my god, get over here. So I had this. Yes. And so I'm legacy wise, you know, it's just like, we don't have family. We don't do family. So I'm breaking that legacy thing down. And

Alison Cebulla 1:19:10
I'm so proud of view and

Anne Sherry 1:19:14
fun and my thing is bent. You know, often it's like, oh, it's such a burden, or it's too much to do and it was like, couldn't wait to go trying to get there early, didn't want to leave hung out all day. And they're just good. Like, yeah, and then there's second, third, fourth cousins. So they were also cousins for August to play with. So he played with two of his fourth or fifth cousins. For 24 hours. I never saw him. No. So he's all proud that he has cousins. He's like I got a lot of crowd stuff happen. So breaking that. So good. Yes, all right. So can you get to tell Allison winters Stop on the wheel I think is what we do.

Alison Cebulla 1:20:02
Yeah, tell me Well stop. Yeah. Stop. Rushed okay. I'm like I have been feeling the opposite of Rush lately I quit my job. I got into nice little depressive funk. I'm like, Lounge has been the primary emotion Oh, I have one. Um, it I think it comes with like some grief. I feel sometimes like I need to rush to like my life and career. Like, I need to get the kids and the House and the marriage. I better hurry up. I'm feeling like it's like pressure. Like I'm 37 I didn't do the things and it's like, I feel like I'm in a rush. And it's a really miserable feeling actually, because I'm no good things come when we're in a rush. So that one is more of a grief feel of a heaviness in my eyes and a welling up and a sadness. But the the that's the grief part the rush part of like I have to do it now I have to get out I have to buy a house now. It's not embodied. I don't think that's an emotion that's really embodied I think would not come back to the body. The rush stops

Anne Sherry 1:21:39
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You'll find your way. Oh,

Alison Cebulla 1:21:44
yeah. Isn't that funny, though? how some of the feeling words is almost like I mean, I definitely think maybe rush just like a tightness. I think I could do that. But you know, but like, some of them are like, Oh, that's maybe more of a thought than a feeling. You know, sometimes. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:21:59
How are you most of my feelings? Feelings. Yes. I see. Yeah. So yeah, I think what I'm here is whatever therapists you're talking to ask them to ask you. Like, how long that part been around, like, start looking outside of just your childhood, like, just get bigger get weighed.

Kay Gardner 1:22:29
Yeah, so the things that you may have inherited. Fabulous.

Anne Sherry 1:22:33
Thank you. Yeah. Okay.

Kay Gardner 1:22:35
Thanks so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai