110 ~ Seven Generations Forward and Back: Family Lineages

The threads of ancestry shape daily life in both subtle and profound ways. From stress responses to emotional habits to worldview, Catherine and Brenda reflect on how they are living expressions of those who came before them.

In this episode, they explore the Indigenous wisdom concept of Seven Generations Forward and Back, which teaches that present choices affect seven generations ahead while also carrying wisdom, gifts, and wounds from seven generations behind.

Catherine shares how she inherited a lineage of hardworking women who rarely asked for help, giving her strength but limiting her ability to receive support. Brenda reflects on her family’s pattern of suppressing emotions to keep peace in relationships and how she is transforming this legacy for her children.

Together, they discuss how healing is not only personal but ancestral. By consciously working with inherited patterns, it is possible to create change in one’s own life, ripple healing backward, and open new paths forward.

They also reflect on the opportunity to learn from younger generations who have already moved beyond certain patterns. Instead of feeling threatened, their growth can serve as inspiration and guidance.

This conversation highlights how ancestral healing influences not only families but also communities and future generations.

Episode Highlights
• Patterns of ancestors live in our bodies, thoughts, and behaviors
• Ancestral patterns include both wounds and gifts to recognize and honor
• Breaking generational patterns requires awareness and courage
• Children often evolve beyond their parents’ patterns, creating opportunities for learning
• Even without biological children, influence spreads through connections and relationships
• Healing creates ripple effects through past and future generations
• Life choices affect seven generations forward, regardless of having children

What story from your lineage are you carrying and are you ready to change it? What do you love about your lineage that you're ready to pass on? Let us know how this episode resonated with you. Rate, like and share. We love hearing from you. 

Chapters

• 2:10 Seven Generations Concept Explained
• 6:53 Catherine's Inherited Patterns
• 13:17 Brenda's Journey with Emotional Truth
• 22:16 Learning from Our Children
• 28:18 Influencing Beyond Family Lines
• 32:40 Closing Thoughts and Reflections

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

Speaker 2: 0:16

I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life. Motherhood relationships and my business Desire has taken me on quite a ride and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher turned coach and guide of the feminine.

Speaker 1: 0:36

And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married. I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of tired and wired and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker and a forever student.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.

Speaker 1: 1:12

On the Desires Medicine podcast. We talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked being responsible for our desire. Hello, welcome back. Family, friends, listeners, my gorgeous co-host is here with me. We have been dropping some really beautiful episodes and one of the things that came up in one of our previous episodes actually rather recently this concept of seven generations forward and back. You may have heard this before, you may not have heard it before, but I thought it would be important for Brenda and I to cover it, because we sort of chuckled and giggled when we were recording that podcast and I thought to myself maybe we see it differently, maybe we see it the same, and how wonderful would it be for us to just share it with our community. So here we are.

Speaker 1: 2:12

So brief context Seven Generations Forward and Back comes from Indigenous wisdom, the idea that our choices today will affect seven generations forward and that we carry in ourselves wisdom and or some people could argue, trauma from up to, if not more than, seven generations backwards. And not everybody's going to be on board with this. So if this is you and you're not on board, cool, stay, enjoy the show. And if you're super curious, again stay, enjoy the show. And if you are a hundred percent on board, you're like, yes, I know this. Well then, join us, because we're going to sort of talk a little deeper about it. Join us because we're going to sort of talk a little deeper about it.

Speaker 1: 3:13

So I felt called to talk about this because I do energy work as well, and part of energy work is this idea that when we're in theta and we're working on the emotional body, mental body, thinking body, physical body, et cetera, that we're working on all four levels and planes and all different dimensions and reality. That's sort of on one side of the spectrum, on the total woo side, and then on the completely non-woo side, we could look at it from a scientific perspective of it's not even just seven generations back. Just you listening to this podcast. You being born was a miracle. It took so many of your ancestors to be in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing, for you to even be born, and so I want Brenda and I to talk a little bit more about this, and this is why it was really important for me to talk about it and thankfully, brenda said yes. But, brenda, what comes up for you as I introduce this concept? Have I said all the pieces and parts? Is there something lacking that you want to add?

Speaker 2: 4:22

I think you summed it up beautifully.

Speaker 2: 4:24

It was a great introduction and I love that you said it's indigenous wisdom, because I think this is something that people have always known but we've kind of forgotten about in modern times and I feel like there's definitely an opening to this, like people are more going back to let's call it ancient wisdom, embodied wisdom of knowing the truth of this, that we're not just individuals living our lives, that we impact each other very deeply and what we do impacts our children and our children's children and their children seven generations down the road Wow, that's a really long time and that we are the product of our parents, our grandparents and seven generations back.

Speaker 2: 5:15

Like really slowing it down to really think about that is huge. It's a huge spectrum of experiences. It's a huge spectrum of experiences traumas, hurts, pains, gifts, all the experiences that our ancestors have had in our lineages, every joy, every pain. Like really it comes down to those little things and the big things that happened in their lives, that shape not only their life but the future generations. So it's really super freaking cool to break it down and look at that.

Speaker 1: 5:53

Thank you so much for sharing your joy. It gives me like little butterflies in my belly to chat with you when you get excited about things, and I could tell that she's excited about this topic. So let's explore this concept. Seven Generations Walk we're talking about how family lineage, ancestral patterns, cultural norms, whatever we inherited we could say trauma or joy either, or pick one shape us. It's really both.

Speaker 2: 6:25

It's just both. It really is both, and it's fair to say both, because I think a lot of times people are talking about the wounds from my ancestors, the pains, the trauma. My nervous system is activated all the time and we're always focusing on the problems, but there's many gifts as well, and I think it's really important to note that. A hundred percent.

Speaker 1: 6:43

So let's share some examples, maybe some stories. What patterns did you notice in your family that shaped you potentially like an emotional go-to? Do you have one, an emotional go-to or any other pattern, emotion or otherwise, that you're like, oh I share this with my paternal side or oh, I share this with my maternal side?

Speaker 2: 7:08

This is so good, my God. There's so many. There's some really big ones so many. How about everything? How about literally everything about you? Yeah, pretty much everything about you comes from the generations before. Sometimes I could feel my mother and my grandmother, my grandmothers, in my body. My mother's still alive, my grandmothers have passed. I can feel them in my body in the way that I move or the way that I think or I'll do something, and I feel their blood in my blood. It's super trippy, totally. Do you have that? Do you experience?

Speaker 1: 7:57

that Actually the thing, the image that's coming to mind right now for me, with you and saying this and it's not just you, I think is bone broth. Like bone broth is made, you go to the butcher, you get these organic bones and you create this broth and that broth sustains you for X amount of soups or X amount of broths where you can freeze them and maybe just have a cube at a time or put that cube inside of a soup or a roast or something else, and it's just a piece of this larger pie. And when I think about everything that has made me and I understand that I am a mixture of my maternal, my paternal side seven generations forward and back I'll describe why I say forward in a bit and In addition to whomever was in my present day life up until the age of seven, when I was super spongy and was just picking up different beliefs and impressions from the outside world by the time we're seven or eight, we start to sort of tune out as we begin to individuate I don't know if that's the word, but we start to decide what do I like, what don't I like, what's for me, what's not for me? But we've had input all the way from the ovum and the sperm to the time that we were I don't know if the word is gestating, but we were just being cooked and then born into the space. In addition to our father's voice, whomever, our mother's voice from outside, when we're in the womb, their nervous systems that are holding us all of these pieces are imprinting who we become and what we carry In addition to. I'm slightly more Wu, so I also feel that and as part of my practice, that I also have a soul family and I have my different soul family blueprint and that I'm here to experience my human in this duality, the world that has duality, night and day, good and bad, right and wrong. For me to experience myself in that and learn deeper lessons. And so when I think about that question specifically, what patterns do I notice in my family?

Speaker 1: 10:31

I would say I was born into a family where women for many generations back were very hard workers. They worked. My grandmother had a bakery. I think everybody worked in that bakery and I'm thinking about her specifically because I think my mom's mom, that generation. I'm generation X, so my grandmother is deceased, but I come from third world country. It wasn't like we're talking about generations where women really air quotes didn't really work right. It was, for the most, we're homemakers, and so I think I have a really strong work ethic and I think it's bigger than me. I want to call it. It's something that formed me. I'm thinking of those molds. When we make Jell-O, you can make them into little caricatures. My mold came from a lot of hardworking women that potentially didn't do so well at asking for help, and I have found that to be one of the areas of growth for me.

Speaker 1: 11:48

How do I ask for help, considering that I didn't really have so many of examples of what that looked like.

Speaker 1: 11:55

I had plenty of examples of do it yourself and not that many examples of how to ask for help, and that's just one life pattern that I have that I'm like, oh, I wouldn't necessarily call it an emotional go-to, but how that shows up in present day is, let's say, I'm asking someone, can you help me move that? If that person hesitates, I just go move it. Right, I don't often wait for it to be the right timing for myself and whomever I'm asking for help from. I just do it and learning how to slow down and be available for help, because that's not my strong suit right and then at the same time, like you said, there's both positive and negatives to every pattern. The positive of that is that I feel really capable, like, oh, I want this and, yes, I could use the help, or I could just go get it. And not all people feel super capable like they can just go get it Right. That might be somebody else's limited pattern, so that would be mine. Do you have an example that comes to mind for you?

Speaker 2: 13:01

I love this example. It's so relatable, Catherine. So relatable especially those of us who grew up in the 80s just being around hardworking women and having to learn to do it yourself and not ask for help. So freaking relatable, oh my goodness. I would say the biggest one in my family would be suppressing emotions and hiding how you're really feeling that I can really trace back many generations and it's a really tricky one.

Speaker 2: 13:36

And so the way that it landed in for me where I finally realized this because of course I didn't feel that I had this until it kind of exploded for me in my marriage was really enabling my partner, like really enabling him and just being very controlling actually, where I would just kind of do anything to keep the peace. And the interesting thing about it is I didn't think that I was doing that. I think that I didn't do it for a long time, but then over time, over a long-term marriage, when you add children and working, it just became harder and harder. And then I definitely fell into that pattern where I somewhere along the line, stopped really sharing how I was really feeling, probably because it got more complicated and I didn't know how to be with the complex emotions that I was feeling and the nuance of emotions that I was feeling. I didn't then know, oh, that multiple things can be true at once, which, amen. I can hold duality now, but I had to really learn that the hard way, and so the way that looked for me was hiding how I was really feeling, and I never saw this as a family pattern until I did.

Speaker 2: 15:03

And then I was able to track oh, this is something my mother did in her marriage, this is something that I even see her doing now, and I was able to see how my grandmother did it and how they would really keep the peace among the men and in doing so, lose a piece of yourself, Because when you're suppressing your emotions, you're not feeling, you're not letting the emotions flow through. When you're not saying how you really feel, like you stop giving your opinion or saying what's really true for you, I think a piece of us does die, and so I saw that happen in my own life and I was able to track it back through the generations and it was really confronting. And so that's been my life's work is how do I share on the outside and live on the outside what's happening for me on the inside? How do I do that in my romantic relationship and really everywhere, and that is literally my life's work and it's a lot for one lifetime.

Speaker 1: 16:17

I was listening to a mentor recently say when you are in personal development as deeply as we are as coaches, we have this privilege of living more than one identity in this lifetime because we're constantly changing and really putting our attention intentionally on who we're becoming. Thank you so much for talking about your life's work and your attention on that specific pattern of speaking your truth in real time, regardless of whether or not it keeps the peace, predominantly understanding that that is in service to the highest outcome, to the highest level relating for all involved. You're really speaking to how you bring responsibility and the possibility of breaking the cycle and you're speaking directly to that thought of what it means to then breathe something different into seven generations forward, of what it means to then breathe something different into seven generations forward, because, as you do that, your children get to see that and potentially take on that change through the modeling that you create, and then they will potentially have their own version of that if not, do it even better and then their children learn a much better version of communicating their truth in real time because they've had that chance to see it modeled over through their parents, in addition to their grandparents, and maybe even, depending on what child, their aunt or their uncle and they get to see different variations of what it looks like to speak your truth in real time and live a potential reality where the peace isn't always there. Right that maybe there is slight chaos or there is some level of disagreement, and they can see people work through that, and that doesn't make disagreement wrong. They get to experience life with a much broader palette more color, more spectrums, less fear, less restriction is what comes to mind for me.

Speaker 1: 18:20

So thank you so much for sharing that, and I want to take this moment to honor you and say one thing I have seen you do so well is heal through connection. I think that's something that you're really bringing forward. The concept of you've changed this, you've learned this, you're living it in your life, and how do you bring that choice forward? How do you bring that modeling forward and how can that show up in your future generations? And how does that show up even in your work with your clients? And I think you're doing just like exceptional in that arena. That show up even in your work with your clients, and I think you're doing just like exceptional in that arena.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Aw, thank you so much. I feel duly honored and seen and it's true, it's really true, and it's challenging in each moment, like when something comes up where I feel knotted up inside. I can literally see the two paths in front of me the path of least resistance, which is my inherited patterns, to just keep going down that road. Or go down the uncomfortable path which is, you know, sharing what's real for me, speaking uncomfortable truths. It's ongoing lifetime work and it is in connection. And I have the fortunate experience of being a mother to two children who love to speak truth. So it's amazing how the universe works in mysterious ways, that I'm speaking of being born into this inherited pattern where a woman has been suppressing herself and suppressing how she really feels and then somehow, by the grace of God, I give birth to two children who are very vocal and very outwardly spoken. And so this concept of seven generations forward and back, it's such a gift. It's such a gift when you're willing to take your ego out of it and look at the next generation as the next evolution. Then I can benefit from that and I can learn from that. So I get to be between my mother and my daughter and I get to feel all the places that my mother has been and the challenges that she's had, that she's inherited, that I inherited and that I passed down to my daughter and son. And then the really cool thing is, I get to learn from my children.

Speaker 2: 20:51

So my daughter specifically, who does this work in the world, and she is always unlocking doors for me, and so when I look at her stories or her posts on Instagram, I follow it, for well, first of all, I just think she's amazing, let's just say that.

Speaker 2: 21:10

And second of all, I follow it because it gives me information about myself, because if my daughter is speaking to a pattern that she's unlocking inside of herself around intimacy or love or nourishment or opening up her heart, whatever the thing is that she's speaking to well, I have that same time. If you're open to it, you can receive so much from the next generation on how they've healed and evolved, but you have to be open to that. You have to be willing to drop your story and not be an ego, because it can be really confronting as well, though, because it can be really confronting as well. It can be really confronting to see your children evolve or know more or unlock a pattern that you haven't been able to unlock or have things in their life that, at an age where I didn't have it, I could see how that could be confronting, but I use it as a way to get more free myself.

Speaker 1: 22:36

Would you say that it can be confronting in the other direction, like if you see your children stuck somewhere where you've been stuck and you're not even able to pass the key because you're like, oh, I get it, I know what it's like to be stuck there.

Speaker 2: 22:51

It's so hard. It is, it's so hard. And I do have a very hands-off approach to parenting, especially at this age and that is the age that my kids are, and I think that is correct. And sometimes I'll see my son in a particular pattern that I know I gave him. Oh my God, I'm laughing, because you kind of have to laugh at it.

Speaker 2: 23:20

I have beat myself up or been like, oh shit, I passed this on to my kids, but it's just the way it goes. There is no other way. There's no other way. So when I see them in a pattern that I've already been in, I just have a lot of trust and what I do? I can't fix them. There's nothing to fix, first of all. But I can't go in and be like, hey, here's this thing, that's not how it works. I don't do that with my clients. It's really just about having people see themselves. Anyway, I don't get involved in that with them. What I'm trying to say is that if I could see something in one of my kids, I will use that as a mirror for myself and just unlock it a little bit deeper inside of myself, and that changes the field.

Speaker 1: 24:12

I love that. So you're speaking to the owning the story, not making it wrong. If I were to use the chicken broth, I guess it could be beef broth, but chicken broth analogy, that the chicken broth, the base, the stock is just there, it's already been created, is just there, it's already been created. We're just adding to it and changing it a little bit. But technically that is the sustenance that's holding that familial DNA line, whether it's maternal or paternal.

Speaker 1: 24:45

And by you owning it and saying, oh, I see this, I spy, I see this in my son, I see this in my daughter, I know I have that and I had asked you the question of well on, I see this, my daughter, I know I have that and I had asked you the question of well, does it bother you if you haven't been able to get past it? Do you feel bad? And I love what you're saying You're like, oh, I don't focus on. If it's bad, I don't focus on that, they have it because I didn't overcome it. I focus on okay, what can I do on my side? How can I look at that pattern? How is that pattern playing out right now in my life and what attention can I put on that that was so beautifully stated and framed. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 25:21

You're welcome. I do want to add in that it's not always like that. I do want to say that's my practice is to turn it towards myself, and I want to be transparent and say that it's not always that way. Sometimes I do feel an ego hit, you know, or I do feel bad about myself. I'm like, oh God, I haven't been able to unlock this thing yet. And look how my daughter has this piece unlocked in her late 20s, where I'm still working on this in my 50s, and so I have had to work through that piece and I can see how divisions in families can happen If you're not willing to work through that.

Speaker 2: 26:03

I could see how a mother could push away her children, unknowingly or unwittingly, because she's confronted by the things that her children have been able to evolve or work through that she hasn't, because it's a lot to see when you see the next generation have something that you don't, that can be confronting, and what that's actually done for me is I will use that to look at my own relationship with my mother and say, oh, there's so much that I've done that my mother hasn't been able to do, because that's the way it goes in the evolution, and I realized, wow, my mother must feel the same level of vulnerability. How can I be more loving and kind to my mother? Because my children, for the most part, are loving and kind to me with a pattern, and my daughter specifically, who has worked through many patterns, some patterns before me, and when I would show up in a particular pattern, she never blamed me, she never took it out on me, she never poo-pooed me, she just showed up with love. And I noticed that and I asked myself am I showing up with the same amount of love for my mother when she shows up to me in her patterns? And the answer was confrontingly no. And so I was able to see how much more loving and kind and accepting I can be of my own mother.

Speaker 2: 27:40

It's kind of beautiful how the generations unlock and we teach each other and it's all weaved together. And this is just three generations that I'm speaking of. It actually ripples out. What we're talking about is seven and seven.

Speaker 1: 28:19

So it's pretty incredible. So I wanted to just give this episode what it feels like when you don't have children and how that shows up for people who aren't married, don't have children Like what does it look like? Where are you seeing these patterns when we're thinking of seven generations forward, seven generations back? Thus far we've been speaking about the maternal line, the paternal line, and I also spoke about the soul line, soul family. Now I want to talk about how we influence each other's maternal and paternal and soul family lines, which is when we touch on each other's, like our auric spaces touch each other and we influence one another In our current day and age.

Speaker 1: 29:06

One of the ways that it's most spoken of is we are the example or the average of our five closest friends. Whether that is the emotional average, the financial average, the intellectual average, we are sort of like the law of averages. In addition to a different way that that shows up is it's sort of like a vibrational match, like looking at it like a magnet, like attracts, like we want to be around people that are like us, unlike romantic relationships where we're sort of really attracted to the opposite very often and we want to unlock different things in each other. And that's sort of the context of romantic relationships when there's slight rub and we are learning the deepest, darkest lessons with our partners, are learning the deepest, darkest lessons with our partners. But in just relating, we will be around people who are like us, because who doesn't want to be around someone? That is a lot like them. It's so much fun. You agree on everything, you have fun, you like the same things. It's like watching the same movie all day long. You just love it, it's your favorite. Well, you will also influence that field. You also influence that friend.

Speaker 1: 30:17

So when you're speaking about like if Brenda was talking about how she works with patterns and her children, or you guys are listening to this podcast, some of it will rub on you. It just happens because we affect each other, we imprint each other. There's soul fragments that touch and they're just there. They've touched, they've exchanged information and it happens sort of at the speed of light. The influence happens at the speed of light, not necessarily change. Change doesn't happen at the speed of light. Change takes time, but the noticing the imprint on somebody's auric space, on their energetic field, the way we influence each other, happens really quickly. And so I just want to remind listeners, if you are single, you don't have children, that you are implementing Ices. Your nephews, your cousins, your friends, your friend's children, your friend's parents Basically look at it like a tree trunk and branches.

Speaker 1: 31:31

Wherever you touch, wherever you go, there is a level of influence, whether we like it or not. It just is, it's factual, it's not really debatable, and this is something that I really felt called to talk about today. Even though this is a desire podcast, we're technically talking about desire as medicine, and I want to point to where desire as medicine and seven generations forward and back where they intersect. As we live desire-led lives, as we show people what's possible, as we change, we also influence, and when we're influencing, whether it's in our own maternal or paternal line, our own soul family line, or within our friends and acquaintances, we are impacting seven generations forward and seven generations back.

Speaker 1: 32:27

So for the listeners, I want to say what story from your lineage are you carrying and are you ready to do something about it? What do you love about your lineage that you're ready to pass on and what, if anything, are you standing and saying? You know what this ends with me. I'm going to figure this out and no matter what you choose, brenda, and I back you wholly. If there's anything that happened or was stated in this podcast that really touched you, please let us know. I love getting your DMs, hearing your stories, getting your emojis that let me know that you loved the episode. May this episode touch you, as it has done me. Thanks so much. Bye for now.

Speaker 2: 33:27

Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.

Speaker 1: 33:31

Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.