It might not be yours.

We inherit the unresolved traumas of our ancestors. Knowledge of this chain of trauma and healing is growing within popular culture, and I can say for myself that it has brought me deeper into my healing journey to places I didn't even know existed.

In ancestral healing, there's the belief that we carry the wounds of our ancestors. Those who came before us and have passed on are no longer in physical form. Once a person is no longer in a body, they lose the opportunity to heal their wounds.

So when we do healing work on ourselves, we are also doing healing work for our ancestors as well.

But here's the other side of it: since we inherit the wounds of our ancestors, sometimes we're carrying around limiting beliefs and negative self talk that isn't even ours. It come from those who've come before us.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that we should blame our ancestors for our troubles. Quite the opposite. When we recognize that we're carrying baggage that wasn't ours to begin with, we can be a little easier on ourselves and grow compassion both for ourselves and our ancestors.

The more we understand what the lives of those who came before us were like, and admit that what we carry may be passed down from those hard times, the more we can stop being paralyzed by the minutia of our present-day troubles and see the bigger picture.

Remember: there’s nothing wrong or defective about you. You're holding on to centuries of pain. You don't own it, but you do owe it to your ancestors to take care of what you can while you're here.