Notes on IFS and genograms, also unburdening a cultural or familial legacy burden

April 2023 we had a session at the Stroud IFS Drop In focusing on Legacy Burdens, amalgamated from notes and lectures by lead trainers in IFS and my own experience https://www.stroudtherapy.com/news/workingwithlegacyburdens

In March 2024 we moved to a more experiential session where we filled in our own IFS legacy genograms… Maybe you might have a go. I suggested that you could let go of the ‘proper’ way of doing a genogram and just go where feels right. So follow your curiosity … which one of these questions below is interesting to you and taking a genogram ready made - or create your own.. see what you come up with with prior knowledge… or ask inside who knows what? Maybe an inner guide / ancestor has some answers for you.

Fill these in as many times as you’d like… pick a question and have a go… then come back and pick another… Maybe you can ask family members if they know anything?

We then moved to clearing a cultural scarcity burden. this was suggested by the late Derek Scott in his goodbye to the community message. It also feels important to me.

So I asked the group to ask inside for the heaviness of any scarcity burden they might hold. The ‘there’s not enough’,ie not enough resources or whatever to go round or '‘ i must hold on to this’ … around possessions, food, money, relationships… Also I am not enough… or conversely I am too much There’s a feeling inside of lack of something whether this is true - or not true..

Many of us hold this burden - culturally in the UK and Ireland too… Check and see? Maybe in your family, certainly in mine. The rationing of two world wars, the Irish potato famine, migration, poverty, wealth, the class system, and more recently, messages from the media and advertising industry. Whats your history of scarcity? What happens to you and what do your protectors do to help out? What did you hear from your parents and what have you taken on? What is from this lifetime? You might ask inside - how much is mine and how much is cultural/generational / past life etc? Please go with the first answer you get …

We then went ahead and followed the protocol of unburdening, seen below… asking about any concerns about unburdening… and away we went.. For a deeper explanation do see the notes/video from April 2023 or the marvellous work of Ann Sinko