{"id":25352,"date":"2026-04-20T18:23:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T00:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=25352"},"modified":"2026-04-20T18:24:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T00:24:30","slug":"richard-schwartz-and-tamala-floyd-healing-across-generations-ifs-ancestral-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/richard-schwartz-and-tamala-floyd-healing-across-generations-ifs-ancestral-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Schwartz and Tamala Floyd: Healing Across Generations: IFS + Ancestral Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> In this episode of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, I’m joined by Dick Schwartz\u2014someone I’m honored to call a friend, the founder of Internal Family Systems\u2014and Tamala Floyd, a psychotherapist and the first Black individual to become a certified IFS lead trainer, and the author of <\/span>Listening: When Parts Speak<\/span><\/i>. They join together here for a dialogue on the ways that IFS and ancestral wisdom intersect to heal intergenerational trauma.<\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome, friends. Stay with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is my joy and honor to welcome you to this special session: <\/span>Healing Across Generations\u2014A Dialogue on Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Ancestral Wisdom<\/span><\/i>, with Dick Schwartz and Tamala Floyd.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dick Schwartz is the founder of IFS and a Sounds True author. He’s the author of the bestselling book <\/span>No Bad Parts<\/span><\/i>, and a recent book with Thomas H\u00fcbl called <\/span>Releasing Our Burdens: A Guide to Healing Individual, Ancestral, and Collective Trauma<\/span><\/i>. Dick is working on a new book with Sounds True on the spirituality of IFS, and we’re also offering a course on the spirituality of IFS. We’re running the course now for the second time, and the second cohort is still open if you’d like to join us.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are also joined by Tamala Floyd, who has written a gorgeous, practical guidebook to IFS that deepened my understanding of the model in many new ways. I’m very grateful to Tamala. It’s called <\/span>Listening: When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with IFS Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom<\/span><\/i>. Tamala is a psychotherapist, consultant, educator, and IFS lead trainer. And here during Black History Month, I want to note the historic role that Tamala Floyd has played within the IFS community as the first Black person to become an IFS lead trainer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala, Dick\u2014welcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> Hi, Tami.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> Thank you for having us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> Always great.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> I want to open with a broad question for you both: How does working with ancestral presences\u2014the intelligence of ancestors\u2014come together with your IFS work? Whether personally or in your clinical practice, or both? Tamala, let’s start with you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I would have to answer that question by saying it happens in both my personal life and professionally with clients.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve done quite a bit of work with my ancestors through ancestral healing medicine\u2014working to heal my ancestral lines and my own legacy burdens. I also do that work with my clients, helping them to come into relationship with their ancestors. It primarily happens in the context of healing intergenerational trauma, or what we would call legacy burdens in IFS.<\/span><\/p>\n

The beauty of bringing the ancestors into the work is that it creates the beginning of a longstanding relationship\u2014so clients can continue to connect with ancestors, have these deepened relationships, and receive guidance from their ancestors moving forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Tamala, just to be specific\u2014when you say “working with ancestors,” what exactly do you mean? I use the general term “presences,” which is my way of covering all my bases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> When I’m working with clients and looking at their ancestors, I’m typically looking at their four primary ancestral lines: their mother’s mother, mother’s father, father’s father, and father’s mother’s line. When I’m looking at legacy burdens, a client may notice, “This legacy burden comes from my mother’s mother’s line.” So when I say ancestors, we’re looking at all the women on that line going back as far as is needed to heal that burden.<\/span><\/p>\n

These are blood relatives, but they also include chosen family and adoptive family members. It’s not limited to blood relatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> And Dick, how do these two streams come together for you in your work with IFS?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> Well, I’m thrilled to have Tamala in the community, because she’s much more expert in what she just described than I am. I don’t have conscious personal relationships with ancestors in the way Tamala does\u2014I sense my father around sometimes, but that’s about it for me personally.<\/span><\/p>\n

I got interested in legacy burdens some years ago because when I would ask parts where they were stuck in the past\u2014what they were carrying\u2014they would often show me scenes that were clearly not from their own lives. Often they were from ancestors they could identify. I grew more and more curious about that phenomenon, and the legacy burden side of things has become a major focus of my work.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we do legacy work, we’ll often invite whatever ancestors also carry that burden to come in. People will see or sense the presence of various ancestors, and they can all unburden together. I do try to foster an ongoing relationship between the client and their ancestors\u2014but it’s still somewhat foreign territory for me personally.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> To set the stage for everyone: you’ve both been referencing legacy burdens\u2014a technical term within IFS. People may think they understand it casually, as “something I inherited that’s weighing me down,” but it has a more specific meaning within the model. Dick, can you explain what a burden is, and then what a legacy burden is?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> The model is based on the idea that we all have these parts\u2014born with us, valuable, each with important roles to play\u2014but they become burdened by traumas, bad parenting, peer shaming, and similar experiences. When those experiences happen, the emotions and beliefs that arise attach to our parts almost like a virus, and thereafter drive the way those parts operate. That’s what we call a burden: extreme beliefs or emotions that entered your system from some kind of trauma and attached to these parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of the healing in IFS involves unburdening\u2014helping parts let go of those extreme beliefs and emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, what I just described are burdens from your direct experience. But we also carry burdens that came down through the generations\u2014from traumas that might have occurred centuries ago or at least decades back, and that didn’t originate from your own life. These get transmitted through various channels, including epigenetics. The legacy burden from your mother, for example, comes into you and attaches to your parts, driving the way you operate. These can be extremely powerful drivers of your personality and your worldview. Finding them and releasing them is often a very big deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> To make this real: I’d love for each of you to share an example of unburdening a legacy burden from your own life\u2014how you identified it, how you first recognized it as a legacy burden rather than a personal one, and what the unburdening process was like.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I’ll go first. One of the legacy burdens I became aware of had to do with anxiety. I had this overwhelming sense of nervousness\u2014to the point of panic attacks\u2014and it didn’t make sense to me. I knew my mother was an anxious person, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother as well. I wondered: did I somehow inherit this? How did this become part of my system?<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time I was experiencing the anxiety, I wasn’t familiar with IFS. It wasn’t until I learned about IFS and began to understand my own system at a deeper level\u2014and actually had an IFS session during my Level One training\u2014that I made contact with the fact that I had inherited this. It was a legacy burden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually I did the work to unburden the legacy piece. There was also a personal burden component to my anxiety that came from my own lived experience, but the <\/span>intensity<\/span><\/i> of it didn’t make sense. That’s what I couldn’t account for\u2014why was it so extreme that I was having panic attacks and ending up in the ER? That’s what pointed me toward understanding it as a legacy burden, and I worked with a therapist to release it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Can you say more? What happened in the therapy session? How did the unburdening actually work? I think a lot of people feel that chronic, subliminal anxiety running through their lives and have a sense that they inherited it from somewhere, but don’t know how to track it or work with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> Once I shared with my therapist that other women in my family also experienced this, she recognized it as a likely legacy burden. She took me through the process of inviting in the ancestors\u2014everyone who held this burden. I thought of my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother. She helped me appreciate that it might go back even further, so we invited in all the family members on that line.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was asked to find where I held the legacy burden in my body. For me it was always in my stomach\u2014this heaviness, this pit whenever I was anxious. That sensation was what we were going to work with, because that was how it presented for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was asked to release that burden from where I held it\u2014to hand it back to the person I had inherited it from, in this case my mother. And then she would hand it back, and back again, all the way through the ancestral line, until it was released from the line altogether. Then I chose one of the elements\u2014earth, water, fire, or wind\u2014for it to be released into.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it was released from my system.<\/span><\/p>\n

What remained was the personal burden piece of my anxiety, which took longer. Releasing the legacy burden was actually easier\u2014and that’s often true for people, because that burden didn’t belong to us in the first place. It was inherited. The personal burden comes from your own lived experience, and my parts needed more witnessing before they could release it\u2014they needed to be truly seen: what they experienced, what the anxiety was like for them, how they came to be anxious. That witnessing had to happen before the parts could let go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> And friends, I’ve asked Tamala to guide us through a practice later in this session\u2014calling in our ancestors and working with a burden we’re carrying. So you’ll have a chance to experience this for yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dick, make it real with a story from your own life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> Okay. I don’t think I’ve ever disclosed this before, but\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> I love sentences that start that way. Those are my favorite.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> I used to be a world-class pouter. The family story is that I’m the oldest of six boys, and when my brother arrived when I was two and a half, I refused to hug or kiss my mother again until I left for college. Which is true. My family would say, “Boy, Dick can carry a grudge.” And I kind of bought into that. Any time I felt rejected by anyone, I’d have a similar big reaction.<\/span><\/p>\n

At some point I decided I needed to work on it\u2014it was getting in the way of my marriage. I focused on that feeling\u2014the pain and the resentment\u2014and in the IFS process, you focus on it, find the part that’s carrying it, and get curious about it. When I asked what it wanted me to know about where it got this, I expected to go somewhere in my own life. But I started seeing scenes from what ultimately became clear was my grandfather’s adolescence.<\/span><\/p>\n

His story was this: he grew up in Hungary, and before World War II, his family wanted to move to the United States. They could only save enough money to bring a couple of siblings. They planned to leave him and a younger brother in the care of neighbors, save more money in America, and then send for them when he was about 15. The neighbors promptly kicked them out, and my grandfather and his brother had to beg in the village for a year before the family finally sent for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I always knew my grandfather was something of a sourpuss, but I didn’t know that story. I just started seeing pieces of it in the process. I asked the part: “Is this where you got this?” And it said yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Tamala said, legacy burdens are often easier to unload, because it didn’t happen to me. So I asked the part if it wanted to keep carrying this\u2014and it said no. Once the part agrees not to carry it, it can unburden. The part was holding it in the middle of my chest, and we sent it out.<\/span><\/p>\n

My wife is very grateful\u2014I can still pout, just not at the world-class level anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> What would you say to someone\u2014and I’ll put myself in this category\u2014who has seen something like a single image or flash that feels like it might be a legacy burden, but doesn’t know the whole story? They don’t know if it makes sense with their biography, but they saw something. Do they need to do forensic research, or can they just let it go?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> You don’t need to research it, but it’s certainly worth pursuing and exploring. Most of us need someone to ask the questions\u2014it’s harder to do alone. But if you focus on that flash and stay with it, getting curious about it, the story will generally flesh out. Tamala is going to lead an exercise a little later, and that’s one good way to start\u2014by focusing on something that’s come to you without knowing how significant it is. It often turns out to be quite significant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Even when you can’t make sense of it biographically\u2014it’s imprinted in you, but you don’t know where it belongs?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> That’s exactly the beauty of IFS\u2014you don’t have to know. We have T-shirts that say “Just Ask.” Instead of trying to figure it out from your head, you find where you sense it in your body, get curious, and wait for the answers to come. When you open that portal, you’ll be amazed at the information that arrives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I’d also be curious, Tami, about how that image is impacting you\u2014whether there are beliefs, ways of being in the world, that connect to it. That would be worth exploring.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> I want to go deeper into releasing legacy burdens. Dick, you mentioned your new book with Thomas H\u00fcbl\u2014<\/span>Releasing Our Burdens<\/span><\/i>\u2014and this notion of individual, ancestral, and collective trauma. I want to go right to the heart of it, which is something that’s hard to talk about but important.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala mentioned that this is airing during Black History Month, and I think of the collective trauma and burden of slavery and racism in North America\u2014how an individual carries that in their own psyche and works with it. And Dick, when I think of the persecution that Jewish people have suffered throughout history, how that burden is transferred through generations, and each person’s call to work with it\u2014I’d love to hear from both of you, from your own experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> We categorize legacy burdens into at least three types. The first is from your personal lineage\u2014what we’ve been discussing most: the ancestral burdens from your direct family line. The second is from your ethnic or cultural group\u2014the catastrophes a particular community has suffered. The third is cultural legacy burdens we absorb simply by growing up in a particular society. In the United States, racism is one of them. We can’t help but absorb those cultural legacy burdens, and because they’re so pernicious, we often deny them and exile the parts that carry them.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I work with Jewish clients, a great deal of what comes up is Holocaust legacy unburdening, and those burdens are really potent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> In my work with Black women, I’m doing legacy and cultural unburdening related to the history of enslavement. Some of the major burdens include the separation from family, the need to work constantly, finding one’s worth through work and achievement. There have been times where we’ve done this unburdening collectively\u2014with groups of women\u2014which speaks to what Dick mentioned about collective unburdening.<\/span><\/p>\n

We do collective unburdening in two ways: with groups who share the same cultural burden (related to enslavement, for example), and with groups of people from different cultural backgrounds who may carry different burdens but can still work to release them together, holding the self energy of the group.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Can you say more, Tamala, about the role ancestors play in this from your direct experience?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> One of the things I do differently is invite the ancestors who hold the same burden to be present\u2014asking them to show up in their highest self energy. And I specifically ask for what I call a “well ancestor.”<\/span><\/p>\n

A well ancestor is an ancestor who does not carry this burden\u2014and, having transitioned to the other side, no longer carries any burdens. This ancestor is both capable and willing to help unburden this particular wound from the ancestral line.<\/span><\/p>\n

People sometimes say, “I don’t know my ancestors. How do I know someone will show up?” Or, “There’s been so much harm in my lineage\u2014I don’t even know if a well ancestor exists there.” But in my experience, when we make the request, a well ancestor always comes forward. And the reason I specifically ask for one is that they know exactly how to release the burden from the line for the greatest benefit.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we do what I call an “invitation”\u2014asking for the gifts, heirlooms, or what I like to call the “medicine” of our ancestral lines\u2014instead of me deciding what a client needs moving forward, the well ancestor already knows. They know the medicine and the gifts of that line, and what to bring forth. So in asking for the well ancestor, we’re also accessing the intelligence of the lineage itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> You used the beautiful word “heirlooms.” Where does that come from?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I’m not even sure, Dick, whether IFS uses that language or just says “gifts”\u2014but I think of an heirloom as a precious item that has been cultivated across many generations. The way we talk about a great-grandmother’s cameo, or crystal, or china\u2014these are material heirlooms. What I’m pointing to are heirlooms of qualities: ways of being, gifts, capacities that have been passed down, rather than physical objects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Can you share some of the heirlooms you’ve received from your own lineage?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> A big one\u2014and this will sound simple, but it wasn’t\u2014is rest. When you come from a people who were enslaved, rest was taken away. You inherit this need to prove your worth through work and achievement. But rest is a gift that existed before enslavement: we danced, we played, there was joy. The well ancestor I connect with is always from before that time period. And rest was one of the first things they brought back to me. It sounds simple, but learning to actually rest was genuinely hard work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Dick, can you share a healing story\u2014specifically around Holocaust legacy unburdening?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> There’s one I believe is recounted in the Thomas H\u00fcbl book. I was working with a group in Israel\u2014mostly Jewish therapists, but also some Palestinian participants\u2014who were trying to support healing across that divide. One woman was struggling to open her heart to Palestinians. In one of the sessions, I had her focus on the part that was keeping her heart closed, and, long story short, she began to see scenes from the Holocaust. She was able to unburden that into fire, and it was a profound transformation. Afterward, she said, “I can’t other people anymore. I see Palestinians as human beings.” That’s in the other book for anyone who wants the full account.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Do you have any heirlooms from your own lineage, Dick?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> I think there’s a thread of courage that came down through the generations\u2014resilience in the face of what they suffered, particularly on my father’s side with the antisemitism they endured. And on my mother’s side, my grandmother came to Canada as a 23-year-old woman, alone, with a prefab house, to stake a claim in Montana and live by herself. A true frontierswoman. So there’s a lot of courage on both sides that I credit for some of the courage I’ve found in my own life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I want to share two. From my mother’s side, one heirloom was the gift of working with one’s hands. I didn’t see myself as someone who worked with my hands\u2014but what the ancestors shared with me was that my desire to write books, to be an author, <\/span>was<\/span><\/i> that heirloom. The writing is the handwork.<\/span><\/p>\n

And more recently, from my father’s father’s side, I connected with an ancestor\u2014men who were medicine men, healers within their community. These medicine men elevated me to the role they called “the woman medicine man.” What they communicated is that there are many living ancestors\u2014people alive now who carry the work forward\u2014and our role in this time is to heal our lineage, access the heirlooms and the medicine, and bring that medicine forth into the world in whatever way we show up: in our families, our communities, our work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> In your book, Tamala\u2014<\/span>Listening: When Parts Speak<\/span><\/i>\u2014you offer twelve or so guided meditations that readers can work through on their own. Many of them, as I read, actually came directly from your ancestors. You were receiving them and writing them down. Can you talk a little about that process? And then\u2014please take us into one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I love this. There are twelve or thirteen meditations in the book, and eight or nine of them came directly from my ancestors.<\/span><\/p>\n

The very first was for a group I was working with. I was doing some ancestor connection work, and while I was sleeping, they gave me the meditation\u2014by taking me through it physically. I was actually experiencing the meditation in my sleep. I would wake up and write it down. This happened with each meditation they gave me.<\/span><\/p>\n

What astonished me\u2014though it makes sense now\u2014is that every meditation they gave was connected to IFS, which was exactly what my book was going to be about. When I received the first one, I thought I was just creating a meditation for that particular group. But the ancestors said: <\/span>This meditation is one of many that we will give you for a book you will publish.<\/span><\/i> I thought, okay\u2014if you say so. And I followed their guidance.<\/span><\/p>\n

They gave me meditations related to exiles, to polarization, to legacy burdens\u2014covering the territory of IFS from the inside. And as I would write down what I’d dreamed, they would stand behind me and correct me: “That’s not quite the right word,” or “You didn’t get that image right.” They helped me capture the meditations exactly as they’d been given.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Who was standing behind you, specifically?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> They called themselves my “writing clan.” Three Black women, wearing white head wraps and white tunics\u2014one representing each of the three phases of a woman’s life: the maiden, the childbearing years, and the crone. They always showed up the same way\u2014in the dream, and then again during the corrections. I refer to them fondly as my writing clan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Let’s do it. Let’s go into one together, Tamala.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> All right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Get comfortable in whatever way works for you\u2014sitting, lying down, eyes open or closed. Bring your attention to your breath, and just notice how your breath travels through your body, nourishing every place it touches.<\/span><\/p>\n

Envision yourself near a body of water at sunrise. It could be a beach, a river, a lake, even a stream\u2014any body of water that feels right to you. Notice that the sun is just over the horizon. You marvel at the colors dancing in the sky.<\/span><\/p>\n

You begin walking the shore.<\/span><\/p>\n

And in the distance, you see a robed figure walking toward you. A calmness embraces you as you get closer and notice a serene smile on their face. You recognize them as a wise and benevolent guide or ancestor.<\/span><\/p>\n

The guide says: “I’ve come to help you release something that no longer serves you.”<\/span><\/p>\n

They go on: “I’d like you to consider a belief, behavior, feeling, or thought that has outgrown its usefulness. This could be something inherited from your ancestral line\u2014or it could simply be something you personally carry.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you identify what no longer serves you, notice where you find it in or around your body. Place your attention there.<\/span><\/p>\n

The guide tells you: “Absent this belief, behavior, feeling, or thought, you can be your true self. All you have to do is release it.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The guide shows you different ways to release the burden. Take a moment to choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

The guide walks you to the water’s edge and says: “You can release it to this body of water.” Then the guide digs a hole in the earth and says: “You can bury it in the earth’s belly.” A bonfire appears: “You can allow the fire to consume it.” The guide waves their arms: “You can release it on the wind.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Then they turn to you and ask: “In which way would you like to release and be free of what no longer serves you?”<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are ready to release it, the guide helps you in the way of your choosing.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are not yet able to release it, the guide asks: “What are you afraid would happen if you released it?” It’s okay to spend some time getting to know those fears.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the release, you and your guide walk the shore together. In the silence, take time to be with your guide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take another minute to finish up with your guide\u2014knowing that you can come back and connect with them at any time.<\/span><\/p>\n

When it feels right, bring your awareness back to your breath. And breathe your way back into this moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Thank you, Tamala.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> You’re so very welcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Dick, do you have anything to add?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> There was a moment in the meditation where Tamala said: if you’re not ready to give up the burden, the guide will ask what you’re afraid would happen. I want to speak to that, because even when parts are willing to unload legacy burdens, there are often fears that come up.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most common one I encounter is: <\/span>I need to carry this for my people. They suffered, and it would be disloyal to let it go.<\/span><\/i> It took me a while to figure out how to address that. But what I now do\u2014even with people who aren’t spiritual, or who wouldn’t ordinarily think this way\u2014is invite the ancestors to come and speak directly to the part. Ask them: do you want this person to keep carrying this for you? Almost invariably, the answer is no. <\/span>You don’t have to carry this for us.<\/span><\/i> That frees the part to let it go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> The one I encounter most is the identity piece. People fear they’ll lose their identity if they release the burden\u2014because it has also been a thread connecting them to their family, their community, their culture. That’s particularly true for the people of color I primarily work with.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I say to the parts is this: you will actually be <\/span>more<\/span><\/i> yourself, more truly connected to your identity, by releasing this burden. The idea that the burden <\/span>isn’t<\/span><\/i> them is a genuine surprise to the parts. And when they hear that releasing it means becoming more of who they truly are, that’s often what allows them to finally let go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> Other common fears include: <\/span>I took this from my father because he was so depressed, and carrying it seemed to help him. I’m afraid if I release it, he’ll get depressed again.<\/span><\/i> Or: <\/span>This fear has made me hypervigilant, and I think it’s actually kept me safe. I don’t trust that it’s safe to let it go.<\/span><\/i> Over time, we’ve developed ways to work with each of these.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Dick, I know you’ve mentioned before that you’re not a visual person\u2014guided visualizations don’t always produce imagery for you. I imagine some listeners had a similar experience\u2014Tamala described the robed figure, and nothing came. How do you help that person?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> I don’t lead many guided meditations like Tamala does\u2014partly because I couldn’t really do it myself. Instead, what I do when working with someone individually is ask them to go inside and simply ask whether any parts are carrying energy, beliefs, or emotions that don’t belong to them\u2014that came from someone else. Even people who are new to parts work can usually do that. The question seems to elicit the legacy burdens directly, and then we’re off and running.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I’d work similarly with a non-visual client. When I’m working with someone clinically, I’m not using the book meditations\u2014those are for personal practice. In session, I just want the client to go inside and notice what’s there. I want them to connect with the parts they’re noticing in their own system. The visualization meditations are a different way in\u2014a beautiful one, but not the only one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Healing across generations\u2014what’s your sense of the gifts we offer our descendants, whether or not we have children, simply by doing this work?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> For me, the biggest gift is not passing these legacy burdens on. The buck stops with this generation. That’s what I’ve worked hard to do, and it’s an enormous gift for my kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I do this very intentionally with clients. When we’re doing legacy burden work, we invite in\u2014if the client is willing\u2014the highest self of their descendants: those already born and those yet to come. We’re releasing the burden from the past <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> protecting the future. Not passing it on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> I want to close with one last question. I’m going to make the comment I’d usually make after the recording ends, but I want to make it here instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m imagining two different listeners. One has done a lot of IFS work and might be thinking: <\/span>this was fairly introductory\u2014not quite as rich as I hoped.<\/span><\/i> The other is new to IFS and thinking: <\/span>I think I follow the parts and the unburdening, but I’m not sure I’ve fully grasped it.<\/span><\/i> There are so many people now who are IFS beginners, and so many who are quite advanced. What do you each make of that challenge in a dialogue like this one?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> It’s a real challenge\u2014one I face often in these kinds of sessions. There’s generally not enough time to fully explain the model for beginners, or to go deep enough for the more advanced. That’s part of why I’m glad Tamala wrote her book. People can take what we’ve touched on here and then go deeper through the exercises and fuller explanations in the text.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> I agree\u2014it’s very challenging. I try to find the middle road, to offer something for the novice and something that addresses the questions a more experienced practitioner might have. But it’s an ongoing balancing act. Hopefully something in this landed for everyone, wherever you’re coming from.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Listening: When Parts Speak<\/span><\/i> by Tamala Floyd\u2014it’s a book I’m very pleased to introduce you to. It’s wonderful if you’re new to IFS, because everything is explained thoroughly for newcomers, and equally valuable for anyone interested in the combination of ancestral healing and IFS work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dick, I want to say something directly to you. When you mentioned, as part of our Spirituality of IFS program, that ancestors had simply started showing up in your clinical sessions\u2014and when parts said “I’m not a part, I’m an ancestor,” and you took them seriously\u2014I thought to myself: that is one of the things I love most about you. You let the clinical experience speak for itself. You didn’t discount what was happening by trying to fit it into a prior framework. You followed the data, even when it took you outside your paradigm. And now you’re including that in the Spirituality of IFS. I really want to honor you for that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> Thank you, Tami. That came along somewhere down the road. By that point, I had done enough work on my own parts\u2014the ones that wanted to presume, to interpret, to control what was happening\u2014that I could stay in a genuinely curious, self-led place and learn from the clients. Whether or not someone believes in the literal existence of ancestors, they kept showing up. And when they showed up, everything went better\u2014the healing accelerated. So why not follow that?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> For our closing: if someone wants stronger contact with an ancestral intelligence\u2014before they go to sleep tonight, say\u2014what suggestion would you each offer?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard C. Schwartz:<\/b> It depends on the place from which you’re asking. If you have a part that’s desperate to make contact, that urgency is likely to get in the way. Ancestors don’t tend to respond when you’re asking from a burdened or highly activated place. But if you can get those parts to relax and open up space\u2014if you can arrive at a place of genuine, non-attached curiosity, with no agenda\u2014then ask from there. Something will generally happen. It may not come in the form you expect, so stay open. When I’m working with clients, even those who are atheists, I have them ask. More often than not, somebody shows up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> If you did the meditation just now, I’d encourage you to revisit whoever showed up\u2014that ancestor or guide. And if no ancestor appeared, or if your parts didn’t allow that connection, be curious about that rather than discouraged. The more self-energy we have available, the more likely it is that the ancestors will show themselves. If there were parts that were fearful or protective, spend time with those parts. Let them be seen. Eventually the door will open, the curiosity will be there, and the connection with your ancestors can come.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Tamala Floyd and Dick Schwartz\u2014<\/span>Healing Across Generations<\/span><\/i>. Thank you both so much. Thank you for this dialogue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamala Floyd:<\/b> Thank you. Thank you both.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> Bye, friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for listening. I’d also like to invite you to join us on Sounds True One, where you can enjoy early, ad-free access to episodes of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. Sounds True One is our premium membership platform built around live classes and online events, award-winning specials, intimate learning experiences, and Q&A sessions with the world’s leading wisdom teachers. You can get your first month free at joinsoundstrue.com.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-25352","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nRichard Schwartz and Tamala Floyd: Healing Across Generations: IFS + Ancestral Wisdom | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Richard Schwartz and Tamala Floyd: Healing Across Generations: IFS + Ancestral Wisdom | Sounds True\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tami Simon: In this episode of Insights at the Edge, I’m joined by Dick Schwartz\u2014someone I’m honored to call a friend, the founder of Internal Family Systems\u2014and Tamala Floyd, a psychotherapist and the first Black individual to become a certified IFS lead trainer, and the author of Listening: When Parts Speak. 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