111 ~ Lineage Gifts: Embracing What's Passed Down

Have you ever noticed how easily we focus on the difficult patterns inherited from our families while overlooking the beautiful gifts passed down through generations?

In this heartfelt mini-episode, Brenda and Catherine expand the conversation about lineage beyond trauma to celebrate the treasures our ancestors have given us.

Brenda shares the story of her family’s chicken soup recipe, passed from her grandmother to her mother, to herself, and now to her daughter. This tradition is more than food. It is love, care, and wisdom carried through generations. Making the soup connects her to the women in her family and offers a sense of healing and continuity. She also reflects on inheriting her family’s sense of humor, recalling a Passover celebration where her uncles tossed her grandmother’s dense matzo balls across the room, a reminder of the gift of laughter even in imperfect moments.

Lineage gifts come in countless forms: culinary traditions, resilience, artistic abilities, communication styles, celebration rituals, or the way a family values togetherness. These inheritances often go unnoticed, yet they shape who we are as much as the challenges we carry. This episode invites you to reflect on the gifts you’ve received, how they show up in your daily life, and which ones you want to nurture and pass forward.

Episode Highlights
• Expanding the conversation beyond family trauma to acknowledge inherited gifts
• Brenda shares her grandmother’s chicken soup recipe as an embodiment of ancestral wisdom and love
• Family humor as a gift that teaches lightness and perspective
• How lineage gifts differ from memories by becoming transferable qualities and practices
• Examples of gifts families pass down: cooking, art, resilience, traditions, communication styles, storytelling
• Invitation to identify and appreciate your own lineage gifts
• Reflection on how these gifts shape who we are and what we pass to future generation

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student,

(00:58):
even after decades of inner work.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
We are humble beginners on the mat, still
exploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire piece that is oftenoverlooked, being responsible
for our desire.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Welcome back listeners and friends to the
Desire as Medicine podcastseason three.
Catherine's smiling over there,so grateful to be here with her
again.
We are just so thrilled to behere in season three with you.
We love your messages and yourreviews and your insights from
the episodes.
Keep them coming, people.

(01:57):
So last episode we talked aboutseven generations forward and
back and the impact of that inour lives and we really focused
on some challenging patternsthat Catherine and I have both
inherited and what we're doingwith those patterns moving
forward.
And there's traumas and woundsand hurts and difficulties and

(02:23):
many families have survivalpatterns inside of them and how
we do hold responsibility toshift these things.
So we really dove into that andI want to widen the lens a
little bit because it's not onlythe hard stuff that gets passed
down.
It can get really heavy andthese hard things that we

(02:45):
inherit, yeah, we want to changethem.
We want a better life, not onlyfor ourselves but for our
children.
Whether you have children ornot, maybe it's your nieces and
nephews or your actual children,or maybe you want to do your
inner work and it will influencethe generations above you
because it works in all thedirections.
But it's really important tosay that it's not just the

(03:10):
crapola and the hard things thatkeep you up at night that get
passed down.
There's gifts as well.
There's gifts and sometimesit's harder to see those.
There's gifts and sometimesit's harder to see those.
But we want to shed a littlebit of light on those today,
because I know that I personallydo have a lot of gifts and I'm

(03:32):
the first one to be like, oh myGod, I inherited this and I
inherited that.
And sometimes it can bedaunting when you're trying to
have something in your life andit's not quite going the way you
want because of this patternthat you inherited from your
family.
So this episode, we want toname some of the gifts and just

(03:53):
chat about those, and maybeyou're already percolating.
What are your own gifts thatyou have from your lineage, and
please percolate, because it'sreally important to have these
gifts and name them.
So one of mine I have a few.
Catherine mentioned this one inour last episode about my family

(04:16):
bone broth, my family chickenbroth Really, we call it chicken
soup.
This recipe I have watched mymother and my grandmother make
my entire life.
This recipe is not written down, although I have since
transcribed it and if you wantit, I'll send it to you.

(04:37):
Catherine's laughing becauseit's so good.
But when I make this chickensoup, it's so good.
But when I make this chickensoup, like, I feel the gifts of
my grandmother and my mother inthe soup and the soup is so
delicious.
My grandmother cooked her soupfor days, days, because when you

(05:00):
cook the bones like that fordays, the nutrients really get
into the broth.
This is ancient wisdom thatwe're talking about, and I don't
know if my grandmother watchedher mother do that.
I really have no idea.
My guess is yes, but anytimeanyone's sick or if it's a cold
winter day, I'm popping somechicken soup on the stove

(05:23):
Because it smells delicious andit is medicine for the soul, and
my daughter makes the soup now.
So my daughter makes the soupand I'm watching my mother make
the soup still, and I'm makingthe soup and it's not only a
delicious meal but it's a gift.

(05:44):
And it's not only a deliciousmeal, but it's a gift Like the
fact that we make this soup andI can remember my grandmother
making it is such a gift thatI've gotten to feed it to my
children when they were babiesand that I watch my daughter
make it and she'll feed it toher children when she has babies
.
That's really beautiful andthere's so many stories inside

(06:07):
of that that I won't even gointo.
But another one that I have is,of course, my amazing sense of
humor.
My family's really funny.
My mother's side of my familyspecifically.
Every family gathering wasfilled with laughter and jokes.
My mother has three brothersand they're just funny brothers

(06:33):
and they're just funny.
So my family is just alwayskind of joking and funny and
laughing and there's always beena lot of lightness and humor,
which is such a beautiful giftPassover my grandmother would
make in her chicken soup.
She would make matzo balls.
Matzo balls are supposed to belight and fluffy, so one of my
grandmothers makes them lightand fluffy, but this particular
grandmother.
With the funny side of myfamily, they are like lead

(06:56):
sinkers and there was onePassover where my uncles were
taking the matzo balls, whichwere like little golf balls, and
throwing them across the roomto each other, like having a
game of catch, and it's such agreat memory.
Seeing my family laugh likethat, because it doesn't have to

(07:16):
be so serious, is what Ilearned?
Like, yeah, things can beserious sometimes and there's a
time for that, but it doesn'thave to always be serious.
And something like matzah ballsthat are supposed to be a
particular way, but they're adifferent way.
We don't have to hide in shameor be judgmental or mean, we

(07:36):
could just laugh at it.
My grandmother made those matzoballs and one of my memories is
her face when my uncles weretossing the matzo balls around.
I think she had the best timefeeding them and having them
interact and laugh with it.
I think it was actually muchbetter and funnier than if they
had just come out soft anddelicious.
Okay, so those are some of myexamples and I'm curious what

(07:59):
comes up for you, catherine.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
I think it's beautiful that you have these
gorgeous stories like that.
You can remember that you justhave such beautiful family
memories.
Like I know, you're talkingabout it from the lens of seven
generations forward and sevengenerations back and that, oh,
you received these traits.
But as I listened to you, I'mlike, oh, they're just beautiful

(08:21):
memories.
That's what comes up for me.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
That's beautiful.
Thank you, it's true.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
How would you make a distinction for yourself and or
listeners, or is there one foryou?
When you think of somethingI've received, when we think of
patterns or something that's inour lineage, how do you make a
distinction between that and,let's say, like a beautiful
memory?

Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's a great question.
I don't know that I've everthought of it in that particular
way before.
You know, we have these thingsthat are inside of us and it
causes us to act a particularway, and those experiences
become our memories when youspeak of the chicken soup.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's such a beautiful memory and the ritual itself
has you connect to the variousdifferent lineages.
So for me, as a listener, I'mnot looking that specifically
like a pattern, but I do see agift in.
It's almost like watching alove line in a story.

(09:29):
I would assume when you say mygrandmother, I saw her really
enjoy feeding them, and I seeyou really enjoy when you're
going to cook for your children,even though they're grown now.
I see that beautiful memory andI've seen many families that

(09:50):
don't enjoy cooking for theirpeople.
So I see just so much love inthat action, and so I think the
distinction that I see is likeyou were able to see people do
something that some can see as achore, and how beautiful it is

(10:13):
that you got to witness peoplereally love it and do it with so
much love, and that you got toreally receive that benefit and
that imprint of what it feelslike for someone to deliver it
to you with so much joy and somuch love, so much care, to the
point that you're like I want todo this as well.
I want to be able to deliverthis point that you're like I

(10:33):
want to do this as well.
I want to be able to deliverthis, and I can only imagine how
beautiful it will be for youwhen you're making that chicken
soup and you have grandchildren.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
My goodness, yeah, it's a beautiful thing to tap
into and you really did nail it.
You really spoke to the joy andthe gift because when I make
that soup it's not just cookingsomething on the stove the way I
might be cooking a meal tonight, it's something special.

(11:03):
You know we're talking aboutthis particular thing.
There's other things that myfamily cooks that we're not
talking about, but it's thisparticular thing that holds so
much joy and love.
And I think that's the magic ofbroth as well is that there's

(11:26):
so much love that goes into itand you can serve it with love,
like the intention of evenmaking it for someone, for their
health or nutrition or joy, orto warm them up on a cold day.
There's so much love in thatintention that we could like
slow down and really feel, andthen the broth itself is literal

(11:51):
medicine, like it's good foryour body, it's healing.
So it's just a beautiful thingand I really wanted to slow that
down and look at in ourfamilies and invite our
listeners to say, well, what arethe gifts in your family?
Because it really is easy to bein blame or feel victimized or

(12:18):
be annoyed with oldergenerations, and you can find a
thousand reasons to be annoyedand irritated with anyone in
your family.
I don't think we need toconvince anyone of that.
But do you see the gifts?
Because they are there andmaybe we just have to slow down

(12:39):
and see them or think about whatthey might be.
And maybe we just have to slowdown and see them or think about
what they might be.
And they're different for everyfamily because, you're right,
not every family or not everywoman likes to serve food.
That is one of my lovelanguages that I've inherited,
because my mother very much isthat way, my grandmothers both
were very much that way.
So I've really received thisone and, oh my God, I can't wait

(13:01):
to make chicken soup for mygrandchildren.
My son doesn't like it, by theway, so I've gotten over that.
But in every family it'sdifferent.
You know, some families maybepass down a love of art, which I
also have, or resilience anddifferent traditions, different
kinds of foods or body wisdom.

(13:22):
You know practices aroundgiving birth or herbalism.
Those aren't things I inheritedat all, but those are some
gifts that I know people have,even the way people connect in a
family, you know, does yourfamily get together a lot?
My family gets together a lot.
You know that's a gift that wehave, that we value seeing each

(13:48):
other and we make it happen, andthis came from my grandmothers.
Or even stories, like we passdown stories or celebrations or
rituals, what you believe aboutyour past ancestors, and any
rituals around that even desire,sewing, musical talents.
I mean, there's so many thingsthat we inherit from the people

(14:10):
before us and then we pass on.
So I really wanted to pause andshare these things.
Like some families are greatcommunicators, some families are
screaming, some families tellbeautiful stories or pass down
wisdom Like what wisdom have youreceived from the generations

(14:30):
before you?
It might be something smallthat you didn't even realize,
but it's there and it'sbeautiful to receive that
because it's part of the fabricof who you are, this wisdom, and
probably you're passing that onto the next generations, maybe
without even realizing it.

(14:51):
Thank you for being here with usfor this mini episode on on
lineage gifts.
I'm really touched by thistopic.
It's really important toacknowledge and receive the
gifts of your lineage, whateverthey are and how small they are.

(15:11):
Nothing is too small.
What are the things that youreceived and how do you pass
them on, how do you live them inthis world, or how do you want
to live them in this world?
Hopefully, this little loveepisode has inspired some

(15:32):
thought in you and maybe thereis something that you want to
carry forward or do more thatyou haven't done before.
Some little desire.
So thank you for being with ustoday.
Until next time.
Thank you for joining us on theDesire is Medicine podcast.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply
intimate with ourselves andothers.
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We'd love to hear from you.