by dawniecakes
These reductive stories that we carry and blindly believe often come down to us through our families. They are what I call “lineage stories.”
A lineage story is a limiting idea about ourselves or the world that has been passed down from generation to generation. Our parents blindly accepted them as did their parents before them.
It could be said that we absorb these lineage stories through some sort of osmosis process.
A recent example comes to mind.
Jenny (assumed name) complained that her 8 year old son tended to bully her and his sister to the point that she would often give in to him just to keep peace in the family.
In describing her life growing up Jenny shared that her older brother had played a similar role in her own family. It was no surprise to learn that her ex-husband had been a family bully too.
Jenny realized that she carried a story that had her convinced that she would always have to put up with an overpowering male in her life. She came to see that this was in fact a family lineage story – one that was so subtly powerful that she had even unconsciously selected for her husband, a man who had played that part in his own family.
And the beat goes on and on and on. These lineage stories get passed on to us and then to our children and so on until consciousness brings them to the surface for intervention and clearing.
This is how lineage stories work. We believe these stories, never question them and then react out of them in ways that teach family members how to play their part in making them come true.
Do you have a lineage story that you recognize?