Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hansen. It's easy and kind of appealing to look at our lives as being entirely our own. We make all the choices for ourselves and ultimately we're in control of who we turn out to be.

There's a great flare of kind of rugged individualism to that view and it can be truly empowering when employed in healthy ways.

But the truth is that the past lives on us today and influences our behavior in a

myriad of ways that we don't always control.

Some of these ways are obvious, like an injury early in life limiting our

options today, your parents' choices to move from one city to another, and so on, going all the way back to

which group in Africa your many times great-grandmother belonged to.

It's one thing to accept how history affects who we are on the outside, but it can be trickier

to accept history's impact on our inside, on the thoughts and feelings on the self, however

you want to define that, that makes us who we are. This is particularly true

when it comes to sensitive emotions, experiences, and individual strengths like trauma,

resilience, and benevolence. Today I'm really looking forward to exploring how the

past influences us today with a wonderful educator, Dr. Sherry Taylor. Dr. Taylor is an assistant

professor of Sematic Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and also teaches in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at the Wright Institute.

Her scholarship and research interests include the intergenerational transmission of

benevolence, resilience, and trauma, and she curates group trainings and workshops in the areas

of anti-racism, diversity and inclusion, cultural humility, community mental health, and spirituality.

Before we get going with our conversation today with Dr. Taylor, a couple of quick reminders. The first is our Patreon page.

You can find us at Patreon.com slash Being Well Podcast.

And for the cost of just a couple cups of coffee a month, you can support the show. Your support is

part of what enables us to keep on doing this work and we really truly appreciate it.

Then on top of that if you've been enjoying the podcast if you've been listening for a while we'd really

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