You're listening to Life Kit, from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

There's this kind of parable that gets repeated sometimes.

It's about a ham.

It goes something like this.

Mom's making a ham for a holiday dinner,

and she cuts off the end of it and throws it away,

which she always does.

And her kid is like, Mom, why do you do this? of it and throws it away, which she always does.

And her kid is like, Mom, why do you do this?

You know, you're wasting good ham.

And the mom says, I don't know, it's what my mom used to do.

Now grandma's not around anymore, so the kid goes to Grandpa and says

Grandpa why did grandma always cut off the end of the ham and Grandpa's like oh

our oven was too small for the whole thing.

The point, my friends, is that we learn a lot of things from our parents, who learn them from their parents, and so on.

Behaviors and practices and ways of seeing the world that may or may not be serving us anymore.

Kamara Mary Rajabari told me a version of this story.

She's a licensed marriage and family therapist in Oakland, California, and she goes by the ancestral psychotherapist because she helps her clients understand how their ancestors' lives affect their lives today.

To try to understand what has been passed down that's been a real gift for us and those things

that have been passed down that maybe we are finally ready to release.

Camaro says learning about your ancestors can be joyful and surprising.

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