The Torch and the Baton - Family legacy, trauma, and healing.

We don’t always choose the torches we carry or the batons we’re handed from our family, but we can choose how we protect their flame and how we run our race. 

When I think of generational legacy, trauma, and cycles, two analogies come to mind: the Olympic torch and a relay race. They are different in their own right; one requires speed and precision, while the other honors tradition and modernity in a moment where the world comes together as one.

Genetically, we all carry codes of those who came before us: past traumas, gifts, quirks, tendencies, and health histories imprinted in our DNA. We resemble our grandparents, carry forward family talents like encoded programs in a perfect double helix, and continue shaping our own identity through the lives we live and share.

My father’s mother died when he was eight, so I grew up not knowing much about her. As a child, I danced ballet and played the piano. Not once did anyone in the family mention that my grandmother had been a flamenco dancer who also loved the piano. I learned that only after turning forty, by then I had owned my dance school for eighteen years. She exuded the very energy I had inherited, unknowingly continuing her rhythm and grace. We almost shared the same birthday, hers, December 28, mine, December 25. She loved hosting parties, finding joy in seeing her children’s faces light up at the decorations and gifts she prepared. I see myself in the faint memory of my grandmother. I carry her light. Her flame was never lost. I carry her torch.

Sometimes, families move through life like a relay race. Some batons are passed smoothly, and others are dropped, leaving the next runner with a harder start. Both of my grandfathers were business owners: one had a shoe factory, the other an ice cream factory. Both prospered for a time, built wealth, and then lost it. One lost everything and died a shadow of the man he once was. The other managed to live comfortably but didn’t build multi-generational wealth. It wasn’t a baton I picked up.

My father, too, owned a shoe factory and an export business. I watched him build his empire in the 1990s and lose it all. On the other side of the family, my mother opened a clothing boutique that thrived for years before fading with changing times and trends. When she once asked if I wanted to take over her business, I said clearly, “I never want to own my own business.”

Looking back now, after opening my third, I realize that what twelve-year-old me really meant was, “I’ve seen too much struggle, loss, and pain come from owning a business.” I had watched my father go to jail after his factory’s bankruptcy and my mother work twelve-hour days, her face tight with worry over paying rent and groceries. I knew what I didn’t want, the torch I was not willing to carry on.

But what I missed back then was that their light was never the problem; it was how they didn’t protect it from the wind. The wind, the political and economic climate, and the outside factors we cannot control but must learn to navigate can either feed a fire or extinguish it. It’s a delicate balance. In the end, we can control very little. And that is key in the healing journey, understanding that all we can truly control is how we choose to proceed from where we are. The next step. That is it.

My family’s inheritance didn’t come in the form of money. From sixteen on, I never asked my parents for a dime. I worked because I had skills they had given me, skills they had earned through their own resilience. I taught English as a second language in high school and continued dancing. I wanted to see the world. So, from the south of Brazil, I found my way to Wisconsin. When I later found myself living in a small town with my then-husband, I walked into a tiny dance studio, introduced myself, and began teaching. When I learned the studio would close, I offered the owner the $3,000 I had saved from waitressing that summer and bought the mirrors and barres. That’s how I started my first business.

Part of me was apprehensive, but my soul knew I had the blood of entrepreneurship running through me. Despite my resistance at twelve, the twenty-four-year-old me said yes. I promised myself I would never suffer the way my parents had. That promise didn’t hold. Business ownership tests your spirit, breaks you open, and demands you rise again. It is not for the faint of heart. But my family passed that baton perfectly. They taught me bravery, reinvention, and fortitude. For that, I’m forever grateful.

That’s what we’re doing here, souls incarnated into bodies, born into families, sharing bloodlines and DNA. We are evolving the human race one generation at a time, honoring what was, and saying no to what must end.

From my family, I also inherited a heavy load of trauma and emotional patterns. I’ve processed and alchemized most of it. Motherhood helped me see everything from a new perspective and keep the torch alive. I’m sure I’ve dropped some batons in my relay to my daughter, but I also hope I’ve passed some cleanly, firmly, square in her hand, ones that will help her when I am nothing but a memory and a set of lessons.

That is the game of life. That is the forever loop.

Have we done enough? Who knows. But when you’ve done your best, acceptance must free you from believing anything else, because your best is, and always has been, enough.

If you are ready to look at your family’s relay race and process the wins and losses of your past so your life can feel freer and lighter, hypnotherapy and integration, along with tapping (EFT), can help you unlock the life you truly desire.

With love,

Carolina Bücker

Elevate Hypnotherapy & Integration