ON INHERITANCE AND SHADOWS

What We Carry From the Generations Before Us

Inheritance is never just money. It’s the stories, silences, and shadows that come with it.

Some families pass down wealth. Others pass down worry. Some inherit houses. Others inherit debts, or the memory of never quite having enough. Most of us inherit something far less visible: the unspoken beliefs about what money means.

I grew up in a house where money was always present but rarely discussed openly. My father worked in financial services. I absorbed the numbers, the language, the importance of it all. But when he died, suddenly and too young, I realised what I had inherited wasn’t only financial. It was grief. It was responsibility. It was the quiet shadow of what he hadn’t lived.

Carl Jung wrote: “There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.” I’ve carried that line with me for years. Because inheritance isn’t only assets—it’s unfinished stories.

In my work, I see this every day. Clients who are successful on the surface but still driven by their parents’ anxieties. Professionals who overwork because they grew up hearing, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” People who feel guilty spending because their grandparents lived through rationing.

The shadow of inheritance can be subtle. We repeat patterns we never chose. We carry burdens we never questioned.

But it can also be a gift. A parent’s generosity. A grandparent’s resilience. The wisdom of scarcity. The discipline of saving. Even trauma, when brought into the light, can become fuel for healing.

The deeper work is not to reject our inheritance but to understand it. To ask: What did I receive? Which parts still serve me? Which parts can I let go?

Because when we don’t examine what we’ve inherited, it drives us unconsciously. But when we bring it into awareness, we can choose.

For me, writing The Conscious Currency has been part of that choice. To take the inheritance of my father’s profession, my family’s shadows, my own history—and turn them into something alive, something that heals rather than binds.

We cannot change what we inherit. But we can change how we carry it.

If you pause for a moment, what did you inherit about money? Silence? Anxiety? Hope? Fear? Generosity? Ambition?

And more importantly—what do you want to pass on?

Because inheritance isn’t only about what came before. It’s about the story you’ll leave behind.