You can inherit your dad’s nose and your mom’s laugh without inheriting their fears. Check which ones are actually yours.

You take a great deal from your family without taking all of it. The physical parts arrive whether you asked or not, while the fears are passed along by proximity rather than biology, which is why a worry you grew up hearing can feel like a plain fact about the world. Learned things can be examined, and examined things can often be put down.

Pick one fear you can trace back to somebody who raised you and ask whether your own experience actually supports it. Test it in a small way this week. Keep whatever turns out to be true for you.