Just Like Nana

Dr. Daphne Fatter

• Amie Penny Sayler • Episode 10

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 32:45

In this episode of Just Like Nana, host Amie (Elizabeth) Penny Sayler is joined by licensed psychologist, Dr. Daphne Fatter to explore the world of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and its link to ancestral healing. 

They explore how trauma isn’t just a personal experience but a legacy burden that can be handed down through DNA, attachment patterns, and energetic imprints. The flip side is that we can also be the recipients of ancestral gifts.


About Dr. Daphne Fatter

Dr. Daphne Fatter is a licensed psychologist, clinical trainer, and international speaker specializing in integrative, trauma-informed therapies. As a certified practitioner in IFS, EMDR, and Ancestral Lineage Healing, she is a leading expert in resolving complex intergenerational and historical trauma. Dr. Fatter has authored significant works on these topics, including a book chapter on integrating IFS with ancestral healing and her own guide, Integrating Internal Family Systems into EMDR Therapy. Her work bridges the gap between evidence-based psychotherapy and the profound, often non-verbal realm of ancestral connection. 


In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

  • Trauma is multi-dimensional, including personal events as well as collective and ancestral traumas passed down through epigenetics. 
  • Ancestral trauma often shows up non-verbally as a sense of heaviness, unexplained dreams, or emotional reactions that feel "too big" for the situation at hand.
  • You don't need a perfect family history to heal. By connecting with "well" ancestors, you can access a powerful support system.
  • Integrating IFS with ancestral work encourages cultural humility, allowing us to recognize our place within a massive, nested system and treat ourselves and others with deeper curiosity and grace.


Resources Mentioned


Connect with Dr. Daphne Fatter


Connect with the Show

Are you curious about the "Elizabeths" in your own family tree? We want to hear from you!

  • Website: justlikenana.com
  • Share Your Story: If you have a family story or trauma you’re exploring, reach out via our website for a chance to be interviewed.

Connect with Just Like Nana's Website.

A proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Theme music by Carter Penny.

Healing Legacy Burdens with IFS and Ancestral Lineage Work with Dr. Daphne Fatter

Amie Penny Sayler

Welcome to Just Like Nana. Hope you are cuddled up in your favorite afghan, hopefully knitted or crocheted by a grandma near you. We at Just Like Nana are very excited to have Dr. Daphne Fatter here today to talk with us about internal family systems and the interconnection between that and ancestral healing. Dr. Daphne Fatter is a licensed psychologist, clinical trainer, author, and international speaker dedicated to providing education on integrative trauma-informed therapies. She is a thought leader in ways to integrate internal family systems with other modalities. She's certified in IFS or Internal Family Systems, EMDR, and as an ancestral healing practitioner, working with intergenerational and historical trauma. She's written a book, a chapter on integrating IFS with ancestral lineage healing in the book IFS Integration, A Comprehensive Guide to Applying Internal Family Systems Across Modalities, Populations, and Clinical Presentations. She also has her own book called Integrating Internal Family Systems into EMDR Therapy, The Step-by-Step Guide to Complex Trauma Recovery. Dr. Fatter has so much to teach us about connecting with our ancestors and receiving their gifts of healing and family legacy. And we are just so excited to be talking with her today. Thank you, Dr. Fatter, for being here. We're so excited to have you here today. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm honored to be here. Absolutely. So at Just Like Nana, we're focused on healing ancestral trauma and doing that, kind of looking at all sorts of different mechanisms and modalities that people use to feel closer to their ancestors and to also resolve any sort of residual trauma or effects of trauma that they're currently dealing with. And so I am not a mental health professional. You obviously are the expert and the professional on this call. I do not profess to offer, you know, mental health help to any of the listeners, but just kind of a smorgasbord of ideas. So so excited to have you here today to talk about your work.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Wonderful. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Amie Penny Sayler

We love the Nanas at just like Nana. So do you have a favorite or powerful memory of one of your grandmas? And what did you call her?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

So I called her grandma. I didn't get a chance to meet the grandmother on my father's side, but I did get to know the grandmother on my mother's side. So my mother's mother, yeah, I called her grandma. And a powerful memory that I have that really I think captures her spirit is I remember her babysitting me one time as a child. I didn't get to see her very often because she lived out of state from where I live. And so it was a really especial time when I got to see her. And she had, she always had like a twinkle in her eye. She was a little mischievous, I would say a little sassy in some ways. But she was very dedicated to education. And I have this memory of her quizzing me on my state capitals, like over and over and over again. And like just this twinkle in her eye, because she had this perseverance about her that was so strong, but she also had a little bit of humor. You know, she had a really good sense of humor. So I just remembered this like twinkle in her eye. She made it a game. And yeah, so it's a really positive memory of her. Yeah. Just captures kind of her spirit.

Dr. Fatter's Journey into Ancestral Trauma and Lineage Repair

Amie Penny Sayler

Yeah. And so for the listeners, because they're listening through audio, what they don't know, but I do because I can see you, Dr. Fatter, is that you do have that twinkle in your eye too. Oh, I love it.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Oh, thank you.

Amie Penny Sayler

Can you tell us a little bit about your practice and what led you to focus on ancestral trauma and I think you call it lineage repair? So just tell us about it, please.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Absolutely. It was really my doing my own work first before offering it more to people and working with people in that capacity. I was going through a really hard time in my life. I was going through a divorce and really struggling, you know, in terms of trying to get some clarity, trying to get perseverance, really trying to embody strength. And, you know, depending on the situation, everybody's different. But it's often a very, like can be very stigmatizing, can be very, people really kind of suffer silently, kind of going through it. People may not be able to ask for support or just be so taxed, they're just trying to get through the storm kind of thing. So so it can be a very lonely experience. And I happened to stumble upon Dr. Daniel Foor, and his last name is spelled F-O-O-R, who created this method called ancestral lineage healing. So I did one of his classes, and through that practice, I connected with a guide actually on this lineage, my mother's mother's lineage, which is full of very strong, sort of sassy women that come from, you know, a long lineage of like farmers and very agriculture-oriented, very connected to nature, but just very strong women. And I would connect with that ancestral guide. And honestly, that practice really helped me get through a very difficult time in my life. So, so I, in terms of my own journey, um, that's how I came about this practice. Um, and then I ended up years later getting trained in it as an ancestral lineage healing practitioner. And I now also integrate it in using it also with internal family systems, which is more of an evidence-based psychotherapy practice that I also integrate it with in terms of trying to offer it to clients to help heal ancestral trauma, intergenerational trauma, and how that shows up in their body and then their system.

Observations and Personal Experiences with Ancestral Trauma

Amie Penny Sayler

That leads me to a couple observations and some questions. One is I also have been divorced and I just want to hold space and acknowledge for those that have been through it. And you're right, everyone's experience is entirely different. So this isn't meant as you know, a generalized statement that must apply to everyone, but it can come with some shame, blame, sort of analysis of what did I do wrong and kind of a of potentially. And again, I'm not suggesting that this should be, but sometimes a feeling of failure just based on societal expectations. So just kind of honoring that, saying that that's a common experience, and hopefully someone feels a little less alone just by hearing that can be part of it. I also loved what you said about connecting with your maternal lineage and really feeling connected with those grandmas. That's one thing that's been unexpected for me through this process. So I also built out a family tree and then have been really trying to connect with each grandma and thinking about her story. So kind of researching, you know, where was she in time and space and what might her life have been like, and really sort of sitting with each grandma separately to try to get to know that grandma and a lot of the same kind of Bavaria to the Midwest, so farming, Illinois, North Dakota, Minnesota. It's been so powerful. And it's if you would have told me before I started that you could have a relationship with someone you never knew and who has been gone for a long time, I would have maybe rolled my eyes a little bit, but absolutely you can. And it's incredible.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yes.

Amie Penny Sayler

Have you experienced that, you know, not only yourself, but with clients? Have you seen clients just really connect with their family?

Clinical Definition and Embodiment of Trauma

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Absolutely. Yes, I have. I have with my own lineages as well, uh, my own ancestors as well as guided clients through that process. And it is, there's a mystery to the way that connection can show up and the way that communication can show up in terms of from the ancestors, and they can be such a realm of support and to really help people to, I think, uh receive some resilience, be reminded of okay, this is who I am, this is where I came from. And also, you know, yes, it you can deal also with intergenerational trauma, but there's also ancestral gifts as well that can be embodied through that connection.

Amie Penny Sayler

I want to talk a little bit more about that. You talked about kind of the potentially the trauma being embodied, and then also the flip side of that, right? Like your relationship and these gifts and the support. When you think of that, what does that mean to you? Is that through DNA? Is it energetic? Is it chemical? How do you think of that being embodied?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yeah, all of the above. We now have the research on the epigenetic piece. I mean, we have so much more to learn and understand, but we know that trauma, there can be handed down epigenetically, a vulnerability to PTSD, to depression, to things that are tied to traumatic experiences. So we have that research that's still in its infancy. So, yes, definitely through DNA and epigenetics, but also energetically, I've also found, particularly with, you know, in my own exploration, but also with clients, that it can be handed down through attachment patterns also. So the attachment style, say, of parents can be impacted by trauma from their parents and so on, um, and then can be handed to us through attachment. And so in addition to energetic, definitely also, there's an energetic realm that also is palpable in working with ancestors.

Amie Penny Sayler

When we talk about trauma, what does that mean to you when you talk about trauma? What's sort of your clinical definition of that?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

So, my clinical definition is when a person goes through an experience and it registers in their brain and body is this is too much, and I don't have the support on for it, it overwhelms our ability to cope in a way that doesn't leave an imprint. That's trauma. I mean, it's it's basically it's a simplified definition. Anything that essentially is encoded in the brain as this is too much, this is overwhelming, and gets stored in the brain that way. Because of it's the way it gets encoded, it sticks. Okay. And so that's what I would say is trauma. So to me, it's not, I'm aware in uh in the clinical world in the in the United States, it's defined by specific events. I have a much wider definition, which I think is more true to form in terms of people's experience. Um, it really has to do with what's experienced as a threat, what's experienced as too much, that may be an actual real life threat, a perceived life threat, any sort of hardship. That includes relational misentunment when we're thinking of children, where that includes bullying, that includes moving a lot, that includes systemic oppression, that includes imprints from racism and homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, all the more collective traumas as well, where it's too much, it overwhelms the individual's system. And we all carry not only personal trauma that we've lived through ourselves, but we also carry collective trauma as well as ancestral trauma. We just do. We don't live in a silo, you know, we are constantly being, at any point in time, people are coping with what's happening collectively as well as what they're carrying through that ancestral realm.

Amie Penny Sayler

When you talk about that overwhelm, is part of that your central nervous system?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yeah, it is. So it's basically when information comes through through our senses, it goes through our um limbic system where it's determined is this a life threat or is this not? If the limbic system says, like, this is just too much, like we can't handle this, you know, our body and brains are going to go into survival mode. And there's many people that, you know, two people can experience the same event and have completely different reactions to it. So that's why I say it's it's less about the exact event. It's more around how people, how it gets encoded in the brain and the body. If the person perceives it as a threat or too much based on their capacity at any given moment, it's gonna leave an impact in terms of how that traumatic memory is stored in the brain and body.

Amie Penny Sayler

Is it fair to say too people just differ in what's too much their sensory capacity?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Absolutely. And that's absolutely informed by so many different variables, including being born into in a marginalized population. That's going to make somebody more vulnerable. So the greater intersectionality a person has, the more vulnerable they are to trauma. That also has to do with capacity in terms of nervous system activation. So if we're talking about a person who may be neurodiverse, for example, um, that could be anyone from being dyslexic to ADHD to autistic to lots of other things, may have a more sensitive nervous system in terms of their capacity of like, what is too much? That also can make somebody kind of more vulnerable for how traumatic memory can, you know, how experiences can get encoded as traumatic in the brain.

Amie Penny Sayler

I've learned a little bit more about the nervous system. And I find it interesting because even though I wasn't using this language, sometimes when something would occur and I'd have a reaction to it, it was almost like I was kind of saying, shut up, nervous system, you're fine. Like my brain was saying it's fine. And I think sometimes as Americans, there's sort of this, well, we can just, you know, keep going and we can just ignore it and it doesn't have to affect us. But I've really just come to understand and appreciate the power of the nervous system. And its entire job is to keep us alive, and that's kind of a big deal, and it's gonna override what my brain thinks.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Exactly. Yes, it's true. And culture has a lot to do with also how we respond to those threat signals, right? And can also influence our perception of if something's too much or not.

Healing Ancestral Trauma: Personal and Clinical Perspectives

Amie Penny Sayler

When we talk about the trauma, whether it's ancestral or something we've personally experienced or societal, and it's sort of embodied in us and it's left that imprint, then how does the process of healing that kind of both finding it and potentially resolving it or letting go of it? Or I don't know what that second piece is, how you would define that in your work?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Personal trauma can show up in a lot of different ways. It doesn't necessarily mean that somebody's going to have a mental health diagnosis, but you know, even if they would have a mental health diagnosis, most mental health diagnoses are due to trauma. So even though that's not what we talk about in our in our culture in the United States, but that's more what the research suggests. But how ancestral trauma shows up, it can show up in a lot of different ways. People can have dreams of memories that don't belong to them, okay, that they didn't live through, but it may be their ancestors lived through. It can show up as strong body reactions to specific stressors where the reaction may feel disproportionate to the stressor. And it's like, wait a minute, why am I having this strong reaction to, you know, X, Y, and Z? I wonder what that's about. Um, it also couldn't show up, and that's so that would be more of a hyper-arousal, like fight or flight response to a stressor, where it's like there's another layer happening that's contributing to this. Another piece also is the is the exact opposite, which is more of a numbing out response that might be like, wow, I'm suddenly going numb and I don't feel anything to this stressor that like everyone else is having a reaction to. I wonder what's going on here. And then ancestral trauma can also show up with just an internal sense of, wow, I'm carrying something and it feels so heavy. And I have a sense that it's not all mine. Um, I have a sense that I'm am I carrying it for somebody in my family, or am I carrying it just as a result of being in my family? And sometimes ancestral trauma, because it may have been there for generations upon generations, it's also much more likely to show up nonverbally.

Amie Penny Sayler

Yeah.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Right? There may not be a clear story, there may not be clear words to be like, oh my gosh, this is what happened, and this is why I'm feeling so heavy. It's more like I feel a sense of deep heaviness and grief, and I don't know why, but I sense it's so much bigger than just me. That's very frequent. And that sort of pre-verbal, nonverbal aspect is also very common in working with ancestral and intergenerational trauma.

Amie Penny Sayler

Do you find sometimes that's difficult for people to accept? Because kind of again, we are a very story-driven, verbal-driven. Words are everything. We have to have a description, we have to understand it. And so sometimes it's just kind of a nebulous feeling. Or it might not, I mean, it might be a very strong feeling, but you know, we have this tendency to want to connect it with story. Yes. Want to be able to say, this is why. How do you sort of help people with just appreciating, embracing, understanding, okay, this is here and I don't know why. And that's okay.

Integrating Ancestral Lineage Healing with Internal Family Systems

Dr. Daphne Fatter

I think um one of there's two possible the in how I work, there's two different ways. So the with the pure ancestral lineage healing practice, we guide a client to connect with an ancestral guide that is well in spirit, that's on the lineage, is realistically many generations back, and is somebody we don't have ever, we've never met in real life, and you know, when they were alive, and they can bring some story. They can bring some answers to the feelings or that may not have words, but they can bring a little bit more of that data about okay, why am I feeling heaviness or grief or this feeling like something happened and I don't know what it is, you know? So that's one way with the ancestral lineage practice. And then in integrating it with internal family systems therapy, it's guiding the client to just hold curiosity and self-compassion and legitimize and really validate that they are holding energy that doesn't make sense to them, you know, that they may not know the story and what's that like for them, that they don't know the story, but yet they're feeling it. They have parts in their system that are feeling it. And is it okay if we get to know those parts and what it's like for them?

Amie Penny Sayler

Is that done through talking? Is there some somatics around that? How does that process work?

Accessibility and Impact of Ancestral Healing

Dr. Daphne Fatter

It's experiential. So it's essentially guiding a client to most people close their eyes for doing this work. So whether it's for both the practices, the ancestral lineage healing, it's typically people have their eyes closed. They're being guided through a process of connecting with an ancestral guide on one of their blood lineages and really befriending that guide, getting to know them, and then asking for support from the guide to help heal any unwell deceased on the lineage. In terms of IFS, bringing IFS into the process, it's similarly, it's experiential. So the client is has their eyes closed. Where are they noticing that part right now that's carrying this heaviness that may not have a story? Is it okay if we be curious about that? Do you have an image of that part? Do you have a felt sense of it? Is it a body sensation? We just guide the client to connect with that part of them and see if the part is willing to share, you know, anything that they are experiencing. That may be the part is able to share something verbally. But honestly, usually what happens when it's carrying in IFS, it's called a legacy burden. When it's carrying a legacy, legacy burden, the part may know more information about it or who it came from, or it may not. When the part doesn't know, that would be really the time. Well, let's bring in the guide. Let's bring an ancestral guide and see what they know about this. So it's really with the ancestral. Ancestral lineage work, it's really practicing humility that we are part of systems that we're in a, you know, a nested system that is so much bigger than us as an individual. It does include our ancestors. How could it not? And our parts internally feel that, and they may not know what that means, or what are they carrying that actually is more ancestral. But by bringing in that relationship with the guide really can support a shift in the system, a shift with parts in the system to have a relationship with an ancestral guide that's a resource that's outside of them, which is can be very, very powerful work.

Amie Penny Sayler

I found it interesting as I've gotten older, I feel more a part of a system. You know, I feel like when you're young, I mean, when you're a child, obviously you understand your familial system and you're living, you know, probably living with a family. But I feel like when you're a young adult, you just feel so out there on your own, blazing your own trail. And kind of as I've gotten older, you just start to appreciate more and more, oh, there were those who came before and there will be those who come after. Yes.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I can, I can relate to that too. Yes. I think getting getting older and being aware of, okay, who's who's come here before me and who's gonna be here after me.

Amie Penny Sayler

Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious about, you know, a lot of people don't have access to their family either through adoption or deaths or estrangement, or the there's various ways. I know there are different branches of my family that I I never knew. And I do want to connect with those. I assume some of your clients have had that same experience where they didn't know those, you know, certain branches. How do you deal with that? Is it any different than connecting with a different family member?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yeah, great question. Um, yes. So you can with the ancestral uh with either IFS and integrating it with an ancestral lineage healing, it's really the process is the same. And so just to normalize that, you know, for example, for you, if you don't have, you know, you don't have information, in some ways, for some people, having information might actually serve as a block for them in connecting with a guide. If I have, for example, I'm thinking one of my lineages, if I know a lot of stuff that happened on that lineage, my brain might be like, well, it's because of this. And I might have a harder time connecting with a guide energetically and receiving new information that might be much more information than what I know or what I've been told. So, you know, even if you've don't know anything about your family, um, say if you're adopted, you don't know, you don't have that information, you can still do this work, particularly with connecting with an ancestral guide. Um, it's just a process of being guided through connecting with an ancestral guide that's well in spirit, putting that intention out there and receiving support. Um, so it's even if people don't have access to information, the practice is still accessible.

Amie Penny Sayler

Yeah. That's so powerful too. Cause sometimes, you know, adults or or family members who've come before you, there can be possibly toxicity or just some sort of they're a barrier in your relationships with others. And so it's so wonderful to know you can just kind of skip over that person and have your own relationship with your family.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yes, it's true. And uh in the ancestral lineage practice, if that person is for whatever reason safe, they're deceased, and if that person that you're skipping over intentionally because they maybe have been toxic when they were alive, that deceased family member can receive healing from the guide. You here in the living world are not responsible for that. You're more asking for support. And the guide is the one mediating with any unwell deceased to help them transform to wellness and spirit.

Amie Penny Sayler

Wow. That's really beautiful. You know, when I started writing about my grandmas, I did so with the intention that, oh, maybe I could kind of help them, you know, their stories be heard and help them heal. And it quickly became very apparent to me that I was not, in fact, helping them heal. They were helping me. So yeah. How does the healing happen? And what do you see happen when there's healing? I think you've alluded to it, but it sounds like it affects not only the person, you know, actively trying to do the healing, but it kind of ripples up and down the family line.

Resources and Future of Ancestral Healing

Dr. Daphne Fatter

And just what you're speaking about, the healing is bi-directional. So the ancestral lineage practice is really based on this notion that we are naturally connected to our ancestors, whether they're alive or deceased. And so, and we can influence them and they can influence us. Um, that there's really this bi-directional relationship happening energetically. And so when we are in connection with a guide, that definitely, and are doing the healing work, that can definitely have a ripple effect not only for anyone else deceased on that lineage, but also other living family members as well. So it has this huge ripple effect in a down lineage and up lineage. And indicators are that, I mean, I'm um I've seen anything from clients feeling so much more resourced and having clarity about in the clinical world, we call it resilience factors, but it's really just clarity of ancestral gifts that they have access to and can connect with. It's like they have a whole nother support system in the ancestral realm that they didn't realize that they had. And other times, you know, say if there's unwell deceased on the lineage, for example, that for whatever reason they're not in a good state. And so I've had transformational experiences with clients where they're reporting feeling more free, feeling like they're not burdened by the ancestral trauma or they're not being sort of invaded on, say, by an unwell deceased family member or something like that. They have a lot more agency, but it's not that they're living apart from their ancestors, they're more working, kind of living in relationship with their ancestors. And there's an alignment there around that.

Amie Penny Sayler

What resources do you recommend for listeners interested in ancestral healing?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yeah, so I'm gonna point to my mentor, who is Dr. Daniel Foor. I'm gonna point to his website, which is um ancestralmedicine.org. That's a place where I learned this practice. Um, I also offer courses on it, you know, as well. I'm happy to share my um I I mine are really for therapists to do their own work around it. So my I'm happy to share my website, which is Daphne Fatter. It's actually spelled like it sounds. It's f-a-t-t-e-r .com. So I'm happy to share that too. And just for people to learn this, practice, practice this, do their own work and receive healing and connection. And the thing about the ancestral work is it's not like a one and done, I've done this and I'm on. It's a relationship. It's an ongoing relationship that is like having a support system in the unseen world, which just can be so powerful.

Amie Penny Sayler

One last question. What do you envision sort of for the future of ancestral healing? Do you think people are more open to this notion of ancestral healing and it's kind of gaining traction? I do.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Um, in the clinical world and psychology, there is more of a trend and an interest, not only in research, but also treatments for ancestral trauma and intergenerational trauma. So, you know, that has been happening for many decades. And I'm aware that it's gaining more men more momentum. I think the more we understand about the impact of trauma on the brain and body, the more we understand also about possible treatment options. So I my sense of the future of ancestral healing is that people are interested. I think also as the our connection to each other, whether it be through the internet or what have you, it's like we can connect with so many more people so easily around the world. And so I think that it's we're more feeling the impact of one person's actions on the collective. And I think that is gonna contribute to continue to contribute to our own sense of accountability for our own healing and knowing that we can heal one person at a time and it can lead to communal healing, to cultural healing, to cultural repair.

Amie Penny Sayler

I just know as, you know, and certainly it's a it's a process. I'm not claiming to be a healed person, but as I have healed more, I just find myself moving about more gently. It's kind of the best description I can make. So I'm at least not flinging my trauma on to the trying not to, just in my everyday interactions. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you feel like I really wanted to say this, or it's important for people to understand this about my work?

Dr. Daphne Fatter

I will just say this it's a life-changing practice, and it really can put things into perspective, you know, can really, and I think it can lead to self compassion, I think it can lead to humility, think it can lead to cultural humility as well. So, yeah, that's I think that's the piece I'll I'll end with.

Amie Penny Sayler

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time. I was so appreciative of it, Doctor.

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Yeah, thank you so much. Take care.

Head Shot

Dr. Daphne Fatter

Guest