What is Ancestral Healing? A Personal Journey to Greater Wellbeing
“As you begin to heal, you heal a part of the whole. As you find freedom from inherited trauma it creates a doorway for others to do the same.” –Dawn Vogel
Photo Credit: Andras Kovacs
Estimated Read Time: 7 minutes
This blog post explores my personal journey with ancestral healing—how I came to understand my own inherited trauma, and how it transformed my relationship with myself, my family, my friends, the quality of my life and my sense of purpose. If you're ready to begin your own healing journey, invest the next 7 minutes to read and/or scroll to the end for practical next steps and resources.
Introduction: A Doorway to Healing
Discovering New Parts of Yourself Through Your Family Story
Dying and Dying to oneself is hard. It also opens a door to new beginnings. Not long ago I accompanied my mother through her end-of-life. It was excruciatingly painful and beautiful. Being witness to her physical and emotional pain due to illness, unexpressed trauma and unlived parts of herself was heavy to bear. Till the very end, she didn’t want to talk about it. At the same time, as I spent time with her, and she opened incrementally to my compassion and care, she opened to me. I in turn opened to myself. As she became receptive to the beauty of my loving kindness, I began to see more clearly my own beauty. The parts of me I felt she rejected throughout my life, I saw vividly how part of me still rejected them in myself.
Over a period of two years during the 2020 COVID pandemic, we became friends. Our love grew. I found forgiveness. I also saw up close and personal some of the forces that had shaped me, and what had shaped her. It was loud and clear that unworthiness, being invisible, rejecting emotion, black and white thinking and more had been passed down through the generations to her, then me. At the same time, through witnessing my mom’s determination, tenacity, genius level (bordering on dysfunction) of being organized and detail-oriented and more, I also got an initial glimpse of the strengths that were also transmitted through my maternal family line. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this was the beginning spark (felt more like flames) of my ancestral healing journey.
What is Ancestral Healing? How do you do it? How can it lead you to a more fulfilling life?
Ancestral healing broadly defined is “a practice that aims to address and heal emotional, psychological, and spiritual issues passed down through generations. It's based on the idea that the experiences of our ancestors can influence our present day lives in many ways.” It has also been described as a transformative journey that seeks to mend the intergenerational traumas that have unconsciously been passed down. This may be from history of war, genocide, racism, slavery, displacement, poverty, addiction, disease, or limiting beliefs, dysfunctional behaviors, abuse, neglect and all the ways that life has impacted your family line. This in turn impacts you in your current life whether you are aware or not. For many unfortunately, these conditions continue and create ongoing trauma creating repetitive cycles.
You may hear it called ancestral healing, overcoming ancestral trauma, ancestral lineage healing or repair, or something else. Regardless, as you are fortunate to do so, looking back at your family’s past can help you to understand how it has shaped your present beliefs and behaviors, and how it might be stored in your body causing tension, pain or illness. It can also help you break negative patterns, recognize inherent gifts and ultimately lead to greater wellbeing and a more fulfilling life. If you are adopted or do not know your family lineage, it may be more challenging but still possible through intuitive and inner focused approaches.
The journey is complex as you address the emotional or physical challenges that come with revisiting past trauma whether from your own or your ancestor’s lives. It doesn’t happen all at once. It is not linear. It is not something that just goes away. It can be hard to distinguish the source of trauma. But, with awareness, practices and support, the sting or ‘dis-ease” you may experience lessens over time. As you learn skills to self-regulate* when unconscious patterns surface or you get triggered**, it becomes easier to bring yourself back to center. If you are someone that is less fluent with your emotional self, you can learn over time how to feel what may be hidden to you and begin to understand how and why you are being triggered. You may find relief through somatic or other approaches that address emotions and traumas that are stored in the body and may be causing current symptoms.
“Unresolved past is destiny; it repeats until we have the courage to work together to face it.”
Transforming Trauma into Inner and Outer Peace
In my own experience, when I face the sometimes-harsh realities of looking back and addressing current symptoms of a trauma trigger, it can feel as real today as it did back in time. It can be disorienting, knock me off balance, capture me. At the same time, I’ve discovered once I see it for what it is, and I give myself space to feel it and notice how it is affecting me emotionally and physically, it becomes liberating and offers a new choice. Even if only a little, I find peace and more space within.
Through the repetition of being with what arises and practicing skills to be present with what is so, rather than avoiding what I see or feel, I am becoming a better me. I am better able to be present in the moments of my life. I am becoming more hopeful, creative and oriented to possibility versus obstacle. I have opened (am continuing to open) more to give and receive love, trust myself and others.
You may also find that it emboldens you to become more of your authentic self. Rather than hiding or protecting who you really are, as you face your inherited shadows, tend physical or emotional symptoms and incrementally reveal more of yourself, it can lead you to a more authentic life. You may also find that it opens you to more relational resonance, peace and harmony.
Honestly, the journey itself can feel lonely and disorienting as you may already know. Being with a supportive friend, therapist, learning program or group space that holds you is a powerful container for healing through creating a sense of deep connection as you feel seen, felt, heard. As you share your story and others share theirs, you may also find a sense of belonging and not being so alone on the journey. You will discover points of shared humanity, which can be profoundly restorative. Like grief, I’ve found it’s worth the non-linear baby steps forward.
Practices for Healing the Past
I have been studying with Thomas Hubl for the past several years and continuing to do so. Among many credentials in navigating the levels of trauma and the complexities of systems and cultural change, he developed the Collective Trauma Integration Process for working with individual, ancestral, and collective trauma. The model promotes a safe exploration of sharing and reflection, guided by a facilitation process that supports radical openness, transparent communication, mindful awareness, and refined relational competencies. I’m paraphrasing but, I have heard him talk about the collective and ancestral trauma soup we are all born into. Also paraphrasing, I’ve also heard him name that we are harmed in relationship and must also be healed in relationship. In my words, as we individually and collectively get real together about what is in this metaphoric historical collective soup, we open the door to create a consomme’ that tastes much better and is much better for us. As we find peace within, and with each other, we create greater possibilities for peace without.
“Unresolved past is destiny; it repeats until we have the courage to work together to face it.”
The Pain and Liberation of Ancestral Healing: A Personal Journey to the Netherlands
I recently traveled to Netherlands, the birthplace of my paternal grandfather. A story on its own, in short it was both liberating and painful. On the surface, the travel in and of itself was joyful to explore a new country and enjoy the company of my travel companion. Going deeper, it was a visceral, spiritual experience to walk on the actual land of my family line, learn more about their day-to-day life and the hardships they faced; hear about my great grandparent’s determination and brutal journey across the ocean for 13 days with 10 boys. Although how we express our spirituality differs and is a source of trauma in my family due to their strict fundamentalist beliefs, I found a sense of spiritual belonging and shared devotion to something greater than ourselves.
Through learning about them, I reclaimed strengths such as being tenacious, hardworking, honest, loyal, determined. I reclaimed a history of being connected to the earth as my ancestors mastered how to live in harmony with the earth’s cycles and cultivate the mud lands of Friesland on the edge of the North Sea. As have I in my life, they had to rebuild their lives from ground zero. For them it was because their homeland repeatedly flooded. They lived modestly, with very little. They worked hard. They also were guardians of the land – to this day as the land appeared to me to be tended pristinely, with reverence and respect.
Becoming the One to Evolve the Family Line
Upon my return, I was unexpectedly met with deep grief. I felt so alone. For most of my life, I was disconnected from my relatives and my own family. I am the only one in my entire family line that didn’t marry and have children. When I felt into how much family, community, church played a role in their lives, it mirrored to me how isolated most of my life has been without these support systems. (acknowledging even when you do have them, they are not always healthy or supportive).
I realized how much this has shaped me and I still cry the tears that need to be cried. I am also seeing through new eyes and my personal agency to take risks towards creating a new reality for myself. (in process). I see how strong I am as a woman in this century to have been foraging a new path on my own, rather than repeating the patterns of the past. I am leaning into the privilege and responsibility it is to heal the family line backwards and forwards.
“Looking back and looking within in the present can not only change your life. It can change the world in large and small ways.”
In fact, being to one to evolve the family line has become very empowering. It has given me a new sense of Divine purpose. As if, my life was purposefully designed to not follow the family pattern to be able to wake up to it and create something different. Not that we need to toss out everything from the past, but in order for humanity to evolve forward, black and brown women to have a break and the status of women to elevate, it is time for a new way to emerge versus blind repetition of the past.
From Pain to Purpose: Becoming a Wayshower
My pain of feeling separate and alone now has increasingly new meaning. I see the unique vantage point I have had as a woman who navigated life on her own. Perhaps without the responsibilities and time commitments of a partner, children, family, it has made it easier for me to see how our individual healing contributes to healing the whole. Perhaps I have had more time, freedom of choice, and motivation to look inward and transform. It is also being transmuted into service to create connection and wholeness for others, stepping into my power as a woman, claiming my voice and joining with other wayshowers to pave a new path forward. That feels good.
In parallel, I’m finding compassion, forgiveness, and a newfound respect for those who have come before me, without whom I would not be here. The men who worked hard, the women who bore children and worked hard made it possible for me to be born at all and have a better life. And now here I am doing the same in a new way for those who will come after me. My ancestral healing journey has just begun as I’m continuing to integrate my travels/discoveries of this last year, reconciling with my father (another story on it’s own) and now searching through photos and mementos to piece together the stories of my mother’s family line, to discover more of myself.
Let’s Talk About It: Embarking on Your Ancestral Healing Journey
I cannot promise what the journey will be like for you. But what is certain is that should you feel a prompting to learn more about where you came from and what has shaped you and continues to be an unconscious driver in your life, I encourage you to follow it. I believe you will be guided to what is right for you. What you learn will not all be easy, you may not find answers and it may surprise you in good ways. But most certainly it will lead you closer to yourself.
The Vision Behind Fire to Gold
Unlike my mother and many in her (and our) generation, who didn’t want to talk about it (and/or it wasn’t safe to talk about it), I do. Let’s talk about it. Part of the vision of Fire to Gold: An Alchemy of Women’s Stories is to do exactly that, talk about it.
In this increasingly tumultuous world we find ourselves in, let’s learn from each other’s stories and piece together where we all came from to find higher ground in our own lives, in our communities and in the world. Let’s find community, understanding, forgiveness, compassion and new possibilities for ourselves and each other. Let’s be witnessed in our pain and our joy. Let’s create pathways for each of us to bring our strengths forward. Let’s arise into our greater selves together to contribute what is yours/ours uniquely to offer back to the whole so that wellbeing is more readily available to all.
We may not find the solutions in the existing power structures, but we can step into our power and start building our own.
Believing that we cannot become ourselves, by ourselves is a foundational principle of Fire to Gold’s Women’s Circles. The Circles bring forth the medicine of being held in community as we listen to each other’s stories; explore pathways for transforming trauma into personal power; learn self-care practices to regulate and resource ourselves; and discuss topics that weave together healing threads that presence topics such as violence against women, racism, reparations, continued systemic injustices and ancestral trauma with threads that cultivate individual and community power and healing, agency, and evolution forward.
Begin Your Journey: Actionable Steps to Begin Your Ancestral Healing
Below are some initial steps you can take to get started on your own journey. Choose one or two that resonate and take the first step.
Some Initial Outer Steps
Ask questions of family / relatives to gather stories about your ancestors. If you are adopted or don’t have a way to do so, develop a dream, prayer or meditation practice to see what you can access through deeper states of consciousness
If you already know the stories both challenging and inspiring, find others to talk about it to bring the truth forward and begin the healing process. As you are able, a therapist, shamanic practitioner, energy worker or other healing practitioner can provide support.
Get a DNA test or search Public Records
If you know where it is, get to know the history and topography of your homelands. Travel there if you can. Being on the land is a powerful tool for activating connections and knowings.
Find book(s) or courses that resonate for you about Ancestral Trauma/Healing to gain knowledge and learn skills to identify trauma, self-regulate and resource yourself as you grow.
Inquire about or participate in a Fire to Gold Women’s circle to be supported in community on your healing journey.
Some Practices to Support Your Journey
Begin a journal practice to grow your awareness of what repeat triggers/patterns show up in your life? Ask for assistance in your dreams and see what shows up. Write about it.
Create a life timeline to see visually the markers of your life that have shaped you and may have historical roots
Practice mindfulness, prayer and meditation.
Practice self-care to minimize stress and create more spaciousness and calm to see and know more.
Communicate and find support from others.
Create an ancestral altar.
Create boundaries with your ancestors that are not yet healed.
A Few Resources
Ancestral Healing / Point of Relation Podcast with Thomas Hubl
Dr. Amanda Kemp – Deep Wisdom from Ancestors, Mama Earth, & Spirit
Family Constellation: Master Course Discover Your Hidden Family Dynamics
Glossary
Self Regulate: Ability to monitor and manage your energy states, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in ways that are acceptable and produce positive results such as well-being, loving relationships and learning.
Trigger: A trigger in mental health is a stimulus that causes a strong emotional reaction or worsens symptoms. Triggers can be internal or external, and they can be influenced by past experiences. They may cause physical and/or emotional reactions. They are common in people with a history of trauma. They can be managed by:
Understanding, identifying, and working to prevent triggers can be empowering and effective
Being aware of signs of being triggered can help you rebalance
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