Have you ever noticed that some of the things you feel you need to heal or don’t like about yourself are actually, in fact, the same things that your mother, father, or other family members experience? What about the very behaviours our parents did to us that was certainly also done to them?
Remember Darwin with nature and nurture? Well, picture this as the nature and the nurture aspects. Ancestral trauma is a cycle of energies that are genetic (nature), whether it is a cycle of abuse, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc. But ancestral trauma is also how we are raised (nurture). Our parents learned how to parent from their parents, and their parent’s parents, and so on.
Ancestral trauma can also be traumatic events passed along generations. We can see this in groups of people like the indigenous people in Canada with the horrifying racism and events that happened in residential schools. Many indigenous people are still suffering from the experiences their ancestors faced with continuing cycles of physical and sexual abuse in their communities and the alcoholism that was used generations ago and is continued to be used to numb this immense pain.
Now as an adult, we actually can decide what energies we want to keep in our family line and which we don’t and heal all of these wounds to stop them from continuing throughout more generations.
What if we were all put here on earth into this human experience to heal the traumas of our ancestors?
What if our job here is actually to wipe clean our family line?
How do we heal this?
It all starts with YOU!
Therapy and self-healing work is ultimately your number one way to break out of these ancestral patternings. A great way to start this work is by acknowledging what traits and patterns have been maladaptive in your life. Write them down! These can be any traits such as feeling depressed, anxious, low self-esteem, anger, etc. Are they things that other family members have suffered with as well? Is it genetic? Or is it from parenting: The very things our parents did to us that were certainly also done to them?
Find out where these negative qualities come from and which specific family members also share these similar qualities with you. If possible, ask where it came from or speculate if it’s not possible. Really try to empathize with your family members and their experiences, as their experiences are also yours. If these family members are interested in healing these ancestral traumas, let them know that it is in fact possible and you can even guide them through this exercise. If they don’t feel there’s anything wrong and don’t want to put the work in to heal it, that’s okay too. It doesn’t stop you from the ability to cut this chord.
In terms of plants, when you pull out a plant from the root, it often will never grow back.
Are you interested in learning more about ancestral trauma and the ways in which to clear it?
Let’s work together! I offer psychotherapy and spiritual transformation coaching to help you break through these cycles.