I have been deep in Winter hibernation mode which always brings with it a swell of creativity and a deepening connection to the unseen worlds. And so it is only fitting that the theme of ancestral legacies has been bubbling away in the cauldron and also, as life mirrors our internal worlds, I've been working through some sticky ancestral trauma with clients.
And so, the question keeps arising: How do you know if what you're experiencing - habits, patterns, physical symptoms - have their roots in your life, or in someone else's life who has gone before?
I remember sitting in supervision back in the early days of my training. My Supervisor was big into family constellations and was exasperated at me never enquiring into my clients ancestral history. I didn't get it. “But no one remembers anything or has any access to the past, so where do I even start?” I don't remember her ever giving me an answer, though she simply continued to encourage me to stay curious.
Now, some fourteen years later - having studied, been through my own journey of ancestral healing, and having worked with many many more clients - I have a much clearer idea.
We inherit the lived experience and memories of our ancestors through our own genetic coding. We are the living breathing continuation of our ancestors! And all of our ancestors, at some point through time, will have lived through war, famine, enslavement, invasions, subjugation and all manner of horrors. These implicit memories are passed down to us and remain dormant and stored within our cells until some event in our lifetime comes along and flicks the switch - turning the memory back on again. And so we move through life re-enacting aspects of our ancestors experience or trauma, even though the original historical context is no longer in our conscious awareness.
So here are a few clues to support you in your own inquiry. These clues may help you to discern if what you are experiencing is in fact a re-enactment of ancestral memory / trauma.
1) When there is some seeming discrepancy in your experience, i.e. when there is a pattern or recurring theme in your life that you just can’t make sense of in relation to your own life and it is confusing! Confusion is a big clue!
2) When patterns and themes feel heavy, immovable and rigid.
3) Recurring and persistent physical symptoms that you just can't get to the root of.
4) You may use big emotive statements to describe your worst fears - e.g. I will die if… / I'll be completely alone / I'm going to be punished or killed / It'll be all my fault / I'll lose everything / People will find out how bad I am / I'll feel completely suffocated / I'll be hated / I'll go crazy etc..
If you have a sense or even a clear knowing that what you're experiencing didn't originate with you, it can sometimes be enough to simply acknowledge it - setting the intention that you will no longer be the carrier of it. Sometimes that alone will help loosen its grip. It also helps to bring in compassion and care. Oftentimes compassion, love and understanding are the very qualities that were missing at the time and are now needed to transmute the pain and integrate it. And perhaps it is you who is tasked with that job now, in this lifetime!
Other times, you may want to take the work further by working through the ancestral memory with someone experienced in the field or if you’ve already cultivated a relationship with your ancestors, calling them in to support you through the process.
And of course, we do not only inherit trauma! We also inherit all the wonderful creative resources our ancestors embodied. In fact, the more we are able to alchemize the pain and release ourselves from the hardship of their experience, the more internal space we have to integrate all their strengths and life affirming qualities.
Whatever path you choose to take, life always does us the wonderful favour of bringing events and situations that invariably help us to heal and evolve - growing beyond the constraints of our pasts. And so we will inevitably keep repeating patterns and reenacting old family traumas until we catch them and then, once we have this in our awareness, we can endeavour to do something different and lay the past to rest - honouring their lives by living fully, joyfully and unapologetically, now. This is the work of ancestral healing.