How to Heal Ancestral Trauma Using Genealogy
Traumatic events affect all of us at some point in our lives triggering emotional responses and negative emotional patterns that then affect our physical DNA. This then gets passed down to future generations, showing up as inherited negative emotions and unwanted patterns of behavior. In this blog learn how to heal ancestral trauma with the power of Genealogy.
Ancestral Trauma
Most of us don’t recognize the depth of our links to the traumas within our family lineage and previous generations. Quite unconsciously, we repeat hidden patterns and negative emotions in our daily lives while at the same time developing unconscious loyalties to these patterns and the people who set them in motion long ago. We literally relive versions of unresolved traumas and sadness that occurred in prior generations.
For example, let’s say a great-grand-parent suffered some lingering disease that set in motion a pattern of ill-health as well as a caretaking pattern in the family. Three generations later half the family always seems to be sick or marrying people who get sick or find themselves in stressful situations while the other half always seem to be loyally trapped in caretaking roles. Patterns like these obviously become barriers to emotional well-being and any possibility of greatness. It is as though effector patterns, once started, can’t stop.
Negative emotions around finances are another commonly inherited family pattern in our ancestral lineage. Who knew that there was such a thing as money DNA? Not only do we inherit our money mindsets and basic emotions interacting with money from our family system, but also from our culture. Both play an important role setting up views in our minds as young adolescents about the rightness or “wrongness” of money and wealth.
This is also amplified by religions that inspire negative emotional reactions to having money and “too much filthy lucre.” Then this ancestral/cultural meta-pattern creates life experiences of misery, chronic stress and psychological trauma around money, assets, investments, career decisions, you name it.
There is a hidden power in your DNA, and you are part of a multi-generational internet—a web of ancestral information is contained within you. In other words, your family system connects you to everything that has happened to you and your lineage. These past events include natural disasters, diasporas, genocides, slavery, sexual abuse, and gender discrimination.
Even though many of these things have been experienced in the lives of ancestors, we experience the feelings and thoughts of our forefathers and mothers as they went through these past traumas as a part of our nervous system. We are literally repeating versions of the life paths of those who came before us instead of living our own life.
Unlock Your Hidden Potential with a Breakthrough Discovery in Genealogy
Coming from difficult circumstances doesn’t mean you can’t have a better life. While ancestral traumas can create triggers, the good news is they can also ignite possibilities. And some really good news is that there is a healthy way to start healing ancestral trauma using genealogy. Genealogy allows us to hone in on painful emotions and the patterns that create them.
The following sets out a healthy way to deal with ancestral trauma patterns and our past ancestral connection.
First Step: Be willing to look at negative emotional responses flowing from inherited patterns.
Ask yourself:
- Where do I come from? What kind of family dynamics have been in play?
- What other family member or members share my negative emotions? Who else experiences the same kind or similar physiological responses to those emotions?
- What kind of actual problem or unwanted behaviors have these negative emotions created?
- What would freedom from these unwanted behaviors and emotions look like to me? Feel like?
Now, let’s look at historical traumas through a systemic lens. Using genealogy, we are able to see how traumatic experiences and the emotional decisions made about those events by relatives in the past may affect us and some of our family members, impacting our own childhood experiences and coloring our adult world.
Step two: Consult your genealogical history and ask yourself the following:
- Looking at my genealogical chart, what kind of events and stressful situations could have happened in my family’s past that might have set these negative emotional patterns into motion?
- Were there wars? Famines? Political unrest? Natural disasters? Pogroms?
Step three: Systemic work and constellations is all about dimensionalizing our patterns by seeing not only what’s inside our family system, but all the ways these negative patterns are affecting us.
- Get into the present moment and dig deep into your emotional state.
- Now, write down three ways in which these ancestral patterns and old painful emotions have you stuck and how that makes you feel.
Step four: Considering how you feel and looking at your family history, ask yourself”
- “Given my background, what is a big leap forward that I would like to make?”
- Make it real. Make your desire come alive in your mind.
- What positive changes do you want to experience? What positive outcome sets your mind and heart on fire?
Once we start looking at our potential instead of focusing on the old feelings, old actions and old outcomes, we are able to create new choices and new pathways. Yes, of course, the old patterns, the old mental states, the old emotional responses tug at us. The way to look at this is to see what was and give it its place.
Family patterns are set in motion in response to tough situations in the past. Your ancestors did the best they could escaping the pogroms or the wars or the famines and political unrest. Now it’s time for you to set new healthy patterns in motion and experience freedom and fulfillment.
Step five: Now comes the actualization part.
- Write down three new thoughts, feelings, or actions you can take to get you moving towards you desired positive outcome.
- How does each of these actions and/or thoughts and feelings make you feel?
- Don’t judge what comes up. And don’t think any action or thought is too small. A step is a step is a step, and a series of steps takes you into a whole new reality.
Now, instead of being burdened by negative emotions, old emotional responses and even old physiological responses, you have rewired your neural pathways and autonomic nervous system for positive changes. Your primary emotions have shifted and your emotional well-being is activated.
Step six: Discover your superpower.
Your superpower is the aspect or aspects of your character that will get you all the way out of being stuck and into creation mode. It’s the thing that will help you actualize your new thoughts, feelings and actions. And let me say upfront, a superpower isn’t about leaping tall buildings in a single bound or exhibiting super strength.
It’s often the simplest thing … like being kind. Or being the sort of person who always finishes what they start. Or perhaps you have the knack of being a good listener. Or you’re a natural “connector,” always putting people and situations together.
Understanding your superpower(s) will give you a big boost in self confidence when you put it together with your dreams and see how you can make them happen.
Honor Past Emotional Experiences
One very important thing to be aware of when healing multigenerational trauma is that you are not trying to forget the past. And you’re not making it bad and wrong. Instead, you are finally giving the past its place rather than becoming entangled in it. Great-grandpa did the right thing quitting his medical career to stay home to caretake his ailing wife. But that was then and this is now.
When we begin to use genealogy in a whole new way—when we use it not just to understand physical health patterns and physiological attributes, but rather as a tool to access information about events that may have initiated emotional and behavioral responses in our ancestors that were then passed own to us—we begin to understand that every one of us counts. That we, by desiring a different life or different emotions and new experiences, are literally potential solutions and highways to a new reality.
Changing the world
Can you imagine how this world would change if we did this kind of work as a collective? Like individuals, nations and ethnic groups are also subject to ancestral patterns and collective trauma. When we look at issues like slavery, we often see where an entire group of people is trapped in what we call a systemic trance. In other words, sometimes millions of people are trapped in a pattern of inherited pain and suffering called a “meta-pattern.”
In this case, the pattern is a pattern of abuse and low self-esteem, self-hatred and judgment of self and others. Nationalism is another kind of meta-pattern where a collective of people can be, quite literally, hypnotized into a belief in their racial superiority or goodness.
These trances or systemic loyalties can and often do create wars. Each side is fighting to protect its personal history rather than seeking to advance its future. So, how do we get that to change? It is crucial to answer this question for future generations to evolve. Here are some guidelines:
First, it is important to acknowledge what is and to be curious rather than to judge. This pulls us out of survival mode and emotional responses and into a more sacred space where there is a place for all and the possibility for evolution. Ancestral healing work enables us to disentangle events and even the most complex situations by simply looking and acknowledging what is in the present moment, then reimagining and creating anew.
Once we are willing to move beyond our preconceived and often well-defended thoughts, feelings, and actions, we are able to gain a completely new perspective. Instead of looking at how we are being impacted and victimized, we can create positive change and meaningful impact. If we allow something to shift in us, something shifts for us and for others.
This kind of approach is what often creates deep shifts in humanity. And every single one of us is capable of creating multiple shifts in many directions.
What negative meta-pattern is dragging the world down that you would like to see change? Using the steps you just learned, how would you go about helping create that change? Write out your thoughts, feelings, and actions around it. Go for it!
I look forward to showing you how to experience meaningful change and unleash your fullest potential. For more information about my 2024 events click here.
