“In our ancestry, there are many answers we need today…”
In these thorny times, we can derive strength from looking back to the story of our ancestors.
In our ancestral tree lie not only the traumatic events that pop up as symptoms in our everyday life. There we can also find the answers we need for our personal path. “They are waiting there, they are sleeping there, we need to de-ice them in order to respond to the needs of today”, says Thomas Hübl.
In times of crisis it might be too overwhelming to do our “ancestral work”. To look back to the shadows of the past. To heal the trauma energy that is still frozen in my family tree. The things that were too painful in the lives of my parents, my grandparents and my great-grandparents. To do the work they could not do. Sometimes we just can’t. Because life is too much right now, because we have lost our compass and want to withdraw, to give up and hide under a rock. Because we wish we could hibernate like a bear and wake up when things look smoother, lighter and more joyful.
Through our ancestral roots we receive two flows of energy: the wounded energy, that is, the trauma patterns, the reverberations of the difficult chapters of the life of our ancestors; and then there is the flow of life, the legacy of their wisdom, the evolutionary intelligence of life itself. Our elders pass onto us the resources we can rely on today. Our ancestors can be the resources we need to heal.
So imagine for a moment that you are travelling through your family tree… you can grab a piece a paper and start writing down the names of your parents, of your grandparents… you can even add your great-grandparents to this magnificent tree… and with each name you pause and you connect with their qualities. What strengths do I see in my father? What were his abilities? What resources helped him in difficult times? How did my grandmother survive war? Was she creative? Spiritual? Was my great-grandfather an intellectual? Was he caring? Did my mum have the capacity to make things happen? Was she physically strong? What are their qualities that I can recognize in myself? And what are the qualities I would need today to feel more grounded ? What did my ancestors learn that would be helpful for me today?
Look at your resource map. Take your time to enter into relation with each member of your family. Breathe, feel them. This is not just a mental exercice. It’s an invitation to drop into your own body and tune into those ancestors who were resourceful. What you are doing here is bringing your family tree to life. From a 2D drawing to a 3D experience. You might want to do this by visualizing your ancestors or you might want to use markers on the floor to represent them. Then you can step onto each position and feel the quality of your choice through your body. How does it feel to embody your uncle’s joie de vivre? Or your grandmother’s resilience?
In this uncertain present, we need more than ever to start the conversation with our elders, the ones who walked this Earth before us. Even if we never met them, our ancestors know about us. If we listen carefully, they will whisper their words of wisdom in our ears. They went through convulsive times, survived and lived long enough to pass life onto the next generation. That’s why we are here today. Let’s drink from the waters of their experience. We are the fruit of million of years of evolution. By trusting the ancestral ground on which we stand, we will find the energy to support our life.
Photo: Pep Gasol
