“What we know about our ancestors can be deep seated within us……” Cheri Daniels
FAMILY STORIES
RootsTech 2020 had a couple of interesting programs that were live streamed on the concept of healing and ancestral trauma. So far I watched one of the two. Cheri Daniels’ Tackling Difficult Chapters of our Family History.
If you have the RootsTech app you may still be able to download her handout. It has some good information in it.
I appreciated Cheri’s description of difficult family stories and chapters. Her family is completely different from mine and has been in the U.S. much longer. She brought up a lot of topics that I would never see in my history, but that some of my clients might. Though overall, many of her family’s difficult chapters included some form of what all of our families include: GRIEF, LOSS, INFIDELITY, ABUSE, RAPE, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ISSUES, ADDICTION, PTSD, VIOLENCE, and so many other topics. These are all topics we can explore within our own family stories and our personal lives and start to process.
Cheri mentioned many times during her talk that she is not her ancestor’s therapist. On one level I can agree with that. On another I can’t due to the education I’ve had with ancestral lineage and energy healing. While we may not function as our ancestor’s therapist, through our exploration of our personal issues, triggers, baggage, whatever you want to call it, we do serve as their therapist as we unpack it all, process it, and hopefully heal it. There are a lot of ways to explore this idea and I encourage you to consider how you are either being a therapist or not.
Cheri gave a lot of good tips on how to handle the difficult things that come up through numerous examples of her own family’s stories. You might be surprised at the things she shares, which I applaud her for sharing. There are too many people pushing us to keep things quiet and shoved under the carpet, especially within the genealogy community, out of fear. Fear is a big reason there are so many secrets, lies, and patterns in our families. Fear is not real and we can go into our research and analysis, discovery, processing and healing with a non-judgmental, non-fearful lens and energetic space. This is important so we not only process what was but do not re-attach to it and continue the patterns or cycles.
I encourage you to watch the video replay while it is available on the RootsTech website. I also encourage you to start journaling your difficult chapters and see what new information comes from that point of view before you dive back into records or oral history. I wonder what you will discover and heal.
Ancestral Souls