The idea of ancestors often evoke vague, undefined personalities of the past that we intellectually know are connected to us, but we don’t relate to on an emotional level. The irony is that their very memories are somewhere in our genetics or blood, accessible if we had the understanding to tap into them. One couldn’t get more intimate than holding a lifetime of a person’s memories. Then again what kind of Pandora’s box would we be opening if we tried to tune into the memories of our ancestors?
Anastasia from the Ringing Cedars of Russia series of books says that it is important to honor our ancestors. Perhaps if one comes from a “good” family, there would be characters you’d want to have hanging around your space of love in the spirit of protection as she advocates. But what happens when we have ancestors who are best left forgotten. The ones who were violent, abusive, criminal, mean or selfish beyond belief. Who wants to have that kind of energy preserved in their garden?
It may be argued that these bad behaviors come from childhood traumas. In today’s world, almost everyone has had horrible experiences growing up. Their trauma is just the most recent episode on top of generations of their family line who have been hurt and go on to hurt others because that is the only way they understood to survive. There are generations of people in one family line living every day in survival mode rather than in abundance and joy.
Instinctively, we know part of the solution to get out of survival mode. Every parent tries to provide their children with more than they had, but somehow the struggle to survive doesn’t go away. Whereas there is a lot less need for the kind of physical labor our ancestors had to contend with, today there is an emotional labor that is just as intense. The isolation, fear, lack of purpose, anxiety, and depression that people feel daily is widespread in today’s society. There is less heavy lifting, but arguably far more mental anguish.
In creating a kin’s domain where the need for shelter, food, and water is taken care of with minimal effort, the stress of survival can be transformed into a calm and calculated, if not joyful, approach to living. It takes the drama and fear of losing the most basic of human necessities out of the equation. Only then can we face our own pasts and that of our ancestors. It’s when we have a safe space that we can work through limiting beliefs, and heal traumas that are our own, and echoes of our ancestors’ experiences that may be influencing our biology.
To forgive our ancestors, and hold compassion for them is one of the most powerful healing techniques we can employ. The healing goes deep into our bones, into our souls, heals the past and changes our future forever. It creates positive changes for the outlook of our descendants too because it means they don’t have to keep carrying the pain of those who came before. We have extracted the hidden pearl from our ancestors suffering, given their experiences meaning and purpose where it before it seemed to have none and now balance can be restored in that area.
Some of our ancestors were amazing people. To those, we have an obligation to not undo the work the good they have done for the family line. They may have fought for their children to have better lives, sacrificed a lot, or just raised their children in such a way that the children were better people for it. Can we stand before those elders and truthfully say we’re continuing their legacy of making the family better and not wasting the opportunity in selfish pursuits? How much greater would our sense of purpose be if we knew we had to answer to both our ancestors and our descendants?
For most us, the continuity of generations is missing from our mental understanding of ourselves. We are not one-off people in an isolated segment of time. There is a necessity for deep recognition of our family line and their various struggles which are energies that need to be acknowledged and “paid for” or forgiven if we want to produced a human capable of evolution. Otherwise the family line will dissipate.
The present generation carries the responsibility to do what it can so the burden of painful memories is lighter for the next generation. When enough healing has occurred new potentials open up. This is how humanity evolves. It is one of the highest goals we can have for our family line.
So should we face our ancestors? Yes, because not only will it keep the family line from passing on insanity and disease, it will ensure our descendants can access divine co-creation and remain balanced while doing so. And it is in the safety of our space of love that we can begin to do the work that needs to be done.
