​Ancestral/Generational Issues and Disempowerments
 
Just as we receive specific physical attributes from our parents on a DNA level, we also receive imprinted soul patterns that come along with that DNA. Ancestral patterns are passed down from generation to generation, and can show up in many different ways. 
Let’s begin by going over the nature and origin of ancestral patterns.
Ancestral patterns come into existence when one of our ancestors experiences an unresolved trauma or issue that affects them on a very deep level.  You may have known people who have incurred a serious loss or trauma, either from life circumstances, abuse, natural disasters, or even near death experiences. Often, even though they get through the event, something about them looks physically different immediately following the trauma. That’s because something has indeed changed deep down on a cellular and soul level.   When something like this happens and remains unresolved, the trauma can be passed down to following generations on a soul level. An ancestral pattern may have come into existence dozens of generations back, or just a few. We can begin to identify and heal ancestral pattern sources with or without a basic knowledge about direct lineage. 
I will give you some examples. 
If your ancestor fought in a battle decades or even centuries ago, he came back a different person, carrying the weight of sorrow and anguish, even survivor’s guilt. He was literally a changed man. He then had a son. That son inherited not only your ancestor’s eye and hair color, but also some of the war trauma-related energy, since it was unresolved.  Years and generations down the line, that inherited trauma will no longer show up directly as war trauma. It might show up in the form of an unhealthy coping mechanism such as alcoholism, as depression (diagnosed or undiagnosed), or as an inability to open up emotionally. However it presents, it will appear most prominently in the men of the family, since the original trauma was experienced by a male ancestor.
Let’s take another scenario. Imagine the wife of a sailor who was lost at sea. Imagine that wife was pregnant when she received the news that her husband was lost in the storm. We know now from our science that the mother’s chemical reaction to her stress would absolutely be experienced by her unborn child.  Nobody would question that now that we know how pregnancy works.  But the mother’s actual grief and sorrow can also be transferred to the unborn child at the soul level.  Regardless of whether the child is male or female, the child comes into the world already carrying a heavy sense of abandonment, without even knowing why.  Through an ancestral pattern, this sense of abandonment, if left unresolved, will be passed down to the children of that child.  Generations down the line, their descendants may always have a sense of being alone in the world, with no allies, abandoned and alone even in a room full of people who love them.  Or they may always feel like “something is missing” even if there’s nothing obviously out of place.  They may struggle to fully invest in relationships, because they can never bring themselves to commit, being fearful of how much it would hurt if the relationship ends.
Some families have an ancestral pattern that shows up for them as a streak of what they think of as “bad luck.”  Perhaps there is a pattern of strange accidents or incidents involving fire.  This may very well stem from an ancestor whose life was destroyed by a fire.  Perhaps they lost loved ones, or lost all of their possessions and had to start their lives over without any means.  Other families may experience a similarly unexplainable pattern of events that involve water instead of fire.
You may have an ancestor who committed a crime and carried the guilt, and so you have inherited a sense of guilt even though you’ve done nothing to feel guilty about.  Perhaps you can never really shake the sense that you might have caused harm, regardless of your actual behavior. Or maybe you have an ancestor who was the victim of a crime and carried a victim mentality for the rest of their life.  Perhaps this allows you to be taken advantage of by others, or contributes to you playing the role of the victim as your native state, even though there are no practical limits to your empowerment.
There may have been an arranged marriage, with no love ever developing between the husband and wife.  The children born from that arranged marriage enter life sensing at a soul level that they lack love.  Even though they are loved, they still carry that energy of constantly being in a love deficit.  Maybe they have a general feeling that they aren’t good enough, have no love to give, or are incapable of accepting love. 
I have seen ancestral patterns show up in countless ways.  I can’t list them all here, but I hope these examples give you a general idea of how ancestral patterns work, and in what ways ancestral patterns may be taking away power in your life today. 
There are many innocent people who are affected by the actions and experiences of their ancestors.  Most ancestral patterns will affect all of the men in a family, or all of the women.  For example, if the trauma occurred with a male it most likely won’t affect his daughter, but it might affect his grandson. You may start to see commonalities between your mother, grandmother and sisters, or your father, uncle and nephews. Even if you can’t think of a particular pattern or occurrence, you can still successfully resolve a pattern that might not be obvious, because it has become “normal” to you. But if you look at it with ancestral patterns in mind, and you learn about your family heritage, you might start to see their commonalities in a different light.
Ancestral patterns can be identified and healed in a Shamanic Healing session.  Ancestral Patterns existing in you personally can also be addressed and healed through enrolling in the Personal Empowerment training series.  Some students have continued on through to the Honor of Healing Others training series to learn how to heal Ancestral Patterns for clients and loved ones.
If you choose to engage in this level of healing, your ancestors will be very grateful to you.  If the ancestor who originated the pattern has karmic implications attached to their actions, you may not be able to resolve it for them, but you can resolve it for the innocent ones who followed and “inherited” the pattern.
Note: Not all members of a bloodline will choose to accept ancestral pattern healing.  As always, they have free will to accept and receive the healing work, or to reject it.  Some bloodline members will be grateful to no longer hold themselves as victims, while others could cling to victimhood. Some may have attached the ancestral pattern attributes to their identity.   For example, a member of a bloodline suffering from an ancestral pattern of anger may think that their anger makes them powerful.   Since others are threatened by their anger, the bloodline member may enjoy that feeling of power. Instead of embracing anger in a healthy manner, as an emotion to be experienced and released, they may choose to hang onto the ancestral pattern and behaviors. They may choose to feed it, to allow it to foul every other facet of their experience, and the experiences of those around them.  You can’t control that, and shouldn’t try to control it. 
Once you heal the ancestral pattern, each bloodline member is newly empowered to choose for themselves. Before the healing was performed, on some level, they had no choice. The restoration of empowerment for yourself is your role.  Ancestral healing is often a sacred agreement that you make to heal yourself and your family. Those ancestors will be in gratitude for the burden lifted from them by you and the will start showing up as allies for you on your journey.   

I am often asked, “What is most beneficial: a healing session, or a teaching/training session?”  I find that the two go hand in hand.  When I conduct a healing session, the information presented and the issues addressed provide new insight and perspective.  And we learn from that new insight and perspective;  the learning leads to healing. 

Learning Through Healing
     Sometimes the learned information applies uniquely to that client.  Other times beautiful, fundamental, universal truths that apply to everyone are presented in a new light specifically for the client’s current path.  Had we not done the healing session, we would not have discovered the opportunity for the client to apply the universal truth to their day-to-day. 
     The client’s needs for this Universal Truth may show up during a healing session as a misalignment in their energy body, or an imbalance with a chakra.  The misalignment may mean that there are relationships, thought patterns or belief systems that are literally sucking the joy out of their day-to-day experience, leaving them depleted.  It’s important to see those leaks and drains for what they are so they can be addressed and remedied.  When they go unaddressed, it’s like driving a car with a leaky gas tank.  Let me give you an example of one universal truth, and how it can benefit everyone, but benefit individuals in ways that apply specifically to them.
 
Have To vs. Choose To
     Thought patterns such as “I have to” or “I’m obligated to” or “I need to” are all energy sucks or leaks, even though the statements themselves may be entirely true.  Say the following phrases out loud: 

• “I have to get up early tomorrow.”
• “I have to go to work.”
• “I have to take a shower.”
• “I have to lose (gain) weight.” 

     These are all practical thoughts.  People use “have to” speech all the time.  But to have a  “have to” mindset is a drain hidden in plain sight.  Said in this manner, these phrases don’t motivate;  they obligate!  They drain!  That “have to” way of thinking leads to one of two energy results:  victim or martyr.  Neither of those are appealing or empowering.  That is universally true.
     Alternatively, the phrase “I choose to” comes from a space of empowerment, and is really the truth in everything we do.  You don’t have to get up in the morning; you don’t have to shower; you don’t have to do anything!  Instead, embrace the perspective that you are choosing to act, and reinforce your choice with the reason why.  Here are some examples:

• “I choose to get up early tomorrow to be productive and create a beautiful life for myself and those I love.”
• “I choose to go to work to offer my service in exchange for monetary support to create sustainability and abundance in my life.”
• “I choose to take a shower because I like to feel clean and I enjoy the way the water feels on my body.”
• “I choose to create a healthy life by giving my body the balance it needs through nutrition, movement and loving attention.”

     That simple adjustment to the way you phrase things can shift the energy significantly, and seal up the leaks in your gas tank in a practical and effective manner.  That’s the way these universal truths can apply to everyone.  Now, let’s look at some ways they be learned and tailored specifically to individual healing experiences through learning. 

Healing Through Learning
     We are all unique in our paths and experiences.  Through teaching/training, we learn techniques to connect with the energies or belief systems that affect us individually in a positive or a negative way.  One of us may believe,  “I am unlovable,” while another may believe, “I am entirely lovable.”  Others may believe “I am stupid” or “I am weak” or “I’m not important enough to matter.”  These hidden belief systems are like computer viruses: they start small, then infiltrate and threaten our entire system. Most of the time the mind will compensate and override the belief purely out of the drive to survive; but that extra effort can be exhausting. Most of the time, we don’t even realize how exhausted we are, because we’ve carried the weight of the belief system for so long.
     I teach a technique in my Personal Empowerment Series that empowers you to find all the outdated beliefs that affect you negatively, identify the source from which each belief originates, and remove the damaging energy. To continue the computer analogy, it’s like upgrading from a very old operating system to a modern one that’s much faster…much more effective in your day-to-day life. Sure, you could continue to limp along, but why, when there’s a better faster more enjoyable virus-free system?  It’s best to remove the virus, repair the damage, and move forward free of it.
     Remember dial-up? Energies from old belief systems are VERY much like if we still used dial-up today even though there are many faster methods.  It didn’t seem slow back in the day because we didn’t know any better.  But when we learn that there’s something better, faster, more effective, we become suddenly aware of the energy drain we didn’t even know was there before. During the Personal Empowerment Series, part of what we do is learn to become aware of all the “dial-ups” still hanging around in our lives, and heal ourselves of their damage.

What If I Don’t Want To Learn?  What If I Just Want To Be Healed?
     I truly believe that we all have our own answers;  that we all have the ability to both learn and heal.  And I see my belief reinforced nearly every day.
     So many times, a client with whom I’ve been having regularly scheduled healing sessions will come to their “call to action” moment;  that moment when they realize it’s time for them to become accountable for their own healing;  time for them to learn the valuable techniques and tools that I provide as a service during healing sessions, so they can provide them as a service to themselves. 
     When they have that moment, they really start to become powerful. 
     I feel the most effective healers are those who are willing to teach what they do. Anything short of that feels out of alignment to me.  That’s why I developed my Personal Empowerment and Advanced Journeying and Self Healing curriculum: to allow my clients to empower themselves to heal themselves.  To me, a healer who isn’t willing to teach their clients to heal themselves is just creating a loop of need.  In a very real way, that kind of healer keeps their clients sick. 
     Often on our life path, even when we struggle, we gain treasures along the way.  Those treasures are often the relationships and perspectives that come with experience.  I see everyone led to me as an individual.  I see each individual as someone who has come to me to seek an ally, a peer, and a teacher on their personal path.  I do not view my clients and students as “less than” or “needy.”  If you are reading this now, I believe you are here in my space because you are like me, not because you need me.

You Were Never Intended To Do This Alone
     Yes, there are times when a person may require a few healing sessions to get to a place of stability and sustainability;  to get to a solid space within which they are able to take on teaching and training.  Compare it to repairing a broken bone;  sure, the initial trauma should be addressed with a doctor as an ally.  But after a certain point in the process, the right next step is self-care and physical therapy at home. At a certain point, the right next step in sustainable healing is to learn to heal yourself.     
     If you take my courses, then later come to a time when you seek additional guidance and insight, it’s normal and useful to reach out and schedule a session. I’m happy to show up for you in this capacity. Sometimes it’s nice to call in an ally when your own work seems heavy, or you reach a block you can’t break through on your own, or you’re simply seeking additional guidance and support. I have allies that I know I can count on, and I’m stronger with them than without them. I am committed to you as your ally. But as importantly…more importantly, I am committed to teaching you to develop yourself as your strongest ally.
 
If you’re open to healing, you’ll learn.  If you’re willing to learn, you’ll heal. ​