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Healing The Karmic Patterns Of Ancestral Trauma
Sometimes during meditation, I recall past events and childhood memories that had been long forgotten. A recent vision, for example, took me back to the home I was raised in. But the scene was one I do not remember.
I saw myself as a little girl, around three years old, and members of my mother’s family were visiting us. Everyone was singing and playing instruments together. I saw myself watching them and enjoying the music, but then felt guided to look diagonally upward to another scene happening simultaneously.
In the other scene I saw my ancestors; at least that is what I concurred because they were going back in a line. Behind my great grandmother, who was playing the piano, there were people who I sensed to be her parents, and then her grandparents behind them, and so on.
In that glimpse into the distant past, I observed how the behavioral patterns and family dynamics of our ancestors, some of it dysfunctional and unhealthy, had become the patterns of my family. I also saw how these patterns were passed on to me and how it has shaped the patterns in my life and my own family to this day.
I then invoked the Heavenly Light to wash over all of us: myself and my family, my living relatives, all my ancestors who came before us, as well as all of our future descendants. I prayed that all of the disharmony in my family lineage be healed, and also that any other families and individuals we had disharmonious interactions and relationships with be healed too.
In Hawaiian culture this kind of healing prayer is known as Ho’oponopono. It is an ancient spiritual practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, which in English literally translates to ‘to make right,’ or ‘to make good.’ Ho’oponopono is essentially a personal responsibility and forgiveness prayer or ritual to heal, among other things, feuding families and ancestral trauma. When practiced repeatedly, it is said to balance out karma. I do believe in praying for those who wronged or harmed us, because within their healing we find our own as well.
Enlightenment Is Not An Exclusive Privilege
One of my Yoga students once asked me if I consider myself spiritually enlightened. I told him that I struggled with that idea, because it implied someone is ‘done’ with their spiritual mission.
It would mean I had accomplished the ultimate spiritual goal and therefore would have no need to continue my spiritual growth and work. It also seems arrogant to say that somehow, some people are ‘more enlightened’ or spiritually more evolved and superior to others.
I once heard a celebrity state in an interview that she knew she was “born to greatness.” I cannot comprehend such blatant entitlement and self-importance…to imagine that anyone was born more for ‘more greatness’ than another! We are all born for greatness in our own way, and none of us are greater than any other.
Therefore, I believe we are all enlightened. Some of us just don’t know it yet.
Spiritual growth or expansion is an eternal process. It is a journey, not a destination. There is no ‘arrival’ and no end. We will always continue to grow more, love more, heal more and learn more.
With that said, I have always felt Earth is a planet for new souls. But even old souls can still learn. There is no special ‘status’ in being a new or old soul. It is simply a matter of how much one has experienced as an individual energy entity.
I have heard over the years clients and students complain they have such a hard time being around people who are “not as enlightened as they are.” I find this arrogant, not spiritual. I believe that all paths lead to God. Just because someone isn’t on the same path doesn’t mean they aren’t headed towards God. Just the thought that we believe we are more enlightened or superior or working harder, shows we have a lot more learning to do.
Leave Some Space For Grace
When I read energy, it is shown to me in terms of the strength of that energy. In other words, the strength of the energy is directly tied to its manifestation here in the physical realm. As above, so below.
When we are angry or in conflict, we are often heavily invested in simply being right. And the more the argument evolves… the more virulent the energy becomes. This is never a hopeful, healthy precursor to manifesting better things in our life.
Fortunately, there is the powerful spiritual and emotional energy that love and forgiveness can also manifest in our lives, to counteract the impact of negative emotional energies.
A sister to the energies of love and forgiveness that is not always afforded equal honor, bit is equally powerful is the gift of grace. You may have heard of ‘grace under pressure?’ Essayist William Hazlitt defines grace as “the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.”
So, what is grace? Webster’s Dictionary defines grace as both a noun and a verb. Noun: unmerited favor, kindness undeserved. Verb: to confer dignity or honor on, or to add beauty to.
Grace is the ‘breath’ we take between anger and forgiveness. It is a choice to be silent, hold our tongue, and open the door for peace to enter into a challenging situation.
Angels naturally possess infinite grace, and many times the angels I work with have to remind me to hold my tongue, think before I speak, and simply be silent and listen to the person I am angry with. Being heard even if we are not understood is very validating. It says to the other person, “you are important to me, what you are feeling and thinking matters to me”. What you give you will receive.
Conscious Conflict Resolution
Dealing with tension and conflict is one of the most challenging dynamics in friendships and relationships. We have all found ourselves in a shouting match with someone we love, or concluding an argument feeling awful and unresolved.
Getting to the root of an issue without all the drama sometimes feels impossible. But conflict resolution is a skill, and one that can be honed with practice and patience.
The following strategies are helpful in shifting from overreaction to consciously seeking resolution when faced with difficult conversations or conflict scenarios.
Pause For Self-Awareness
Pause and identify what you are feeling. Step back from the feeling and merely observe it, as well as any thoughts that come along with the feeling.
Recognize that ‘you’ are not the feeling; it is a simply a sensation you are experiencing. Often people will say they are ‘angry,’ but words are powerful and this indicates that you have identified with the anger. You are actually saying: ‘I am anger.’
Do not choose to ‘be anger.’ You are merely experiencing anger. Shifting this mindset can help to separate your rational mind, from the emotional sensation of anger (or hurt, or whatever feeling you may be experiencing).
Once you are able to observe your emotions and thoughts in this way, it becomes much easier to avoid reacting from them. By not reacting, you give yourself the opportunity to think about your response first, and consciously choose your course of action.
Energetic DNA
When I am reading for a client, and we are evaluating either a personal or a business relationship, I always ask for the first name of the individual or name of the business, as well as when the relationship began.
With this information I am able to see the client’s energy and then the separate, but very distinct energy, almost like a fingerprint, of the other people involved or attached to the client. The link becomes clear.
More importantly the strength of energetic pattern is revealed, and whether it is detrimental or constructive, supportive or invasive, positive or negative. I call this ‘energetic DNA.’
Positive energy left in our field enhances and strengthens us. It uplifts and encourages us, building our confidence, opening our minds and expanding our hearts. On the other hand negative energy does exactly the opposite.
When we are involved in any type of relationship, be it business or personal, family or friend, energetic DNA is always present. It is actively leaving a positive of negative mark on our energy field and can impact our daily lives in very powerful ways.
It’s extremely important to be aware of how the energetic DNA present in a relationship has affected us, or the future impact it may have. Love, family, money – these are all very important aspects of our lives. Who we bring into our hearts, our minds, or business can be the difference between happiness and heartbreak, peace or chaos, success or failure.
Transmuting Enemy Energy
Some clients ask for readings about people they think of as their enemies, and I’ve seen certain commonalities with this over the years. In these relationships there are typically an energy pattern that has formed to create a dynamic of mistrust, tension, and resentment.
One of the most prevalent issues I have noticed in terms of long-standing resentment or hatred towards another, is that both parties usually consider themselves the ‘victim,’ and that the other person is always in their mind the one who is in the wrong.
When you take it a level deeper, you usually find there was an initial intense or significant energy when these two people first met – be it a lover, friend, or work associate. It is usually a conflicting energy that sets the tone for their future ‘vibe’ with each other.
This initial energy has a resistance to it and eventually takes on a life of its own, separate from the two conflicting parties. Peel away the layers of this ‘enemy energy demon’ and you come to find it is essentially comprised of nothing more than simple fear.
Also, this enemy demon resists the idea of resolution and will not accept its own demise. It will do whatever it can to stay alive, and it feeds off the emotions anger, fear, and sadness. I believe this is what may be responsible for some suicides, violence, acts of terrorism, mass corruption, and others evil we see in the world.
There is never an excuse for violence. If someone is attacking or harming another person, safety and protection come first. Recovering from trauma is not typically something that happens quickly. However, when we are better informed about what is behind the behavior patterns of those who hate us, we can better see to the root of the disease.
Free Your Soul From Toxic Negativity
It is usually advisable to get over it and move on. When we continue to vent about people or things that annoy or frustrate us, or when we cannot forgive someone who has wronged us, and we go on, and on, and on about it, we are affirming the negative and attracting more of the same energy into our life.
Revenge or vitriol does absolutely no harm to another person, only to the person pursuing it. Anger or hatred does not affect the other person, only the person sending it out. What comes from your own spirit, your thoughts, words, actions, is what you will create in your own life. You are hurting or changing no one with your negative feelings other than yourself.
That person who hurt you has moved on with their life. In fact, they might even be living their best life, while you are still stuck and stagnant in the pain and misery of the past. It only becomes baggage that carries forward into the now, and into the future.
I once had a client who obsessively held onto anger, hatred, spite, and revenge towards her ex for over a decade. She could not figure out why every new relationship and project in her life since then failed miserably, usually with almost the same endings.
Finally, after years of struggling to bring her different insights, she was able to look at the person who hurt her, release his memory with loving, forgiving energy, and let the whole thing go. Then, as I had predicted, the next person who came into her life was everything she had always wanted in a partner!
In fact, her new beloved was far better than anything she ever had with Mr. Most Hated, before it went wrong, and had she continued on her path of anger and toxic baggage carrying, this new love miracle would most likely never have happened.