After years on this self-discovery journey, my understanding of healing has become far more multifaceted through time spent exploring the worldviews of different traditions around the globe.
What I find interesting is that many indigenous groups, from lands that were never historically connected, share very similar views on wellness. Not just regarding physical health, but emotional and relational wellbeing within a broader, spiritual framework.
Again and again, one theme keeps appearing.
Ancestry.
This is something we tend to overlook in the modern West. We focus on the individual. On personal responsibility. Personal growth. Personal success. Personal trauma…
While all of that matters too, it misses a deeper root.
You might arrive here asking yourself what is ancestral healing, and whether it could explain some of these deeply embedded patterns that are a lifelong challenge to break.
That’s what we’re here to address.
I’m not writing this to push my beliefs onto you. Instead, it’s a way for me to summarise what I’ve learned over the years, and explore a different lens through which many intergenerational patterns, illnesses, and emotional struggles can begin to make more sense.
What is ancestral healing?
Ancestral healing is the process of identifying, understanding, and working through inherited trauma to restore wellness within your family line.
In other words, it is to recognise that not all of your problems started with you. You don’t come into this life without baggage, and you’re essentially picking up where the previous generation left off.
Don’t get me wrong, you inherit a lot of good things too, but there are two sides to that coin!
While taking responsibility for your life is essential, there are often more profound influences at play that cannot be explained through personal history alone.
With that said, some of your deeper struggles might be manifestations of unhealed wounding carried through your lineage.
Some of these recurring patterns are obvious. Others are a little more hidden, like a silent current that runs through the family tree.
Ancestral trauma can manifest as:
- Propensity towards addiction and substance abuse.
- Intimacy issues and sexual blockages.
- Silence around emotions or self-expression.
- Abundance blockages and recurrent themes of scarcity.
- Cycles of abandonment.
- Feelings of worthlessness or self-sabotage.
- Trust issues.
- Fear of being seen or noticed.
- Deeply embedded guilt or core shame.
- Behavioural disorders.
- Mental illness and clinical disorders.
Whether we label these influences as genetic, energetic, or karmic doesn’t really matter in the end. They’re real, and you must work with the hand of cards you were given.
It offers a way of understanding recurring patterns in the family line, and, rather than pointing blame, brings them into our own hands to liberate these cycles.
Understanding ancestral trauma
We often think of wellness as something isolated and individual.
Eat well. Move your body. Sleep enough. Manage stress. Yes, that’s all important, and it does help. But even the medical world acknowledges that genetics plays a role on all fronts: physical, mental, and emotional.
From an ancestral lens, trauma functions much like genetics.
Things like stress, fear, and unresolved shock imprint themselves energetically. When those experiences are never processed, they don’t simply disappear.
They store.
Then they find new expressions, and they pass them down the chain.
Your anxiety may not be yours in the way you think. Your hypervigilance may be inherited survival energy. Your depression may be linked to grief that was never given space to process.
Everything is connected, and we have a deeper relationship with our ancestry than most of us recognise.
How patterns move through family lines
Most of us agree that we can inherit physical illness, but turn a blind eye to emotional, spiritual, and energetic problems.
Think about it this way.
You can have a stable upbringing, supportive parents, and still carry deep underlying issues that seem to come from nowhere.
You can do all the work and keep hitting the same invisible wall. You can be the most capable person in the world, but feel like you can never quite reach abundance.
Maybe your core shame is linked to a grandparent who was abandoned as a child, leaving a deep wound that passed forward. Maybe your trust issues stem from a betrayal, or your intimacy issues stem from a distant relative’s sexual abuse.
Maybe your ancestors were victims of genocide. On the surface, all has been forgiven, yet there’s still a current flowing through you that holds onto the pain.
All the unresolved trauma passes through your lineage, where each member may clear some karmic debt, resolve some issues, fully or partially, or add more baggage.
Ancestral roots of illness
When I was studying Lama Fera in Nepal, which is an energetic healing modality influenced by ancient Tibetan practices, I asked my teacher about his beliefs regarding ancestors, and he said:
“Instead of seeing yourself as a separate point, you are like the end-point of a line. Your ancestors live through you. So, when you are healing yourself, you are also healing all that has been passed down with you, and clearing the path for those who will come after you.”
Okay, I might be paraphrasing a little there, but the way he spoke about it hit a resonating chord.
We are not separate from our ancestors. They live within us, so we carry what they couldn’t let go of. And our kids will carry what we can’t let go of, in one way or another.
We inherit nervous systems that were shaped by survival. Coping mechanisms that were forged under stress. Beliefs that once kept people safe. Dense energies that were never released.
But it’s not all bad.
Some bloodlines seem naturally resilient. Others carry an innate sense of abundance, creativity, intuition, or emotional depth. Specific bloodlines are natural healers, deeply empathic, or perhaps even carry spiritual gifts.
Ancestry is not a prison. It’s a current.
You are merely a leaf on a tree, not the tree itself. When you look at it this way, it’s not hard to see that our ancestors are very much alive, with us right now.
Karma, responsibility, and releasing blame
One of the most helpful ways to understand ancestral trauma is through the lens of karma, and it’s something you can’t spiritual-bypass your way around.
Unresolved experiences don’t just magically go away. There’s a current of energy that will continuously move forward in whatever way it can, at least until the underlying cause is resolved, and the momentum dies down.
Each generation has the opportunity to resolve some of that momentum, pass some along, or transform it entirely. Many individuals will take off some baggage through their own healing, and some will add a bunch more to the stack.
But this isn’t about blaming ancestors. They were doing the best they could with the resources they had.
You don’t need to consciously fix your ancestors.
But whether you want it or not, they live within you. All their knowledge, wisdom, experience, and trauma are somewhere in that immense consciousness of yours.
It’s more like tending the roots of a tree. When the roots are nourished, the entire tree benefits.
So, vicariously, your work is their work, and vice versa.
Are there any ancestral healing techniques?
While some people believe you can use a simple ancestral healing technique to clear the line, healing has layers. If you could just erase a lineage’s worth of wounding with the snap of your fingers, we would be living in heaven on Earth (always).
But it’s not that simple…
Healing is a lifetime act, and it seems that you can never get to the bottom of it. That’s because it’s not just your karmic baggage you’re clearing, you’re also clearing generations’ worth of energetic baggage that you inherited.
Instead of attempting a single ancestral healing technique to clear the debt, the key is consistent purification.
If you are purified enough, you will begin purifying your ancestry, too. This travels both ways, burning karma that has been passed down, and cleaning it up so future generations have less baggage.
Some ways you can move the needle include:
- Conscious reflection on family patterns.
- Honouring ancestors through ritual or prayer.
- Emotional processing and somatic release, such as breathwork.
- Seeking group or private therapy to help understand your recurring p1atterns.
- Embracing ceremonial spaces where suppressed material can surface safely.
- Engaging shadow work and self-integration.
A phrase comes to mind.
If we leave the world a little better than it was passed down to us, then the future generations will have a paradise to inherit.
The same goes for ancestry.
If you can leave your ancestry a little cleaner than it was left with you, then you are already doing the work.
Ancestral healing prayers
Ancestral healing prayers are used in many cultures to consciously acknowledge lineage and create space for release.
From my perspective, ancestral healing prayers are really more about honouring your ancestors by opening a respectful dialogue with them.
Rather than seeing them as a magical cure, view them as a way to hold space for (and therefore process) unresolved experiences.
In this case, it’s not about the words.
You’re not casting a spell here, Harry Potter! It’s about the heartfelt intention to see your ancestors for who they were, and consciously release some of that baggage that they couldn’t.
Some people use these prayers during meditation, others use them as part of a ritual.
There is no right way to do it, as long as you have sincerity.
When done regularly, ancestral healing prayers can help you cultivate forgiveness and foster a more profound sense of belonging within the lineage, without needing to hold rigid beliefs about how healing should be done.
Ancestral healing near me
Ceremonial work is a universally recognised path that can help squeeze unwanted energies out. How these ceremonies take form really depends on the tradition.
My personal interests are closely aligned with South American medicine traditions, and from what I understand, working with medicines like Ayahuasca or Kambó in ceremony can absolutely help clear energies that have been passed down.
Ceremony creates a container in which unconscious material can arise for processing. Plant medicines often help you discover the roots of recurring patterns and understand where they came from, whether from your own experience or something a step deeper.
Now, this process might not always be the most pleasant.
It might require some deep introspection, purging, and forgiveness. Likewise, it might not happen in a single ceremony. Sometimes it can take dozens to heal the roots of dysfunction.
If you’re interested in working with plant medicines in a shamanic container, or simply want to know more about ancestral healing and how it might relate, feel free to book a discovery call with us here.
Ultimately, the healing you do for yourself isn’t just for yourself, and it’s actually the most selfless act you can make. If you have ever found yourself wondering what is ancestral healing and why it feels so relevant on a soul level, this broader perspective often provides a missing piece of the puzzle.
Regardless of whether you sit in ceremony or dedicate yourself to ancestral healing techniques or prayers, healing yourself also heals your ancestry. Healing your ancestry, in turn, heals the collective.
After all, your ancestry is just one strand of DNA in humanity’s body. What’s most important is that you continue working on yourself, knowing that the influence ripples forward.
