It is the end of October and the leaves are falling, even in the Southern California climate. The trees teach us an example that is repeated throughout nature, to release that which no longer serves to promote growth.
As I reflect on my Ancestral Trauma Healing, I realized that the original impetus, to deal with issues left unresolved in this lifetime with someone who has passed, has still not been directly addressed in my own healing work. In a class with Orion Foxwood several years ago, I asked the question,
“If you have unresolved issues with someone who passed, what do you do?” and Orion replied, “You are the witch, deal with it.”
Imagine my surprise as I reflected this year; I have dealt with thousands of years of unresolved family trauma, I have worked on my maternal issues, relationship issues, helped numerous friends and a few clients, put together a pretty amazing presentation, but I had never directly worked on those specific ‘unresolved issues’.
You may realize, I knew exactly who I was referring to in that class. I know that when the subject came up in counseling sessions I quickly shut down. I could talk about just about anything, but those issues. I could even say that they are not as terrible as they could be. But I know, after some work this week, they hold deeply held trauma that continues to affect the spirit of relationships through out my life, especially with men.
My dad was only 57 years old when my sister and I received the news that he had extensive and aggressive lung cancer. We made the choice, with the support of family members, to remove him from the life support equipment that had been used to do the biopsy earlier that week. It was a long four hours, that we sat and prayed with him as his body released from life. During those hours I don’t remember thinking that I would never have the chance to resolve some of the issues that came up during my childhood, although I probably did. I have certainly thought upon it a time or a hundred since. I thought I had more time to have those difficult conversations that life had not allowed before his untimely death.
The wounds themselves are part of why I could not talk about those issues, when there were other ‘more important’ problems to deal with. The wounds were created by the choices that made me and my emotional needs expendable. It has taken many years, but I also realize that no matter what was said during those non-existent conversations, there was nothing that could have been said in life that would have made the past better or even different. And that is probably why I was never allowed to have the conversation.
The realization did not make the problems and certainly not the patterns it birthed go away. The pattern of expecting to be treated less than, to not be supported and to be undermined and put into danger, has affected not only my intimate relationships, but I now realize it undermined my friendships as well. Expecting to be hurt, I would often lash out first, never allowing someone the opportunity to fully support me in situations. Even doing things that set someone up to abandon me, so I could justify those beliefs and reinforce the pattern. The inability to see the patterns that I have lived in, is a large part of why I could not speak about or even truly face the unresolved issues with my dad. If I was ‘dad’s girl’ and he treated me like this, why would anyone else be any different? And to be clear, I am talking about emotional wounds, not physical…my dad was a ‘good guy’, liked by most people and most certainly not a physical danger to any of the young women in our household. Because I have other friends with terrible sexual trauma, it often seems petty to go on about what happened to me. But it is an important step to stop judging our trauma against others, with knowledge that someone else might have lived through worse. Trauma is trauma, and it all needs to be addressed and resolved in some way so we can grow.
This week’s work has not been comfortable, I have had a lot of restless nights and the work has many layers. From intense class work at The Green Man with Griffin, to a Full Moon meditation on the beach with Rene Collins, to a 3am wakeup call to do more healing work.…in preparation to do Samhain work on Saturday evening with The Green Man. If the Venus retrograde information I read a couple months ago is true, I was in a position this week to shift lifelong patterns of harm, into new focus and change for the future. The hardest part now, is not to slip back into those self-destructive patterns and allow others to be themselves, without my history coloring the spirit of those interactions.
Ancestral trauma healing is not always easy, but I have found the benefits to outweigh the efforts. I know that this week has been some of the hardest work I have faced, and it took me 6 years, pardon me, 52 years to get here. I encourage others to start on this journey, one step at a time, because the stones laid today, will lay the path for your work and growth in the future. Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in this blog are reflective of my personal path and experience. They are not presented as ‘truth’ to anyone but myself. I hope that they might spur insights in your own life and practices, but each of us have our own journey.