Image by Vitoria Murakami Olyntho

Surrounded by nurturing relationships, working creatively in your zone of genius, you have adequate time for self-care, enjoy effortless awareness of healthy boundaries, and are filled with feelings of gratitude, contentment, fulfillment, inner confidence, and harmony.

How does that sound? Does that sound like your life? Do you feel that you are living your life in full bloom?

Or do you feel stuck in one or more areas of your life? You know what you want, you even think you know how to get it, but somehow you can’t get there. You see your own limitations and blocks but are not able to break through.

The youngest of six, Sally was warm, friendly, and outgoing. She had a job that helped bring in much-needed income and also gave her an opportunity to travel occasionally, which she loved. Although she enjoyed the good pay and the travel, she felt burned out by the demands on her time.

When her eldest daughter struggled with health issues, her life began to feel out of control, and getting it back on an even keel seemed even more out of reach. When her department was reorganized, she found herself having to take on more; she finally left her job in frustration. In searching for help and direction, she started reiki, and then other complementary and healing therapies to get the support she needed.

Like Sally, you might have tried several different approaches—such as shifting jobs, moving, cutting what you feel are toxic people out of your life, or even hiring a life coach. You may have tried alternative healing approaches such as acupuncture, meditation, or other modalities, and perhaps, you even felt that things were changing.

Yet, despite starting the journey to healing and to changing things in her life, Sally felt as if some things in her life were “stuck.” Her family situation was strained by the time and cost of medical treatments, and her personal relationships with some of her family members left her upset and drained.

With both her parents gone, she was now no longer on speaking terms with some of her siblings. She felt helpless—as if no matter what, some things just didn’t seem to shift.

Do you too feel as if there’s a ceiling on life that shows up in different ways?

Feeling Stuck in a Pattern?

What if Sally could see that this feeling of “stuckness” may not have originated with her—that its roots extended further back than she thought—to way before her?

The sensation of being stuck is a feeling of being in a situation where things are not changing, despite your efforts. If you look closely, you might notice that behind this is a pattern. Perhaps some of these patterns are obvious to you, but sometimes you may not see them. For instance, you might notice that like you, your parents were disconnected from their siblings or their parents.

Sally’s mother had stopped talking with her siblings over a series of misunderstandings a long time before her death.

When family stories or anecdotes are narrated over and over again, what’s the takeaway of the story? Is there a common thread? Is the key character a victim of incidents that happened in their family, of injustices done to them by someone in the community or extended family? Or is the character a hero?

Sally’s mother felt she had been taken advantage of by her siblings because she had shouldered the responsibility of taking care of their mother without much financial support from them. Sally too had done the same.

Being "Stuck" in an Ancestral Pattern

Sometimes, themes reappear in a family for several generations in a row—of financial distress, bankruptcy, business failure, sibling rivalry, divorce, or, conversely, long, happy marriages, good health, extended family sing-alongs, constant bantering, and good humor.

You might have always noticed these themes or patterns, thinking little of them, or treating them simply as a coincidence. Or you might have felt the influence of these patterns so strongly that you felt this was fate that you were powerless over. But what if there is more to this feeling of “stuckness” than meets the eye?

What if these patterns of events, experiences, and emotions that repeat in your life and relationships are indicating that something in your life needs healing? What if the source of these patterns is your family—but not as you know it? What if family is not just a nuclear entity with your parents, siblings, or even grandparents, but an energy field that includes those who are no longer alive?

Like the backstories of a character in a novel, the experiences of your ancestors affect your life, even if you are unaware of them. This family energy field or family karma tries to keep coming to your attention through the repetition of patterns, events, and emotions. If you look closely, you might even feel that the same patterns and attendant emotions show up again and again through the people who come into your life and the events that repeat, leaving you feeling the same way each time.

If the“stuckness” had no emotions attached to it, you would not feel its burden. The earth is an emotional plane and a karmic energy plane. You feel frustrated tied to a job you dislike, or despair that your family relationships don’t work, or sad that your dreams have expired. Perhaps you feel discouraged that there’s a ceiling on your prosperity or you keep waiting for your soul mate, leaving each date dispirited and disheartened. You keep a tight lid on feelings of frustration, despair, hopelessness, and anger that keep circling within you, but sometimes these feelings escape, hurting others in their wake.

What if the emotions that keep you prisoner may not be your own? Emotions are the connecting element between two worlds, the physical world you live in and the invisible world that you cannot see.

Do You Have the Power to Change Anything?

When I started working with Sally, I drew her attention to the patterns I noticed, offering the possibility of her family energy field that was preventing her from achieving what she wanted.

Sally then started to talk about her family, and how her older brother died before she was born. No one had ever talked of him. Using some of the exercises outlined in this book, Sally honored his death and her parents and grandparents. In connecting with her ancestors, she started to be able to let go of feelings of resentment and being ignored and invisible in her large family of six siblings. Feelings that her mother too had experienced when she had shouldered the care of her own mother.

Working with the family energy field can bring up a lot of emotions. You may experience a resistance to letting go of the past, of hurts, grievances, shame, the grief of betrayal, heartbreak and so much more. Is there a way to work with them, hear their message, and more importantly recognize that these emotions are carriers from the family energy field?

As she started to explore her family history, Sally was able to repair her relationships with her siblings and extended family.

Transforming Family Patterns and Karma

Working with your family energy field, you too can transform these patterns or family karma so that you are no longer burdened by them and condemned to repeat them. You may be the one your ancestors have been waiting for: the one who will bring about healing and repair of the family energy field. When you start to do that, you lift the ceiling on your own life and also for those who may come after you.

Sally found support for her healing journey. She was able to shift the emotions that seemed to grip her so tightly. Using different tools of healing, like flower essences—a form of energy medicine—she was able to create change in her life.

While essential oils are widely known and used, flower essences have been around for thousands of years—only rediscovered about a hundred years ago. They are organic, wild-crafted, natural, and safe.

My clients say:

“The essences help remove emotional obstacles and make your life happier and easier.”

“Things that seem challenging suddenly feel doable.”

“Ifeelgratefulformy life, and I can finally let go of the past.”

With the help of flower essences, emotions shift so you can find calmness and inner confidence. Working with your ancestral energy field, you can understand where those emotions originated and how they influence you.

You are the flower of your family tree. How do you find the capacity to bloom?

The Roots of Your Disconnection

The roots of your disconnection did not originate with you. You may try to fill this void by searching for connections with others—friends, family, community, but it leaves you disappointed and unfulfilled. Even if this disconnection did not originate within you, it lives within you.

Your ancestors live within you. When they are forgotten, disliked, or disrespected, they cast their shadow in order to be seen. You never release the patterns or feelings of unhappiness, unfulfillment, or disconnection that act as a ceiling on your life. You do not, however, need to know your ancestors to do this work.

In addition to connecting with your ancestors, you need to connect with the power of the Universe that supports you. When you are not in alignment with this latent power, you are disconnected from yourself. No matter how much you try, you cannot change this sense of disconnection from outside yourself.

To shift your emotions, you also need to connect with the healing energy of the earth—the energy that your ancestors were tied to until not that long ago. The energy that is also available through the power of flowers. When you connect with these sources within you— the healing energy of your ancestors, the earth, and the power that supports and guides, then you can connect with yourself—the fourth pillar—and feel the sanctuary that exists within. Feelings of gratitude, harmony, contentment, love, and connection fill you. Through this process, you recover your self-worth and inner confidence.

Today, Sally is much more connected with her feelings and herself. She feels happier, grateful, and more connected with her family. She spends time in nature, which nurtures her soul. The journey to her ancestors and herself found its expression in the work she does. She helps people express themselves by working as a voice coach to professionals and teaching theatre to young children.

When you restore your connection to yourself, you can find nurturing relationships, set healthy boundaries, and re-create meaning and fulfillment in your daily life. The disconnection that you felt transforms into a feeling of being connected to the world and humanity around you. Your life unfolds like a flower.

When you can release the way the past lives in you, you can create the life you want. You can show up as the person you were always meant to be.

Copyright ©2023. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission.

Article Source:

Heal Your Ancestral Roots: Release the Family Patterns That Hold You Back
by Anuradha Dayal-Gulati

A practical guide to releasing the burden of transgenerational legacies and reclaiming your power to create the life you want. The book explores the principles that govern family energy field and the many ways this ancestral field can support you as well as how it can hold you captive. It also provides exercises and tools to help you recognize and release negative family patterns and heal ancestral trauma. The author discusses the importance of honoring your ancestors, sharing suggestions about altar creation, prayers, and the Vedic ritual of Tarpanam.

Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book. Also available as a Kindle edition.

About the Author

Anuradha Dayal-Gulati is an energy practitioner and transformational coach with a Ph.D. in economics.

After fifteen years in finance and academia, she began a new path of helping people release the past and reclaim their power. She is trained in flower essence therapy and family constellation therapy.

Visit her website at FlowerEssenceHealing.com