Ancestral Emotional Wounds (Part 3)

Is your life entangled with many of the common ancestral emotional wounds?  Do you feel your relationship with your mother and father is compassionate and loving (see Part 1 and Part 2 of this post) and yet you are still struggling or challenged in life in some way?  You may be challenged emotionally, financially, psychologically, spiritually, physically, or relationally.  It’s time to look more deeply into your family system for any energetic entanglement or identification that may underlie or be the source of your struggle.  Although the wounds carried down through family systems are highly contextual, there are some dynamics that raise red flags when approaching healing in a systemic way.  I refer to these patterns as common ancestral emotional wounds.  These patterns have shown up thousands of times in family constellations over the past few decades.  This post pertains to the emotional wounds of both men and women.

Identifying family emotional traumas or wounds that have travelled transgenerationally and/or recognizing peoples who went missing or were excluded energetically from the family system, are key in this approach.  These emotional wounds frequently include events or traumas that were not emotionally processed at the time they occurred.  Emotional suppression leads to family woundedness.   Guilt, shame, pain, sorrow, grief, resentment, depression, anxiety, anger, or chronic illness may be travelling from one generation to the next.  It may be travelling through epigenetic inheritance altering the expression of your genes.

Everyone In the Family System Has a Right to Belong

Everyone in the family system has a right to belong, be seen, and be heard, and when anyone is left out energetically it creates a family system wound that longs to be healed.  The oldest male in the family may frequently carry a wound of the paternal family line. The oldest female may often carry a wound of the maternal line.  If there are numerous wounds or traumas in the family systems then any one, or all the children, may carry a wound for either family line.  If you are an only child in the family, you may carry wounds for both the maternal and paternal lines.

Common Ancestral Emotional Wounds

In order to gain insight about your own family system, here is a list of common ancestral emotional wounds that show up frequently in family constellation work between the generations:

• Anyone who died tragically, too young, or too soon, including all those who died in utero or at birth (includes abortions, miscarriages, stillbirth, accidents, illness, death due to violence, etc.)
• Anyone given away or left out of the family system (adoption, institutionalized in prison or mental health institutions, born out of wedlock or significant partnership and shunned, sperm donors, surrogates, shunned due to different sexual orientation, etc.)
• Any significant accident, injuries, or other trauma (Includes fire, floods, earthquakes, drowning, vehicular accidents, violence, etc.)
• Impact of war (includes survivor guilt, war crimes, war resistance, benefited from war, experienced torture, community member living through war, genocides, enemy was shunned, etc.).  Remember that anyone harmed becomes part of your family system and may be seeking recognition as a family member.
• Impact of persecution, forced migration (refugees) and immigration, conflict, or loss of homeland
• Marital separation or divorce
• Anyone who left or moved away
• Individuals with alternative or unusual lives in any way (may have become clergy, priests, nuns, or monks; may have struggled in life; didn’t marry; didn’t have children; had physical or mental challenges; is the black sheep of the family, etc.)
• Those who attempted or committed suicide
• Those who were either the victim or perpetrator of significant incidents regardless of whether they were intentional or accidental (rape, assault, murder, sexual or physical abuse, accidents, death, manslaughter, etc.).  Remember that the victim and perpetrator become part of one anothers family systems.
• Those who inherited unjustly or benefited at the expense of others
• Those who were in a position of power and harmed others in some way
• Those who gained or lost a fortune
• Those wrongly accused
• Involvement as oppressor or oppressed in slavery
• Addictive behaviours (includes prescription or recreational drugs, alcohol abuse, unhealthy shopping habits, gambling, workaholism, extreme sports or exercise, unhealthy eating habits, extreme participation in almost anything, etc.)
• Chronic conditions, illness, or dis-ease
• Anyone who took initiative oaths to social or religious organizations
• Family differences (Cultural, spiritual, ethnic, fought on opposite sides of war, etc.)
• Family secrets

It’s common to find dates, numbers, and names that point the way toward healing for the family system.  Are there individuals named after others, especially those who suffered a tragic or particularly heavy fate?  Are there shared birth dates?  Are there anniversary dates that seem significant?  Are there similar ages between generations for the occurrence of significant events?  Are there dates of occurrence that seem significant?

Systemic Family Constellations Bring Fresh Insight

Healing can begin once you realize systemic family constellations bring fresh insight.  Healing comes in shifting unhealthy relationships into healthy relationships.  Healing comes in welcoming all those missing from your family system and acknowledging the traumas and wounds that have gone emotionally unresolved or unprocessed in your family system.  If your family members and ancestors suppressed their emotions around an event, it becomes energetically unresolved and travels down the family line until someone addresses it in a healthy emotional way.  Healing comes in separating yourself from any energetic entanglement or identification once it is acknowledged and accepted as is.  All burdens shared or carried for others from prior generations of the family system need to be energetically returned to the rightful owner.  Who owns the guilt?  Who should mourn the child?  Who should recognize the victim?  Who suffered the abuse?  Who fought in the war?   It’s important to hold all your family members in your heart with compassion and love.

Some of this healing work may occur very quickly even through gained insight, but more commonly the work may take significant intention, action, and emotional processing that does take time.   Healing doesn’t happen in your head.  The emotional wound is stored in the cells of your body and so life-giving healing energy has to be taken into the cells of your body to shift the energy of the wound.  Breathe in compassion.  Breathe in life.  Breathe in wellness.  Breathe in love.  Be gentle and loving with yourself during this period of healing.