Immigration or migration is an emotional time for everyone involved. Family systems carry the emotional wounds and trauma of immigration. Family systems pass on their unresolved emotional trauma to the living descendants to be acknowledged, accepted, addressed, and healed. We suffer consequences physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, financially, intellectually, and relationally when we ignore the emotional woundedness of our ancestors. Leaving the homeland or motherland is somewhat like leaving mother. There is an emotional response one way or the other.
The Immigrants
Those who leave the homeland as immigrants, and those who are left behind, all feel impacted emotionally. For North Americans, immigration is a key part of our history. This is true even for many indigenous peoples. To deny this history and believe you are strictly Canadian or American, or strictly indigenous or Native American when there is a European, African or other ancestor, is to deny a part of who you are. One European ancestor means there is a whole family system being denied and this may have a huge unconscious impact in your life. To feel whole inside and love yourself fully, you need to accept your ancestry, regardless of how problematic that might be.
Why They Left?
The ancestors left their homelands and most of their family members behind for many reasons. Rarely did they leave solely for the adventure. Migration and relocation has been occurring for thousands of years all over the world. Individuals and families left their homelands because of religious persecution, famine, war, ethnic persecution, loss of land and livelihood, political turmoil, economic problems, natural disasters, adoption, indentureship, marriage, slavery, criminal deportation, guilt, perceived shame, forced relocation, financial opportunity, seeking power or they may not have been the first son who inherited everything and moved on to seek new opportunities. Family history research entails finding more than just names and dates. Each individual who faced immigration had an emotional life story.
In order to understand the emotional journey of your ancestors it is important to do some research to understand:
Which generation migrated? (Pay attention to both mother and father’s family systems)
What was going on in that region of the world to make them move?
From where did they emigrate?
To where did they immigrate and did they move more than once?
Were the stories of the past intentionally left behind or remembered and shared with descendants? (Silence tends to carry a deep emotional wound with it)
Do the current living family members discuss the past?
Is there a family secret from the past that only a few in the family know?
For your deeper research knowledge, and not so necessary for emotional healing, do you know your ancient family ancestral migration patterns through DNA testing? Do you know your ancient haplogroups from your paternal (paternal), paternal (maternal), maternal (maternal) and maternal (paternal) family lines?
When the Past is Forgotten
Because the past, present, and future are all linked in time and space, your ancestral past is part of who you are today. Not only do you carry your ancestor’s DNA in your body but you epigenetically carry their unresolved emotional trauma. Each immigrant carried their emotional pain and trauma in the cells of their body unless they openly took the time to process their emotional response. Times were often difficult and individuals just had to bury their emotional responses. The resources were often not there to address their emotional trauma. They may have carried a longing for their homeland. They may have carried fear for loved ones left behind. They may have carried worry and fear over the long journey to be made. If they travelled by ship, the journeys were fraught with risk, and many starved or died when disease broke out on board because of the cramped living quarters. Did your family lose family members on the journey? Did children die?
Ancestral Distance
In today’s world, although family research is becoming so much easier with the internet available, individuals are becoming more and more distanced from their ancestral family members, their family stories, and their collective family histories. Many individuals struggle to name their grandparents and can’t even begin to name their great grandparents. The immigration stories are being lost or ignored. It was through my years of genealogy work that I began to collect the stories of why my ancestors left their homelands. I didn’t find a single ancestor that left “just because” they were seeking an adventure.
I started working on my family history when I was twelve years old. Some of us are just drawn into this role in the family. My grandmothers passed on the family history to me. Genealogy is a part of who I am. I have explored dozens of my paternal and maternal family lines and have found over two hundred and fifty of my ancestral grandparents. , They want to be included in your life today. I’ve gone back as far as twenty-six generations in my longest family line to date. Through my family constellation trainings and healing journey I became intensely aware that my own healing was integrally interwoven with the healing of the family system. The ancestors wanted to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. If you are an individual that energetically carries the burden or fate of an ancestor, you heal when you recognize the energetic entanglement and pass back the fate to the rightful owner. Remember that each family member has a right to belong regardless of what they may have done or not done. What remains unhealed with the ancestors remains unhealed within us.
My Ancestors
Within my own ancestral history, I learned of religious persecution, starvation, the insecurity of living with continuous warring between neighbouring states, landlessness, the urge to flee because of perceived guilt and shame, and the desire for greater opportunity for family members. Along the way I also gained a strong sense of myself and of my family members, as settlers or immigrants in a new land, travelling to parts of North America that later became the United States and Canada. Do you have some unresolved systemic ancestral emotional wounds or family secrets that are seeking to be healed? Did your ancestors stoically bury their emotions and feelings in their bodies and move on to build a new life? You may be carrying their emotional pain in your body and it may be time to heal these emotional wounds so that you can breathe in life fully or move on to enjoy life fully. Remember that you can’t leave your family behind.
Stay tuned to Immigration (Part 2) for the emotional impact of immigration and the interaction with indigenous peoples.
