Working with my Ancestors: A Story of Support
/By Elaina McCormick, BS
As a child I was aware the western culture in the USA honored those who passed away at funerals and memorials. As a young adult I learned that East Asian cultures have rituals for honoring their ancestors on a regular basis, as do many other cultures. In January of 2011, I was introduced to the healing field of Family Constellation by Michael Gurevich, MD. I discovered at his Family Constellation workshop that humans could work with their ancestors to heal past and present day wounds from traumatic events. Wounds experienced by humans can be metaphorically understood as knots. Unknotted string is quite easy to work with, in comparison, knotted string must first be unknotted before it can be placed into a desired shape or direction. Wounds act as knots, or magnetic roadblocks, something that must be healed before a person can move forward in the direction of their happiest and greatest potential. I use magnetic roadblock as a metaphor as well because we cannot simply take a detour around the roadblock, it stays in front of us (in a variety of physical shapes and forms, but linked to the same knot) no matter how many times we jump over it and stumble. The magnetic roadblock knotted wound will dissolve when given the healing it needs. In Family Constellation work, often one wound (one knot) is worked with at a time.
In 2019, during my own constellation with Family Constellation Facilitator, Suzi Tucker, I was introduced to a powerful way of being supported by my ancestors. My lineage includes Jewish, Irish, English, and a small percentage of East Asian heritages. This constellation was for a knot (wound) connected to my Jewish ancestry. As we observed and felt the awareness of my knot, we learned that my knot was connected to an event that traumatized my great grandmother on the North American Continent. My great grandmother was the first of my Jewish grandmother’s lineage to immigrate from Eastern Europe to North America. All of my ancestors older than my great grandmother finished their lives in Eastern Europe.
Thus, when a representative for my great-great grandmother (she lived out her entire life in Eastern Europe) was present in the field, she was whole and unaffected by the pain myself, my mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother were all feeling. A huge part of healing is remembering. As defined in The Apple Dictionary, “[To] Remember” means “[to] be able to bring to one’s mind an awareness of someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past.” There are brilliant, strong, and supportive memories in our ancestors, and it is our opportunity to remember them. My great-great grandmother holds within her the powerful knowing of what it feels like to be a woman who is respected by all genders around her and feels safe in her own home. This particular positive strength within was forgotten in my maternal Jewish linage during a traumatic event on the North American continent.
By looking into the eyes of the representative for my great-great grandmother, I saw the ocean in her eyes. I saw the strength, flexibility, vast greatness, and unyielding power of the ocean and the infinite access the ocean provides. I witnessed support stronger than any human alive, a support that showed up in nature and in my ancestors. For my great-great grandmother’s specific strings on this very topic were no knotted at all, they were straight, mobile, and free to function at their greatest potential. To help heal my own emotional pain (of which included intense fears related to less intense experiences I had in my own lifetime, this added intensity to my fears came from those before me who were not aware of the healing avenues that were brought to my attention in 2011) I look above to my great-great grandmother anytime I need to remember what it feels like to be safe and supported with an abundance of self confidence and self respect.
More specifically, I have some exercises I do to continue the healing process that was ignited during my family constellation: When interacting with my mom, I look above her head, as well as beyond her (even on the phone), to see my great-great grandmother there, always and forever a strong supporter of her descendants. Whenever I look to my great-great grandmother I remember what it feels like to be healthy, safe, and whole, for she has always held that memory in her being, and always will. At times, I also call upon her support when speaking with my dad, too, because I have observed that he has found great comfort in being my mom’s husband, as well as my grandparent’s son-in-law. To honor and remember my great-great grandmother’s Russian heritage, I found a beautiful porcelain painted doll, a traditional piece of art in Russia, which I keep by my computer as a lovely visual reminder of the support I have from my great-great grandmother.
I continue to remember the tool of following one of my ancestral lines back to the relative who was unaffected by the specific trauma that started in one of their descendants. Anytime I am doing a healing practice of my own, sitting at my alter in my home, if I stumble upon a trauma pattern that I share with my ancestors, I first ask spirit how much of the lineage is affected by the trauma. Once an answer is received, I go an additional generation further back in my lineage and ask those healthy, strong, unaffected ancestors to support me and all my ancestors who are affected by the knotted pain of the respective past trauma. This layer of support adds leverage to the journey of healing that can feel lonely or dark, even though it is a path to our inner light. Journeying through the darkness to the light feels much more manageable when I remember the support myself and my ancestors have from the older generations who came before the specific traumatic event that happened in my linage. May the journey to global healing through the direct path of inner healing be fraught with beauty and connection.
Many blessings to all.
Thank you.