If You’re Called to Heal Ancestral Trauma

This is brave work, and it requires a lot

There are those of us who are called to process more than what we have been given in this lifetime. We come in with a capacity to hold, to heal, to nurture, to feel all that has gone before.

This is strong work — it requires a lot of us.

For those called to heal their ancestral lineage, life is an intricately woven web stretching far across time, and time is not linear. You may feel pain from a great-grandmother you never met. You may be the first one to truly witness her sorrow.

You may feel the weight of generations who were not allowed to experience their emotions, who were beaten or coerced into submission by a world that would not see them for who they were.

This is valid.

Notice the pain that feels too deep to be only yours. Witness the fears and nightmares that haunt you with no explanation. Dig into the well of your soul. Let memory move through you like a song, a stream of consciousness beyond your own, beyond what you know.

You need not hold it all at once. This pain may move through you — but it is not yours to carry. You are simply a channel for healing what your lineage did not have space to heal before.

Know that if you were given the capacity to heal ancestral trauma, you were given the wisdom, too, to carry you through.

You need not go it alone.

Call on your ancestors’ strength and they will walk with you; they will hold your hand and have your back as you traverse this underworld.

There will be days where it feels like it’s all too much to handle — that’s okay, too. Take a step back. Breathe for a while. You are resting for those who did not have the chance to do so.

Your work will often feel invisible. Let it be.

This kind of work is not meant to be loud and vocal. It is meant to be whispered to the earth, spoken to the trees, held in your heart, in solitude and silence.

But it will show in your lifetime, have no doubt it will show.

The subtle ripples of those who have come to heal spread far beyond what the eye can see, far beyond our perception of what is real.

As a poet, writer, and artist, Maia Thom works with words to create spaces for people to breathe and come home to themselves. In 2020, she published her first anthology, Kitchen Table Talks: Simple Reminders + Thoughts on Life. You can find her on Instagram as @maia.thom where she shares poetry, art, and practical wisdom to offer daily moments of calm.