So welcome everyone and thank you thank you for listening not today we are going to do something profound we are going to explore our ancestral lineages the mother line and the father line we are going to do some healing work with both so this is sacred territory these are rivers of life that flow through you the thousands of people who lived and loved and struggled and survived so that you could exist and their stories live in your cells their strengths and their wounds echo through your life in ways you may never recognize in my work as a family constellation facilitator I have witnessed again and again how powerful it is to consciously connect with these lineages to acknowledge what was carried to receive what was given and to release what was never ours to hold in the first place so today I will share some understanding about what each line carries and then we will move into the healing journey for the mother line and the father line you don't need any experience with anything to be here you don't need to know your family history for anything to work you don't need names,
You don't need stories the connection is in your body it's in your blood and it's in your being so let's begin so before we dive in let me explain what I mean when I talk about the mother line and the father line so your mother line is the unbroken chain of mothers stretching back through time your mother her mother her mother's mother and so on generation after generation after generation of women who gave birth to the next all the way back to prehistory now this line carries particular gifts and particular wounds particular patterns and particular strengths and similarly your father line is the corresponding chain of fathers your father,
His father his father's father generation after generation of men whose lives made your life possible and this line carries its own distinct patterns its own gifts and its own wounds now I want to be clear about something when I speak of the mother line and the father line I'm not speaking about gender in any prescriptive or limiting way these are simply archetypal energies as much as biological lineages so the mother line carries what we might call the maternal stream now think about it,
Feel into it nurturing,
Feeling receiving,
Intuition and the inner world and similarly the father line carries what we might call the paternal stream structure action,
Protection and presence in the world so every person regardless of their gender carries both streams every person has a mother line and a father line flowing through them and every person can benefit from healing work with both now the question is not whether these lineages affect you with or without you knowing they do the question is whether that influence remains unconscious or becomes something you can work with consciously now in family constellation work we observe something remarkable that families operate as systems and these systems have their own kind of memory events that happened generations ago wars,
Migrations,
Early deaths,
Secrets,
Traumas they continue to ripple forward through the family line and later generations often unconsciously carry material that doesn't belong to them now this happens through what we call hidden loyalties out of love a deep unconscious love for the family system so to simplify it we take on the unfinished business of those who came before us and before your conscious mind says why the hell would I do that go back to that word unconscious so on a soul level we all carry deep unconscious love for our family system breathing with these words a grandmother who died in childbirth and was never properly grieved a grandfather who was lost to war and was never spoken of again an aunt who was shunned from the family for practicing witchcraft a great uncle who took his own life and became a secret so when family members are excluded forgotten or their fates are not acknowledged the system becomes unbalanced and someone in a later generation often without any conscious knowledge will attempt to represent that person to carry their grief to repeat their pattern to balance the system through their own lives now this might show up as depression that doesn't respond to treatment unexplainable anxiety patterns of self-sabotage relationship dynamics that repeat again and again and again and again miscarriages a persistent feeling of carrying something heavy that you cannot even name now the healing comes when we see the dynamics clearly honour what needs to be honoured and return what isn't ours to carry or to simplify it the healing happens when the unconscious becomes conscious now if any of this is resonating let's now specifically look at the mother line so the mother line is the stream of feminine energy flowing through your ancestry and it carries very particular gifts intuition emotional intelligence the capacity to nurture receptivity the ability to hold and contain connection to the body and its wisdom relationship with cycles and seasons and the natural world so when the mother line is healthy and flowing we have access to these gifts we can receive we can feel we can trust our intuition we have a sense of belonging of being held by something larger than ourselves and we know in our bones that we have a right to be here right to take up space and right to exist but the mother line also carries particular wounds throughout history now women have faced unique challenges loss of children loss of autonomy violence silencing abuse suppression of their voices and power many of our grandmothers and great grandmothers live lives constrained by circumstances we can't even imagine and their grief their rage and also their unfulfilled longings these often went unexpressed and unprocessed and they got passed down so when the mother line is wounded and I'm not saying it's the case for you we might struggle to receive love,
Help and nourishment we might feel fundamentally unwelcome in the world as if we don't quite have permission to exist we might have a difficult relationship with our own mother or with motherhood itself we might feel disconnected from our bodies from our feelings and our intuition so some very common but not all mother line wounds include a sense of not being wanted difficulty with self nurturing fear of being too much or not enough patterns of over giving until depletion disconnection from feminine power complicated relationships with food and the body and difficulty trusting the feminine in oneself or others does any of this resonate with you?
Now let's turn to the father line the father line is the stream of masculine energy flowing through your ancestry and it carries its own particular gifts presence,
Strength the capacity to protect,
Provide the ability to take action in the world structure,
Boundaries and the blessings that says you have what it takes so when the father line is healthy and flowing we have access to a sense of inner authority we can act we can protect ourselves and others we have healthy boundaries we feel supported like there's a strong back behind us a lineage of strength we can lean into we have what we need to go out into the world and create but similar to the mother line the father line carries its own wounds throughout history men have faced particular challenges wars that took them away or destroyed them expectations that cut them off from their feelings the pressure to provide at the cost of presence violence they witnessed or perpetrated even and the inability to express tenderness in cultures that didn't permit it many of our grandfathers and great grandfathers were shaped by experiences they never spoke about wars,
Famines migrations,
Losses they did what they had to do to survive often at the cost of their emotional aliveness their capacity for intimacy and their connection to their own hearts now these wounds too got passed down so when someone's father line is wounded they might struggle with authority either unable to claim it we might feel unsupported like we have to do everything alone we might have difficulty with boundaries with action and with moving forward in the world we might carry anger that we don't even understand or a grief that doesn't have a story attached to it some very common father line wounds include a sense of not being safe or protected difficulty trusting support fear of one's own power or aggression absent or emotionally unavailable father patterns repeating struggles with success or visibility difficulty taking up space in the world and a persistent feeling of being alone even in company does any of this land or resonate so what actually helps what creates healing in these ancestral streams now in my experience several movements are extremely powerful acknowledgement so much ancestral pain comes from not being seen so when we turn towards our lineage and simply acknowledge what happened the struggles the losses the difficult fates something shifts it's as if our ancestors have been waiting to be witnessed I see you I see what you went through and your life mattered powerful statements then taking our rightful place now in family systems there is an order each generation has its place and problems often arise when we step out of our place when we try to carry things that belong to previous generations or when we unconsciously try to save or fix our ancestors healing comes when we can take our place as a child of our parents as the grandchild of our grandparents and receiving from them rather than trying to give to them then we return what isn't ours we can lovingly return the burdens we've been carrying on behalf of our ancestors not throwing them back offering them back with respect this grief belongs to you this fate is yours not mine I've been carrying it but I give it back now with love then we receive the gifts so when we are entangled in ancestral pain we often can't receive ancestral gifts our energy is so bound up in the difficult material so as these entanglements release blessings can flow the strength,
The resilience the love,
The life force that our ancestors are longing to give us our ancestors don't want us to suffer they want their line to flourish they want their struggles to mean something when we live fully when we are happy when we use our life well we honor them so the healing movement is receiving their blessing and being released to live our own life now let's do this work together and we'll begin with the mother line so in a moment I'll guide you through two healing journeys first the mother line and then the father line so if you're doing something that requires your full attention driving maybe I don't know,
So please save this for later because this work deserves your full presence and if you can sit down find a comfortable position you don't need anything special just your willingness and your breath remember you don't need to know any names or any stories you don't need to know any detailed family history your body knows your story your body knows your lineage and your cells carry this information so just trust what arises now let me just be your guide and let my words guide you allow your eyes now to soften or close if you're comfortable and just take a breath feel yourself arriving here in this moment in your body feel yourself arriving here in this moment in your body in your body now begin to sense your body settling the weight of you the ground beneath you supporting you now keeping a very very open mind bring your attention just to your mother you don't need to visualize her clearly just sense her presence the woman who gave you life whatever your relationship whatever happened between you she is the one through whom you came into this world I want you to see now your mother's presence in your mind's eye and now sense behind your mother is her mother your grandmother she too was once a daughter once a child she had her own joys and her own struggles and she passed life to your mother who passed it to you and now behind your grandmother can be her mother and you don't need to know any names any stories,
Any faces just this knowing is enough your great-grandmother perhaps you know her name perhaps you don't but she existed her life made your life possible now if it's not happening already allow the line to extend back mother after mother after mother female after female after female stretching back through time hundreds and hundreds of women thousands each one giving life to the next an unbroken chain of mothers leading all the way to you now feel yourself standing at the front of this great line all these women are behind you and their lives are flowing into yours just by standing in the front of this line see how you feel how little I feel how supported I feel how innocent I feel how light I feel now from your heart you can even put your hands on your heart when you say this or receive this silently or out loud I see you all of you I see your lives your struggles and your strength thank you for my life I received it and I take it fully I see the grief that you carried I honour it and I now give it back to you it's yours not mine please take it I don't need to carry it anymore and if there were more women in this line who suffered,
Who were silenced and who couldn't live fully we'll say this too I see what you couldn't have what you couldn't say and what you couldn't be I honour your fate and I will live fully for you too your life will mean something through mine and after you've said this just see how your body is responding if I have an emotion,
A feeling,
A tingling a warmth,
If I have a vision then just completely trust whatever you're experiencing and now ask this great line of mothers for their blessings you might say this or receive this please bless me bless my life let your love and your strength flow to me please bless me bless my life let your love and your strength flow through me and to me I imagine their blessing flowing forward to you like a warm current like a river of love the strength from all these women their resilience their tenderness and their capacity to nurture and to survive is flowing into you now just receive what they are giving and let it completely fill you now you can do this in your mind's eye again,
When you're ready now,
I want you to bow to this line now standing in front of this beautiful line of mothers just bow to them it's a bow of respect it's a bow of gratitude and it's a bow that says I take my place I am your daughter your granddaughter I receive my life from you and I will honor it just bowing bowing,
Bowing bowing,
Shifting shifting,
Receiving whatever you're experiencing right now is exactly what you need from this line today just trust and allow now just know that this connection remains the river of mothers continues to flow through you and over the next few hours,
Days and weeks this healing will continue for you in whatever way is right for you now,
As you stand up from this bow I want you to turn towards your right look at your right side and now bring your attention to your father standing there now once again whatever your relationship was or is whatever happened or didn't happen between the two of you he's the man through whom you came into this world sense his presence now behind your father sense his father your grandfather he too was once a son once a boy he carried his own burdens his own traumas,
His own challenges and he passed life to your father,
Who passed it to you and behind your grandfather is his father,
Your great grandfather and behind him his father and so on and so on and so on allow this father line to extend back now,
Father after father after father stretching back through time thousands of men each one giving life to the next an unbroken chain of masculine leading all the way to you now now I want you to feel yourself standing in front of this great line all these men in front of you,
Starting with your father their strength,
Their struggles their lives are flowing into yours now once again if you're comfortable you can put your hand on your heart for this part I see you all of you I see what you faced I see what you survived and I see what you sacrificed thank you for my life I received it and I take it fully now if there is unspoken grief in this line wars,
Losses,
Hardships that were never processed we'll just say this statement I see what you carried in silence the weight you could never put down I honor it and I give it back to you now this is your burden I don't need to carry it for you now if there were men in this line who couldn't express tenderness who were hardened by circumstances or who missed out on closeness we might say I see what you couldn't show what you couldn't feel and what you couldn't be I honor your fate and I will live with an open heart for you too and whatever is happening for you right now warmth,
Cold,
Tingling,
Vision,
Sensations,
Words just be with this healing be with this process and now ask this great line of fathers for their blessings you might say please bless me give me your strength give me your support and let me know that you're behind me please bless me give me your strength give me your support and let me know that you're behind me and now after this breath imagine their blessings flowing towards you now like a strong current at your back like a thousand hands supporting you the strength of all these men their courage,
Their endurance and their will to survive are flowing into you now just receive what they're giving and feel their support and now when you're ready bow to this line a bow of respect a bow of acknowledgement a bow that says I take my place I am your son your grandson I receive my life from you and I will use it well now gently let the image of this father line fade now but know that this connection remains and the river of fathers continues to and will continue to support you take a breath now and now in your vision if you see,
Sense or feel anything let's just imagine both the lines fade away I have bowed and acknowledged both my mother and my father line and I'm seeing this energy move out and out and out and out and if I was facing them I can turn back now I can turn back I can feel my body both lineages are now acknowledged and I can feel both streams flowing through me from behind now before we close this just take a moment to see how it feels to feel both these lineages together on the left side of your body the mother line is flowing all the nurturing all the feeling all the intuition all the life giving force on the right side all the strength all the protection the capacity to act and presence and you are the meeting point of these two great rivers they come together in you and they continue through you feel the blessings now of both lines feel the support,
The love,
The life force all of it is given to you and it's yours to use now I will live fully for myself and for all of you your lives will mean something through mine your lives will mean something through mine one last deep breath breathe out begin to bring your attention now back to the room,
Back to the chair back to the car,
Wherever you are feel your body feel the surface beneath you hear the sounds around you just take your time now and when it feels right come back,
Welcome back now so what you just did was significant you turned towards your ancestors,
Both lines and you made a conscious connection you acknowledged what was carried you offered to return what wasn't yours you asked for a blessing and you received it now this is not a one time thing you can return to these journeys whenever you need to the connection is always there the ancestors are always available what changes is your willingness to turn towards them I want to leave you with this thought you are not alone you have never been alone behind you stands an unbroken chain of people whose lives made your life possible they face things we can barely imagine and they survived so that you could exist and they are all cheering for you they want you to thrive they want their struggles to mean something through your flourishing so live well love well use your life and that's the greatest honour you can give them thank you for doing this work it matters more than you know thank you for being here and until next time Namaste
