Gifts & Strengths From Our Ancestors
Ancestral healing is about exploring not only trauma but the gifts our ancestors gave us as well.
When I consciously stepped onto my spiritual path, began communicating with my ancestors, angels and guides on a daily basis in 2012, I also stepped into the energy of “what’s wrong with me that needs to be fixed so I can create the life I choose?” I also entered a dark night of the soul which required me to go deep within myself to heal. That dark night also invited other people, namely my late Dutch husband, to connect with me through our soul contract and trigger the hell out of me so I would have to face what needed to heal in myself and my lineage.
The more I communicated with my ancestors on the other side, the more new genealogical and military research I felt pushed to do so I could understand their choices and lives. I will be honest and say even though I know to look at their lives through the historical lens, sometimes my ancestors really pissed me off with their choices. Those emotions were something I had to examine in myself as well.
Now take all of that in combination with a certain “spiritual” program a friend had told me about that I later realized, along with many others, was actually a brainwashing cult, led me down a dark path. Based on this program’s teachings on energy clearing and identifying what was wrong with those who followed them, I spent a few years looking at what was “wrong” with me, my family, and my ancestors. Based on their ideas we were always wrong and something always had to be fixed. If I could just figure out where we all screwed up, I can change my life, right? If I can just identify the trauma they endured, take it on, feel and heal it, I will be able to change, right? Wrong.
While this seems like an incredibly depressing way to live, it’s actually taken me deep within myself to consciously change my behaviors, beliefs, and patterns. This required me to really look at the energies I was being in life, relationships, work, you name it. While that program I had followed was both toxic and liberating, in the end it helped me level up to where I needed to be consciously. All of these things in addition to other experiences allowed me to also identify the strengths, resiliencies and gifts my ancestors passed down to me. It also helped me change my perspective on who I thought my ancestors were and living family are.
The more genealogical research I did to learn about certain aspects and experiences of the lives of some of my ancestors, the more I began to see how amazing they were.
It’s one thing to do genealogical or military research and record facts. Sure, we know where they lived, who they married, their vital statistics, and what they did for a living, but who were they really?
Bessie Zajicek Kokoska
My great grandma Bessie Zajicek Kokoska’s life gave me a lot to consider about ancestral traumas and strengths because my mom never told me one nice thing about her. Bessie was allegedly a mean old lady. That may be so but I can’t say for certain because I never knew her. Additionally, we each view people through different lenses based on our personal traumas, past life experiences, and soul contracts. I’d wager a guess that my mom and Bessie had a lot to work out in this life and Bessie may have been a trigger for her and decades later, for me. Bessie has been so vital to some of my personal healing that I created a workshop about how I identified possible traumas that impacted her.
To learn more about Bessie’s life I used tools like a genogram, timeline, and mindmap to start. I also dove more deeply into the genealogical research to see what wasn’t written on the page. Sometimes we have to read between the lines.
What did I learn?
Exploring Bessie’s life showed me the big things she endured, historically and personally. Had I taken the path of wow this made her into a mean old woman and my mom was right, I would have never learned the bigger lessons.
In Bessie’s lifetime she lived through:
The World’s Columbian Expo in Chicago in 1893.
Turn of the century from 1899 to 1900.
World War I
The Great Depression
World War II
The loss of siblings when she was young. The loss of her own babies. The loss of grandchildren as babies and in World War II. The loss of her brother in-law in World War I. The loss of her mother and then the suicide of her father.
Bessie must have been an incredibly strong woman to survive that all. Could the impact of each of those events hardened her heart? Absolutely. Could they, in part, account for all the other photos of I have of her looking angry? Yes. Could Bessie hiding her pain and taking care of her family the way she knew how appear to a young girl like a mean old lady? Of course.
The women in my family are strong. Maybe too strong because we’ve each had our own traumas and battles to fight. That strength though to keep going and make it through everything and still LOVE was passed down.
Bessie also must have been a wonderful Czech cook and baker because her daughter Rose, my grandma was these things. Rose then taught my aunt and mother and I’ve had many meals from both that were incredible. Usually when we cook and pass down the old recipes, it’s done with LOVE.
From the other side of the veil, Bessie has taught me that with pain there is also BEAUTY. She showed me through the research that I came here with my own soul’s mission, to help our lineage and humanity heal. To do that, I’ve had to feel many emotions passed down through the family. I’ve had many experiences that were similar to my ancestors, particularly my female ancestors that have allowed us all to release the past. That takes great VULNERABILITY, HONESTY WITH SELF, THE ABILITY TO FEEL PAIN AND KEEP GOING, THE WILLINGNESS TO KEEP AN OPEN HEART AND ALWAYS BEEN WILLING TO CHANGE BELIEFS AND BEHAVIORS AND RELEASE PATTERNS.
Bessie has given me some great gifts to help me create a different life and fulfill my soul’s mission. Other ancestors have given me other gifts like the gift of musical ability and talent. The love of reading. The love of writing and many other things. But those are stories for another time.
Are you exploring the strengths and gifts of your ancestors? What have you learned? Please share in the comments.
Would you like to learn more?
On March 16, 2024 I’m hosting a 2.5 hour workshop on genealogy and ancestral patterns called Navigating Life’s Labyrinth. The workshop provides students with:
Two 50-Minute Webinar workshops.
Q&A Session after each program.
Video replays.
One 30-minute private coaching session.
Webinar workbooks.
PDF Guide full of writing prompts, resource lists for your circles of influence and additional resources so you can take what you learn further.
Click the link above to read full workshop description and register to save your spot today.