What is Ancestral Trauma?

When a person experiences a traumatic event, which is a guarantee for a human being only differing by its perceived impact and type, they are changed forever. Trauma changes us on a cellular level, as well as behaviorally. So, while you may have never met or even seen a photo of great-great-great grandmother Mildred, that traumatic experience or incredibly challenging and harsh life she endured lives in you cellularly, energetically, behaviorally. Her genetic expression was altered and the emotional and mental coping mechanisms she adopted were also passed down through the lineage.

Family Disease Patterns

“It runs in the family,” isn’t a concretely sealed fate. Things run in the family until someone is brave enough to address the really old elephant in the room. Types of physical health challenges, addictions, behavioral characteristics, and more do run in families and they run in families because of ancestral trauma being passed through the lineage both genetically and behaviorally.

I see this a lot in the sensitive women I serve. “Women’s health issues” like breast health, reproductive challenges, hormonal imbalances, thyroid and adrenal issues, “mystery symptoms” and other diagnoses made by exclusion (fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc.) impact sensitive women at higher rates than non-sensitive women.

The real root of these challenges? Shame, particularly Feminine Shame.

Feminine shame is a huge contributing factor in this legacy of ancestral trauma and ancestral disease. We’re programmed to mistrust and dislike that which is in flux, and as women, our very nature is in flux. Our cyclical nature, our propensity to feel deeply, makes us “weaker” and less preferred – even by ourselves.

Frequently Asked Questions About Feminine Shame

What is Feminine Shame?

What is Feminine Shame:
Have you ever felt out of step with the world, simply for embracing the natural ebbs and flows within yourself? At InnerSpark, we define “Feminine Shame” as a deeply ingrained resistance towards that which is cyclical, fluid, nurturing, intuitive, or emotional. It’s the uneasy feeling that arises from being cyclical, intuitive, or in tune with seasonal rhythms in a world that often values linear progress and constants. This disconnect is what distances many from their true essence, their InnerSpark, causing them to feel adrift, overwhelmed, and detached from the comforting rhythms of nature. It’s feeling ashamed of our innate, tender nature in a world that parades “normal” over “natural.”
 
Rooted in centuries-old beliefs, Feminine Shame drives that whispering ghost of “not enough.” It convinces us we’re wrong, unworthy, flawed at our very core. We’ve been conditioned to see our natural state as abnormal, which distances us from our true selves. This tug-of-war between the natural and the “normal” drains us—physically, emotionally, mentally, relationally, spiritually—leading to widespread dis-ease. It’s high time we ask: isn’t it time to bridge that gap? To finally come home to ourselves? That’s where The InnerSpark Method is your guide.

Why Does Feminine Shame Exist?

Why Does Feminine Shame Exist:
From our early years, society hands us a blueprint of how to “fit in.” This blueprint often discounts the beauty of nature’s spirals – the inherent fluctuations and cycles that we, as beings of this Earth, naturally resonate with. When these intrinsic rhythms, intuitions, and emotions are labeled as irregular or inconsistent, it creates a landscape where Feminine Shame finds fertile ground, urging us to adopt the “standard” instead of cherishing our unique spirally essence.

Who Does Feminine Shame Impact?

Who Does Feminine Shame Impact:
Feminine Shame isn’t reserved for a select few. Imagine a shroud, thin but omnipresent, covering everything and everyone. Feminine Shame is that shroud. It blankets us all, an invisible veil impacting every heart. Regardless of gender or anatomy, everyone feels its presence – the nudge to prioritize society’s “shoulds” over the nurturing call of nature. It’s the tension that arises when our natural desire for a holistic, integrative life clashes with societal expectations, leaving us yearning for authentic connections, rhythms, and a return to our true nature.

How Do We Begin to Heal Feminine Shame?

How Do We Heal Feminine Shame:
The path to healing starts with recognizing the value of our innate connection to nature’s cycles. By turning towards our own challenges and deepest desires, and embracing the rhythms that have always been a part of us, we can find grounding and resilience. It’s about harmonizing with nature’s wisdom, tapping into its rhythms for guidance, and shedding the layers that keep us from living organically and authentically. Together, as a community that sees, supports, and validates each other, we transition from feeling fragmented and out of sync to dancing in harmony with life’s beautiful, ever-changing spirals.

• Feminine Shame

• Sensitivity

• Hormones and Fertility

How to Heal Ancestral Trauma?

Being courageous enough to address the legacy of dis-ease and strife is the biggest and most important first step in healing ancestral trauma. While we may not be able to know the epicenter of dysfunction, we are living with its impacts. That is to say, we may not be able to find out the source of the sounds we carry because we don’t know how far back the major event or experience took place that’s creating the dysfunction. That is fine and not entirely necessary.

Here are five ways to begin to break the legacy of ancestral trauma in your lineage:

Receive your sacred vision

How do you most want your life to feel? What experiences do you crave? What depths of yourself do you wish to experience more? These things that feel “blocked” and “out of reach” are YOURS. You wouldn’t have these desires and visions if they weren’t for you. The great illusion (and result of these legacies of trauma) is that they’re not yours, unacceptable, shameful, etc. Receive these visions and just hold them.

Seek support from seen and unseen realms

Call upon your ancestors, especially ones with whom you had great relationships. Call upon plant spirits and Nature (read more for working with Nature here). Seek support from mentors and divine space holders to help you in this process.

Identify and confront what isn’t working

Is it a particular physical health challenge? Do addictions run in the family? Is there a propensity towards anger, lying, emotional unavailability? Let yourself lovingly observe within yourself the qualities that are getting in the way of your life.

Let yourself dive deep

The subtle creates the gross. Allow yourself to really get to the root contributing factor within yourself that lies in your subtle body. Your emotions, beliefs, mindset, behaviors, and wounds from this lifetime are all compounding factors over which you have complete responsibility and sovereignty! How exciting! For example, that health issue isn’t just because your physical body decided to cease smooth function one day. Dig deeper.

Consistently engage

Have resources like energy healing, shadow work, shamanism, meditation, yoga, embodiment practices, and more part of your life.

Your ancestors want you to excel. You are their dream come true and the answer to their prayers. It can feel like some kind of betrayal sometimes when we choose a “new” way, a more nourishing way. Yet, this is the work they desperately wanted to begin and whether it was shame, a lack of access to resources, the time they lived in, or more, they didn’t get to actualize the wholeness that it is in your heart. Do this work for yourself and to have the greatest experience of life possible and do it for those that have come before you of whom you’re made.