Halloween: Honouring my ancestors without carrying their pain
Perhaps it is my age, or perhaps it is something else, but this year I felt the need to do something meaningful for Halloween. Not to get swept up in the festive and commercial customs that are always so popular at this time of year (I have never been particularly drawn to those, anyway), but to do something that felt closer to the ancient Celtic roots of this pagan festival.
All Hallows’ Eve – the eve of All Saints’ Day – marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of the dark winter months for the ancient Celts, who celebrated Samhain on the evening of 31 October each year. Nature lets go of what has died and no longer serves it, making room, during a period of deep rest, for the new life that will emerge in spring.
The ancient Celts also believed that, on this day, the veil between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead became very thin, offering the deceased an opportunity to visit their living family members. It was a day on which loved ones who had passed away were honoured and celebrated, while evil spirits with harmful intentions were kept at bay and driven away.
I decided to make this an evening in which I could bring both elements of this ancient Celtic festival together in a meaningful way in the present day.
Understanding the women who came before me
If I am completely honest with myself, I have struggled quite a lot over the past few years with the idea of honouring and celebrating my ancestors. Mainly because I have come to realise just how much intergenerational trauma is still deeply embedded in both branches of my family system – my maternal line as well as my paternal line – and how much of it has been passed down to my generation and the generation after me. The high level of unconsciousness surrounding these dynamics within my family system has also always been a source of frustration for me.
In systemic work, best known in the form of family constellations, honouring our ancestors is, after all, one of the most powerful and healing movements we can make. By honouring your ancestors, you open yourself up to the powerful flow of life energy that moves from the older generations to the younger ones. When you are able to allow this flow, you naturally begin to take your rightful place within your family system and in the world, and you also begin to stand much more firmly in your own power. It is a meaningful movement that you can genuinely feel and that can have a profound impact on your life.
During my training to become a certified systemic constellation facilitator, I struggled with this because, internally, I continued to hold on to my resentment and feelings of reproach towards my mother – and, by extension, my grandmother and great-grandmother – for the harsh, cold and emotionally unavailable mothers they were.
But something changed this year. Through continuing to do a great deal of inner work myself and receiving intensive coaching, my perspective has softened and become more compassionate. I am now able to look at these women differently. I can see how few options and opportunities they had, and the difficult, sometimes even dangerous, circumstances in which they had to survive.
My great-grandmother was a farm maid who married a farmer’s son fifteen years her senior (consider the imbalance in social status and the considerable age difference). They had one child who suffered the severe consequences of polio and another who was stricken by meningitis. In order to afford treatment for these children, they had to sell possessions that were dear to them. Against the backdrop of two world wars, her life was marked by poverty, illness and the constant threat of death.
My grandmother was one of the healthy children who also had to take on the work of her sick siblings on her parents’ farm and had to work twice as hard. Once she was married to my grandfather, she had to care not only for her seven surviving children (she sadly lost three others), but also for three elderly uncles and aunts who lived with them, on top of running her farm and looking after the animals and the land.
These living conditions created women who had to abandon themselves in order to keep their heads above water; women who were so constantly needed by others that they could not be emotionally available to their children; women who had to give all their attention and energy to others without receiving anything in return; women who were expected to obey their husbands (even under the law) and who had absolutely no room for self-care. All these circumstances provided fertile ground for feelings of overwhelm, hopelessness, powerlessness, helplessness, shame, a lack of self-love, harshness, self-hatred and emotional disconnection.
These are emotions I still find within myself, and I know with absolute certainty (clearly revealed to me through the trauma-informed and systemic work I've done on my own blockages) that most of them were passed on to me by my female ancestors.
Two truths can coexist
In the run-up to All Saints’ Day this year, I felt that I was finally able to acknowledge these women for their positive qualities too: for all the good they passed on, for the gift of life itself, and for the determination and courage they showed in facing and surviving their challenging and difficult – sometimes even dangerous – circumstances. And I could do so without diminishing the harmful consequences and trauma they themselves caused in their children and grandchildren through (emotional) neglect, a lack of (emotional) availability, encouragement, validation, approval and unconditional love, and so much more.
Because two truths really can coexist, and acknowledging one truth does not invalidate another, even when they appear to contradict each other.
I brought these two truths together in a single ritual. I gave my female ancestors a place on my altar, honouring them for all the good they passed on, while at the same time making it very clear that it ends with me. I am the first woman in my line to dismantle these dysfunctional survival strategies; I am going to do things differently, and I am going to LET GO of their pain.
To give that final part even more meaning, I took a ritual bath – a ritual I had found in a book about witchcraft that felt particularly appropriate to me – using herbs and flowers. I released into the water everything my female ancestors had projected onto me and passed on to me that I was no longer willing to carry: the powerlessness, helplessness, feelings of overwhelm, shame and self-hatred, harshness and aggression. Afterwards, I returned the herbs and flowers to the earth so that they could be processed and transformed.
The following day, I gave myself time to let everything integrate. Every internal shift needs sufficient time for integration too. The day after, I could already feel the shift very clearly: I not only felt considerably more grounded, but also much clearer and lighter. And somewhere inside, I could sense that they were proud of me; that, at last, a woman in the family line had stood up and said: “Enough is enough! I am reclaiming my power and I am going to do things differently!”
It is time to reclaim your own power
Perhaps you recognise some of this in yourself: the feeling that, despite all your efforts, you still do not truly stand in your own power. That you feel small and unable to handle life. That you regularly feel overwhelmed, powerless, discouraged or even hopeless. That you feel you are constantly fighting to keep your head above water, that you push yourself beyond your limits to meet everyone else’s expectations, and that you just cannot seem to escape unhealthy dynamics in which you keep getting entangled.
Or perhaps you have spent your entire life functioning from deep feelings of shame, self-doubt and helplessness, without really understanding where they come from. Or you notice that you keep falling back into the same survival strategies, even though you have promised yourself that this time you are finally going to do things differently.
It is possible that some of what is holding you back and keeping you small today did not even begin with you, and that you are unconsciously carrying burdens and survival strategies passed down by earlier generations. But that does not mean you are destined to keep repeating those patterns.
In a 1:1 coaching program, we explore together which dynamics, beliefs and survival strategies are still holding you in their grip today, where they originated, and what you can do to free yourself from them. Through trauma-informed coaching and systemic work, I support you in identifying and dismantling old patterns, so that you can take your rightful place within your family system and begin to stand fully in your own power again.
If you recognise yourself in these words – perhaps in the shame, self-doubt, helplessness or constant feeling of being overwhelmed – it may be worth exploring whether these struggles are rooted in the emotional neglect, lack of love or dysfunctional dynamics you experienced growing up, particularly in your relationship with your mother.
If you are the adult child of a dysfunctional, emotionally unavailable or narcissistic mother, you may have spent much of your life carrying feelings and survival patterns that were never yours to begin with. You do not have to keep living that way.
You no longer have to keep carrying what no longer serves you. And you do not have to figure it all out on your own.
I invite you to consider a free introductory meeting to explore how I can support you in understanding and breaking free from these deeply ingrained patterns, so that you can reclaim your own power and create a life that truly belongs to you. If you feel ready to explore this further, please send me an email at hello@unlockyourbestself.today to book a free introductory meeting.
Opmerkingen