This one is hard to write. Those of you on your personal and ancestral healing journey will understand. For those just starting their journeys - remember we heal layer by layer. The ‘knowings’ appear often out of nowhere and come with a lot of emotion.
In 2021 I was in an intuitive healer training program and my guides and ancestors kept saying, ‘Ask your mom about your birth and why Bessie was so mean.’ My focus then, quite honestly, was on why did my mom think her grandma Bessie was so evil and mean? I listened to my birth story in greater detail and filed it away until later.
Looking at Bessie’s life through genealogical and military records showed me many things about births and deaths in my maternal line. I began to understand some of what could have made Bessie this energy my then eight or nine hear old mother hated. This exploration also came with a shock about my own birth, IVF losses, and births of my boys. I saw some of the patterns.
Fast forward to the last year and this morning…I’ve been able to dig deeper into the births and deaths of children on my maternal side. I can see where my losses and grief were amplified because I wasn’t just grieving my own losses, but those of my ancestors. I also realized, again layer by layer with a lot of time in between, that the events that take place at our birth - shape the rest of our life and live in our Root Chakra.
I have no one to ask, not that they would talk about it anyway, about my grandma’s birth experience (her own and that of her children), or those who came before her. Women just didn’t share those things back in the day. If they couldn’t talk about it and ask questions you can almost guarantee they didn’t process and integrate it.
As a result of the silence, I can only look at the genealogical and family records - both what is written down and what is felt energetically through the family - to form theories about how we are all wounded. Theories about how my birth story and the births of my boys plus the losses of babies - helped break me wide open and slowly heal me and my lineage. Why? Because I felt the pain and grieved then and many times after. Today I am grieving as I try to make sense of all the information that is streaming through my awareness.
Those things, both positive and negative, good and bad, whatever labels you want to put on them, where were unprocessed and unintegrated, get passed down through the generations. The only thing is, when we start our conscious healing journey, we aren’t given a roadmap or traveler’s guide. We have to figure it out as we go along. Find a tribe of people to help us move through the pain, grief, and layers of our wounds, both personal and ancestral.
This is why genealogy and military research are so important. They shed light on things our families kept hidden or were not allowed to talk about. When we can see what’s “not there” in the records, and also feel in our bodies, our chakras, our entire energy field, we can heal it.
It is important to remember that wounds like abandonment, fear, safety, lack, connection, neglect, trust, shame, self-worth, guilt, and perhaps invisibility, may result from a traumatic birth and be stored not only in our energetic fields, but our Root Chakra.
My birth was traumatic. I was born on a day my mom’s doctor was not available and the replacement doctor yelled at her the entire time because he was missing his golf game. They had to use forceps and once I was out, I was a tiny 4 pounds 12 ounces and had to be stuck in an incubator to “finish cooking.” HA! My mom and I were not really able to bond and connect in the hospital. Then she got sick which kept us apart more. Being so tiny it was hard for anyone to feed me as multiple bottles and nipples had to be used to see what would work. Once home, my mom got sick again and ended up in the hospital.
What do you see here that wasn’t my mom’s fault - it is just the events that took place. Abandonment. Safety issues - who was taking care of me? Connection - did it ever happen early on? Fear of everything. It’s interesting that some of the events of my birth played out in the births of my boys - only I didn’t see that until recently. All of this of course factored into how I mothered my own boys - which brings up some guilt of - ‘If I had known then what I know now……’
This morning as I was sitting alone quietly allowing my guides to send messages, I realized I have a major fear about a choice to change my life in a major way. The fear I realized, which is rooted at birth, revolves around safety, home, relationships, commitment.
As I sat listening to my guides it hit me like a freight train that all of this is living in my Root Chakra since my birth 53+ years ago. It has impacted all my relationships, whether personal, familial, professional, and romantic. It has impacted some areas of choices I made. And it all goes back to the moment of birth.
So what happens for me next? I’m doing some art journaling to process what’s showing up in my awareness. I’m asking questions of my ancestors and self. I’m going to dig deeper into the genealogy records to see what’s there now that I couldn’t see before. Missing pieces of information isn’t just because you weren’t focused on seeing it in the first place. Sometimes you have to be vibrationally ready to see it and feel it.
One thing is for certain. I will take my time with this healing and this decision. There is no need to rush but there is a lot to feel and heal.
One thing that came out of my initial exploration of births and deaths in my maternal line was a program I teach called, “Why Was Grandma So Mean?” If you’d like to step into an introductory exploration of what’s hiding in your genealogy and military documents that help you understand your family and yourself better - that is a class I recommend. It’s available as a video replay with workbook on my online course site.
The best thing about the program is you don’t have to have a mean grandma to take it and understand it. All you have to do is change the question to one you’d like to answer about someone in your family and follow the tools and tips I teach. The program asks you to look at the beliefs, behaviors, patterns, gifts, traumas, and resiliencies in your lineage and yourself.
What have you discovered in your birth story or that of an ancestor that helped you shift your life, heal yourself and your lineage?
Jennifer Holik is a military researcher, genealogist, author, publisher, and educator specializing in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam veteran research, storytelling, and ancestral healing. With over 15 years of experience, using a proven two-part military research strategy she created, she conducts military research and book writing for clients, and teaches researchers how to reconstruct military service and transform historical data into meaningful, accurate narratives. Jennifer takes research and writing clients - email jennifer@ancestralsouls.com to set up a free project consult. Join her newsletter and grab your PDF Freebie today.
Learn more about her WWII training programs, books, coaching, and more at her online course site the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School. Then visit the WWII Research and Writing Center where you can find more than 10 years’ worth of articles, records, tips, videos, and more.
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