Are past lives our ancestors?

Like many children I had dreams or a general knowing about some of my past life experiences. When I began studying astrology this was an area of particular interest to me and one of the books that influenced me the most actually wasn't about astrology or past lives—it was a book about intergenerational trauma. 

The book is called It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who You Are and How to Break the Cycle and the author is Mark Wolynn. I began working through the exercises in this book and realized that I could use my natal chart as a guide to answer the questions that helped me identify the cycles I was meant to heal. I noticed that the houses and points in my chart that would normally be used to determine information about past lives also made sense when I applied them to my ancestors and past life experiences. 

Notice in my explanation I say ancestors AND past life experiences. So what is the connection between these two ideas? 

Past Lives and Ancestors in Your Natal Chart 

Some of our families are secretive about the past—or even if they're not secretive there are gaps in what we know for sure. While so much information and research is emerging about inherited family trauma, not all of us are able to point to a specific experience in our lineage that shapes our blocks or patterns. 

On one side of my family I come from Dutch immigrants to the United States who have a long and well-documented family history. Because there was so much certainty around this part of my ancestry I primarily connected to this side of my family. 

My other side of the family is quite a bit more enigmatic, and its only through deep research that I have found some answers to my questions. This is because this part of my family primarily came to the United States from England and Ireland as indentured servants, so there is a lot less information available about them. 

I was honestly never that curious about this part of my ancestry until I used my chart as guide to answer the questions in Wolynn's book. Using my chart as a map, I was able to see how coming from a lineage of young mothers strongly shaped my Soul in this present incarnation. The most present subconscious patterns in my chart were all shaped by my maternal lineage. I would never have been able to discern these patterns on my own because I was so disconnected from my mother’s ancestry.

Of course we know that cognitive awareness about an issue doesn't heal the issue, but when it comes to ancestral healing it can be a great place to start. 

Identifying Wounded Parts of the Self

Essentially, our Self is made up of multiple parts and some of those parts hold wounds, shame, and patterns from our ancestors and past life experiences. I cover this more in-depth here and here.

There is a lot of emerging evidence that we are shaped by the experiences of our ancestors in a similar way to how we understand past life experiences.

A few examples include...

• Children of women who were pregnant during The Dutch Hunger Winter died at a higher rate than their siblings born before or after. They found that their PIM3 gene was silenced.but essentially our Self is made up of multiple parts and some of those parts are holding wounds, shame, and patterns from our ancestors and past life experiences. 
• The sons of PoW veterans of the Civil War had an 11% higher mortality rate than sons of non-PoW veterans, and the daughters were not effected.
• A study of the 2nd and 3d generation offspring from mice exposed to a scent paired with a negative experience showed heightened sensitivity to that smell.
• Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (P.T.S.S.) is a theory that explains the etiology of many of the adaptive survival behaviors in African American communities throughout the United States and the Diaspora. 

Whether you believe in past lives or not, we are starting to know with certainty that we do inherit trauma from the experiences of our ancestors—but not always in ways that are easily identified and explained. 

As an astrologer I am able to use your chart to help you identify potential stories or factors that are influencing your blocks. It's more than likely that I will point out connections you've never even considered. 

Are all of our past life experiences related to our ancestral inheritance?

This is a question that I personally can’t answer with certainty, but for now the conclusion that I have come to is no. I do believe that we have past life experiences outside of our ancestral family. These are experiences that are embedded into a larger Soul Family we are a part of, so in a way they are also ancestral in nature.

These types of past life experiences might involve experiences as plants, animals, minerals, or even being on other planets. I’ve come to this conclusion based on my own experiences and observations. That said, I believe one primary function of humans on this planet at this present incarnation is to heal the inherited trauma in our familial lineages so that we are able to be more deeply grounded and present on Earth at this time.

Of course there is only way to learn how your past life and ancestral experiences have shaped you, and that is to dive into them yourself!

If you feel called to work with me in this way, you’ll find opportunities through the Ancestral Transformation Session and the Ancestral Transformation Guided Journey.