My parents wanted to name me after my paternal great-grandmother, Rose, but thought it was too old-fashioned. So they picked another R name: my middle name, Ruth. I never liked and never even used the initial.
Then, in my mid-thirties, I was drawn towards the sphere of inner work known as ancestral healing. This work involves healing unresolved emotional issues or traumas of our ancestors, which can release us from mysterious energetic patterns linked to them that may be inhibiting or disrupting our lives.
Suddenly I was drawn to Rose’s story. As a girl, after her mother died, Rose’s grandmother brought her and her sister to America from Eastern Europe to find Rose’s father, who had gone ahead to get settled. Instead of calling for the family he’d started a new one. It was into that new family that Rose’s grandmother deposited her and her sister — young girls who didn’t speak a word of English, weary from a journey across the sea and still mourning the loss of their mother.
As I connected with this story from my family history I started tapping into deep roots of feelings I’d never understood — of not belonging and of deep-seated, inexplicable grief. I started becoming aware of the very subtle ways in which narratives of otherness and inadequacy had been embedded in my psyche, and I was able to start clearing them out. Reclaiming Rose as my middle name has been part of that process.
The energetic blocks impeding us from moving forward can be subtle, mysterious, and generations deep. They’re just one aspect of the work I do in my integrative coaching.
Are you ready to dig in and excavate?
