Friday, July 18, 2025

Ancestor Work Series #6 - Living Legacy – Becoming a Good Ancestor

 


Ancestor work isn’t just backward-facing. It’s also about who you’re becoming.

You’re not just calling on the past. You’re shaping the future. You are someone’s ancestor-in-the-making. What values do you want to pass on? What pain are you ending? What wisdom are you anchoring? You don’t have to get it perfect. But make it intentional.

Be the kind of ancestor your descendants will be proud to call in.

Let’s be clear: ancestor work isn’t ancestor worship. And you don’t have to love, forgive, or even like your ancestors to learn something from them.

Some of your ancestors were not good people. Some were abusive, complicit, harmful, or completely absent. The spiritual pressure to love and uplift “all your relations” can be toxic—especially if it asks you to bypass pain in the name of healing.

“Spiritual growth doesn’t require rewriting history. It requires meeting it with truth.”

You’re allowed to have complex feelings. You’re allowed to set spiritual boundaries. And you’re still allowed to learn from the line you came from—even if it’s just learning what not to repeat.

Learning Isn’t Always Admiration
Sometimes you learn resilience from a survivor. Sometimes you learn caution from a destroyer. Either way, you’re engaging with your lineage consciously—and that’s where the healing happens.

You don’t need to invite harmful ancestors to your altar. You don’t need to speak their names. But you can still acknowledge that their impact echoes in your life—and choose how to engage with it, or not.

A New Kind of Relationship
Ancestor work can be about reclamation. But it can also be about release. Releasing inherited burdens. Releasing ancestral shame. Releasing the obligation to honor what harmed you.

This is how you heal forward. You don’t sugarcoat the past—you alchemize it.

Try This:
- Write down the traits or wounds you’ve inherited from difficult ancestors. Ask: “What’s mine to carry—and what ends here?”
- Create a ritual of refusal. Burn a symbol of a pattern you’re done with and state, “This cycle ends with me.”
- Invite only the healed, healing, or benevolent ancestors to guide your work

You don’t have to love them. But you can learn from them. And that, in itself, is an act of power.

Coming next: **Modern Problems, Ancient Wisdom—Why Ancestor Work Still Matters Today**


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Ancestor Work Series #6 - Living Legacy – Becoming a Good Ancestor

  Ancestor work isn’t just backward-facing. It’s also about who you’re becoming. You’re not just calling on the past. You’re shaping the f...