Friday, May 28, 2010

The Family Wound Healing Quest


On May 26th I was interviewed on BlogTalk Radio by Steven Hairfield and Jeoffrey Hutcherson about healing the family wound. This topic has bloomed for me out of Kumelia's message that it will be very beneficial to the shift toward higher consciousness for humans to heal ancestral wounds. I've developed a class and a workshop for helping individuals and families initiate a healing quest to get their family skeletons out of the proverbial closet.

A family wound is the concentrated emotional pain that gets transferred from one generation to the next – until it is acknowledged, accepted and transformed. And yes, every family member carries the wound, but most aren’t even aware of it. This is because the wound originates from a traumatic event or series of events that impact the wellness, structure, and very existence of a family: war, immigration, economic crisis, slavery, genocide, floods, tornadoes, famines, or earthquakes. These life-changing events demand a focus on survival, leaving little or no time for grieving and other healthy expressions of emotional pain. Emotions become shut down so that the family can survive. After the traumatic event and its aftermath have ended, no one remembers that any pain that is not transformed is transferred.

The family wound has the power to keep us cycling through unhappy experiences, self-sabotaging behaviors, chronic depression, failed and dysfunctional relationships, financial debt, and the inability to give and receive love freely – as long as we allow it. Recognizing and learning to heal through the family wound is one of the most courageous and prestigious tasks that a human being can undertake during their lifetime.