The Role of Ancestors in Your Healing (A down to earth explanation)
When I used to hear the word ancestor, I’d kind of glaze over. I’d stick it in the same basket as hugging trees, chanting under the moon, or making spells. No shade, it wasn’t completely not me but it just wasn’t fully my bag.
But here’s what I didn’t know at the time: ancestors aren’t just abstract spiritual forefathers. They’re your actual lineage. Your people. The ones who lived before you and without meaning to, passed you their unfinished business.
In my studies and work as an EFT practitioner & Intuitive coach I’ve learned trauma literally changes your cells. When your nan or great-grandad went through something big - war, poverty, abuse, grief - it didn’t just stop with them. The way their body adapted to survive changed how their cells behaved, and that got passed down the line. To you.
That’s why ancestors matter, even if you’re the least “woo” person in the room. Let’s get into it.
What is an ancestor?
Ancestors are the people whose choices, survival strategies, pain, and joys literally shaped the conditions you were born into.
An ancestor is anyone in your family line who came before you. Parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-great- you get the picture. Their lives and their experiences ripple through yours in ways you probably don’t even notice.
Some spiritual traditions view ancestors as guides or guardians. Science views them as the carriers of your DNA. Both are true. Because what they went through has literally wired into you, whether through stories, beliefs, behaviours, or biology.
The role ancestors play in your life today
Ever wondered why you have a certain fear or pattern that doesn’t really make sense for your own life? Like money always feels scarce, even if you’ve never personally been without? Or you get a deep fear of rejection, even though you’ve got plenty of evidence people love you?
Sometimes that’s not your fear. It’s theirs. Passed down like a family heirloom nobody asked for.
Ancestors show up in:
The beliefs you’ve inherited
You know those thoughts that play on repeat: “nothing comes easy,” “you have to hustle hard to survive,” or “stay small to stay safe”? Those were probably not all born in your head. They were scripted generations ago and handed down as a kind of emotional legacy.
How you handle money, love, and safety
Ever notice how some people attract abundant opportunities like magnets, while others constantly feel “not enough”? That scarcity wiring can show up in how you relate to everything. Such as love, safety, success. It’s not just mindset - it can be biology.
Your patterns of stress or conflict
Do you shut down when someone challenges you? Or go into overdrive at the slightest hint of pressure? Some of that reactivity may not be based on your life experience, it might be your body responding with what’s familiar: fight, flight, fawn, dissociate.
Your body and health
This isn’t a metaphor. Trauma alters biology. Research shows trauma can leave chemical tags on our genes (epigenetic changes) that can get passed down. These tags affect stress response, immune function, even health conditions like anxiety or chronic illness.
Knowing this allows you to reclaim your life.
If patterns like scarcity, self-sabotage, or chronic stress don’t make sense in your own story... maybe they’re from people who never got to heal. And that means you don’t have to carry that alone anymore.
Understanding where these shadows come from is the first step to healing them.
The science behind how trauma changes cells
We often think of trauma as something that lives in memories or emotions, but it goes deeper than that. Trauma can actually leave marks on the body at a cellular level. This field of research is called epigenetics, which basically looks at how life experiences can change the way our genes behave without changing the DNA itself. In other words, the map of your DNA stays the same, but trauma can stick little notes in the margins telling you which routes to use less, which ones to take more often and which to ignore. It’s those metaphorical notes that get passed down.
Source: https://www.micropticsl.com/epigenetics-fertility/# Extracted from Donkin and Barrès, 2018. doi 10.1016j.molmet.2018.02.006
We’ve seen this in history. During the Dutch Hunger Winter famine of the 1940s, babies who were in the womb at the time grew up with altered health and stress responses that could still be measured decades later.
Holocaust survivors and their children have shown differences in the genes that control stress, compared to families who didn’t go through that trauma.
And it doesn’t stop there. Research published in Nature has shown that when grandmothers were under severe stress during pregnancy, their grandchildren displayed differences in DNA methylation at genes related to circulation and stress regulation.
Animal studies show that when male mice go through stress, their sperm changes. It carries tiny molecules called small RNAs, which pass messages into the embryo and affect how it develops. Reviews suggest similar mechanisms may be at play in humans, hinting that a father’s stress before conception could ripple forward into the biology of his children.
So feeling like “there’s never enough,” even if your cupboards are stocked or a hyper-vigilant nervous system could have been handed down to you.
Signs you might be carrying ancestral trauma
Feeling fears that don’t really “fit” your own life
Struggling with money, worth, or visibility despite doing “all the right things”
Reacting strongly in certain situations and not knowing why
Repeating family patterns (relationships, careers, addictions) even when you swore you wouldn’t
Sometimes the stuff you’re struggling with doesn’t actually belong to you. It can feel like you’re carrying bags you never packed. Maybe you’ve noticed fears that don’t make sense in your own life, like money always feeling scarce even when you’re earning. Or you’ve done all the courses, followed all the steps, yet you still can’t seem to shift patterns around worth, visibility, or success.
You might find yourself reacting way too strongly in certain situations and not really knowing why. Or maybe you’ve promised yourself you won’t repeat the same family cycles in relationships, careers, or habits, yet somehow you end up back in the same place.
That’s often a sign you’re holding ancestral trauma.
You don’t have to keep carrying it. This is exactly where EFT tapping and my work as an intuitive coach and certified EFT Practitioner come in. EFT Tapping helps your nervous system release those inherited stress responses, while I guide you to reconnect with your intuition and take action that feels aligned. Together, we don’t just unpack the baggage we put it down, so you can walk forward lighter and freer.
When you do this work, you’re not just healing yourself. You’re breaking cycles. You’re showing your ancestors that the pain stops here. And you’re creating a new baseline for whoever comes after you.
Sources
If you want to dig deeper into the science behind all this and nerd out, here are some of the studies and articles:
Heijmans et al (2008). DNA methylation differences after exposure to the Dutch Hunger Winter famine. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Read it here
Yehuda et al (2016). Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation. Biological Psychiatry. VA Research summary: Read it here
Mulligan et al (2017). Maternal stress and DNA methylation changes in grandchildren. Nature: Translational Psychiatry. Read it here
Gapp et al (2019). Mechanisms of transgenerational stress inheritance via sperm small RNAs. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. Read it here
Donkin & Barrès (2018). Epigenetic inheritance and human disease. Clinical Epigenetics. Read it here
General background: Transgenerational trauma – Wikipedia
