As you do more and more Akashic readings for yourself and others, you may begin to notice something interesting: the causes of people’s problems in this lifetime are very often due to beliefs, attitudes, or behavioral patterns they’ve inherited from their ancestors. So exploring your ancestral lineage and freeing yourself from detrimental ancestral patterns are the next logical steps for healing work in the Records.
Doing ancestral work in the Records is also natural and logical because all past and present occurrences, as well as all future probabilities, are held within the Akasha. So you can work in the Records to learn not only how you’re currently being affected by your ancestors but also how you can make choices now that will affect future generations. In essence, working in the Akashic Records to heal your limiting ancestral patterns will help you:
People typically define their ancestors as their “family tree”: past generations of relatives from whom they are directly descended. Although this definition is true in the Akashic Records, it is also true that in the Records your ancestors can be souls to whom you are related in consciousness but not necessarily by birth. Further, given the soul-level truth that we are all One and are related by our shared DNA, when it comes right down to it, everyone is your ancestor! For the purposes of this work, we will use the Akashic description of ancestors: anyone who is related to you on the soul level, biologically or not.
As you experience lifetime after lifetime, you often travel in various ancestral soul-groups that share the same personal, universal, soul-level goals. You will choose a particular group to simultaneously promote your own soul’s growth and the soul growth of the group. As such, those in the group are committed to sticking together and helping each other experience situations that help you all realize your goals. Regardless of the group’s lesser or intermediate goals, its ultimate goal is always the same: to achieve peace among all of its members. This goal is not usually accomplished quickly or even in one lifetime. Rather, it’s accomplished over a series of lifetimes during which you all grow incrementally, one generation at a time, as you learn to balance your “karmic opposites.” For example, let’s say that two souls within an ancestral group make an agreement to help each other learn a lesson in unconditional love. In one lifetime, the two souls incarnate: one as a brilliant, wealthy entrepreneur and the other as a mentally ill homeless person whom he passes on the street every day. For both of these souls, their “opposite” roles afford them countless opportunities to experience unconditional love. Then in subsequent lifetimes, these same two souls continue to shift their roles, and choose the contexts in which to enact them, so they can discover what it feels like to be on both sides of the karmic coin. Ultimately, when both souls have experienced a wholly complete expression of unconditional love, they will be at peace with each other and will exist in harmony. At that point, each soul will be free to join other ancestral groups in order to have other kinds of experiences and learn other kinds of lessons.
As for your ancestral group in this lifetime, many of its members are indeed biologically related. Others, however, are related by their desire to carry out a shared goal. Regard less of how your ancestral group is connected, you will stay together—for better or for worse—until your karmic work is complete and you have grown to love one another. How you interact with each other will vary: sometimes you’ll be kind and compassionate; at other times, you’ll be vengeful and mean-spirited. It really doesn’t matter as long as you’re fulfilling your karmic roles within your ancestral lines—and you end up loving each other when all is said and done.
Your ancestral soul-group in this lifetime consists of different “intersecting” ancestral lines—some of which you chose to be born into and some of which you will choose later on in your life. As such, there are several ways in which your soul can join different ancestral lines. The way in which most souls join their main ancestral line is to be born into its family tree. In such a case, a particular line’s members are all linked through their genetic code. Another way souls join ancestral lines is by being adopted into them. When a group of souls is joined in this way, distinct karmic experiences ensue for the adopted child, the biological parents, and the adoptive parents and family.
Another way souls join ancestral lines is to marry into them. It’s often said that when you marry a person, you take on that person’s whole tribe. This is especially true from an Akashic point of view, since no matter how you get along with that “tribe,” your choice to be with them is deliberate and is for a specific soul-purpose. Even if you try to escape your spouse’s line by legally divorcing your spouse, your connection to this line will remain active until your work with your ex-spouse is complete. So if you’ve been divorced for a while but still actively resent your ex-spouse, go back and do the first exercise in Chapter 5 See section entitled Exercise: The Three Levels of Healing (Working in Your Own Akashic Records). While you’re doing the exercise, find out what you can do to heal your resentment. That healing is only for you. Do what you can do, since the only way to be free of a person is to have a peaceful parting. If you don’t have a peaceful parting but struggle instead against “the ties that bind,” you’ll only make those ties tighter and more uncomfortable. If you achieve neutrality and peace, however, you’ll relax the binding ties and move into a more comfortable position.
As I mentioned earlier, another way souls join ancestral lines is by right of shared consciousness. In this case, every soul in a specific ancestral line has agreed to be part of that line in order to raise its collective consciousness. If the line’s karmic task is particularly challenging, its resolution may take several lifetimes. When the line has completed its task, however, the karmic ties will loosen and become inactive, and healing will occur among the line. The souls will then be free to move on and join other ancestral lines.
The person you are in this lifetime is the convergence point of all of your relations and ancestral lines throughout your soul’s existence. As you work on yourself in this lifetime and find compassion and peace within, you release your judgment of not only yourself but others in your ancestral lines. And the more you are able to do this, the more you are able to bring growth and healing to your entire ancestral soul-group, both now and in the future.
The Records help me identify blocks to growth and teach me how to overcome my negative energy. For example, I’d erected a wall between myself and my family because the way I tried to “help” them actually insulted them. I didn’t understand this and had been frustrated for years because they were angry at me for trying to help in this way. When I understood the patterns between us, decades of pain and misunderstanding were dissolved. Today I have a more intimate and loving relationship with my family than any I have known before.
—Kathryn
The most effective way to learn about yourself and heal karmic rifts—both within your own self and between you and others—is to work in your Akashic Records to gain the perspective they provide. Once you are able to accept the soul-level truth that the Records offer, you can change old beliefs, patterns, and behaviors and heal them for good. So focus on yourself, not others, and seek guidance on how to see situations for their soul-level purposes and ultimate karmic benefits. Also ask to be shown your roles and responsibilities within your ancestral lines.
As you work to make peace with yourself, you allow for deep healing and transformation to occur. Even if you’re the only one who’s aware of what’s happening, the shifts in you will open up space that allows for shifts in others, and your entire line will ascend. As you learn to be more accepting of others, you will find it easier to share whatever you have to give. This, in turn, will lessen others’ need to tug on you in order to get what they need. When appropriate give-and-take is underway, everyone involved enjoys a new level of harmony and peace.
The Records have been a great help with a troubled relationship with one of my relatives. The relationship was very painful for both of us, and I was looking to the Records to justify my negative feelings. Instead, what my soul wanted was to pray for this person three times a day!
—Nancy
Even if you are considered the “black sheep” in your family, you can create a more peaceful and accepting environment. In fact, this is the karmic imperative of the black sheep. So don’t worry that you are viewed this way; you really are a bit different from the rest. You are part of a rare and unusual breed that stands out from the herd, and you’re the one people can’t help but watch. With all eyes upon you, you have the opportunity to let go of your resistance to accepting people who are different. Ironically, you as the black sheep may want love, understanding, and acceptance from others but then find—from the perspective of the Records—that you are the one who must give those things first to those who love, understand, and accept you the least.
As you accept your ancestors for who and what they are and are not, all of you are liberated. This is how you support the healing of your ancestral line. Be bold in your love, acceptance, and appreciation of everyone in the family, especially those who are difficult for you. The Records will give you the clarity and energy to fulfill your role, which will further the evolution of your current ancestral line and all the souls who will join it in the future.
The following exercises will help you explore one of your current ancestral lines. The questions are worded so you can ask them in your own Records and can also easily adapt them for use with your clients. Feel free to repeat these exercises as often as you’d like in order to explore different ancestral lines within your larger soul-group.
As you work through each exercise, you may find that your Masters, Teachers, and Loved Ones choose to answer the questions as they are written. Alternatively, they may decide to combine one or more questions or answer them in a different order. However they decide to deliver the information, by the end of each reading, you will have your answers.