Our family teaches us about life when we are growing. Our DNA comes from them. We are intrinsically linked to them through both our blood and our education and through our family karma. Our link to our family passes habits both good and bad: diseases, complexes, patterns, abilities, memories, and sometimes the karma of our ancestors. All of these patterns passed to us can be changed and improved.
One native teaching is that when you heal something in your life or do something it effects seven generations. Some believe this goes both forward and backward down the ancestral line. So just by starting to heal your self you have begun the practice of healing your family, ancestors, and your descendants. Your healing of yourself ripples out through out time and can aid all of us. It is much like the hermetic principle of “as above, so below.” When we heal what is inside of us we heal our microcosm and then it will be reflected out in the macrocosm. Here you thought that you were just healing yourself and now you are adding to the healing of the world!
The things we can inherit from our family and ancestral line I like to call an inheritance pattern. It is a pattern of being that seems to infect multiple members of a family. This can be a physical inheritance pattern such as diabetes or hair loss. Emotional patterns like stubborness to new ideas or indecisiveness when given a choice can manifest this way too. Relational patterns like how you interact with a spouse or with prosperity. Mental patterns like thoughts about traditions or always wanting to please those you love because they could leave. Lastly there are also spiritual patterns like dogma or doubting intuition. I am sure there are many more categories I could give you but the big part is that there is an energetic pattern that you and your family members enact. Most of these patterns are ones that served a purpose at some point and because they made such a strong imprint they are passed on.
When I was a kid a friend of my mom told a story about how every Christmas they would cut the ends of of the ham before they put the ham in the roaster. One christmas she said to her sister “Do you know why we cut this part of the ham off?” The sister then replied that it was the way that there mother always did it. So they called their mother and asked her why she always cut off the ends of the ham. She didn’t know why either and said that her mother had always done that too. So she called up their grandmother and asked why you would cut off the ends of the ham. Her answer was that she always cut the ends off the ham because she didn’t have a large enough roasting pan and it wouldn’t have fit otherwise. The sisters and mother had been wasting ham for years because of this inheritance pattern they had. Once they knew it was folly they changed the pattern. I know this is not an extreme pattern but it makes a good example of how and why these patterns can start.
I like to do work with inheritance patterns during the waning moon to tap into its abilities to banish and diminish. You can do it at any time you need though. I introduce a new pattern to fill its place that is more in line with how I choose to live my life during the waxing moon which helps its growth and manifestation.
Though you can do this fully through visualization. I like to make a petition or list of inheritance patterns I would like to remove. This will focus my healing work to transform these patterns back into usable energies. An example of a petition would be:
“I, Adam Sartwell, call upon the infinite great spirit from which all Reiki emanates to remove, banish and dissipate the pattern of stress eating from myself and if they are willing the seven generations forward and back for the highest healing good, harming none. so mote it be!”
A list would be more like:
I, Adam Sartwell, call upon the infinite great spirit from which all Reiki emanates to remove, banish and dissipate the following patterns:
I banish the inheritance pattern of stress eating
I banish the inheritance pattern of wasting ham.
I banish the inheritance pattern of indecisiveness
May these be healed both within me and moving outward to my seven generations forward and back if they are willing for the highest good harming none. So mote it be!
This petition can be put in your box, book or bowl for Reiki or you can do a special distance Reiki just on the slip of paper. You could read it out loud three times every time you Reiki it or you could read it three times the first time and fold it so you can’t see it and reiki it for the rest of the moon cycle. I find the latter method works better for me because it gives my subconscious room to work on it. Burn the paper when your moon cycle has ended. Then make a list of positive patterns you would like to adopt to replace these things. Something like:
I, Adam Sartwell, call upon the infinite great spirit from which all Reiki emanates to co-create with me these healthy patterns of
I embrace the new pattern of meditation when I feel it is needed
I enjoy using all parts of the ham and thank the spirit of pig for feeding me.
My heart and mind are one making it easy to decide effectively
May these healthy patterns or something better be embodied by me and may my healthy choices encourage with love my seven generations forward and back to make there own healthy choices for the highest healing good, harming none.
This list is burned at the full moon to harness its power to manifest.
If you want to do a general healing for your ancestral line I like to go to my ancestral altar raise my hands to surround the altar and visualize a ball of reiki forming around the altar. In that ball I visualize my ancestral lines going back through time to the beginning. Then I do the distance symbol in my mind inside the ball and do a distance Reiki session. This can also be directed toward an inheritance pattern by setting the intention to heal a pattern. I usually say a prayer something like the one for the petition.
