The Studio

I came to connect with my ancestors from a place of brokenness. My familial connections had been severed, many times over, throughout my life. I have lacked a sense of defining my Self and my Purpose in life. I searched for connection, seeking to ground in Mother Earth and hoping to find my own community. I have struggled in many spaces, feeling lost in the void and untethered to this existence. 

My Indian grandmother was a healer. She birthed my father in the Punjab region of India, and I have connected with her in the spirit guide realm. She always comes to me in a red sari, sometimes bringing a little girl with her.

During my first interaction with her, I asked an ancestor for healing. I had been working with chakras in my own body, and I felt an energetic block in my throat, like I couldn’t fully speak my Truth. When she appeared and began working on my sacral chakra, I redirected her to my throat. Ignoring my request, she went back to work clearing out my Svadhisthana. Again, I made the request, and while she acknowledged me this time, she responded with, “No, you really need it here” as she gestured again with her hands toward my abdomen. I was becoming quite impatient with my grandmother at this point as she clearly wasn’t listening to me. “No, but really,” I said, pointing to my throat. Her response: “Ok, fine. I’ll send some up there, but you really need work in this area of your body,” as she kept her focus where it needed to be. I gave up and sat back in resignation; but because my body now was open to the experience, and because I trusted this woman I’d never met, I allowed her work to continue. And that’s when I felt a lifting of all the darkness my body had stored there, only afterward linking it to my history of sexual trauma.

After I came out of deep meditation, I caught myself thinking, “That wasn’t really her. That was just my imagination.” Though dubious, I requested her presence on a particularly hard day when I felt untethered to the Earth and lacking familial connection.

The second time I met her in the Spirit Realm, I became convinced of the power of my ancestral connections. I cried when she met me in the place where I meet all my spirit guides. Unable to stop the flow, I asked, “How can I connect with my family?” “Go to India. Touch the land. Put your hands in the water.” she responded. “But I can’t afford to go there. I want to, but I can’t right now. That’s a ways down the road.” 

Still crying, I felt desperate for an answer that could fill this void I’d known since the age of ten. “It’s ok. It’s all the same water. Touch waters anywhere, and you will be connected.” Was there anything to this? Aren’t ancestors supposed to bring their profound wisdom? And all she could say to me was, “Go to the water.”

As I continued to reflect on this interaction a few days later, I decided to look up the waters of the Punjab. Maybe there were specific rivers whose power I could tap in to during meditation. Before I could even get to a map, google returned the literal translation of the word ‘Punjab’: Land of Five Waters, because there were five rivers that ran through Punjab. The name of my heritage was my connection to Earth AND family. And that’s when I started to believe.

I continue to rely on all my spirit guides to help me through difficult times. I have a guide to the Unknown—a black jaguar named Li—from whom I can draw strength as I take steps into the beyond. My inner child, received in the form of a monkey, reminds me to bring playfulness into my life, especially during times of struggle. A baby Asian elephant shows up when I feel closely connected to my children but they seem too far away for me to reach. With the recent passing of my maternal grandmother, I can finally feel her presence beside me, almost every day. I see birth and death, now, as doorways. I feel overwhelming gratitude when someone
passes from this realm to the next: while grief is present and I allow myself to move through it as it comes, grief feels secondary to the experience of appreciation that this person (or other animal) touched so many while they were here. I am grateful that I can bear witness to this iteration of their Spirit.

My paternal grandmother showed me her powers to heal, and this led to a swift uncovering of my own abilities. I discovered that I could move pain off my body after taking a fall off a climbing route and tearing a calf; while I could still feel the injury, my body no longer held on to the physical pain associated with the tear. And if I could move pain off my own body and work with my energy centers (chakras), perhaps I could help others. For far too long, I’ve held mental anguish in my lower back. As the physical manifestation of my mental pain compounded over the years, it compressed my cartilage between my lower lumbar and sacrum bones, resulting in no cartilage at all. All of this pain I felt throughout my life… until I opened my root chakra and released all I’d been carrying there. Now, I can move back spasms off my body before they have a chance to settle in.  My back is where I store my stress, and this honed ability in me has been life-giving in so many ways.

I can move back pain and migraines off other peoples’ bodies, as well. I have helped to shrink brain tumors and taken away the pain of treatments for an auto-immune disorder. A friend of mine had twisted is his ankle pretty badly in a snowboarding accident. After I offered to help with his swollen and bruised ankle, he walked again with no limp or pain. My sixth sense can pick up where the flow of energy is blocked in your body, and I can remove those negative energies you’ve stored and bring in fresh, universal life force.

Our bodies are made to heal. They have an innate intelligence within them that is connected to Earth and to Spirit. I believe we all have this gift within us, and we can all learn how to support our body’s knowledge of healing and the powers of our intuition.