Living Our Dreams, Healing Our Ancestors: The Power of Unfinished Legacies

Your ancestors didn’t survive everything they did—every hardship, every battle, every sacrifice—just for you to play small. Your dreams are their greatest gifts.

That thought landed deeply for me last week as I reflected on what it means to reclaim our lives, our passions, and our purpose. There is something profoundly healing in stepping fully into the dreams that our ancestors were never able to live.

I know this firsthand. Both of my parents had unlived dreams. And while psychology might tell you that living out an ancestor’s dreams could be problematic, I believe the nuance lies in how we carry those dreams forward.

The How: When Unfulfilled Dreams Become a Burden

There’s a big difference between honoring the dreams of our ancestors and being burdened by them. The how matters.

Take, for example, a woman who always dreamed of being a dancer. She never got the chance, so she pushes her little girl into dance classes. The daughter grows up with the weight of expectations—perhaps she doesn’t even want to dance, or maybe she does, but it’s wrapped in pressure, perfectionism, and the need to be good enough for both herself and her mother. By adolescence, she develops an eating disorder. As an adult, she struggles with self-worth and relationships, still trying to untangle what was hers to carry and what wasn’t.

This is how the how can be damaging—when an unlived dream gets transferred, rather than honored. When it becomes an obligation instead of an inspiration. When it’s forced upon the next generation instead of held with reverence and choice.

The Why: When Healing Flows Through the Lineage

But what if, instead of pushing her daughter into dance, that same woman had found ways to honor her dream on her own terms? Maybe she took classes herself, embraced movement in a way that brought her joy, or found other ways to express the creative spirit that once longed to be on stage. By doing so, she wouldn’t need her daughter to carry the weight of her unlived dream—because she would be living it in her own way.

And what if she gave her daughter the freedom to find her own path? Instead of expecting her child to become the dancer she never was, she could encourage her to explore what she loves—whether that’s painting, science, music, or something else entirely. She could model the courage to follow passion, not by forcing it, but by living it herself and holding space for her daughter to do the same.

This is healing. When we release the grip of our unmet dreams, we not only free ourselves—we free the next generation. We break the cycle of pressure and expectation, allowing our children to walk their own path, not the one we wish we had taken.

This isn’t just theoretical. I’ve lived this truth in my own family.

Breaking the Cycle

My parents never got to fulfill their dreams, and now they’re both gone. The hardest part is that I don’t even know what their dreams were. They were so caught up in survival mode, numbing their pain with substances handed to them by doctors who never questioned whether the medications were helping.

Addiction took hold. And when you live a life of addiction—of pain and numbing—you exist in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. The sympathetic nervous system stays locked in overdrive, and dreams get pushed to the back burner—sometimes forever.

I know this all too well because I’ve been there. My own struggles with addiction in my 20s taught me what it means to live disconnected from yourself, from your body, from the life that is meant for you. But I made it out. And now, living my dreams isn’t just about me—it’s about breaking the cycle. It’s about honoring what my parents never got to have, not by carrying their burdens, but by fully living my own life.

The Science of Ancestral Trauma

Ancestral trauma isn’t just a concept—it’s real. Science is proving what many cultures have known for generations: trauma is passed down biologically.

One of the most well-known studies demonstrating this involved rats. Researchers exposed a group of rats to the smell of orange blossoms while shocking them. Over time, the rats associated the scent with pain and developed a trauma response.

Here’s where it gets fascinating: those rats had babies, and those babies had babies. Neither generation was ever shocked. Yet when the scent of orange blossoms was wafted into the cages of their grandchildren, the rats—who had never experienced trauma themselves—exhibited the same fear response.

Their bodies remembered the pain, even though they had never lived it.

This is generational trauma in action. It doesn’t just live in stories or memories—it lives in our DNA. We carry the unresolved pain of those who came before us, just as we carry their resilience. And if trauma can be passed down, then so can healing.

Healing the Past, Healing the Future

I don’t know what my parents’ dreams were, but I do know they had unresolved trauma. And because they never had the space or support to fully heal, that trauma didn’t just disappear—it lived in their bodies, in their choices, in the way they coped. It shaped the way they moved through the world, and in many ways, it shaped me.

But just as trauma is inherited, so is the ability to break the cycle. Healing isn’t just about personal growth—it’s about changing what gets carried forward.

When we choose to process what was left unresolved, when we breathe deeply and consciously in a way our ancestors never could, we are not just healing ourselves. We are healing them.

The work we do now echoes through generations. Our healing becomes part of the lineage. This is how we free ourselves, free the ones who came before us, and create a new inheritance for those yet to come.

The Power of Breathwork: A Portal to Healing

One of the most powerful tools for this work is the breath. Unlike traditional talk therapy, which relies on the conscious mind to make sense of the past, breathwork taps into something much deeper—the body, the subconscious, and the stored experiences we may not even know we carry.

Breathwork isn’t just about regulating the nervous system in the moment. It reaches into the trauma stored in our bodies—into the imprints left by our ancestors. In many traditions, it’s believed that conscious, intentional breathwork can clear trauma from seven generations past and seven generations forward.

When we breathe with intention, we aren’t just healing ourselves—we’re breaking ancestral patterns, releasing pain that was never ours to hold, and creating space for future generations to live with more presence, freedom, and connection.

This is how we reclaim life. This is how we reclaim dreams. We breathe for those who never had the chance to exhale fully, and for those yet to come, who will inherit not just our wounds—but our healing.

Not All Breathwork Is the Same

When people hear the word breathwork, they often think of things like box breathing, Wim Hof, or yogic pranayama. And while those practices are powerful tools for nervous system regulation, what I offer—and what has deeply shaped my personal healing—is something entirely different.

Ceremonial breathwork, like Holotropic Breathwork and Shamanic Breathwork, is a multi-hour deep-dive into the unconscious. These aren’t casual breath exercises or 10-minute stress relief hacks. These are intentional, sacred containers designed for healing at the soul level.

What I practice—and what has changed my life—is rooted in both of these modalities. These are deep, extended processes that invite us into a sacred, altered state of consciousness for the purpose of healing, release, and soul remembrance.

Holotropic Breathwork: Healing Through Non-Ordinary States

Holotropic Breathwork is one of the most profound tools for accessing and healing trauma, both personal and ancestral. Dr. Stanislav Grof, a pioneer in transpersonal psychology, developed Holotropic Breathwork, a powerful technique that uses controlled breathing patterns to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness. Through this practice, people have reported experiencing:

• Embodiment of past traumas—physically feeling and processing memories that were locked away in the body.
• Reliving early childhood experiences—even those from before the development of conscious memory.
• Re-experiencing the birth process—accessing pre-verbal trauma from the womb and birth itself.
• Ancestral trauma—feeling and healing wounds passed down through generations.
• Past-life memories—whether metaphorical or literal, many people report insights into deep, recurring soul patterns.

What makes breathwork so unique is that, unlike psychedelics, it allows for dual awareness. You can be fully immersed in the experience, yet still maintain the ability to “pop out” at any time. There is no risk of getting stuck in an altered state—it is completely safe, and the body naturally regulates the depth of the experience.

Physiologically, breathwork activates natural DMT production in the brain, yet without the external substance. This means we can access deep, transformative states of consciousness without fear, without reliance on a drug, and without being trapped in an overwhelming experience. The breath itself becomes the medicine.

When we engage in this work, we aren’t just healing for ourselves—we are accessing the wounds of our lineage, processing what was never resolved, and creating space for future generations to exist without carrying the same weight. Breathwork is not just a tool for personal healing; it is a bridge across time, connecting us to the past while reshaping the future.

Shamanic Breathwork: Reconnecting to Spirit, Self, and Lineage

Shamanic Breathwork is another powerful path of healing through the breath—one that draws from ancient wisdom, sacred ritual, and deep connection to the elements. It’s not just about regulating the nervous system or processing old memories (though it absolutely does that). Shamanic Breathwork invites us to remember who we are on a soul level.

Rooted in the practices of indigenous cultures from around the world, Shamanic Breathwork combines rhythmic breathing, music, movement, intention, and sometimes energetic touch to help us enter an expanded state of consciousness. From this space, we’re able to access our inner healer, connect with spiritual guidance, and work directly with the energies and stories that live in our body, our lineage, and beyond.

It’s common during Shamanic Breathwork to:

• Experience visions or symbols that hold deep meaning
• Meet ancestors or guides
• Remember forgotten parts of yourself—your truth, your power, your purpose
• Move energy through sound, shaking, crying, laughter, or spontaneous movement
• Reconnect with the earth, the elements, and the cycles of nature

This kind of breathwork honors the sacred, and it honors the fact that healing isn’t just physical or emotional—it’s spiritual. It acknowledges that we are more than a diagnosis, more than a nervous system out of whack. We are whole beings with stories that go far beyond this lifetime, and the breath can help us remember.

Unlike Western models of mental health, which often try to "manage" symptoms, Shamanic Breathwork invites us to transform them. It’s a reclamation. A return. And a reminder that our healing is holy.

I was trained in both modalities. My lineage includes Linda Star Wolf, Stan Grof, and Ram Dass—and the work I hold now is a continuation of that lineage. At White Oak Medicine, I offer monthly Sacred Breathwork ceremonies that blend these traditions with my own lived experience and the needs of my community.

These sessions are spacious (about four hours), held in a ceremonial container with music, a breather/sitter structure, and time for integration—including mandala drawing, sharing, and rest.

We breathe not just for ourselves, but for our ancestors and descendants. We breathe to remember what trauma made us forget.

This is breathwork as medicine.
This is breathwork as sacred ritual.
This is breathwork as reclamation.

Queen Anne’s Lace & The Breath: A Symbol of Sacred Space

There’s a visual that perfectly captures the spirit of this work for me.

Queen Anne’s Lace has been a thread through the generations in my family—quietly powerful, quietly present. My grandmother was the first to teach me about her sacredness. She showed me the tiny red dot in the center of the bloom and told me the old story: that Queen Anne, while sewing lace in a wild meadow, pricked her finger and let a single drop of blood fall into the flower—marking it forever with a thread of the sacred feminine.

Years later, I shared that same story with my own granddaughter. We sat in a summer field, our fingers tracing the lace-like petals, searching for that one tiny drop of red. In that moment, time collapsed—three generations of women held together by a wildflower that blooms where it pleases.

That flower is more than a memory. It is the visual language of the breathwork I hold now.

Queen Anne’s Lace grows wild, but never messy—delicate, but unshakable. She roots deep into the earth and opens to the sky with grace. Her bloom mirrors the lungs—expanding, reaching, soft but strong.

She is also a midwife plant, long associated with birth, death, and the liminal spaces between. In breathwork, we touch those same thresholds: releasing what no longer serves, remembering what was lost, and reclaiming what we thought was gone.

Just like that tiny red floret in the center, we honor the often hidden places where life left a mark—pain, memory, beauty, and lineage.

When I breathe with others, I feel her spirit in the room. She reminds us:

You are held.
You are safe to remember.
You belong here—rooted and rising.

And when we breathe together, I carry my grandmother’s hands, my granddaughter’s wonder, and the soft wisdom of that red-centered bloom with me, every time.

The Gift of Ancestral Healing

Being at White Oak this week, doing what I love, is a dream come true. I can feel my parents looking down on me—not with expectations or regret, but with pride. With love. With a kind of deep, unconditional support that perhaps they couldn’t always express when they were here.

Our ancestors always want what is best for us. Sometimes, they are more able to show that love from the spirit world than they could in the human one.

So if you are living a dream that your ancestors never got to, know this: you are not just fulfilling a longing from the past. You are healing something deep in your lineage. You are showing the generations before and after you that dreams are worth pursuing. That it’s possible to break cycles of sacrifice. That joy is not just a luxury—it’s an inheritance.

And that? That is the greatest gift of all.

Ready to experience this work for yourself?

I hold monthly Sacred Breathwork Ceremonies at White Oak Medicine in Columbus, NC. These intentional, four-hour sessions blend Holotropic and Shamanic Breathwork in a safe, ceremonial space designed for deep release, healing, and reconnection.

Whether you’re moving through personal healing, ancestral grief, or simply seeking to remember who you are beneath it all—you are welcome in this space.

Learn more or register here.

Come breathe with us.