Most of us are taught to analyze and understand our family dynamics from a place of scrutiny and cleansing. We want to release the past, heal our trauma, and move forward. I cannot tell you the number of clients I meet who tell me that they have already worked on their family roots in therapy. And they have closed that book.

I have spent the last week in the woods, meandering around, off the grid, barefoot, and sinking deeply into relaxation. I came upon the tree in the image below, fully exposing its roots, being ripped from a storm.

I sat and thought about how ripping the roots up exposes a lot of pain and suffering.

What if we sink into our roots, instead of ripping into our roots? What if we find our innate strength and majesty from honoring our roots, instead of ripping into them?

Now, I know what you will say; there’s been a lot of damage done to those roots. They have been alcoholics, abusers, unkind, war perpetrators, war victims. Our ancestors, heck, even our parents, have been through a lot. They have not been given the tools we have been given. They have lived a long time in survival. And we have been tasked with digging ourselves out of surviving to thriving.

Isn’t it time to bless our roots and free ourselves, and them, if they choose, from the separation and denial of our roots?

I have found great energy, strength, and power return to me as I honor my roots and dive into them instead of running from them.

Just as I have embraced some of my fear of being alone in the woods (well, yes, I am with Baruch out here and he’s a rockstar camper), we spent two-plus days not seeing a soul. I have sat in the dirt, imagining the bears and the moose nearby, fearing some of the shadows that could come out and do me harm. Yet, once I moved through the fear, it felt freeing to face it and make peace with what was in the shadows.

It’s the same with our roots. Honoring where your people have been frees them to potentially heal. Diving into the roots may surprise you. You may find lessons, love, and ancestral mystics waiting to offer you the gifts of your past.

What has been scary or held in contempt can also be freeing and rewarding. Facing our roots, especially the shadowy ones, can change us and the way we live our lives. It can release the powerful grips of beliefs and patterns that no longer serve us.

Are you willing to face your roots?

“When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, ”Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, ”It’s simple,” they say,

”and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

-Mary Oliver