🌿 Uncover The Power Of Ancestral Healing For Greater Emotional Wellness 🌿 with Bernadette Thompson EP 386

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Hey there, welcome to another episode of Grief to Growth. Whether you're joining us for the first time or you're a longtime listener, I'm delighted to have you with us. My name is Brian D Smith. I'm your host, and this podcast is dedicated to helping you navigate the difficult moments of life, understand our place in the world, and explore the deeper questions of our existence. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce to you Bernadette Thompson. She's the owner of Tell Me Our Story Genealogy and Ancestral Healing. Bernadette is not only a trained genealogist, but also a certified grief and spiritual coach. Her unique approach combines ancestral healing with grief and trauma and understanding, guiding individuals on a profound journey of self-discovery and emotional healing. In today's episode, we're going to go into the fascinating world of ancestral healing. Bernadette will share with us how uncovering our ancestral stories can help open us up to a deeper understanding of who we are. We'll explore the mind, body, and spiritual connections to grief and how beginning a personal journey into our past can actually help us move forward in life. So get ready to discover how compassion, forgiveness, resilience, and wisdom from our ancestors can aid us in overcoming challenges like grief, loss, change, and uncertainty. This is more than a conversation about genealogy, though. It's about healing and connection with our roots to find peace and purpose. So stay tuned afterwards and join us at grieftogrowth.com community to continue the conversation. And with that, I would like to welcome Bernadette Thompson.

Thank you, Brian. I am very happy to be here. And too, I feel like I'm one of your listeners. And so it— I am happy to be sharing my story with them.

Well, I'm really glad to have you here today and talk about this, you know, really important topic. We talk, uh, all the time here about grief and loss and connections and stuff. We don't talk so much about ancestry and how that impacts us. So what I'd like to talk to you about is how did you get started on this journey of understanding ancestry?

Well, you know, it's very interesting because I didn't set out to become an expert as, um, and in ancestral healing. And it was really my journey through my own grief and loss that got me headed in that, in that direction. Um, I had always been interested in just family family history. And so the genealogy part had started a very long time ago, looking back and helping a lot of other people discover their family trees. But it was the story— my husband passed away in 2017, and he came to me in 2013 and said, "I have a problem." And his problem was alcoholism. And I, you know, we knew that he had a problem with alcohol, but I didn't know that this was becoming deeper and deeper. And he truly— the journey from 2013 to 2017 was, was a struggle for all of us. So the, you know, I want to say the grieving almost began immediately. But where the ancestry comes in is that was always a comfort for me. So as I was going through this really difficult time, continuing to research my ancestors and doing that with others was grounding for me as, you know, things were in upheaval. And also during that time, you know, we were all, myself and my children and my husband, it's a horrible disease. And he had a, has, I'll say he has a beautiful soul, but he couldn't survive it. And during that time, I was just asking as we often do when we're in, you know, those trauma times in our lives, asking for help, asking for guidance, you know, just asking for spiritual guide, you know, kind of opening up that way. And my ancestors started to come in and surround me. And so that's part of the, what began as, They came— it started with a visitation. I don't know if you're familiar with a visitation, but it's a dream that is much more than a dream. And I had a great aunt whose name was Sister Lou, and she came to me this one night. I had been praying, and she came to me and said to me— it was the two of us in this dream. She's holding my hands, and I'm staring, trying not to stare at her, and she's trying to get me to look at. It was just the two of us, and the room was kind of golden. And she finally gets me to look at her, and she says to me, "We hear your prayers." And after that, I woke up, and I realized that all of this ancestral work that I had been doing was a part of this journey, of this grief journey that I was on, and that they were, they were with me. And it made me realize also during this time to kind of go back and continue to want to learn more about my ancestors, because now I knew as they were hearing me asking for prayers and asking for help, um, that they were there. And so one of the stories that is really, um, was an important story about, uh, how I realized that ancestral healing was a part of our, um, our look— our looking back at our ancestors was my father's story. And my father was, um, his parents passed away when he was 5 and 6 years old from tuberculosis. So this is way back in the late '20s. And, and so he and his brother were left, they were orphaned. But my grandmother had come from 5 girls and 2 of them stepped in with their husbands and raised the boys. And during that time, they put everything that had to do with their parents, they put it away. So there was no signs of their parents, no pictures, nothing. And when my dad— and that was just, you know, but I didn't know that there was any anything other than my father dearly missed his mother. He remembered her the most. And when my great-aunts passed away, suddenly my uncle brought down all of these pictures and all of these things that had belonged to his parents. And they had been hidden away, and my father was re-grieving because he suddenly was seeing pictures of his parents and pictures that he had never seen seen before. I had never seen a picture of my grandmother, and my father was in his 50s and I was about 17 at the time. So it was— as I'm going through grief, all of these things start to flood back into my, um, into me, and it encouraged me to look back more and helped me begin to understand that these stories were back there to help me go through my grieving process now, at the time.

Wow. Wow. So when you got into studying genealogy early, did you— was it a spiritual thing? Was it just like you wanted to know where your origins were, your physical origins? Or what was the attraction? What was the pull for you?

Stay with us. We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up. So you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper, thoughts I don't always get to in the podcast, essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it. The community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing. Listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become. A place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief 2 Growth. I hope to see you there.

The poke for me was, there was always a spiritual but I didn't recognize it until I was much older that that pull was there that I was always seeking. So, it really began as an interest, you know, a real— an interest in history, an interest in— I've always had an interest in ancient civilizations and always had the— so, I've had this kind of sitting in the background. And when, you know, this is just as ancestry.com was beginning to come out and things were being able able to— you could look at things online. Because before that, you had to go to a library and everything was footwork. So, that's really what— just a deep interest in family history, but also an interest in even, you know, the religions of the world. You know, it was a fascination across all things ancient was really what kind of drew me.

Wow. So I understand you're trained as a genealogist, is that true?

Yes.

And what does that involve?

So it is involved in training for genealogy. Genealogy is actually a library science. If you go back, I always— I kind of connect it with, if you going back to the Dewey Decimal System, where we'd go to the library and you'd look things up and you'd find the book and you go and And that's the way genealogy was born. People were looking for records, records were kept, and so people would go, um, you would go back and just look at the records and, and find your ancestor and, and put that ancestor on your tree. So as I got into genealogy, we were— our genealogy was already in the process of a tremendous growth because everything had gotten— had gone online. And so my training was not only doing it myself, but working with other, you know, taking courses that were offered and other genealogists working together to understand not only to put those names on a tree, but the depth of the stories that were there. And when we discover those stories, um, that's— it starts to fill in our background. It starts to help us understand where we came from And it helps us in those times of uncertainty because you— it's solid ground that you're standing on because you're looking at history and you have the papers to tell you, you know, this is my ancestor, I'm connected to this person, and this was their story. So there's so much around it, but that's kind of how the genealogy comes into this whole part of ancestral healing is being able to discover the stories that are there and the amazing connection that we have to those stories.

Yeah. And, and when you use the term ancestral healing, I guess I could see that going both ways. So this is our ancestors healing us or us healing the, the trauma of our ancestors, or is it both? Time for a real quick break. Make sure you like and subscribe. Liking the video will show it to more people on YouTube, and subscribing will make sure you get access to all my great content in the future. And now back to the video.

You know, that is— that's a great question because I think of ancestral healing in more than one way. We are healing— science is telling us that our ancestors, the traumas that they went through, are passed down to us or can be passed down to us. And the way to explain it is it's epigenetics. And what happens to our genes is that they get turned on and off in a specific way. It doesn't change the basis of who we are. It doesn't change how we look or any of those, our general DNA makeup. Up, but it's connected often to our responses and how things are expressed. So if our ancestors had experienced trauma, that trauma response in them would have become a greater— would have come up more often for them. So particularly if trauma is experienced over and over, and as it's passed down to us, it shows up that we begin to show trauma reactions even though we may not have experienced that trauma that they had experienced. So also what is passed down is patterns of behavior that are associated with trauma. And, you know, as when you go through something and as our ancestors went through something, they would— it's all about protecting ourselves and trying to prevent that that trauma from being re— reignited inside us. And so it is a way patterns of behavior show up along with just those— the ways that we respond like we see a bear in the woods to something that is less severe and our reaction should be a little calmer. And so this is where we, you know, get into the whole mental health things that also get passed down. And And, but the other side of it is the forgiveness that we have and the understanding when we realize, and it actually, it's the flip side of the story that I was just telling you. I was really angry when my great aunt had, when I knew that they had kept all of this from my father because I could see the grief that he was going through again. And so when that happened, as I was going through this process with David and trying to keep my head above water, I started looking back at them, and I started going deeper and deeper and realized that these 5 girls, these 5 little girls, had themselves been orphaned when my great-aunt was 10 and the youngest was 1. And their father passed away. They were Irish. They were born of Irish immigrants, the famine families that had come. They lived in a tenement in New York City, and their mother survived, but the father was gone, and she couldn't provide for the girls. So, within several months, the girls were all put in orphanages. And my grandmother and her youngest sister were the ones that were there the longest, but they were in an orphanage for over 12 years. So their whole childhood, their whole life. Their mom, I'm not quite sure of what her story is, but she falls out of the picture. But this great aunt Nan, who was one of the ones that cared for my dad, she kept them together. And I found them in a census in 1915, and the girls had all been brought back together. And I realized that this— the grief and the loss and the trauma that they had been through, they were trying to protect the boys. They only knew loss, and so their idea of putting everything away was as protection, not as a way of harming them, but they thought they were helping them heal.

Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. And, you know, be really frank with you, uh, genealogy never interested me, um, in the past because I'm like, who cares what this person's name is that lived in 18-whatever? It's because it was just a name on a piece of paper. And my father got really into it, um, again, didn't really understand why, but he started tracing our family roots back. And then he finds out we were descended from Thomas Jefferson. But now you start to have some stories come around you know. And so it's not just names on a piece of paper. Now they become real, you know, real people to you. And that's when, to me, it gets more interesting. And then, you know, tying in, kind of, you know, piggyback what you're saying about epigenetics, because again, there could be this kind of like, well, so what, you know, these are still people I never knew. But this comes down to us, and, and science is figuring us out now. It's not a— because we don't know how things work, you know. Scientists they're pretty much clueless about a lot of things. But they've actually shown that we can experience trauma from our ancestors that we never met and we never had those experiences.

Right. We can— absolutely. And what it opens up— and this is the metaphysical side of it— it opens up our spiritual connection with our ancestors. And one of the things that during my time in the grieving process, I began to open up spiritually. And, you know, as I had said that, you know, my great-aunt had come to me. I was raised Catholic, Irish Catholic, so not a big surprise out there. But I'm not practicing Catholic, hadn't had any, you know, real anything to do with. But I was watching somebody once and right during this time, and they talked about using the rosary as a meditation. It was actually John Edward, who is a— if you're from the East Coast, you might know that he's a medium and And he talked about using it as a way of meditating, and he did it before he would read an audience. And so, I'm like, "You know, I could do that." I remember having that, and I was looking for ways to keep myself settled. And so, I started saying it. I'd say it at night. And if anybody out there is a Catholic, they know that you're supposed to say it out loud, just audible. It's not like I would say it talking to you. So this one night I'm saying it and all of a sudden it comes through me. I'm saying it in an Irish brogue. And I realize, I mean, I, it was, if you could have had a camera on me, my face, I was kind of looking around like, how is this happening? But it came through in a very strong, I couldn't do an Irish brogue now if you asked me to. But I realized in that moment that it was one of my Irish ancestors that was coming through. And helping me. And I was able, as the spiritual side was beginning to open up, I was able to look at the tree and discover who it was just by the— there I could feel her spiritual presence. And it was my great-great-grandmother from Ireland, one of them on my mom's side. And so the, the ancestral healing took on a a new understanding because now I'm, you know, I've done the— gone through the genealogy where I'm grounding myself in the true stories, and now I'm opening up to this side where the ancestors are coming in and helping me through our, you know, through my trauma. And, you know, it was during this time as I'm continuing to help people build their stories that I began taking them them through their ancestral healing and helping them open up to more and know that this was more than just putting the names on the tree. And you could see it. I understood trauma because I had worked with— I have a professional background in working with both young and old with trauma and grief. And so, I could see their reactions that they were having and patterns of behavior. And as we began to break through it, the healing, that, you know, the forgiveness that comes through. The forgiveness that I had for my great-aunts was amazing. I suddenly— they were like my heroes, and I realized if they had gotten through what they did, I could get through what I was going through.

Yeah.

So that's kind of how it opened up.

That's— wow, that's so powerful. And it's really so important, you know, that the idea of understanding what other people have been through gives us the ability to forgive them or actually to realize that no forgiveness is necessary. I would say it goes even beyond that. But we can look at someone's behavior, and if we don't understand where it's coming from, then we tend to judge them. But if we understand where it's coming from, you know, it allows us to have that, that connection that you have with someone that you might have held something against. And I wonder about— what have your experiences been like with something like alcoholism? Could that be a generational or traumatic response?

Yes. I mean, it is definitely generational. David came from a family that had— his father was an alcoholic, his brothers were alcoholics. So it was— and we had always thought, we were always so aware of it that it was like, well, we can we won't allow this to happen. You know, it's that— and when you look back, you can see, I mean, to be honest, the Irish have, you know, there's a lot of alcoholism in Irish families. And it was, you know, I mean, it's— it is, I think, not only genetic that it is passed down, but it is also in the experience of what they were going through where people were self-medicating, as happens even in today. So there is— there, I think, what is the the biggest understanding is that all of that plays part of it, all of it. And when we have a better understanding, we— when we can see that maybe we have alcoholism in our families or whatever it is, I mean, I— as I help people through their stories, there are many different difficult stories that people encounter and are hard for them to hear. And, you know, helping them heal through those difficult stories is also— it strengthens people. It really does. And, um, and it, you know, for me, you know, grief has been something I've been able to grow through, which I— when I first was going through it, you— we all know it— that grief hits you and It doesn't— it will never leave you, but there are ways to grow through it and to allow ourselves— we don't have to leave it behind and we don't have to carry it all the time. We can put it down. And that's truly what doing some of this work helps people do, is to put down what they've been carrying. And know that, you know, there's more out there for us, who— those of us who have experienced great loss and trauma and grief, that we can—

they are—

and our ancestors, all of those who are on the other side, want us to live out our lives with, you know, a lot of, um, uh, in a life that we would love, you know.

And so, yeah, I love how you've combined this with the, with the metaphysical term you used earlier, and a term that I, I'm increasingly embracing because I think it makes so much more sense. I mean, we— the physical sciences are great, they're important, and we've talked a little bit about epigenetics. I mean, you know, we've known about genetics for a very long time. We've thought of genetics as being kind of hard-coded, right?

Trait.

It's like, okay, I've got this trait, nothing can be done about it, I'm going to pass it to my children. It's just— this is the way genetics go. But epigenetics, as I understand it— and correct me if I'm wrong— it's kind of like these things get turned on and they can be— we do have control over. So it's, it's like a good news, bad news thing. It's like, if I have this trait, if I have this thing that's going on, it doesn't mean I'm just— I'm doomed to have this forever. I can understand it it, and I can in a way heal it.

You, you are absolutely correct, Brian D Smith. And then, so as, as somebody— I was just working with somebody and they asked that exact question. So if, if I've had a gene passed down that is, um, has, you know, maybe has resulted in some mental health issues for some family members, does that mean that it's going to be continued to be passed down and that, that's, um, you know, that we have to deal with this? And the answer is no, because as we uncover these things and as we begin to understand why this, why this change happened in the first place, that connection and that reaction on that, for that particular gene can be switched off or switched on, whichever, as it gets passed down from us. And science actually used it, it is the looking at the descendants of the Holocaust was because it was a group of people that they could study in a very short amount of time. And so they used that group, and that's where a lot of this science came forward. But us understanding gives us a way of— it helps us heal. And we start to say, okay, I get why this scarcity came down to me, and why that's— or I get why this trauma reaction came down. And I could certainly look back through my family and see those things that had been passed down.

So, yeah, I think it's, I think it's, it's fascinating because it does open up a whole, whole thing for us in terms of, I think, hope. You know, we all, I tell my wife, every family is strange. You know, it's like we all look, we look at other people's family, we think they're normal. It's like, no, we all have we all have weirdness in our families. We all have these things. You know, in my family, there's a history of like anxiety, you know, very, very nervous kind of people and stuff. And, but when we could understand where that came from, we can start to break those patterns. We don't, we don't have to, you know, have to live that way. And it's really, I think that's really wonderful thing that comes out of the work that you're doing that we can understand, we can, again, and I've even heard this concept, and we kind of touched on it earlier, but like the maybe go into it deeper because I know our ancestors want to be here and help us, but I've also heard that we can heal them, we can heal their trauma. Have you heard anything about that?

Well, we can because they are working with us and their trauma, it's kind of when they see us healing, it is healing for them. So it is opening up the whole line. And, you know, when we, we think of it, I've always I don't think of it this way anymore, but I used to think that I'm reaching back so— and understanding— so to heal now and then be able to move forward. But it's really a circle, right? And, and so I think that we, we can heal, we can help them heal, because metaphysically, there— if we talk in that— there truly isn't time. Time is something that we So, in that sense, it is absolutely something because we can help them understand what it was that was causing, you know, our ancestors had their ancestors passing things down to them. So, this has been something that's been going on for, you know, thousands of years. It just looks different and it's easiest for us to go back several generations and see But knowing with the knowledge that even if we can't understand or see directly what the trauma has been passed down before that, we know it's there. Because we know we all, even if we came into this world in a perfect, as a perfect family, as a perfect, things happen in our lives that are traumatic. And whether it is a horrible hurricane that hits or if it is you know, loss, you know, grief and things. So all kinds of things affect us, even in this lifetime. And but being able to share that with our kids can also help them.

Yeah, well, we're getting into some pretty deep topics here. But that's, that's the nature of reality, you know, and that's why, you know, I brought that up to you, because I read a series of books by a woman named Frances Key. And they're called The Team. And, and this book, her, her mother has passed in the spirit, and she's, she's channeling this stuff to her, to her daughter Frances. And she talks about this idea of like being able to— time doesn't move just forward. And physicists are even telling us that this book— now they're like, we don't understand why it looks like time only moves forward, because it should flow either way. And we're getting more and more information from the other side that says no, there is no time. So it's kind of an illusion. So we can, you know, we can, in a sense, change the past. I don't understand how that works. But that's what I've been told.

Yeah. And I think it is so wonderful that we are trying to start talking about these things. I agree, it is hard to understand. And because we have, you know, we just have this linear— we've kind of been taught our whole lives that it's just linear. And And if you can't go back and fix that, I mean, that's really what— don't cry over spilt milk, those types of things that we've just been told our whole lives. But I think the spiritual opening that I have had— and now I am actually guided. I have a spirit guide that is with me that helps me through. But it is through that that I feel that I can be of service, so much more service to others, helping them realize that— I feel like I'm an accidental spiritual person. I had always wanted or understood that there was more to life. But going through this whole process, I've begun to understand not only how we can connect with our ancestors, but that we also can connect to the other side, and that there are ways that we can build that connection. And it doesn't happen that they look— our ancestors and our spirit guides want to connect with us in a language that we understand. And you and I have talked how your daughter sends you signs Signs are definitely one way of hearing from them. But it is— yeah, there's just— I think that starting to delve into this is the best gift for humanity. And I think the more of us that share our experience and understand that there is more to learn, it's just powerful.

Yeah, there's, there is so much to learn. And I said, for me, starting to understand some of these concepts, you know, I don't, I don't feel like I'm ever alone anymore, because I feel like there's always a bunch of, a bunch of people with me that, you know, as the Bible says, a great cloud of witnesses. So, you know, the work I do, I feel my daughter with me, I feel my grandfather with me, you know, and I feel like we're all all, you know, we're all working this together. I just happen to be the one that's in the body at this moment, um, but it's more like it's all a team effort. So as you talk about, you know, your, your great-aunts and your, and your great-great, you know, grandmother and all, and all these people, they're not, they're not gone, you know. I think the traditional, it's like, well, they're gone and it's, it's our time. It's like, no, we're just, we're just, it's our time to be in, in the seat here right now, but they're still with us. And we're still all working together. And that's a very— I think it's a very uplifting feeling.

It is. It is incredibly uplifting. Because I know that when even from that first visitation, when I woke up that morning, I realized that they were with me. And I felt like, okay, I'm not alone. You know, I don't have to figure this all out by myself. And it was huge. It was huge because, you know, I still had, you know, time before he passed away and so many things that— difficult things that happened between 2013 and 2017. And so knowing that they were there, and when I found out he had passed, having— just knowing they surrounded— I was surrounded and that he was there. I mean, I heard from him, you know, pretty quickly after.

Oh, really? What'd you hear from him?

So he showed up, he showed up as a crow, which is, you know, sometimes they, you know, they'll show up.

He—

I, you know, a couple weeks later I took the dog for a walk and, and I was walking in this little, um, wooded area and this crow kept following me and following me. And, uh, I You know, finally I'm squawking the entire time, and I'm thinking, you know, what is this? And finally I'm like, you're a crow. You're showing up as a crow. And I'm thinking to myself, why would you be a crow? Like, what? And it dawned on me that he used to— he had to take a ferry to go to work. We were in Vermont. He took the ferry across Lake Champlain, and He used to go by this woman's house, and he used to call her the Crow Lady because she had all these plastic crows on her front lawn, and she'd dress them up for the season. So for, you know, Valentine's Day, they're all in red. Christmas, they all have Santa hats, you know. So I'm driving back from this, this, um, where I was taking the dog from the walk, from this dog park. I'm driving back, and all of a sudden I look over, and there is a house that had the crows. This is in Britain. I had never seen them before, dressed up crows on their front lawn. And I knew that was him saying to me, yes, that crow was me. He confirmed it by showing me the crows on my way home. So that was kind of the first way he showed up. But he shows up in song too. Like he sends me songs as a way. So there are lots of ways that Yeah.

And I think it's really wonderful. We can recognize that. And I see as you speak about him, even now, your face, you know, lights up. And that's, that's what having this connection can do for people, because we don't feel like our loved ones are, are gone. You know, they're still, they're still here with us in a very real way. Now, you know, it's interesting, because some people, well, as long as you remember them, they'll live in live on your heart, and that's, that's a great thing. But no, they're really still here.

They're really still here. Yeah. Well, and I think what's helpful about doing the ancestry is if somebody doesn't have that background, they don't really know about their ancestors, and they've lost somebody here in this lifetime, and that grief is so, so hard, so, so hard, understanding not only that they are around, but as you begin to understand and learn about your ancestors, they're becoming becomes this extended family that you realize is with you. And so that— and that this extended family is caring for your loved one and they are all together, it opens it up in a way that it takes the focus off the paralyzing grief that when you're just staring at that one, one life that you're so desperately missing and one person that you are truly grieving. So it— yeah, it— I've helped people go through these journeys, and it's surprising how transformational that they can be.

Have you felt that it's— or has it— have you felt that it's given you a sense of purpose also, a sense of like a mission or something like that from from having this perspective?

It has definitely changed my perspective. As I said earlier, I have worked— I worked with middle school students that had trauma and helped them. I did behavior plans for them. I also have worked in elder care. And actually, I am trained as a— from the University of Vermont as an end-of-life doula. So I've done all of that work around grief and trauma. But it was this ancestral healing wave that came to me and the spiritual opening that I realized that there's this group of people that I feel called to share this with, that there is so many of us that are trying to move forward, that are maybe stuck and really having difficult time. And it definitely feels like a calling for me now. And so this is where my focus is. And Tell Me Our Story, it comes from the point of view of the child asking the parent, tell me our story. What is our story? And it's just so helpful to share that and pass it down.

Okay, so that's— I was going to ask you, so tell me our story is the point of view of the child saying to the parent, tell me about where we came from, who we are, those types of things.

Right. And so when we can't ask because our parents are gone or our grandparents are gone, And that's where the genealogy can come in. And many people talk about ancestral healing strictly in an energy— energy work. And I don't want to dismiss that because there is a lot of energy work where there are people who spiritually— who have spiritual connections, and they can feel the energy of the ancestors and kind of do some healing that way. And mine does happen, but it starts with more of the solid ground. And then as the ancestors come in, they are definitely around to help the healing as well. But I just wanted to— I had forgotten to mention that earlier, that, you know, a lot of people have heard of ancestral healing, but they've heard of it in the same way as Reiki. Like, if you're doing that, it's a spiritual, very powerful— it can be very powerful. But this is a different way of understanding and, um, understanding how ancestral healing can help.

Yeah. So when someone— if someone were to come to you, how do you— how do you begin working with someone? Is it doing the, the actual genealogy, getting on ancestry.com, or, um, yeah, it actually is, unless they already—

but I do it. If somebody came to me and they already had their ancestry done, I would look in and help them find the stories, because many times, as I said, Dewey Decimal System You know, it is names on a tree and they don't really have the stories that are attached. And the records and documents hold so many. There's so much out there. That's the way we begin the work, but we also begin the healing side of it, understanding that there is ways to begin looking at themselves and looking at family with this compassion and wisdom and understanding as we're beginning to learn about the ancestors. So, it kind of goes together.. And then also helping. I also have a, I do have a certification in life coach and can help people take those next steps to begin to vision a life that they would love and one that can help them just begin to, to move forward, even if it's small steps. I know that sometimes that's all it can be, but baby steps. Can help us walk up a mountain if we just know. So, I, what I usually do is somebody would come to me if they were interested and we would have a session together, just a discovery session, a free session to talk about what, where they are and what might be helpful to help them along their journey. And so, that's usually how I begin, but it's a, I try and be, that it's all, it's comprehensive because it's so important to know. To know the past. And if somebody doesn't know the past, I have the skills, the genealogy skills, to go back and to help them build that tree and discover that family that they may not know is there.

So how would someone, um, what typically drives someone to come see you? Is it just like curiosity, I just want to know about my background, or is it someone that says, I've got this issue that I can't get over and I'm trying to figure out where it came from, or is it It is both, but it is becoming more as people hear more about the ancestral healing side that they have often a curiosity.

Curiosity is— but curiosity is usually backed up by some type of trauma or grief or something in their background that's kind of pushing them in that direction. Like, I have this desire to know more and I don't really know why. And, you know, we— because we often— it's back there. And whether we really recognize that it's back there or not, it's still there. So, it is. So, that's why I do try and speak as much as I can, because it's when somebody hears me, they can understand more of what this process, what going through this would do for them.

Well, the thing is, we all have ancestors. We all came from somewhere. And again, you know, I'm thinking about myself when I was younger, my father was doing stuff. I'm like, who cares? I mean, why do you— I mean, I know my grandparents, okay, fine. But beyond that, why do I even care? You know, this is many, many years ago. But now I'm understanding that we're all a lot more connected than we think we are. None of us— we're not— we didn't just pop in here, you know, this idea that we just, we just appeared suddenly on the planet. We came from somewhere. And we came from ancestors. And we've got all these things, you know, and these were all interconnected, maybe in more ways than we'd like to admit. But understanding our own behavior, I think, can even help us, you know, we talked about forgiveness earlier, to forgive ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and I will say too, it's funny. Our ancestors, the ones that are there wanting to really heal you, they guide me. I get directed when I'm doing somebody's ancestry towards a certain line, a certain lineage of the— because one of the reasons why people feel like, why do I care? Because it's— and so on and so on. There are so many of them. Them. You know, why would I want to? But as you look back, you know, I know that the connection with Thomas Jefferson, there's an importance. I can feel, spiritually feel, that importance of that line in your, you know, in your lineage. And I know there are other important lines, but it is interesting that these ancestors will direct us. And, you know, the other thing that popped up when you were just saying that is— we also, some people believe this isn't our first rodeo and won't be our last, and that we have past lives. And many of our ancestors are connected to those lives, but some of the ancestors that we may be connected to may be from a different life, a past life too. That is— so there's, I mean, there's a lot in there.

Yeah, there is. And I, I think increasingly the idea of reincarnation, uh, in the West is becoming more and more common. When, you know, you know, a few years ago, decades ago, people look at you like, you know, what are you, what are you talking about? And now it's almost like, at least the circles I, I'm in, it's pretty much accepted, you know. Uh, mediums tell us this, people who've had near-death, you know, experiences tell us this. So how it actually works, again, we don't know. But, um, this is— I don't think this is our first rodeo. And so again, understanding all these connections and understand that we're multi-dimensional beings. And the, the more we understand this, the more I think we can find our place in the world, you know. And, you know, it's really interesting to me, there is this such an epidemic of loneliness, um, in, in the United States now, and but also in the world in general. People feel kind of lost, uh, in a lot of cases they feel like they're without, you know, without purpose, or like, I don't— they're not feeling those connections. And as I said, I I really don't feel alone anymore, ever, because I've always got my daughter with me and my grandfather and my uncles and, you know, all those people. And I, I carry them with me. And I know that you feel the same thing. And I think that's the way it's meant to be when we're here. We're not meant to be so lonely.

No, no. And I think that's the, probably the thing that I'm hoping opens up even more, that the veil, you know, everybody talks about the veil, but the veil is very thin. And, you know, we have a tendency to think so far away, but they, you know, we can really feel them. And, you know, there are ways I try and help people to understand, you know, when you get that spirit chill or you, you have that, oh, I think that might be a sign, oh no, it's not a sign, you know, those types of things, that there are ways to begin to confirm that you are connecting. And it just, it takes away that, um, that loneliness. So you start having conversations with them when there's nobody in there, you know. You do, you know, you're like, all right, this is what I'm doing today, can you help me out?

So yeah, well, I, I do, you know, it's funny because people ask me about, you know, my daughter and, and, and I'm like, yeah, of course I do miss her physical presence, I miss her a lot. But I also, I also, on the other time, on the other hand, And I have another daughter who lives 25 minutes from me that I don't talk to her every day. But I talk to Shayna every day because she's that close to me.

Yeah.

So I think, I think that understanding that you're helping to bring to people is really important. And I love that the fact that you said, you know, it's not just the, it's not just the energetic connection, it's also the physical, let's understand that. But it's, it's both, I think both are important, um, because to me what you're doing— because when I, again, when I heard about genealogy before, I'm like, I don't care. But when I started hearing the stories, you know, then I start making— and then I start looking at the behaviors and stuff, and I look at the tendencies like in our, in our family. I mean, going back generations, my grandfather was a, was a minister, and both of his parents were ministers. So that goes back at this point went well over 100 years, probably close to 150 years, where our family's kind of done that. And when Shayna passed, she came through a medium and she goes, this is what our family does.

Yeah. Yeah. And you are ministering to us. Like, that is your calling, even though you may not— I don't know if you have ministered, but it's continuing.

Yeah, I view what I do as a ministry. And it's really interesting to me because, you know, my grandfather, I really, really looked up to him. I went to his church, you know, so he was like a larger-than-life figure to me. And but I was like, well, I'm not going to be a Christian pastor. That's just not who I am, you know. And really, since only since Shane has passed away, I'm like, okay, now I feel like, okay, this is what I'm— this is what I'm here to do. And I The word ministry has a religious— has a, you know, a very specific religious connotation. But what it really means is to serve. To minister to someone is to serve them. So I feel like that's, that's our family's role, is it's to help people spiritually. So yeah, I do feel like I'm following in his footsteps.

Yeah, you absolutely are. Because I think it's one of the things that it's so hard in this world because of all the difficulties with the different religions and some of the violence that's connected with it, that a lot of people are turning away from traditional. And so it is a way for them— and I believe that that's a bit of what I'm doing as well— is that it's a way for them to feel closer and open up maybe their relationship with the universal spirit, God, whatever they feel comfortable using, that there is a connection they can they can have. That doesn't mean having to go into a church, although I do love a good church.

Yeah, well, you know, it's funny because you mentioned earlier, you know, being Catholic, and, you know, my background is Pentecostal. And sometimes there could be, for me at least, you know, a little bit of guilt slips in every once in a while because I'm like, I've moved away from that. And one of the most healing things to me, this is where I think the metaphysical is important, one of the first readings I had was with the medium whose grandfather— or was it— no, her grandfather was a, was a pastor as well. And but he was into all the spiritual stuff, so, you know, he was in the— he could see spirit and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, I'm like, with my grandfather— this is before I even started doing any of this. So this is, this is how good she is, because she's like, your grandfather is really proud of what you're doing. And I wasn't doing anything then, um, but that I still carry that with me. This was 9 years ago. That I'm like, I, I want to make him proud. So, uh, it was good to get that message.

Yeah, well, you know what's so funny about it? It's the— he was saying it in the present tense because there is no time, you know, like, so he already knew that this was what you were going to be doing, right? So he, he, you know, he, uh, yeah, it's just— we— it's just amazing. It truly is amazing.

It really is. And so, like I said, I think the— I know the work that you're doing is, is really important, and, um, I think that it's something that we could all benefit from, you know, in, in a sense, um, even as people who are said, I, you know, I'm not really interested in that, because, um, we've all got those connections, and we have them whether we acknowledge them or not, you know. Um, so you might as well, you might as well step up and acknowledge it, get introduced to them. Yeah. Yeah. And use that help, right? We've all got help out there. We've all got, you know, because I, we hear about, you know, guardian angels, and we hear about guides and stuff. We don't hear so much about ancestors that, you know, like you said, that are coming to you going, yeah, I'm here for you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know, there's fun stuff to be learned about when you do genealogy, you know, you, you, you know, things get passed down, you know, your grandmother's eyes or Uncle Larry's ears. Uncle Larry's ears in our family are pretty big ears. And, you know, there is like, oh, phew, he didn't get it, you know, they didn't get Uncle Larry's ears. So, you know, there's a lot of fun things that you— I mean, you have discovered that you are connected with a president, you know, and Thomas Jefferson, who— I mean, that is an incredible thing to just have in your ancestry. And so it is— there's a lot of things that you can discover connections that you didn't expect. And it can be a fun journey as well. Not— I mean, it's heavy, but it's not that heavy, because it's really helping you lift.

Right? Yeah, it does. It's not all heavy. You're right. And it also helps us to understand that people are just people. We all have good and we have bad things. And so for me, I went to Monticello, to a family reunion. And that was a very surreal experience because, you know, as I stood there on the plantation, which, you know, is really weird just in itself, and thinking that my family were the slaves, but they're also in the other side of the house. So I'm, you know, I'm from both sides of this thing and trying to understand, you know, both sides and what people were thinking and what people were doing.

Interesting.

So it really helps us to, I think, understand our own humanity a lot more.

Yeah, it— yeah, it's amazing. It's definitely, um, definitely amazing.

So, um, if people want to reach out to you, um, how do they go about finding you and what kind of services can you offer to them?

So the best way, um, to find me is at, uh, www.tellmeyourstory.com, at my website. But I am on Instagram and I am on, um, uh, Facebook. So, you can find me on Instagram, Tell Me Our Story Ancestry, Ancestral Healing is where it is on. And the way I offer, I offer a 30-minute just a discovery session for somebody that just wants a quick come in and just to find a little bit. And then I offer a longer strategy session, both of which are free just to help people really understand what I do offer. And how that could be helpful for them and just answer questions. I mean, people, this often brings up a tremendous amount of questions. And so, I find that it is just really an opportunity to give them a way to answer some of those questions. And so, that would be— and if you go to TellMeOurStory.com, you will find right at the top, there's a way to sign up for a discovery session. Connection there. I'm also just on the side thing, I am going to be a panelist this year at the IANDS conference at the end of the summer, the International Association of Near-Death Studies. And so that's an opportunity that I'm really looking forward to connect with people, and they will be able to— it is in Phoenix, and there a lot of people will be meeting there, but it's also— they can get a live stream. If they're interested in learning more, not only about me, but just more about, you know, the metaphysics of all the things around us, certainly near-death experiences.

Yeah, I would encourage people to, even if you can't make it to Phoenix, you know, get the live stream of the conference. I've spoken there, I spoke there last year in DC. It's going to be great. So So little plug for IANDS while we're doing this. But yeah, congratulations on that and on all the great things that you're doing to help heal the world, to help people understand who they are and why they're here and where they're going and all those important things.

Yeah, thanks, Brian. And I would just say one thing, like, I'm a really easy person to talk to. So if anybody's out there saying, oh, I don't know whether I should give me, you know, come spend a half hour with me or 45 minutes and, and, um, let me help you understand more and take a step that maybe would really, um, help you move forward.

Yeah, I completely agree. You know, sometimes, sometimes we hesitate to reach out, and it's every— it's funny because every once in a while someone reach out to me and say, I've been listening to you for years, I just finally decided to reach out. You know, don't hesitate. Yeah, if you have an interest, you know, reach out to Bernadette and, you know, take advantage of, of your generous offer, and you might, you might find there's something that that you need to know, you know. And, and I also just want to encourage people, because this has been a struggle for me, listen to your intuition. Because if, if you have a little nudge telling you to reach out, it's probably one of your ancestors like tapping you on the head saying you, you should do this.

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. Yeah, they will. They do. Um, they show up in funny ways. They show up in funny ways.

Yeah, well, Bernadette, it's been wonderful getting to know you. Thanks for doing this today.

Thank you so much, Brian D Smith, for inviting me.

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