Ancestry In Practice: Exploring Lineage, Reciprocity, and Being a Good Ancestor
Four Mondays in October
3pm-4:30pm Pacific Time on Zoom
$99
We'll explore the mixed legacy our family has handed us, and find ways to be intentional about what gets carried forward. We'll work with creating space for our ancestors, writing to/with/about them, imagining into their lives, and explore how we can be in reciprocity with them.
You do not need to know anything about your family line or ancestry in order to participate in this course.
3pm-4:30pm Pacific Time on Zoom
$99
We'll explore the mixed legacy our family has handed us, and find ways to be intentional about what gets carried forward. We'll work with creating space for our ancestors, writing to/with/about them, imagining into their lives, and explore how we can be in reciprocity with them.
You do not need to know anything about your family line or ancestry in order to participate in this course.
Most of us have worked with “family of origin” language. We’ve named childhood wounds, learned about attachment styles, and tried to untangle ourselves from old dynamics.
That work matters. But for many of us, it doesn’t feel like the whole story.
There’s a deeper question underneath:
- Where did this really begin?
- What were my people living through when these patterns first took root?
- What did they have to sacrifice to survive—and what strengths grew alongside the harm?
- What am I still carrying for them? And do I want to?
This is ancestor work. Not as something we engage in for its own sake, but as another way to understand: “These are the rules I inherited about love, safety, belonging, and myself—and I get a say in what continues from here.”
Why we do this work:
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This short course is for women who’ve felt like outsiders in their own families. They may look like they have it all together, and they are wildly competent. But inside they feel the strain of doing too much for everyone else and not enough for themselves.
This behavior is solidified in lineage, where women continue to repeat versions of the same patterns of self-denial and neglect. They over function for the family and underfunction for themselves. And it just keeps going, generation after generation. Until it doesn't. It finally stops when someone decides to look meaningfully at their full lineages (blood, chosen, and more-than-human), and to name the traits and stories that live in their bodies. Reclamation of the family line comes through practices of healthy boundaries, of reciprocity, intention, and clarity about what gets passed forward. Through gentle ritual, writing, and guided reflection, we’ll experiment with collaboration instead of over-responsibility, and begin to trust our own knowing about what is ours to carry and what gets to end with us. |
Whether or not you have children, this course is about becoming the kind of ancestor you wish you’d had—and creating a different kind of inheritance for yourself and those who come after you.
What ancestor work means for this course:
Ancestor work is not:
Instead, we treat ancestors as:
We’ll explore:
And we will do this with strong boundaries and choice. You get to decide who you are in relationship with, and on what terms.
- Worshiping your family
- Excusing harm or bypassing reality
- Giving the dead power over your life
Instead, we treat ancestors as:
- The people and places whose rules you’re still carrying inside you
- The deep-time context for your patterns of over-responsibility, self-doubt, and loyalty
- A source of both harm and strength—not one or the other
We’ll explore:
- Blood ancestors (including the ones you’ve never met or don’t know much about)
- Chosen and cultural ancestors (teachers, writers, artists, communities who formed you)
- The land and more-than-human kin (places, trees, waters) that have held you and your people
And we will do this with strong boundaries and choice. You get to decide who you are in relationship with, and on what terms.
What we'll do in our four weeks together:
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Week 1: Defining Ancestors and Creating Boundaries
Week 2: Creating an Ancestor Map from the knowing our own inheritance
Week 3: Relationship and Reciprocity with Ancestors
Week 4: Practices of becoming a Good Ancestor
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This is for you if:
- have often felt like a black sheep or recognize yourself as a cycle-breaker in your family
- carry a complicated relationship with your mother or primary caregivers
- feel hyper-responsible and capable on the outside, but wrestle with self-doubt and a strong inner critic on the inside
- sense that what you’re carrying didn’t start with you—and want a grounded, non-performative way to work with that
- would like a secular path of relating to your ancestors that doesn't require a particular spiritual framework
- even if you don't know much about your ancestry or family history
Jill Clifton
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I was trained as an ecologist and ended up a stay at home mom of two children. While I don't recommend quitting your job as a life plan, it meant I was truly able to spend time looking at the ecology of family, parenting, and lineage; deeply, experientially, over decades, over many mistakes and many successes.
My children are now grown, I've reconnected with a daughter that I placed for adoption, and I have two grandchildren. I have been married for over 25 years. I know what staying looks like, I know what repair takes, and I know (at least some of) what it means to care for each other. |