Ep 63: Reclaim Your Power with Your Ancestors
What if reconnecting to yourself doesn't have to happen alone?
As we wrap up our August series on reconnection, Asha talks about two powerful ways we can come home to ourselves: community and ancestry.
Community can become a mirror, a place where parts of you that you've questioned or hidden are reflected back to you. When you're around people who share your values, interests, experiences, or ways of seeing the world, you may finally feel safe enough to put some of your armor down.
And then there's ancestry.
You don't have to know every name in your family tree. You don't need a perfect lineage. You don't even have to feel connected to your immediate family.
Asha shares how connecting with the benevolent parts of her ancestry helped her realize something profound.
This episode is an invitation to consider what happens when you stop trying to prove yourself and begin connecting with the people, places, and energies that remind you who you already are.
In this episode, Asha explores
Why community can act as a mirror
How finding aligned community can help your nervous system settle
The role of co-regulation in feeling safe enough to rest
Why you are allowed to create new communities as your life changes
What to do when your family or immediate lineage doesn't feel safe or healthy
Why you don't need to know your ancestors' names to connect with ancestral energy
How to intentionally connect with the benevolent and supportive parts of your lineage
Asha's experience connecting with her ancestral lineages
The message she received: “We’ve been waiting for you.”
How ancestral connection helped Asha release the pressure to prove herself
The difference between carrying your lineage and being loyal to energy that makes you small
Why you can let the BS go
Ways to begin reconnecting with community and ancestry in your own life
Chapters
(00:00) - Reconnecting Through Community and Ancestry
(03:17) - How to Build a Supportive Community
(05:41) - Community, Safety, and Nervous System Regulation
(08:25) - How to Connect With Your Ancestors Through Intention
(12:20) - Ancestral Freedom, Healing, and Personal Power
(13:26) - Living in Alignment and Releasing the Need to Prove Yourself
(17:42) - Choosing a Healthy Ancestral Connection
(19:01) - Practical Ways to Connect With Community and Ancestry
Resources & Ways to Connect
Asha mentions several resources and experiences during this episode:
Meet Your Ancestral Guide Meditation - a guided practice to help you begin connecting with your ancestral energy.
Meet Your Four Ancestral Lineages - a one-on-one guided meditation with Asha exploring the maternal and paternal lines on both sides.
Ancestral Tarot Reading - an intuitive reading focused on the energies, gifts, messages, and wishes present within your ancestral lineage.
Connect with Asha
Threads:@ashawilkersonesq
Instagram:@ashawilkersonesq
Weekly Love Notes Newsletter:https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/659871/112719372217222301/share
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Asha (00:00.864)
Hey y'all, happy final week of August or happy week, no matter what time you are listening to this. We are wrapping up our series on reconnecting. This is what we were talking about this August, mainly because I am at home at the time of this recording, and probably at the time you're listening to this, with my family in the United States. And it made me think about.
What are all the ways that we can reconnect? So we've talked about food and traditions. We've talked about listening to our bodies to see what we want. We talked about reconnection being an act of reclaiming power and sovereignty and letting that connection to your body lead the actions that you take, which then means that if you're listening, every decision you make becomes an empowered
An informed decision, one that is powerful because you are paying attention to what is going on inside of you. Even if you choose to do something else that's different than honoring exactly what you need in the moment, there's power in knowing that you're making a choice. Instead of feeling like life is coming at you or happening to you, you get to feel like you are moving life. We also talked about some journaling activities, writing from our future selves, back.
our present selves which requires us to reconnect to understand what advice that it is to understand what advice that we need as we are looking at ourselves from the future. We've talked about some good things over the last couple of weeks. And the last thing that I want to talk about right now is reconnecting to community and your ancestry. This is one of the things that we do at Asha's Place in Lisbon and also
One of the things that we talk about in all of the programs that I teach or the courses that I teach online, it's connection to ancestry, but also to guides and
Asha (02:12.128)
It's reconnection to ancestry and also to guides and to the energies in this world that want the best for you. Now, here's why connecting to community and ancestry are good per even if you feel like sometimes your ancestry is not the healthiest line. Like I've had people ask me, Okay, there's this kind of stuff going on in my family. Maybe my parents
And grandparents were narcissists, and I just learned that they're narcissists, and I'm not sure what to do with that. Or maybe there's someone in my family who, in my opinion, ended up on the wrong side of history and I'm not quite sure what to do with that. Or I'm adopted or have been separated from my family and I don't know anybody's name. Or it could be that community, family, community maybe feels like
they are a bit smothering to you and holding you down. Maybe you're someone who had to leave your community to really thrive. But here's the beautiful thing. I'll talk about community first and then ancestry. The beautiful thing about community is that you get to create it everywhere you go. And the community that you have now doesn't mean it's going to be the exact same community that you had five or 10 years ago. You get to build what you want right now as you need it.
And that's beautiful. You get to choose who's in your community. You get to choose what communities you want to be a part of based on activities that you might be involved in. I mean, in Lisbon, there's so many different communities and sub-communities, and I love it. There are paddle communities, there are queer communities who play paddle. There are diaspora, African diaspora communities, there are music communities, there are ceramics communities.
There are American communities in Lisbon. There are immigrants to Lisbon communities. There's all kinds of communities that are available to you. There's a community at Asha's Place in Lisbon. And the reason why community is so important for connecting or for reconnecting is because when you are in the right community, meaning the aligned community, one that makes you feel good.
Asha (04:35.074)
You begin to see yourself reflected back to you. There are so many times where I thought that I was a little bit strange or a little bit to this or a little bit to that because I wasn't in community with people who were similar to me. And then when I found that community, all of the questions or the doubts that I had disappeared because I was looking around at people who either looked like me.
or who had a similar education to me or who had a similar interest as me. It could be dance, it could be language, it could be whatever. And it is so refreshing and important to have yourself reflected back to you. The community that you surround yourself can act as a mirror. And that mirror is important so you can accurately see yourself, but also because most of the time we move through the world
Even if we're not consciously doing it, but we move through the world kind of holding ourselves in. We move through the world with a mask on or a little bit of our armor up. And that makes sense. We don't subconsciously know who to trust, or you need to present a certain way so that you can show up at work and be productive so that you can, you know, move through the yoga class and not get triggered by somebody in her Lululemons telling you.
do a posture like this or you know whatever it is you're moving through life and there's an automatic shield that comes up to protect you and to make sure that you stay safe. And when you find yourself in community with people who reflect your values or reflect your upbringing or reflect your success or reflect different parts of you, your interests, your wants and desires, you can let some of that armor down and your nervous system begins to settle.
Your nervous system is that internal mechanism inside your body that is ready to protect you at any moment. It is the system that reads danger before you have been able to process what's going on, but it also reads safety. And in this day and age, with all of this stuff going on politically, with all of the rhetoric on the internet and people just being mean, mean, mean, it is important to
Asha (06:53.038)
Find a community in which you feel safe, so you can begin to let some of that armor down because we are not meant to live our lives in a constant state of fight or flight. We are not meant to live our lives in a way that is bracing for disaster to happen, for an attack to come, or for the other shoe to drop. And so when you are in community with people that you feel safe with who reflect parts of who you are.
You begin to see yourself differently. You begin to allow yourself to rest. And it acts as a form of co-regulation. Even if you're not doing anything more than just having a conversation or even just sitting next to somebody. This is particularly true if you are a person who really benefits from co-regulation. Some people don't need other people around at all. I'm one of those people that I like my space.
And my solitude, I love it, love living alone, love spending time by myself. Great. But I also recognize in myself that I benefit from co-regulation, being around one or two other people that I'm really comfortable with, because then my body can actually find deep rest. And that happens in community. So using your community, creating a community that reflects you, that is comfortable for you.
Is a really, really beautiful way to reconnect with yourself, to feel all of who you are, to release some things that might be stressful, and to allow yourself to just be held and supported and witnessed by the people that you enjoy, by people who understand you, and by people who have a similar value system to you. So this week, we're talking about reconnecting through community, and also we're talking about reconnecting.
Through ancestry. Now you probably know that I talk about connecting to the ancestors a lot. It's a newer thing, a newer practice for me, and it's not something that I think about doing every day. And I am not someone who has a big, long drawn-out ritual around it. I'm probably one of the least ritualistic persons that you might find in this energetic spiritual space.
Asha (09:12.522)
And the reason is because I believe that we can access what we need just by our intention, our intention and our attention. I think those things are enough. Ritual serves to put you in the mindset, in the mind frame to do the things that you need to do. But I don't think it's a dishonor to my ancestors if I don't have a whole ceremony. Maybe if they tell me something different, then I'll do something different. But
Connecting just with my mind and my intention has served enough. Now, here for the folks who feel like they don't have healthy people in their lineage, or if you don't know their names, or you don't know where you've come from, that's okay. Black folks in America often can't trace back more than four or five generations because of the transatlantic slave trade and because the former slave owners destroyed records.
property records because black bodies were property back then in an effort to keep families apart and in an effort to erase identity. So many of us can't go back more than a few generations. And some of us can't go back more than a couple generations. Like I know my grandparents' names on my father's side, but I never was around that side of the family. So I have no idea who my great grandparents are, my great great grandparents or anything like that. I have no idea
Well, my cousin's names are on that side because I grew up in a different part of the country and my dad wasn't close to his family, so I didn't meet that side of the family. But when you connect to your ancestors, all you need is the intention to do so. You don't need to know any names. This practice is an energetic practice. And I think it is beautiful to be able to practice because you don't have to know any details. You can just feel into it.
Now here's the thing. If you do not feel particularly happy or comfortable or excited about connecting with your immediate lineage because you can't name fantastic people in your lineage, you can, when you connect, ask for the ancestors who mean good for you, who are benevolent, the ones who want nothing but the best for you. You should do this anyway. Ask them to make themselves known or present.
Asha (11:35.052)
or connect to those energies in your ancestral lineage. And you can do that because it's not about knowing a person's name. It's about feeling the energy. And it's totally possible you can do this through meditation. I actually have on my is it on my website? I'll connect it in the show notes. A meet your ancestral guide meditation that can help get you started. I also offer
A one-on-one session where you meet your four ancestral lineages and I lead you through a guided meditation so you can meet your mother and fathers, where you can meet the paternal and maternal lines on your mother's line and your father's line. And it doesn't have anything to do with the names, it has everything to do with feeling into the energy. But the reason why it's important to reconnect to the ancestors.
especially, particularly only the good ones, is because you can draw so much power and so much strength from them. You all probably know my story, but when I was in Ghana a couple of years ago, I was looking out the door of no return and it hit me that all my ancestors have ever wanted was to be free. Makes sense given the context that I received that message in. I was still practicing law and I was doing business coaching.
for business owners so that they could build a business and leave a legacy. That was my tagline, build a business and leave a legacy. I wanted to teach people how to build generational wealth and leave a financial legacy so that they could be free, but that their children could be free and their children's children could be free. And I was talking about the legal tools that I had learned about to be able to do that. Then fast forward at some point, maybe it was a recent I think it was about six months into my
first year in Portugal and I did a Meet Your Four Ancestral Lineages meditation. And I met my mother's father's line and I saw this little old man, way distant, distant ancestor. And he the message was, We've been waiting for you. I thought, ooh, me? Yeah, we've been waiting for you. And then when I looked into that lineage and was just curious about what was going on.
Asha (14:02.186)
I saw people building, it was almost like they were building pyramids. It seemed like maybe it was in Egypt or somewhere like in East Africa, Northeast Africa, somewhere over there. they were scholars, they were smart, they were engineers, they were brilliant, but they and not but and they were also balanced in mind, body, and soul. They were physically fit, they cared about the food, they worked with the land, and their spirit was intact. And I remember thinking,
Wow, this is so interesting. But the message to me was that my responsibility is to be in alignment. My responsibility is to make sure that my mind, body, soul, and my desire, my destination, my work is all in alignment with each other. That's it. I wasn't tasked with fixing anything. I wasn't tasked with proving anything. In fact, when I looked at them, I saw that they were already whole.
And a lot of us have this subconscious understanding, because it's programmed into us from the time we start school, that we are making up for being deficient or that white folks think that we are deficient. So we have to prove that we are 10 times better. We have to work twice as hard to get half as far. And that mentality or that admonition, while it is helpful, begins to train us to believe that we maybe are not worthy.
Or not deserving of the things that we want because we have to keep proving over and over and over again that we have a right to be there, that we have earned our place to be there. So when I was connecting, I saw that we were already whole and that message was so strong, and it gave me permission to stop proving myself, to stop pushing, to stop trying to.
get to the top and to make sure that I am living in alignment, that my spirit, my mind, my body, and my soul's purpose are actually in alignment. And that is so freeing. And it just released all of the pressure that I had put on myself to make my family proud or to be an attorney to stay an attorney because there's only
Asha (16:22.914)
you know, small percentage of black attorneys in the United States or to continue to work as a college professor because there's even a smaller number of college professors probably that are black in the United States. I was always representing. I was always doing something on behalf of the family or on behalf of black people or on behalf of even myself to show up in a way that would preserve and protect and even project a certain kind of reputation.
And I think many of you can probably relate to that. And so one thing that connecting to my ancestors did, to the line, to the lineage, to the energy without knowing the names is that it actually set me free. It actually reminded me or maybe informed me for the first time that they were already whole, which meant that I am already whole, which means that I don't have to continue to prove myself, my worth, my
deservingness of this spot, this position, this space that I want to take up to anybody no longer. I don't have to do that anymore. And that felt absolutely amazing. There are beautiful things in your ancestral lineage, whether you actually know the cultures and the customs because you can trace them or whether it's because you were connecting to an energy. It is all beautiful and available to you. And please don't have
any shame or even any hesitation about how far you can trace your lineage back. It matters and it doesn't matter. Like it doesn't really matter. Right. And for people who are adopted or maybe they lost their parents early and they haven't been able to go back and to connect or get information on where they've come from, you still come from an energy that you are able to access and you want to stay connected to the positive, the healthy
lineage the the sides of you or the sides of your ancestors that want good and don't want to cause any harm so be intentional about what side you are wanting to connect to there are beautiful things in your lineage and if you need permission to let the BS go I'm giving you permission to let the BS go because there's no point in staying connected to any energy that does not serve you. The the loyalty is misplaced. There is
Asha (18:47.872)
Nothing that is going to be of benefit for you staying connected to energy that trains you, that belittles you, or makes you small. So make sure that when you connect, you connect with the beautiful, benevolent, the good side of the energy in your ancestral lineage. So how are the ways if you are unsure? That's a really bad sentence. So how can you connect?
community and your ancestry if this is all new to you and if you are unsure. Well one of the ways to do that is to come to a diaspora dinner at the studio in Lisbon at Asha's Place. We choose a different country every month to connect to because the foods across the diaspora are very similar but they're all seasoned just a little bit differently and they're all delicious. This is a beautiful night of community. So check our schedule for
The next diaspora dinner that's coming up that you can join. You can also work with me one-on-one to do a meet your four ancestral lineages meditation. I would love to do that with you, particularly if you are curious, if you are practiced at meditation or dropping in or having readings. It is a powerful session where you will connect. I will guide you, but you will connect.
into that lineage and I will take notes for you taking down everything that you say so you have something to look at when you come back out of that meditation and you'll know exactly what to connect to and how to do it.
Asha (20:27.382)
I can also give you an ancestral tarot reading where we will look at who in your lineage is present, but it's about the energies, not necessarily the names, what gifts you have inherited from them, what their wish is for you, what they want you to know. You'll get a healing message from them. And I think there's one or two other questions. So that's those are ways that you can work with me directly to connect to your ancestral lineage.
And of course, come and join the diaspora dinner in Lisbon. All right. I have really enjoyed talking about reconnecting with you this month. And I hope that you will connect. I hope that you have enjoyed it. I hope that something in these last few weeks have maybe made connection a little more tangible for you and a little more simple. Like I'm not the one, I'm not the one that's gonna give you an eight-part step.
My goal is to make it as simple and as attainable as possible. And if that has happened for you over these last few weeks, I am so glad. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment on the podcast on Spotify or on YouTube. Or you can reach out to me directly. I'm hanging out over on Threads, @ashawilkersonesq. But please also join my email list so that I can.
Send you lots of good little emails, not spammy though, of the offerings that we have going on at the studio or in my online community. That'll give you little connection notes, little meditation practices. It's called Love Notes. Don't you want to receive a love note every week in your inbox? I would, but I'm writing them. I guess I get my own emails too. So they're equally as beneficial for me to write them and for me to read them back. All right, love. I hope that you have a beautiful week.
I cannot wait to chat with you and I will see you soon.