This is an invitation to dive into your narratives around your family line so that you can amplify the parts you want to claim as your legacy
Ancestry in Practice:
Exploring Lineage, Reciprocity, and
Being a Good Ancestor
More than family of origin…
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:
This is ancestor work. Not as something we engage in that is spooky or esoteric 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:
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 in 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.
4 weeks of gatherings
Defining Ancestors and Creating Boundaries
Creating an Ancestor Map from the knowing our own inheritance
Relationship and Reciprocity with Ancestors
Practices of becoming a Good Ancestor
What Our Time Together Looks Like
Each 90-minute weekly session will include:
You’ll also receive:
This is for you if you…
Have often felt like the “black sheep” or “cycle-breaker” in your family
Carry a complicated or painful 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
And even if you feel nervous, skeptical, or tender about ancestor work
Jill Clifton
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.
if working on yourself feels isolating and removed, maybe it's time to include your ancestors?