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Book Review: Heal Your Ancestral Roots

Editor's Note: This review was originally published in Seattle Book Review.

Anuradha Dayal-Gulati

The lingering effects of intergenerational trauma can haunt us for a lifetime, and we risk passing on unresolved pain. To heal and make peace, it is important to acknowledge and understand family patterns that cause emotional anguish, strained relationships, and isolation. Anuradha Dayal-Gulati discusses the applications of energy healing and shares journaling exercises to encourage readers to look deeper at family patterns, experiences, and events. Visualization prompts serve as an invitation to restore emotional balance and gain productive strategies to deal with negative emotions and transitions.

This is an enlightening guide for anyone looking to uncover how family history and intergenerational suffering impact our lives today. I was grateful to learn about energy medicine through flower essences, family constellations, rituals, and ceremonies. From my perspective as a diasporic Filipino who has delved into the study of decolonization for spiritual healing, I appreciated how the author embedded cultural testimony to how war, hunger and poverty may have initiated – or perpetuated – ancestral karma.

Awareness is often a first step toward action. Dayal-Gulati offers a non-traditional path toward healing, and it requires openness to be honest and vulnerable. Healing family trauma requires deep internal work over time, and I am thankful for the lessons shared in this book. 

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