Anuradha Gulati: Healing Ancestral Roots
Anuradha Dayal-Gulati is an energy practitioner and transformational coach with a Ph.D. in economics. After fifteen years in finance and academia, she began a new path of helping people release the past and reclaim their power. Trained in flower essence therapy and family constellation therapy, she lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
An Interview with Anuradha Gulati – Healing Your Ancestral Roots
OMTIMES: You were an economist before becoming a healer. How did this dramatic change come about?
Anuradha Gulati: It wasn’t a linear journey, and perhaps at some level, it was meant to happen, but when it did, it happened in a very traumatic way. I had a health problem and had to go into the ER, and I came out thinking I’d got to pick myself up and get back to life as usual. But, soon after that, one night out of nowhere, I had to go back in. This time I started to get a little scared and was beginning to wonder, “What is happening to me?” but I did come out. When I had to go into the ER a third time, I started feeling really scared. I could tell the doctors didn’t know what was happening. And I could feel this sense of despair and hopelessness starting to sweep over me.
But I had a very dear friend who was into alternative healing, and she came to see me in the hospital. She held my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “Anu, how many times are you going to go through this? What is it going to take for you to change?” Her words really hit home. I can still feel them within me today! So I literally willed myself out of the hospital and began exploring alternative healing methods. I found this amazing Chinese medicine doctor and discovered flower essences. Those two things together not only saved my health but also changed the trajectory of my life!
As I look back, I feel that the most valuable thing this experience taught me is the importance of hope in our life. And to recognize that no matter what the circumstances of your life are, you are never powerless and can create change!
OMTIMES: What is your book Heal Your Ancestral Roots about, and who is it for?
Anuradha Gulati: Have you ever felt that you really want something in your life—perhaps a relationship, personal or professional success, or even a career goal? Yet, despite your best efforts, it feels as if something is stuck. What you want seems to elude you! What if this problem that you’re struggling with did not originate with you? In my book, I point out how this struggle may be an ancestral burden that you are dealing with, and I offer a road map or guide to releasing the burden of transgenerational legacies and reclaiming your power to create the life you want.
I outline the energetic principles that govern your family lineage, the many ways your ancestral field can support you, and how it can hold you captive.
OMTIMES: What are your ancestral roots? Did your own experiences in life influence your writing this book?
Anuradha Gulati: In many Eastern traditions, including Native American traditions, your ancestors include not just your parents and grandparents but also those who came up seven generations before you. If you think about it, 252 mothers and fathers needed to have existed for you to be here today on earth! Our ancestors need to be acknowledged and honored so that they can ascend to higher realms and be helpful to us. Otherwise, they are stuck in lower-earth planes, and their energy hangs around us, keeping us stuck.
Many things were different when I moved from India to the US and started living here. While there was drive, individuality, possibility, and hard work, India was rich in color, warmth, and respect. Faith, family, culture, and tradition were what nourished me. Suddenly, I was cut off from what deeply nourished me, yet I didn’t have the language or framework to understand what that really was. It was only when I started to train in ancestral healing work that I could put the pieces of my life together. It’s as if the gears started clicking together in my brain, and I knew I wanted my clients to understand their journey. This led to the book because, at some level, our stories and experiences are individual and universal.
OMTIMES: What sort of generational pain or patterns show up in families?
Anuradha Gulati: So much research today shows that the quality of your life depends on the quality of your relationships. You are happier, healthier, and more contented and fulfilled when you have satisfying relationships. When people come to see me, even if it’s about something else, at the heart of the problem is relationships—maybe with bosses, co-workers, children, parents, or partners. And underlying this is our disconnection from ourselves, which manifests as struggles in our relationships.
Trauma is a word that is becoming more widely used today. And trauma can be with a big t or a little t. Trauma is inevitable and a part of life. We are not immune to it and cannot protect our children from it. But when trauma is passed down the lineage, it affects the way love is expressed in the family. There are many kinds of transgenerational patterns, but transgenerational pain has to do with relationships that are not working, unmet expectations, and the feeling of not being loved.
OMTIMES: What are transgenerational patterns? Why is understanding how they show up in our lives important to our healing?
Anuradha Gulati: We often know instinctively that we share traits, characteristics, or habits of our parents. Yet, transgenerational patterns are more than that. It is the energy of what is unresolved in the lineage before you. It is the energy of loss, unresolved emotions, and wanting to make amends. This ancestral karma shows up as repetitive patterns in your life, as themes in your family, as events and experiences that repeat across generations, such as a ceiling on your professional life, patterns of business failure, or failed relationships. You might have casually noticed or thought of it but never paid attention to it. But when you start to look for patterns, you might see that they are present. At the same time, you may also find positive patterns, which you often take for granted, which can be considered family blessings.
As we are part of our ancestors that lives on, we take on the task of healing a piece of what was unresolved in the lineage before us. When we heal ourselves, we heal those that came before us as well as those that come after us. After all, we too will one day be the ancestors of those to come, and our actions on this earth plane will affect seven generations below us. When we heal ourselves, we heal the world. It’s as if there’s a sacred task that we came to accomplish, and when we embark on the journey of self-healing, we fill the void that we came here to fill.
OMTIMES: How can we heal our roots?
Anuradha Gulati: Healing your roots, or ancestral healing, is to release the feeling of being a victim of your lineage. Of being a victim of what came before you! It is to release the need for acknowledgment, to be seen, and to expect something others may not be capable of giving. A beautiful African proverb says, “When you cut your chains, you free yourself! When you cut your roots, you die!”
We can start the healing process by honoring our ancestors for the gifts we have received from the lineage and the challenges we face. Honoring is simply accepting that you cannot change or rewrite the script of the 252 acts that came before you. You can only start with the scene you’re in now. One way to honor your ancestors is to create an ancestral altar with images of your ancestors if you have them or something that might be part of your heritage. If you don’t have anything, then just use objects from nature. You can use a shelf or small table for your altar, place a piece of fabric on it and then place objects that call to you on it. This altar becomes a place to anchor the ancestral energy around you. You can shift and raise the vibrational energy of your altar by including elements like water, incense, essential oils, flowers, or a candle or tealight. You can then pray for your ancestors to move to peace and harmony. You can place your altar in the hallway or living room, as it’s better not to have your ancestral altar in the bedroom as it’s a place to attract certain energies.
OMTimes: Why is it important to honor our ancestors?
Anuradha Gulati: In the Western tradition, it is believed that in most indigenous traditions, people were praying to their ancestors. The act of honoring them is to pray for them—to express gratitude for what you have received and pray for their well-being, allowing them to ascend to higher realms from which they can guide and bless you rather than keep you stuck, picking up on their unresolved energies. Traditions to honor the ancestors are present in many parts of the world, where people offer prayers and food and perform acts of charity.
Many of my clients report that when they start honoring their ancestors, they experience a sense of peace and connection to their family of origin.
OMTIMES: What are flower essences, and how do you use them to help your clients heal?
Anuradha Gulati: The longest healing journey is from the head to the heart! You might recognize that you need to shift intellectually, but ingrained instinctual reactions make it difficult to shift. Flower essences make that shift possible very gently and gradually.
We can think of flower essences as medicine directly from Mother Nature. In many ancient cultures, dew was considered sacred, but it is challenging to collect enough dew! Dew is the alchemy that results from the night’s coolness and the morning sun’s warmth and captures a flower’s energetic healing quality. In the 1930s, Dr. Bach, a British surgeon, found a way to recreate the healing properties of dew and stabilize them. This is how we get flower essences. They are the unique healing property of wildflowers captured in spring water and preserved with brandy. Dr. Bach identified 38 such flowers almost a hundred years ago, and their essences are still created the same way today as they were then! Moreover, he identified the nuances of different emotions and mapped them onto different flowers. So, for instance, there are several different essences for fear based on the kind of fear you might be experiencing.
When I’m listening to my client, I’m listening for the emotions that are being expressed—or not—the patterns that are coming up. Based on how they show up in my client’s life, I create a custom blend of flower essences that will allow my client to shift the burden of these emotions. For instance, Willow will release bitterness; Holly will release anger and jealousy, Pine will release guilt, and so on. This customized blend of essences is taken internally—4 drops, 4 times a day, and in a few weeks, clients report feeling calmer and experiencing a shift. Negative emotions are an invitation to restore the connection to yourself where it might have been lost, and the essences facilitate that connection. Emotions like peace, gratitude, or contentment can be viewed as the positive outcome of restoring a connection to yourself.
OMTIMES: In your book, you talk about giving the reader a “glimpse into the invisible world.” What do you mean by that?
Anuradha Gulati: We are surrounded by the invisible world—the energy of our ancestors, the subconscious triggers that lead us to react instinctively, and the energy of the Universe that supports us. I want readers to understand that you can harness these energies to support you. You can connect with the healing energy of your ancestors, the power of your emotions, the grace of the Universe that guides you, and the energy of Mother Earth that nurtures you. When you connect with each of these energies, you start the journey back home to yourself!
OMTIMES: Why should people read your book?
Anuradha Gulati: If you’d like to release the past and get unstuck, this book shows you how to start the journey to reclaim your power. Doing that allows you to create fulfilling relationships, have healthy boundaries, and find the inner confidence to create the life you want!
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