{Y}our Stories: The Series- The Quest of Finding Yourself Through Biological Family with Alison

I know there are many people out there who are adopted or looking for biological family. Not all, but many have shared with me that trying to find their biological relatives is partly due to them wanting to know who they really are, a deep level. And many, who have been successful have shared with me their psychological and, even, spiritual relief and understanding of who they are. Even though, it’s possible for uncomfortable or scandalous stories to arise, they know it’s important to learn what happened.

I’ve seen time and time again that, for many, even growing up with biological parents or loving adoptive parents, knowing your biological family’s story and who they are, even if just by name, connects them to something deeply moving and powerful.

Today’s family storyteller, Alison, shares her quest to uncover who her biological paternal grandmother was, what her story as to why she put her son up for adoption and Alison’s own courageous steps to uncover this. It wasn’t until she was in her 30s that she discovered her father was adopted. While she herself grew up with both her biological parents, something within her inspired her and moved her to learn more about her paternal line. Where did her father come from? What was their story? How did her grandmother’s story provide insight and a link to who she was today?

Watch or listen to Alison’ story below.

PS- After watching or listening to her story, check below for an update.

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Click below to watch or listen to Alison’s story.

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Watch Alison’s Story Here

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Alison’s Update: Since the recording of this episode in October 2018, Alison was also able to find and connect with her biological uncle, her father’s brother! He never knew his brother, Alison’s father, existed.

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- The Domino Effect of Courage with Nicole

Wanting to give a voice to her lineage and to the Hispanic community, our storyteller today, Nicole, shares the story of her paternal grandmother, Olivia. Olivia’s story is a reminder that no matter where your origins are, you have the capability to set your mind to something and bring yourself to your own freedom, to create a life that is the one you want to create. Experiencing shame and disappointment with regards her parents at young age, young Olivia swore to herself she would get an education and break free of a community filled with poverty.

Nicole shares with us the power of names, how her grandmother’s decision created a domino effect for later generations, and the courage to look back and forgive your past.

PS- As she shares, she used my free guide {Y}our Connecting Conversations to learn more about the stories of her family. I’ve been hearing nothing but great responses about using this guide. If you want to get your free copy, click here: {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

Watch or listen to Nicole’s Story Below.

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Click below to watch or listen to Nicole’s story.

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Watch Nicole’s Story Here

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- Escaping To The Light with Cara G.

This week’s storyteller, Cara, reads us her Zeydy’s (grandfather’s) harrowing tale, a survivor of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Originally in Yiddish, Cara’s mother, Lorraine Weinberg, interviewed and recorded her father for an assignment for a class at Brooklyn Collge and was later translated to English by Cara’s aunt. As a story passed down between the generations, Cara recounts her grandfather’s terrifying and horrific experience from his hometown to the camps, and then escaping at the end of the war to a life in the United States, aided by HIAS.

Cara then shares the lessons she learned both from his trauma and from the kindness he showed in life, even after he experienced life in the ghetto and the camps, the liquidation of the camps and the end of the war.

(Note: Cara & I both know many descendents of Holocaust survivors or other widespread trauma have a wide variety of experiences- some have completely disowned the past or have lived traumatic childhoods themselves. Cara’s is one story of many).

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For those of you who are unsure of some of the words or concepts she uses, here is a brief explanation of these words before you watch or listen:

Kapo- a prisoner in the concentration camps who was assigned by SS guards (paramilitary under Nazi Germany) to supervise the forced labor in the camps. It was designed to turn “victim against victim.” They were often chosen because of their past as rough people to begin with.

Bar Mitzvah- literally “son of the commandment”, it is a ceremony that 13 year old boys go through, signifying their transition to adulthood. (Bat Mitzvah for girls at 12 or 13 & B’nai Mitzvah for multiple/non-binary).

HIAS-Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society- a Jewish non-profit started in the 1880s to help Jewish Refugees, HIAS helped many survivors of the Holocaust seek refuge. They continue to help refugees today from all different nationalities, religions, cultures and traditions.

Shabbat/Shabbos- The Jewish Sabbath that begins at sundown Friday and lasts 25 hours. Shabbos dinner Friday nights are very important (more observant share all 3 meals together).

Shavuot/Shavuos- A Jewish holiday that commemorates the day when the Jewish Nation received the Torah (The 5 Books of Moses & Oral History). In English, this may be known as the Feast of Weeks (the word Shavuot itself means weeks). It’s also a festival that marks the wheat harvest, particularly in ancient Israel.

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Watch or listen to Cara’s story below.

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Click below to watch or listen to Cara’s story.

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Watch Cara’s Story Here

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- The Women Who Come Before Me with Emily Cassel

This week’s story, Emily Cassel, shares the stories of her lineage, another thread in the history of the tapestry of time and space.

We never realize how much of a connection to our ancestors we really have until we actual look at the stories of them.

Emily, who by trade is a women’s leadership coach and women’s circle leader, shares her experience of the women in her lineage, some of whom are entrepreneurs in their own right. She also shares the unconventional way that her family has connected to their ancestors.

What can we learn from those who come before us? How can we learn about our own abilities now by learning about the stories about our ancestors?

Sometimes it may seem like our own abilities are random, but we may have more of a connection than we realize.

Watch or listen to Emily’s story below.

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Click below to watch or listen to Emily’ story.

(Length: 21:09)

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Watch Emily’s Story Here

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series-Your Ancestors Are living in the present time with Darla Antoine

This week’s storyteller’s story is needed to be heard by many, especially if you feel like looking at your lineage isn’t important.

Darla Antoine has a unique perspective as she has lineages that trace back to both First Nation (Native American) and European ancestry. She is an Okanagan First Nations Member (NW Washington and Southern British Columbia) and, among many of the pieces of her work (including a Masters’ in Intercultural Communication), she is an ancestral healer. Growing up on her maternal ancestor’s homeland in Northwestern Washington State albeit in a white farming community, she felt and continues to feel a deep connection to those lands, even though she lives thousands of miles away now in Costa Rica with her husband.

This week, Darla shares:

• the stories of her grandmother’s disconnection through often violent forced assimilation (that institutionally lasted until the 1970s)

• how this experience trickled down between the generations

• the importance of both genealogical & spiritual work

• her own return to her ancestral roots, her culture, her land and her stories after a few generations of the painful disconnect

Most Importantly: Ancestors aren’t just people of the past, they exist in present time.

The reason for so much of the familial and of the societal wounds in the world started with our ancestors, either as being the first to experience it, perpetuate it or both. Darla shares what she thinks needs to be done in order to change this.

Darla shares on her website:

• Before you travel to that one far-off place to learn an indigenous ritual that has nothing to do with your bloodline…

• Before you take on a spiritual name from another culture or language that your ancestors never spoke…

• Before you study with that guru or adopt that spiritual practice du jour…

CONNECT WITH YOUR ANCESTORS.

Watch or listen to Darla’s story below.

And, to learn more about Darla’s work, you can visit her website at https://darlaantoine.com/.

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Click below to watch or listen to Darla’s story.

(Length: 30:37)

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Watch Darla’s Story Here

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- Lessons on Reverence & Weaving Two Worlds Into One with Sora

It’s February, a time in many cultures and lineages around the world and over the course of time that honor the potential of the spring season to come.

In my own lineage of Eastern European Jews (and Jews around the world), we recently celebrated Tu B’Shvat, a day known as the birthday of trees. I only learned within the last year or so that it is a day to remind us that the potential of spring has yet to be seen in the darkness of wintertime. While this time of year can seem dark, it also remind us that what has yet to be seen is already here and we can trust this cycle that birth and the lightness of spring and renewal are already on their way. It’s also a day to remind us of the awe and to be in reverence of nature. (Trees are big thing in my lineage).

There’s something very interesting to learn about the ways of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on as we uncover their names and identities through research. We can feel so immersed in it. I have found I'm reconnecting to something that is so old and ancient as I have started to learn more and pick up practices and rituals from my foremothers and fathers. Some of these things I remember doing as a child and some I never knew at all. And, strangely, it can feel like I am a part of two worlds- of those before us and the traditions that exist to this day AND the culture and life I live in now. 

Have you ever felt that way?

So, how can we identify with both? How can we learn from both? How can we integrate both?

This week, as the daughter of Korean immigrants, our storyteller, Sora, shares with us her story of what “family” means to her. Because of a traumatic childhood event, there was a deep need to explore what this meant for her. In her storytelling and our conversation, she shares with us what it is like to weave between the culture she grew up in at home and the culture she grew up in at large, as well as how she is learning what “healing” actually means for her when doing the deep work to connect again to her lineage (it’s not necessarily what you may be thinking).

Most of all, she shares with us how she has found a meeting place to honor both her lineage/ancestors/parents’ stories and culture and her own present ones.

This week, I invite you to listen or watch Sora’s story below.

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Click below to watch or listen to Sora’s story.

(Length: 15:58)

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- Learning from the Strong Women in Her Family with Jenn

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it’s 2019?

I look and cultivate timelines and stories of ancestors from 1919. And I’m thinking to myself what will future generations of our families be saying about us in 100 years? How will we have possibly influenced the history of our own descendants and the world by 2119? We will be the actual history and the stories of the future generations. It’s kind of mind blowing and amazing if you ask me.

But I won’t ramble too much because today is the first story of {Y}our Stories: The Series of 2019! And it’s all about strong women in our lineages and families and how their being and stories have the potential to strengthen our own present day stories (if we allow ourselves to see it).

Jenn thought she was alone on an island of being the only strong-willed woman in her family, until she began to recognize that strength of the women who came before her, their stories and drew upon them for inspiration in her life and business.

In her storytelling, Jenn honors the strong women in her family, like her Great-Aunt Ethel, the ones who were ahead of their time, full of love, don’t necessarily care what people think but are considered to be “rough around the edges,” something many women who are deemed “too extra” can unfortunately be characterized even today.

It’s up to us as the younger generation to “prioritize the older generation’s voice” as Jenn shares in her story today.

If you’ve ever wondered how to find your own strength through your family or ancestors’ stories or if you even can, I invite you to listen or watch Jenn’s story below.

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Click below to watch or listen to Jenn’s story.

(Length: 13:04)

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- Honoring HER Mother, HER Ancestry and Our Global Community during Kwanzaa with Kathleen

This is the last {Y}our Stories: The Series story…… of 2018 that is!

Today I want to start with a quote that our storyteller refers to:

“If I stand tall, I’m standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before” ~African Proverb

Today, Kathleen shares from her heart her story on how one particular trip to West Africa with her mother reignited the fuel to connect to her long-ago ancestors with pride and her bond with her mother, her present family and her global community through the celebration of Kwanzaa. She has brought people from all backgrounds together on the last day of this 7 day celebration, sharing this joy with her community for over to 20 years.

Next week, December 26, is the first of seven days of Kwanzaa, an African American celebration of culture, community and family created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga and based on seven principles. In her storytelling, Kathleen describes how these principles are truly UNIVERSAL experiences that all of us could live by. These 7 principles are brought into focus each day:

DAY 1: Umoja- Unity

DAY 2: Kujichagulia- Self-Determination

Day 3: Ujima- Collective Work & Responsibility

Day 4: Ujamaa- Cooperative Economics

Day 5: Nia- Purpose

Day 6: Kuumba-Creativity

Day 7: Imani- Faith

I invite you to join Kathleen as she shares more in depth her story of ancestry, tradition, community, joy & the bond between mother and daughter by watching or listening below.

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Click below to WATCH or LISTEN to Kathleen’s story.

(Length: 20:21)

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- How Intergenerational Trauma Helped HER TO RECONNECT TO WHO SHE IS (with Asha)

It may be another week, but I'm so excited to share one of your stories as always!

If you’re like me, at some point in your life, or perhaps even now, you may have felt some sort of disconnect from your cultural or ancestral roots, deeming it an unnecessary part of your life. I definitely felt that way for a long time. Part of it, can be due to intrinsic (often unconscious) shame, misunderstanding or even fear for dredging up the recent or distant past.

This week, Homeopath and medicine healer Asha shares her experience in reconnecting and healing the trauma with her Ojibway First Nation ancestral roots. She shares what was lost due to cultural genocide experienced just two generations before (her grandparents’ generation).

Even more, her husband, who is of Jewish ancestry, is the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

And so, Asha has become very aware of the intergenerational trauma that has been passed down from both sides of the family to her sons, and how this affected them.

Watch below as she shares her ancestral story, her own fears and her own healing as it relates to intergenerational ancestral trauma.

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Click below to watch or listen to Asha’s story.

(Length: 12:50)

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- How Ancestry DNA Testing Changed Her Life with Linda

Welcome to another story this week!

Adoption and non-biological parents are much more common than we think. Perhaps this is you. And even in loving homes, with families and parents that they love and that love them, many have shared with me that there is a piece of them that really wants to know where they come from. What are their “biological” origins? Their biological ancestral story? Sometimes this is expressed aloud, and at other times it is a secret kept only within their heart. This is where the much newer technologies of DNA genealogy has helped many people answer this question, and has had the power to change people’s lives for better or for worse.

This week, meet Linda. She took a DNA test through AncestryDNA earlier on in 2018 in order to find more about her biological father. Join us in our conversation today as Linda shares her discoveries and encouragement for those out there who are uncertain about finding biological family through DNA testing.

Click the links below to watch or listen!

Note: In the video version, you won’t be able to see my face, but you will still hear me. Sill technical glitches.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a representative or an affiliate of Ancestry or Ancestry DNA (or any DNA company). This is solely for Linda to share her own experience and findings with Ancestry DNA.

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Click below to watch or listen to Linda’s story.

(Length: 15:35)

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To learn more about DNA Testing, check out the article I wrote about it here: THE POWER & LOWDOWN OF DNA

If this is something you’re interested in doing, here are some resources and companies for ancestral DNA testing. Each company has something different to offer so make sure you do some research of your own. And there are also sales throughout the year as well.

• AncestryDNA

• 23andMe

• LivingDNA

• FamilyTree DNA

• MyHeritage DNA

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If you want to share your {Y}our Story on the series, SIGN UP HERE or CONTACT ME with any questions.

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.

{Y}our Stories: The Series- The Secrets in Her Poetry with Jen

Welcome to another story this week!

Have you ever sat down with your family specifically to learn more about those who came before you? It’s always fascinating to me what can come out of conversations like that. Sometimes we learn things we didn’t want to know. Sometimes we learn why our family is the way they are. Sometimes we see how we are more connected than we thought we were.

As we continue weaving our tales throughout time, I introduce to you our next storyteller, Jen, who shares with us a special story of uncovering her grandmother’s long ago hidden talent and how her artistry has created connections in her family today. Then, we explore her story further. 

(In today’s talks, Jen mentions having used the free guide {Y}our Connecting Conversations to learn more about about her family and how it the guide has been a gift for her and her family. Get your own free copy here!)

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Click below to watch or listen to Jen’s story.

(Length: 14:06)

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Many of you might be thinking “I have no stories, or even interesting stories of my family” or “How can I even begin to learn more about my family’s history?”

I’ve got you covered, check out this free guide called {Y}our Connecting Conversations.