Ancestral Coaching
You’re feeling a kind of emptiness that you can’t quite name, and it’s blocking you from making changes you want to make.
You get stuck in the same patterns and same routines. You try to snap yourself out of it, get involved with a community, try therapy, but nothing works.
You could be asking questions like these:
- Why do I keep making the same bad choices my parents made, even when I can see exactly what I'm doing?
- Why do I feel like a stranger in my own family, when I'm surrounded by people who love me?
- I've tried everything, and something is still missing. What am I actually looking for?
Some of what you’re looking for is behind you.
The beliefs you hold about work, worth, and what you’re allowed to want didn’t start with you. They came from people who lived under different constraints. Understanding where those things came from doesn’t excuse them or erase them. But it changes your relationship with them. You get to decide what’s actually yours to keep.
Follow evidence from the past to understand yourself in the present.
You don’t even need a complete family history to begin. Some people research a grandparent. Some claim a historical figure or a cultural ancestor of the heart. Others are trying to understand what it means to be the last person in their line. The starting point is different for everyone.
Many find that the past holds more encouragement than they expected, and that seeing where something came from makes it possible, for the first time, to put it down.
Over time, your internal compass shifts. Once patterns become visible, you can start making decisions from a clearer sense of who you are.
The people who came before you are the material. You are the point.
If you’re ready to learn more, read on.
What it is
An individual coaching program that uses ancestral research as a way into self-understanding.
You’ll investigate one or two people from your past, like a relative, a historical figure, or someone who feels like kin. Then use what you find to see what you’ve been carrying that no longer works for you, and what you might like to pick up instead.
This isn’t therapy. We’re not processing trauma or dwelling in difficulty. And it isn’t geneaology research. We’re following evidence, drawing parallels, and reframing what you find. The point is joyful connection to people who came before you, and to a clearer version of yourself.
Who it’s for
People in midlife who feel unmoored. Not in crisis, just searching. You’re coachable, curious, and willing to commit to an ongoing inquiry. You already have some sense that the questions you’re asking have roots somewhere, and you’re ready to go looking.
You might be…
- An ancestry enthusiast who doesn’t know what to do with what you’ve found.
- Someone with no family history looking for ancestors of the heart.
- The last person in your line, wondering what that means.
What connects everyone who does this work is action. You’re not waiting for answers to arrive. You’re willing to find them.
How it works
Over three months, we move through these phases:
Reflect
Research
Generate
We start with your questions, the patterns you’ve noticed, the people or places that are already calling. You leave the first session with something that you want to examine further.
You investigate. Records, photographs, stories, objects. I’m your partner throughout: someone to bring discoveries to, and to ask for research help when you hit a wall. We follow what you’re finding.
You may discover parallel patterns that are sources of strength rather than difficulty. We see what wants to be made, and you start making it: a story, an image, a song, a reimagined piece of jewelry.
Why I do this work
I came to ancestry research in 2008 when I was searching for meaning.
I’d carried beliefs about scarcity and fear for most of my adult life. So I went looking in my family history for the source. I thought I found the answer in Margaret Keddie, my third great-grandmother. Her life looked, from the outside, like one long story of deprivation and loss. It seemed obvious: it all started with her.
But the more I researched her, the more complicated she became. What I’d read as tragedy turned out to be something else entirely. Margaret was formidable. Resilient in ways I hadn’t expected, and navigating constraints I could only imagine. I just had to wake up to what she paid forward.
When I began to see her as a source of strength, it changed how I understand inheritance.
It also changed me. I started creating boundaries I hadn’t been able to create before. I put down self-perceptions I’d been carrying for decades.
That’s why I built this program. I know what it feels like when the past stops being something that happened to you and starts being something you can actually use.
What you leave with
- A documented account of how your thinking shifted and what you're carrying forward.
- A belief or pattern that changed, and what you're going to do differently because of it.
- Sometimes, something you made.
- Always, a clearer sense of what's actually yours.
Investment
Three-month commitment: $2,450 – introductory rate while I’m accepting my first clients.
Month-to-month continuation: $750 per month.
I’m currently accepting one or two pilot clients at this reduced rate. If you’re curious whether this is right for you, the next step is a conversation.