How To Reckon With The Baggage Around Ancestor Veneration

How to deal with negative feelings around ancestor work, so you can begin a healthy and healing ancestral veneration journey.

Ancestral veneration is a beautiful and healing part of paganism and the inner tradition that underlies all religion. Around the globe, before modern life, every single culture engaged in this practice. Even today, there are many festivities that honor the beloved dead. However, when people begin to approach ancestor veneration on their own, especially if their family has never engaged in it before, they may feel some deeply uncomfortable feelings. This is particularly true for people who have a bad relationship with their relatives, such as abuse victims, adult children of alcoholics, people who were abandoned at a young age, and other people who never got to experience the family that they always wanted. Even if you had a normal family upbringing, and not one steeped in dysfunction, ancestor work can bring up a whole list of questions, doubts, and worries. To honor our ancestors, we need to face those worries head on, and use this process to help heal us.