Do you often hold back from saying what you feel or think? Do you feel uncertain whether others will be able to like you after you have made a mistake? Or do you grow uncomfortable when you stand out from the people you are with, either due to your attire, your needs or your opinions?Your parents, your grandparents and all your ancestors can strengthen your courage to stand your ground so that you can be more comfortable being who you are. Even if some of them have passed away or are simply unwilling or unable to support you.

With ancestry therapy, you can work with your relationships to your kinfolk without involving them. Your ancestors play a very important role in your self-understanding.

You carry their genes, and in a way, they live within you. Therefore, it matters a great deal if your perception is that your relatives are critical of you and want to change you as opposed to having their support.

In accessible language, Ilse Sand describes how ancestry therapy – which includes various tools such as letter writing – can help you get loving confirmation from important people who are part of your roots. A confirmation that will strengthen the feeling of interconnectedness with – and being anchored in – your kinfolk, and which will give you more courage to be who you are, also in your other relationships.

Ancestry therapy can also help you heal relationship issues that remain after an interaction that hurt. In the book’s numerous examples, you can also find inspiration to see yourself and your kinfolk in a new and probably more loving way.

Ilse Sand is a psychotherapist and a pastor. She is the author of nine books, including the international bestseller Highly Sensitive People in an Insensitive World.

Her books have been translated into twenty-four languages. .