High Vibe Times

Hello Dear Ones, 

Welcome back to our new High Vibration Times newsletter, a distillation of all the spirit, soul, heart, mind, and multi-dimensional body techniques I’ve been playing around with of late. We just finished our second Sisterhood Academy series, a 3-class course called “THE MAGIC OF BEING ALIVE: Activate your Inner Child” with Liz Hays, and this serendipitously has a lot to do with this month’s download. Check it out below. 

With love and light, 
J.J.

The spiritual superpowers of my ancestral roots have been ringing in my ears like crazy. This started in India in December, when an intensive panchakarma cleansing washed out not only my clogged intestines, but also the stagnant energetic sewage of this lifetime—plus a few nasty past ones. When I returned to Milan, already wobbly, I got kicked in the head with news of the LA fires: my kindergarten, grammar school, church, the homes of my family, aunt, grandmother as well as every house on the street where I grew up had burned to the ground. My ancestral homeland had been obliterated along with a future one: our first USA flagship store for DoubleJ also went up in flames.

And still, the earth of my birth beckoned, loudly. I could not wait to get back to that charred land, and when I did last week, I found myself buried into my unexplored family tree. First, a brand-new book created and delivered by my father’s relatives in Napa arrived, tracing our lineage back through Italian ancestors near Genova. Coincidentally (or not!), I also found myself digging into 14 boxes of my mother’s memorabilia, never shared with us while she was living. There, my brothers and I discovered an entire family vine that wound its way not only deeper through my great grandparents’ arrival in Los Angeles in 1910, but also to my mother’s relatives, who were born in the USA in 1774. 

This was fascinating. My mother had hardly ever discussed her family, probably humiliated by the memory of her father who was addicted to alcohol and gambled her family’s money away. But here was my Mother Line, perfectly and clearly mapped out, as if by higher design, with hundreds of photos, not to mention journals of my great-grandmother’s trips through Florence and Milan, where I now live.

Healers, spiritual teachers and shamans love to work with the ancestral lineage as a spiritual healing tool. But most of the work I’ve done has always focused on cutting, clearing, or dumping the drama and trauma that has been imprinted inside my cells, DNA and energy body. There was a ton of crap to shovel, which I’ve done in multiple rounds of plant-medicine journeys, shamanic womb cleansings, and in many multi-dimensional channelings, even tracing (and clearing) my problematic relationship with my birth mother back to the ancient civilization of Lemuria.

Very rarely, however, had I ever thought to excavate or retrieve the gifts from my ancestors—weren’t they all a pack of crazy towns? This trip to LA made me consider the lineage in a totally new way. Rather than running away, I got much closer to them, inspecting their faded photos, wrapping my arms around the stories in beautifully handwritten journals, finding humility and mercy for their experiences as well as deep gratitude for the path cut before me. I owed these people my life, in addition to my respect. And so, I bowed to them.

This powerful moment coincided (of course!) with our Sisterhood Academy Inner Child class with Liz Hays. Though Liz explains that the Inner Child is actually all parts of us, most of our IC’s needs, desires and preferences are imprinted when we are children, shaped in large part by our parenting. The trick Liz brilliantly showed us is to allow the IC to be as loud, rumbling, complainy, tantruming and choosy as she wants: just make sure it’s being blasted towards your Inner Being (the definition of which is explained in our 1st class HERE) and not at your poor family members.

After one brilliant solo session with Liz, my wise IC revealed that all she wanted to do was to spend a few minutes with my mother (who I’d always clashed with and who had died the previous year) each day. None of us got star parents on this planet. None of us come from pristine ancestral lineages. But the job in this lifetime is to wake up to the fact that everyone who did a crappy job in raising us deserves our mercy, and we can and should become star parents to ourselves. All that is needed is awareness and willingness to activate these dormant powers that lay sleeping within our consciousness. Some tools to do this follow!

For pesky or sticky family trauma that is generational and immune to the effects of normal therapy, I’ve found the following uncommon tools, techniques and teachers to be highly effective. Please remember there are all kinds of trauma: from the micro to the macro, as well as things that families have been holding on for literally eons that you may have no inkling about. All of your ancestry is worth exploring.

Several healers I know can give you an Akashic Record reading, which offers a fascinating look into and lessons of your Soul through many lifetimes including this one. But Mikaela is the only person I know who helped me find the root cause of an ancestral problem back in an ancient civilization and then helped me clear it. She’s amazing!
INSTAGRAM: @mikaella.akashic

One of the most helpful ways to discover hidden dynamics in your family history is also the one that sounds the craziest. Led by an intuitive guide, a small group of people is assigned to role-play members of your family as they interact with and around you on a certain poignant topic. What pops out of people’s mouths is nothing short of astonishing (in one session 13 years ago, the guy role-playing my father looked up at me and said, eyes brimming with guilt, “I want to be closer to you, but I’m afraid she’ll be mad”—as he pointed to the woman role playing my mom. Ka-pow!). You’ll want to do your first one live—ask around your woo-woo circles for a local one—but once you know how it works, I also highly recommend the remote work of Nicole Haimari (read my review of her work HERE in the Healer Book).    
INSTAGRAM: @nicolehaimari

You can get a taste of the magic of Liz Hays on her Sisterhood Academy class HERE, but to dive deeper into your Inner Child, I highly recommend a 1-on-1 Zoom call with her. Liz connects to your IC psychically and can tap into its issues, needs and voice that you might not even be conscious of, and leads you on guided meditations to connect up to this vibrant aspect of you. She follows up her sessions with streams of text messages that channel your Inner Being’s (your higher self’s) wisdom and what’s needed as next steps. 
INSTAGRAM: @lovelizhays

Jeez, once you finally figure out that you, your Inner Child, and even the tiny strands of your DNA are pretty pissed off about a large number of things, the best thing in the world that you can do is go into a ceremony of sacred rage. This means standing and stomping with no one but yourself and a wise woman guide, like Muna el Fituri, who will hold space for and witness you as you romp around and scream out any anger you are still holding in the body. I recently did this in Los Angeles, and it provided an exorcism of deeply pissed off patriarchal parts within me—and there was nothing Poltergeist about it! Every human needs a regular rage romp done in a safe, private container. Muna can also work remotely. 
INSTAGRAM: @munaelfituri

Create an altar dedicated to your ancestors. Go dig up as many old photos as you can find—it’s best if you can represent as many generations as possible. When you keep them all in one place (especially one where you can sit and take a moment to connect to them through meditation, prayer or even just a respectful bow), it can be super powerful. These are your people! They birthed you and are looking out for you. For inspiration on one of the best home ancestral altars I’ve ever seen, take a look at this article.

Looking for more tools to ascend the ancestral ladder and make peace with your forebears? Here are a few that I recommend.

Reconciliation by Thich Nhat Hanh. One of my favorite spiritual authors, every word written by Thich Nhat Hanh seems to always be wrapped in a cocoon of warm, fluffy clouds. In this book, he teaches you to bring mindful awareness to your full spectrum of emotions and pain, plus he offers meditations and helpful exercises specifically designed for your Inner child.   

It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn. This book comes highly recommended by my friends working in the shamanic therapeutic space. I haven’t read it, but the title says it all!  

I recently started following @sacredancestry on Instagram and love the wisdom on everything from womb awareness to talking to the trees as one of the sanest things you can do. Personally, I love this quote: “When a woman prays to her ancestors, a thousand grandmothers answer her call.”

Torie Feldman, the founder of Sacred Ancestry, is hosting what she describes as “A 3-month journey of shamanic connection with the elements and the ancestors to hold you as you rebirth into your next chapter.” check it out here and let us know how it goes! 

This 6-day, 5-night retreat in Monte Velho, Portugal, will be guided on a transformative journey into the sacred depths of self-discovery and healing. We are not organizing this but we loved their concept of creating a sanctuary of connection—both with yourself and with others—inviting you to step into a space of deep reflection, ritual, and shared experience.  

DATES: June 1 - 6th
INSTAGRAM: @laormusic

Our Big Sister Jobi still has one spot in her intimate, six-day healing arts immersion in Hydra where five women will be invited to explore embodiment and expression at the intersection of memory and dreams. Email jobi@iamsefari.com to learn more. 

Dates: June 10 - 16
INSTAGRAM: @iamsefari

For a longer-term commitment, check out LiYing Lim, one of our favorite healers, who has offered wonderful tea ceremonies in our La DoubleJ Sacred Grotta. She also offers mentorship programs for in-depth spiritual guidance and healing using tea as a teacher. (She does more than just tea, fyi. Check her out here!).

DURATION: 6 months
INSTAGRAM: @iam_liying_lim