It has become increasingly clear to many people that so much of what we live emotionally did not begin with us alone, but with our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

We often carry aspects of their unfinished emotional experiences, beliefs, survival patterns, and losses.

Recently, I found myself remembering a story my father used to tell repeatedly throughout my childhood.

As a young Palestinian refugee, my father went to Saudi Arabia to work as an accountant. When he arrived at the airport, the customs officers confiscated his trumpet because, at that time, music was forbidden in the country.

My father was devastated.

He felt heartbroken, powerless, and deeply lonely without what he described as his best friend — his trumpet.

Over the years, he often repeated this story while speaking about how much he sacrificed to earn money in Saudi Arabia, a place he strongly disliked and experienced as restrictive and emotionally barren.

Once he finally began earning money, he carefully saved toward his dream of attending university. However, his father — who struggled with gambling in Lebanon — demanded that he send all his money back to the family.

Again, my father felt heartbroken.

 

Using EFT Tapping for Ancestral Healing

As I reflected on this story recently, I decided to use EFT Tapping on my own emotional response to it.

The first thing I did was simply tap while telling the story of the trumpet.

Almost immediately, I burst into tears.

I could feel the sadness physically in my face and body. I tapped through multiple rounds on:

• how my father must have felt
• the heartbreak
• the loneliness
• the unfairness
• the suppression of his creativity and self-expression
• and how deeply I felt for him

My Setup Statements

Even though when my dad had his beloved trumpet confiscated at the airport in Saudi Arabia, he was devastated and heartbroken, I accept this is what happened and it is my dad’s story.

Even though when they took away my dad’s trumpet because music was forbidden, he felt heartbroken and treated unfairly, I accept this is what happened and it is my dad’s story, not mine.

Even though I feel so sad and teary for my dad when I imagine his trumpet being taken away, and I feel it in my face, I accept how I feel about what happened to him.

 

Reminder Phrases

• “his heartbreak”
• “that loss”
• “this sadness in my face”
• “his beloved trumpet”
• “he was all alone”
• “the pain in this story”
• “this unfairness”

After many rounds of tapping, the emotional intensity gradually reduced to a zero or one.

At that point, I moved to another layer of the story:
my father’s sacrifice.

 

The Beliefs Beneath the Story

As I tapped, I realized how much my father’s sacrifice was connected to:

• suppressing creative expression
• enduring emotional hardship to survive
• making money through self-denial
• losing his dream of university
• carrying responsibility for the family

I then began exploring the beliefs that may have formed through absorbing this story over many years.

I asked myself:

• Do I sacrifice or limit my own enjoyment and pleasure?
• Do I feel I must sacrifice myself in order to honor my father?
• Do I believe that making good money requires exhaustion, self-denial, or suffering?

To all of these questions, my answer was yes.

This helped me recognize how deeply inherited beliefs and unconscious loyalties can shape our behaviors, emotions, and nervous systems.

In Family Constellation work, this is sometimes described as unconscious loyalty — where we unconsciously repeat emotional patterns, limitations, or sacrifices in order to remain connected to our family system.

Once I recognized these patterns consciously, I used EFT to tap on the beliefs themselves.

 

Ancestral Healing Through EFT

For me, ancestral healing is not about blaming our families or becoming trapped in stories from the past.

It is about compassionately recognizing what may have been emotionally inherited:

• beliefs
• fears
• survival strategies
• grief
• suppression
• silence
• sacrifice

When we bring awareness to these patterns and process the emotional charge connected to them, we create the possibility of responding differently in our own lives.

Sometimes healing begins simply by allowing ourselves to fully feel the heartbreak that previous generations never had the safety or opportunity to process.

Love & Blessings,

Lena

Ps If you feel called to become a competent and compassionate EFT tapping practitioner check my website for the next immersive 13-week certification course that starts soon

https://lenabahou.com/eft-training-certification/