🌍 Retracing My Roots: Part 1_BThe Hard Truth — Trauma, Colonization, and Survival in My DNA

When I opened my ancestry results, I expected to feel curiosity, maybe even excitement. And at first, I did—seeing Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Benin & Togo felt like a homecoming. But then, my eyes stopped on 10% Germanic Europe.

In that moment, my gift of discernment and empathy—the same gift that helps me nurture and heal others—flooded me with something heavy. I felt it in my body: a wave of nausea, a knot in my stomach, a deep sadness in my chest.

I didn’t just see numbers on a screen.

I saw a story.

A story of trauma.

A story of displacement.

A story of my ancestors’ bodies being taken and used under the violence of colonization and the transatlantic slave trade.

🌿 DNA Holds Memory

Our DNA is not just biological code. It is memory. It remembers the songs our ancestors sang to survive. It remembers the herbs they used to soothe wounds they could not show. And it remembers the pain—the separation, the exploitation, the attempts to erase whole peoples and cultures.

Seeing that 10% is not about shame. It’s about acknowledging the truth. My blood carries both the wisdom of Africa and the imprint of European colonization. And my body reacts because some part of me, deep and ancestral, knows what that means.

✨ Survival Is in My DNA Too

But here’s the sacred truth: What was meant to destroy us did not win. That same DNA also carries resilience. Courage. Creativity. Spiritual power. My African ancestors survived unimaginable trauma and still passed down life, legacy, and faith. That survival is in me, too.

🕊️ Turning Truth into Restoration

I choose to hold space for this reality—not to glorify it, but to heal from it.

I choose to honor my ancestors by breaking cycles of trauma, reclaiming my body, and walking in wholeness.

I choose to be a living embodiment of restoration: eating to nourish the body my ancestors built, praying to cleanse the wounds they carried, and teaching the next generation to walk in freedom.

As I sat with the weight of this truth, I also felt gentle nudges from the quieter corners of my DNA, the smaller percentages, the faint whispers of ancestry that could easily be overlooked. Yet even 1% carries memory. Before I step forward into the nourishment of my Nigerian roots, I want to pause and honor these whispers. They, too, are part of my story.

Join me in Part 1C: The Whispers of My Bloodline, where I reflect on the subtle but powerful 1%—the reminders that no matter how small, every ancestor deserves to be acknowledged.

Because the hard truth is also a holy one: Our DNA carries memory, but it also carries miracles. And as I retrace my roots, I am learning to transform that memory into movement, and that movement into healing.

It’s All Connected.

💬 Call to Reflection

If you’ve ever discovered something painful in your ancestry, I invite you to sit with it gently. Breathe. Write. Pray.

Ask: What might my body be remembering? How can I honor my ancestors by healing myself today?

Share your reflections below, so together we can hold space for truth and restoration.