Author: Terry Malatji

Signs of a Toxic, Addictive and Abusive Relationship with Ancestral Family Spirits, The Root Cause & How to Avoid Entering Into Such Relationships.

In the journey of ancestral awakening, many descendants are taught to honor their lineage and walk with the spirits of those who came before them. But what happens when that relationship becomes imbalanced? What happens when the spiritual connection that was once rooted in reverence, begins to harm rather than heal?

While all ancestors are part of the lineage, not all are evolved enough to guide the living soul. Not every spiritual bond is sacred.

In this article, I intend to explore the red flags that indicate that  a relationship with ancestral spirits has turned toxic, addictive and abusive. 

My intention is not to discourage connection, but to encourage discernment and ensure that your relationship with your ancestors is meaningful and healthy. Your spiritual walk with your ancestors should empower you and not enslave you.

Signs of a toxic, addictive and abusive relationship with ancestral family spirits

1. Emotional Manipulation by the ancestral spirit: You constantly feel fear or guilt if you miss a ritual, delay an offering or don’t follow through on spiritual demands. The ancestor threatens your peace and well-being as a form of control, rather than guiding you with love and wisdom.

2. Obsessive Ritual Behavior: You feel compelled to perform rituals repeatedly without clarity or peace. Ritual becomes an addiction, and skipping a step fills you with anxiety, shame or dread. Instead of a tool, the ritual becomes a chain.

3. Loss of Personal Sovereignty, Free Will & Freedom: You stop trusting your own intuition. You believe that every decision must be run past the ancestors first. You begin to feel like your life is no longer yours to direct, but a script written by your ancestors.

4. Isolation from Support Systems: You begin cutting off loved ones who question your spiritual walk. You feel misunderstood by everyone who is not “spiritually awake” and begin to trust only the ancestral spirits even when that those spirits  feel draining, confusing or overwhelming.

5. Emotional and Physical Drain: After engaging with the ancestors, you often feel exhausted, heavy or emotionally scattered. Instead of clarity and peace, you leave rituals feeling spiritually burnt out.
6. Dependency for Every Decision: You no longer feel confident making even the smallest choices without spiritual validation. Your self-trust erodes and fear of punishment replaces your inner compass.

7. Reinforcement of Old Trauma: The ancestors constantly brings up pain, vengeance or family drama. Instead of supporting your evolution, they replay your suffering and holds you emotionally hostage to the past.

8. Red Flags Disguised as Tradition: The spirit tells you to drink, smoke, or harm your body to “awaken your gift.” Toxic behavior is defended in the name of culture or tradition. Painful rituals are normalized, even when they clearly erode your health or dignity.

9. Neglect of Earthly Responsibilities: You begin prioritizing rituals, offerings and time at the family altar over relationships with your Self, children, partner and career. Your presence in the physical realm fades in the name of spiritual service.

11. Excessive Financial & Energetic Investment: You continue pouring money and energy into rituals aimed at appeasing the ancestors, or gifts for the ancestors, even while struggling to meet your own needs -financially, mentally, physically and emotionally. You feel pressured to give more, even when you are drained.
12. New Unhealthy Traits Surface: After the relationship begins, you start exhibiting behavior that feels unlike your true self such as  control, rage, secrecy, smoking, drinking or spiritual superiority – to name a few. The connection seems to feed your shadow rather than your higher self.

It is interesting that some of these signs are also visible in relationships between religious people who are indoctrinated with a deity packaged by human beings and presented as a God. Anyone who fall into these traps without doing the inner work is likely to experience these signs.  

The Root Cause: Why These Toxic Dynamics Form

Before we walk with the spirit realm, we must first walk with ourselves.
A toxic spiritual relationship doesn’t begin in the spirit world. It begins within. Here are the root causes that often lead to unhealthy ancestral dynamics:

1. Lack of Inner Work Before Spiritual Initiation

Many enter ancestral practices before doing the foundational healing work which includes:

• Self-discovery
• Self-development and 
• Self-healing. 

Without inner stability, spiritual work becomes externalised and vulnerable to manipulation, abuse,  illusion and desperation.

Benefits of doing the Inner Work:

• Strengthens your knowledge of energy and how it affects creation and ability to attract spirits that are aligned with your vision, life purposes and calling. 
• Gives you knowledge of your physical DNA and spiritual DNA and how they affect the family lineage ground.
• Deepens  your understanding of how the spiritual realm operates.
• Sharpens your skills of discernment to help you identify the motives behind the ancestral spirits that demand a relationship with you.
• Cleanses and strengthens your aura and offering spiritual protection.
• Equips you with the Principles and Tools of Creation that will help you to remember that you are a conscious creator who is not a passive receiver. To learn more about Principles and Tools of Creation, I recommend that you get yourself a copy of the book.
• Reveals your triggers.
• Helps release and heal your traumas. When you are healed, you will not attract unhealed and manipulative ancestral spirits. 
• Helps to reveal your own abilities that are worthy of being explored, developed, loved, revered and enjoyed. 
• Helps to reveal the beautiful and positive attributes of your inner energy which are love, peace, joy, happiness, kindness, equality, freedom, abundance, tranquility, balance, positive energy, empathy, tolerance, health and light. This is where we all should begin.

2. Desperation for Solutions

Desperation opens doors to any and every spirit willing to respond, regardless of alignment. When we are desperate for money, healing, protection, or answers, we may submit to guidance that disempowers us, simply because we fear that nothing else will come.

3. Lineage Saturated in Unhealed Ancestral Energy

Many family lineages are thick with unresolved traumas that manifest in multiple ways.  Unfortunately, without proper filtering, we don’t just connect with wise ancestors, we also awaken those who are still stuck in their own traumas. It is important to understand that not all ancestral energy is ready to guide. Some need healing. Some need light and some simply need to be acknowledged and released.

4. Lack of Understanding Around Conscious Creation

Many descendants believe that ancestors create life for them, instead of walking beside them as co-creators. This misunderstanding creates perpetual dependency, fear-based devotion and passive living. You are the Alpha and the Omega of your own life. You are the table. Ancestors are invited guests, not rulers of your destiny.

Reclaim Your Power

True spiritual connection will liberate, expand and uplift you. Any path that consistently causes emotional harm, disempowerment or fear is not the path that you must walk, even if it wears the cloak of ancestry.

You are allowed to question. You are allowed to step back. You are allowed to say no. Spiritual sovereignty is not rebellion. It is who we are as human beings You are not just a descendant. You are a divine being.

To learn how to filter the ancestral spirits or energies read this article .

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