How Ancestral Connection Transforms Grief | Bernadette Thompson x Rachel Garrett

Grief isn’t the end of the story—it's often the beginning of a deeper spiritual awakening. In this powerful and heart-opening episode, ancestral healer and end-of-life doula Bernadette Thompson shares how her husband’s struggle with alcoholism became the catalyst for unexpected spiritual expansion and profound ancestral connection.

Bernadette reveals the moment everything changed: a visitation dream from her great-aunt Sister Lou delivering a simple, life-altering message—“we hear your prayers.” What followed was a series of undeniable spiritual experiences, including ancestors speaking through her during prayer in an Irish brogue she had never used before. Her story is a breathtaking reminder that our loved ones remain energetically connected to us long after they transition.

As a trauma-informed genealogist, Bernadette breaks down how:

• Generational trauma is imprinted on our DNA
• Patterns, coping mechanisms, and resiliency are inherited
• Science and spirituality overlap when it comes to ancestral healing

For those navigating grief, Bernadette offers compassionate guidance for recognizing signs from loved ones on the other side—unexpected songs, scents, pennies, flickering lights, and the subtle ways spirit uses energy to communicate.

This conversation invites listeners into a new understanding of death as a sacred transition, “as beautiful as a baby being born,” and illuminates how ancestral wisdom can transform pain into purpose.

If you’re ready to explore the healing waiting in your lineage, visit tellmeourstory.com to learn more about Bernadette’s work and begin your journey into ancestral remembrance.

Chapters

• 1:36 Introduction to Bernadette Thompson
• 2:09 Personal Journey Through Grief
• 3:49 Sister Lou: First Spiritual Visitation
• 9:12 Intuitive Ancestral Healing Explained
• 11:57 Recognizing Ancestral Patterns
• 15:06 Spirit Communication as Love
• 21:09 End of Life Doula Experience
• 26:41 Moving from Sorrow to Connection

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:48

Hello everyone, Welcome to our Spiritual Spotlight Series. Today I'm joined by Bernadette Thompson. She is the owner of Tell Me Our Story Ancestral Healing. She's an intuitive ancestral healer, grief and spiritual teacher, and a guide for those who've experienced loss and those wanting to discover more about their spirituality. Thank you so much for coming to the Spiritual Spotlight Series. I'm so happy you're here.

Speaker 2: 1:10

I'm so glad to be here, rachel, really happy.

Speaker 1: 1:12

I'm so excited. So, bernadette, can you maybe share with us your personal journey and how grief became a gateway to your spiritual awakening?

Speaker 2: 1:21

Oh, absolutely, I'm just like everybody else. I kind of was going through life and thinking that, okay, this is my life. I worked at a school. I worked with middle school kids who had trauma and grief, so I had a little background. And then, personally, my husband came to me and told me he was an alcoholic, and we knew that this was in his background. And when he finally said it to me, he kind of ended up going really heading down very quickly and passed away four and a half years later after he told me. So it was a very quick.

Speaker 2: 2:00

And so suddenly I'm in this very difficult situation. There's a lot of chaos Anybody that has addiction in their family they know this so there's chaos and uncertainty and trying to circle the wagons keep everything held together. And so during this time, I have a Catholic background. I'm not a practicing Catholic, but I started using a rosary just to, like, you know, just praying like somebody hear me, somebody know that this is what I'm going through. You know, just praying like somebody hear me, somebody know that this is what I'm going through. And and so what happened is I suddenly had a couple of incredible spiritual, spiritually transformative experiences, and the first one was my great aunt, sister Lou, happened to have a nun in the family, not a surprise Maiden name is O'Brien. There's eight of us. So Sister Lou, who was my great aunt and I didn't know her I met her a few times but I didn't know her well Suddenly came to me in a dream. But it was a visitation and in this, like while I was saying the rosary, I also had a very deep interest in ancestry and I'd always done so I imagined all my ancestors. I really was bringing the whole team in and I kept imagining them all sitting around a table with me while I was saying the rosary, and it was totally to just settle me down, like try and go to sleep. I mean that's what started it all. So Sister Lou came to sleep. I mean that's what started it all.

Speaker 2: 3:36

So Sister Lou came in this visitation and suddenly I'm in. It's a dream and it's like a Zoom, just the two of us, and I wouldn't look at her. I was afraid to look at her because I think I knew this was weird and not normal and she was in her habit and the room was kind of a golden room, which kind of you know what do you think? I love that so cool. The room was kind of a golden room, which kind of you know what do you think so cool? So we end up she grabs my hands, like gently, and has me look straight at her and she said we hear your prayers. And I woke up and so that was my first. I knew immediately I wasn't alone. I knew they were with me. I knew, they knew what I was going through and David was still alive at this point. So he, you know, but he was getting closer, but so it was.

Speaker 2: 4:21

There was a lot going on, and then I continued to use the rosary. I literally would put it under my pillow, just it just became, and I never it was actually listening to John Edward, who is an East Coast yes, yeah, he's an East Coast medium. He talked about using it as a way of meditation for him. So that's where the whole idea even came from. So a few weeks later, I'm still saying it, I'm usually saying it before I go to bed. Still saying it, I'm usually saying it before I go to bed.

Speaker 2: 4:53

And I had and I knew it was an ancestor channel through me and begin to say it in an Irish brogue, which meant that I was saying it in an Irish brogue, because anybody who has a Catholic background knows that when you say the rosary, you say it out loud, not in a loud voice, but an audible voice. And so I began to say it in an Irish brogue and there was a specific cadence. It was just, it was amazing. And so I looked her up the next like I went to bed, just, you know, really didn't know if I believed this looked her up the next day, didn't know who it was, but I looked at my tree and I energetically felt her come to me and so I knew it was her, and that's really. And she came back. Every time I said the rosary for months, she said it with me to let me know that they were all with me. And so that is the beginning of my spiritual awakening, and it has opened even more. Wow.

Speaker 1: 5:57

That is so profound. I love that.

Speaker 2: 5:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:59

That's amazing. So how did your husband struggle with alcoholism, shape your work and deepen your connection with spirit and with your ancestors?

Speaker 2: 6:10

spirit and with your ancestors. So what was what was amazing is one he had a beautiful soul and you know we kept. As soon as he came to me, we started working on plans, how to get them, you know, healthy, and so it really was watching him go deeper and deeper he would. It was kind of like he'd level off and then he'd drop, and then he'd level off and then he'd drop, and in those level off times he always rose a little bit and I knew that he was still inside there, but it was, um, it was really just, uh, incredibly difficult. And that's where the grief started, you know, knowing that I was not going to, we were not going to come out of this, no matter what it was going, things were never going to look the same the way that we thought they were. And so that is where and he had spiritual. He used to say the only way I'm getting into heaven is on your apron strings. I love that. So you know we had a we, so together we had a little bit. You know he didn't have a lot of spirituality, but he knew I did and and that's really what helped me understand what I was going through I also had a lot of training in trauma.

Speaker 2: 7:29

I worked with kids with grief and trauma and my understanding, being able to watch I have a psychology background and being able to watch myself go through this process, I understood what my triggers were. I understood what was happening and also understood how. I had to know that I couldn't handle this myself, and that's really why I started leaning on my well, you know, I didn't even expect it to be my ancestors. They just came in and that's really what. And so I and I've always done ancestral trees, not only for me, but it's been my side pick. And so, as this is opened, others, the ancestors of others, come to me while I'm building their trees and we, yeah, so it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 8:17

So I do want to talk about that. What is intuitive ancestral healing and how does it differ from traditional forms of, maybe, grief, support or therapy, or even just genealogy?

Speaker 2: 8:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:29

So, that's really really good. So, genealogy wise, I am a trauma informed genealogist, which means that I can, when I'm looking up the ancestry of somebody, I'm looking at it towards the what could have been passed down, what is there? It's really all centered around their story and both the not only the traumas or the difficulties they went through, but the resilience and my ancestors. I had done so much work that I leaned on my ancestors and their stories and that is really what helped me know that I had this resilience in me and this ability to continue. So intuitive ancestral healing is that the ancestors come to me and I really understand what it is they're trying to, who it is that's trying to connect and most times they're trying to let you know that we see you, we hear you and that we're supporting you. And sometimes you're living my life again, like sometimes it's. I mean, I have so many stories. We could go on for about two hours with the stories.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Love that.

Speaker 2: 9:51

But the deep connection we have with our ancestors and how they're part of our spiritual awakening. I say often that they are our first connection to the other side, because they know us and they're with us, and it is for people who are unsure about having this connection we. It is easier for them to understand that it's a loved one or an ancestor who's coming to them and allowing them to open the window a little to see the signs or to actually feel their presence, to actually feel their presence. So it gets. So that's where it all. I realized, as as David passed away, that this calling was becoming stronger in a different way and that spirit wanted me to to help others understand what I was, what I was going through and how this ancestral healing and understanding trauma and patterns of behavior and things that have been passed down help us heal when we understand it.

Speaker 1: 11:00

That's so cool. How do you guide clients to recognize and understand their ancestral patterns or emotional inheritances that they might be carrying?

Speaker 2: 11:09

Yeah, that is a super question. It's just, it's a journey. So if you and I were sitting down and getting started, we'd start a little bit with your ancestors. We always I start with both. I always say that this is a spiritual journey and this is part of what the work that I do with you. So if I was talking to you I would say you know, rachel, we're going to you, know, I want you to open up and understand this deep connection and how it's an energy connection and we can actually feel it, and then we will go back and begin to look at the stories of your ancestor.

Speaker 2: 11:54

You already know, some people know some things, some people have some work done, but they don't know how to look at it in the way that I do, which is really understanding what this group of ancestors or what this one particular ancestor has been through and what has passed down. So passed down meaning science tells us that genetically, our genes can be trauma and anxiety and all of those things can change our genes so they can get turned up like super turned up or super turned down one or the other, and so that is part of it. So if our ancestors have experienced trauma, that may be passed down to us and we may overreact to things that aren't as traumatic with more of a trauma response. So that's what it looks like when you're talking about the science part of it, and then the other side of it is patterns of behavior.

Speaker 2: 12:51

When you, if your parent, almost got hit by a car when they were a little kid because they ran out into the street to get a ball, they would spend their life telling you, don't go in the street, don't you make sure you look both ways? Don't that you know? And then you might do the same thing to your child. You've got to make sure you can't. You know, grandma almost got hit by a car, right, right, yeah. And so those things and that's just a really simple example but patterns of behavior around what it was that caused the trauma. It could be I'm all Irish, so it can be famine, you know I'm-.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Oh yeah, true Right, oh it's scarcity, like lack of food, true Right, oh it's scarcity Like lack of food, right you know, or it can be people that have come from war-torn countries.

Speaker 2: 13:49

You know people who have, you know, been, you know Holocaust, so you know anybody who has been persecuted and Right right in the ancestral history of everyone that it's helpful to get some of the story and you don't need the whole story to begin to heal and to feel this deep connection.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Oh, that makes sense. I love that. So you speak of spirit communication as love, strength and healing. How can people begin to trust that they are really connecting with loved ones on the other side?

Speaker 2: 14:18

Our loved ones, our ancestors, are always with us. We have developed this idea that there's this curtain and it's almost like it's an iron curtain and that we're on one side and we're on the other. But it is a spiritual connection, is an energetic connection. When you cross over, you're still that energy. Energy can't be created or destroyed. The old science that we learned and the feather or to the music that suddenly, the song that they're playing for us and they can actually, in their own way, manipulate things.

Speaker 2: 15:11

I mean sometimes really dramatic things, but for most of us it begins with suddenly there's a penny on the floor and you always, your grandmother always, talked about pennies, or you know, things like that are how, um, how they begin. And I teach people I use this phrase opening the window a little bit to allow people just to think that maybe this could be true. And when you experience it, when a loved one passes and you experience something again songs are a wonderful way suddenly their favorite song comes on. You know, you know you, you feel them. You feel them energetically, like chills in your body, or you know that's, that's the beginning and that is how and it can grow.

Speaker 2: 16:05

I now have a spirit guide that is with me. That is, you know. But all of this started as me, as you know, this one night when Sister Lou came to me, and before that I always thought that you know, from our Catholic, from my Catholic background, you only got to talk one way to spirit. You could pray to them, and you know, but that was it, like nothing came back.

Speaker 1: 16:29

So true, that's really good point. Yeah, so true.

Speaker 2: 16:32

And now we know that they can, they connect with us and that they will, as you begin to learn the language and I say it is a language as you begin to understand it, and everybody communicates differently, so there's no set, you know, for you it may be music, for somebody else it may be music, for somebody else it may be um smells. They always smell there, you know, as somebody had a cigar or somebody's perfume. Uh, spirit can, can bring those connections in and um, and once they do, you begin to develop, to develop a relationship with them, and then that's what's really cool is that it expands as you begin to believe more.

Speaker 1: 17:18

Absolutely One hundred percent, and then just be opening to the signs that your loved ones are bringing to you, and then, if it's not clear, ask for it to be a little bit louder. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 17:28

Exactly, you know, I know, you know, but that's no it's true, yeah, yeah, yes, true.

Speaker 1: 17:34

It's interesting because my brother passed away, I think. I think it's been like seven, eight years now. I'm looking at his cards over there and there's a song that keeps like running in my mind and I'm like okay, christopher, like I love you, you're there with me. It's a grossly inappropriate song, but I know it's my brother.

Speaker 2: 17:53

When did he pass Did?

Speaker 1: 17:56

he pass in 2017? I'm not sure. I think he passed. He passed a while ago.

Speaker 2: 18:01

I was just asking because David passed on 11-1-27. Oh wow, so I see 11-1-7s.

Speaker 1: 18:09

Oh, I love it. Oh yeah, that's like hello hello.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Yeah, A little story, because and it has to do with David but uh, so I was taking um, uh, I was with somebody in the car who I was taking somewhere and it was going to be an hour there and an hour back, and so I was like, all right, and it was COVID time I had them in the backseat. It was like um, and so I put on a playlist that I had, and it was a playlist that I had songs that David and I had used to listen to. You know a bunch of songs. So I'm talking to him in this ride. I'm like, play something for me, Play one of our songs, Play one of our songs. And he's not playing them. I'm like, really, You're not going to play and just as you said, so he plays this one song, Fat man in the Bathtub, which is by Little Feet, and I'm like I don't like that. I mean, I like tolerated that song just because it was kind of a silly song. So he was but I'm like all right.

Speaker 2: 19:08

And then I dropped this person off and I was going to the grocery store I'm like, okay, he's never going to play you know, and I just forgot about it, I had to go. It was raining out. I needed to get groceries. Yeah, I'm stopped at the light about to turn into the grocery store and the song Landslide by Stevie Nicks. Oh, what a great song and that song has come to me many times. So that song comes on and the license plate in front of me was 1117.

Speaker 1: 19:40

What a powerful sign from him saying I'm with you.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Yeah, so it's.

Speaker 1: 19:45

sometimes they can be incredibly and he doesn't do that all the time.

Speaker 2: 19:48

It's not like I walk around all day.

Speaker 1: 19:51

No, no, no, they can be subtle. Divine whispers. It's subtle, it's subtle. You have to be open to the signs and ask for the signs, yes, and then you'll get the signs.

Speaker 2: 20:03

Yes.

Speaker 1: 20:03

And then you can say they're not clear. Please make them clear.

Speaker 2: 20:06

Yes, yes, you know, I know this.

Speaker 1: 20:11

Like we'll talk about it. I know we'll be this we can have a whole episode just on signs but I do want to talk about you are also a certified in a life doula, which I think is amazing. How does that trauma, or trauma, how does that training inform your spiritual coaching and ancestral healing approach?

Speaker 2: 20:29

You know, it really was part of the journey and I had done some elder care management and as a part of that, I was like I want, I knew I knew how to talk to people about people crossing over. I had, no, no anxiety or you know, I was very, uh, helped people be at ease about talking and I decided that let me get a um end of life doula certification. And it was university of Vermont, through their medical college, that had this, yeah, that had this, this certification. So, um, it just it teaches you how to comfort people and explain to them what this process is and that it is as beautiful as a baby being born. When it's time to leave, even when it's heartbreaking and sometimes it happens when people are young, but it is them going home and that they are going to a beautiful place.

Speaker 2: 21:29

And you know, often when I had some elders that I was working with, I would say to them, literally holding their hand, saying you're going to go to sleep here and you're going to wake up there and just yeah, and it just really put a deeper understanding more.

Speaker 2: 21:52

It was a deeper understanding of how much I truly knew and how much of it was intuitive and instinctual and also helping them to connect with the other side. So I would feel I had this one woman and she really was. She wasn't in a coma coma, but she was not awake and I knew her husband was there, I could feel him and so I just kept saying to and I think his name was Bill, but I can't remember right now but I just kept saying Bill, and I was holding her hand and I was saying Bill's with you, he's coming, he's right here, and every time I said that she would, she would squeeze my hand. So she knew, you know, and there's so much to understand about that people on the other side, there's nothing. Our loved ones are that. It's beautiful and they're here to love us and support us and help us heal us.

Speaker 1: 22:55

I respect that you do that kind of work and that you've blended it into the services that you offer now Only because, like, as I'm a nurse, I know we talked about this before we hopped on I was a hospice nurse before, like you know, many years ago and I just have such a respect for people that are in that kind of field for being able to be delicate and you know death with dignity.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Yes.

Speaker 1: 23:19

And you're not alone and being okay to talk about it and then be shamed and I really like, and for me death is just a doorway and it's the same thing for you. You're like death is just the open window you know, it's just, it's right there. It's just a different dimension, you know.

Speaker 2: 23:36

I always say, just open it and let, let let the ancestors come in and you know, just love that, you know, and I also.

Speaker 2: 23:43

And it's so funny when you start to talk to people about death. I had this little 88-year-old 89-year-old. Her name was Ellen, she was four foot, nothing, poor thing, had this scoliosis, that was, you know. She was so sweet, and so she and I were joking one day and I said, ellen, when you get to heaven, you know? And she said, oh, I'm not going to heaven. She said I'm going to be cremated.

Speaker 1: 24:11

And she didn't know. Oh, my goodness, she didn't know.

Speaker 2: 24:14

And I said, oh my goodness. I said we all go to heaven. So we had this conversation and then about two weeks later she said to me. She said you know, I've flown on an airplane, I know what heaven is like, I know it's to be up there in the clouds, and so here she was, really close to crossing and not knowing. So that's why it is so when I help people grieve, you know that it's the understanding that the grief is there and you don't have to feel like it has to go away. But there are ways that we can understand it more. And when you really can open to that communication and you can, I mean I've helped so many people feel like they finally understand when they're talking with a loved one.

Speaker 1: 25:13

What a gift that you gave to her. Imagine feeling that way for all those years not because she wanted to be cremated, which is her choice and her right. That she wouldn't be going to heaven Wow, I've never heard that before. That's fascinating to me, and thankfully you were. You were that person for her, Like no, honey, you're going to heaven. Yeah, Wow.

Speaker 2: 25:36

We used to joke all the time, so for me it was just one of those things that I said you know when you get to heaven, yeah, yeah, right.

Speaker 1: 25:47

She's like what are you talking about? Yeah, wow, I'm not going there. Wow, wow. So many listeners feel isolated in their grief. How do you help them move from sorrow to a place of spiritual empowerment and connection?

Speaker 2: 26:00

How I do that, the way I work with them, is to to help them. You know, we just we have a conversation. Often, when I sit across from somebody, spirit tends to come in and often their loved one will come in. Or I don't do it as a evidential medium, it is more of letting the feelings, the loving feelings, come in. And so we'll start there and we'll talk about what maybe signs they, they think they might have been feeling, or, and just an understanding of what this grief process feels like as you go through it and they may begin. They may be at the beginning, where it is. Grief is so physical, like it overtakes your physical body, and that you feel, you feel heavy, you feel tired all the time and not able to move forward. But then when we understand all of that and we can begin to start talking about the loved one and the beautiful things about them, and what do they, what do they want to, how do they want them to come to them, like I try and bring them to that place where it feels a little bit lighter, and then we begin the journey of, you know, going over and making those connections and you know it takes a few times. Some people can do it, you know, right away. But I've worked with people that it's taken, you know, a few sessions. You know five or six seconds for them to finally say I think I really get it now. You know, I love that they're here.

Speaker 2: 27:45

And yeah, again, I could tell you stories. I had somebody who was so and I'll do it quickly, but she was so I want them like at the end of my day. And she mad at her husband for passing, and she because he also had an addiction, and she was really mad that he, you know, and she, finally, he loved to macrame. She said everything around the house was macrame. It's one night she couldn't sleep. This was a year plus after he passed away. She went out and sit on the front porch and there were macrame plant holders but they had candles in them. But they weren't candles you lit, they were the, the battery ones. And she's sitting there and these had been dead for who knows how long. Right, candles came on while she was sitting out there and that was finally when she accepted the that he was there with her.

Speaker 1: 28:45

So I love that.

Speaker 2: 28:47

Yeah, and everybody has a story like that Nobody. I love that yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:51

And everybody has a story like that. Nobody 100%, everybody, everybody, absolutely, absolutely. Honestly, we could have a whole episode about signs and when people say hello and that have parted. Before I ask you the last question if anyone is interested in learning more about you, where is the best place for booking a session or hearing your podcast or anything like that? Where's the best place for them to go to?

Speaker 2: 29:14

Best place to go is to tellmeourstorycom. It's my website and it's tell me our story, like the child asking the parent to tell me our story. So I want your listeners to think of themselves when they're like what did she say? It is think about you asking your parents to tell me our story. So that's where the name came from there and that's where you'll find everything. But I'm also on Facebook with Tell Me Our Story. I'm on YouTube with Tell Me Our Story. Yeah, I'm on all of them.

Speaker 1: 29:48

So everywhere, guys.

Speaker 2: 29:49

I know Everywhere, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 29:53

So, for our listeners who are currently grieving or feeling lost, what's one practical step they can take today to begin healing and connecting with their ancestors?

Speaker 2: 30:02

Okay, the best thing I can offer is to allow you. Well, there's a couple of things If you don't have an ancestor that you feel close to, but you have a loved one who's crossed over. Just think of the things that you associated with them, and the happy things, uh so, and the happy things, and you know it is, and you can let the grumpy things too, because sometimes spirit will show us a grumpy thing so that you know that it's them, you know they'll, they'll true, it's true.

Speaker 1: 30:39

They'll present themselves like how you remember them exactly right.

Speaker 2: 30:43

But if it's an ancestor, you know, looking back through pictures, wanting to know maybe is there more of a story here. Or if somebody in the family has an ancestry, just begin to know that there is more stories back there that can help you heal and learn, not only the what they went through, the trauma or the difficulties, but the resilience that they have passed down to you, because it was you were here, because they were resilient.

Speaker 1: 31:18

So I love that. That's beautiful Peace of ice. Brenda, I want to thank you so much for coming to the spiritual spotlight series is truly has been amazing to connect with you today. Thank you so much, oh thank you too, Rachel.

Speaker 2: 31:28

I'll see you soon.