I’ve pined after those beautiful altars that pop up on my Instagram feed. The ones that have home-grown herbs wrapped with twine, burning candles, enough crystals to build a small hill, and, of course, jewelry or another relic that has been passed down for generations.

For a long time, I thought I was envious of the gorgeous aesthetics, but eventually came to the realization that I’m actually envious of the sense of belonging to something greater than myself. The sense of going back to roots, to ancestors.

I was found in a box on the side of a road in a rural part of China. I was taken to an orphanage. I was given to a foster family, only to be ripped away and given to foreigners and taken to the other side of the globe at nine months old.

I love my adopted family. They are my family, but they do not look like me, their blood does not run through my veins.

When I talk about “going back to my roots,” it brings up the painful questions of “what are my roots? Where do I come from? Who am I and what is my place in this world?”

My search for home started in ninth grade, when I started learning Mandarin Chinese for my language requirement. I continued Chinese Language and Culture as my second major when I went to college. However, despite 8 am classes Monday through Friday (the only time slot available for Chinese classes) and a summer semester abroad in China, I was still left inexplicably alone and answerless in my quest to find my roots, my home, my ancestors.

Connecting with my ancestors, even feeling connected to my own birth parents, is not something that comes easily – even to this day. I have to be in the right headspace, the right emotional state; if I’m not, the downward spiral hits hard and fast, and it feels impossible to stay afloat.

However, I have finally come up with five-step process that I use to help connect with my roots:

Meditation / Grounding: First, I check in with myself on a surface level. How am I physically feeling, have I eaten/drank enough? Am I fidgety? Lethargic? Then, I go deeper: how is my emotional and mental state? Am I frazzled? Overwhelmed? Sleepy? Finally, I ground myself using energy visualization. I picture roots growing out of the base of my spine, into the ground, reaching all the way across the world – to my home country. To a place that feels both foreign and safe to me. To the bustling streets I remember from my college study abroad trip, and the rural fields I remember from my family trip to China when I was a child. To a place that is stored in my memory as a feeling because I was too young to truly lay down sight, touch, and sound memories.
Direct focus towards energy, rather than the lack of material items: Energy cannot be created or destroyed. My personal belief is that the higher power is merely the energy of the universe that connects us all. While artifacts, clothes, jewelry, and other material items can be taken or lost, the energy of my family heritage cannot. I have another family out there, somewhere, and the same energy that runs through them, runs through me.
The ever fine-line of “am I just projecting” vs “yes, this feeling is legitimate:” This is always a fun one. From tarot to magic spells, I sometimes have hesitations – am I really doing this correctly? Am I projecting my want to get in touch with my ancestors? On the flip side, there needs to be a certain openness and vulnerability while tapping into this deeply rooted family energy. (I protect myself from malevolent forces/energy by creating a light “shield” around my being before I begin trying to connect and reach out, and then allow myself to feel everything.) This is the hardest part. Letting go of doubt, unsureness, and skepticism. Allowing myself to just be.
Write: Write down everything. I usually have sharpies or colored pens and a notebook nearby. I write images, colors, words, phrases, anything that comes to mind. I analyze and sort through the notes later, but in the moment, I jot down everything I can.
Post self-care: This is possibly the most important step of the whole process. Sometimes, I feel like I didn’t get anything at all and that’s okay. Sometimes, the feelings are very overwhelming and that’s okay, too. Afterwards, I cleanse my energy through light and color visualization, I “pull” the roots back up into the base of my spine, and I thank the universe for letting me tap into its higher energy. Some days, self-care is immediately going over the notes, re-writing the illegible portions, and pondering on why I wrote these notes. Other times, it will be staring in a mirror, thinking about where I get my eyes from, if I look more like my mother or father, and wondering if either of them have a matching birthmark on their chin. Anything that makes me feel empowered afterwards is key to the post self-care.

I don’t do this ritual often, as it does usually exhaust me for a bit, but when I do, I get an exceptional feeling of being home and grounded – even when I don’t write anything at all! Just knowing that I have a routine to turn to when I’m going through an identity crisis is enough to feel more at ease, at peace, no matter how far from “home.”