Michelle Ayn Tessensohn - The Way of Self-Healing

03/09/2026

I'm in awe of the smiles of my grandparents, Sergeant Geoffrey and Mrs Zena Tessensohn, here. They had just evacuated Singapore, days after getting married, in February 1942.

They landed in Indonesia separately and had a belated honeymoon before parting, then met by chance again in Australia, where my grandfather joined the Royal Australian Air Force. This article was published on April 1st 1942, by The Age, a Melbourne Newspaper.

I marvel at the courage of two newlyweds who knew no one when they got to Australia but chose to make it their home for four years. In that time, they had their first child, my father, Joseph Jerome Tessensohn, and found lifelong friends whose descendants we are still in touch with.

I can't imagine what it's like going through a war, dodging bombs, surviving on rations, and sending letters back home every month through the Red Cross, hoping that your family know that you're alive. Only two letters made it to family.

My grandparents were repatriated after the war and reunited with surviving loved ones in Singapore, who were all very thin. Sadly, both my grandfather's parents and my grandmother's father had died during the war.

I am thankful to the land and people of Australia for giving my grandparents shelter during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, and in particular, Geelong, or Djilang, the traditional land of the Wadawurrung people of the Kulin Nation, for giving my father a birthplace.

It was very meaningful for me to co-teach my first Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive in Melbourne, Victoria, last month, and give back in this way to a land and community that gave so much to my ancestors.

I was honoured to co-lead with Lyndal Walker Conversations In Time and have the rock-solid support of Eliza-Beth Brennan Wildsacredmedicine, who both worked with me so wholeheartedly, making it a joy and a pleasure.

Lyndal and I are excited to plan our next intensives in Asia and Oceania. We are also offering Ancestral Circles for those already familiar with the Ancestral Lineage Healing method.

Go to the link in the comments for more about the Ancestral Circles or to register for the first circle next Tuesday, September 8th, from 5-6.30pm Singapore/7-8.30pm Melbourne.

28/08/2026

For those of you already familiar with the Ancestral Lineage Healing process, Lyndal and I are offering these Asia-Oceania time-friendly Ancestral Circles starting next month.

Find out more here: https://www.conversationsintime.org/ancestrallineagehealing

24/08/2026

We did it! Many thanks to everyone who supported and sent their good wishes for our three day ancestral healing intensive in Melbourne, Australia. Special mention to the land of Naarm, Melbourne, and their traditional owners, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation. The Nation whose land gave my grandparents shelter during the war, and my father was born on. Also our supporter, Eliza-Beth Brennan, who took the role of three. Most of all, all the participants who shared their hearts and trusted Lyndal and me to guide them through the ancestral lineage healing and reconnection process, we do not take your trust lightly and hope to keep improving to be better facilitators for you.

Lyndal and I are excited to be planning our next co-led intensive in Singapore next year, watch this space!

24/07/2026

Here are five more reasons to join us for the Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive this August. Let us know soon if you want us to hold you a place as there are three places left.

17/07/2026

If you're thinking of joining us for the Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive next month, here's why you should.

12/06/2026

If you are from South-East Asia or the Pacific, the music of the indigenous Taiwanese might speak to you in the way that it did me. Like a prehistoric memory long forgotten, of wayfinding ancestors who crossed the waters from Taiwan, navigating by the wind and the stars, reaching as far as Rapa Nui and the Americas. It has been described as heavenly.

Throughout history, cultures have sung to connect with their ancestors and learn about heritage, ecology and mythology. These oral traditions are living stories that remind us of our lineage and genetics. They teach us about values and social responsibilities and how to release stress, restore our strength and survive.

In Australia, First Nations people map Country with Songlines about water, plants and animals. In Ireland, Celtic keeners held their community while they grieved. Each ballad sung by the Taiwu Ballads Troupe is intricately linked to their ancestral lineages and teaches the Paiwan children about themselves.

Songs are an essential element of Ancestral Lineage Healing intensives. They help us create a container and spiritual bridge.

We awaken our connection to our ancestors when we sing their songs.

Through breath and melody, we build a sacred vessel for healing.

This is medicine, helping us remember who we are, where we come from, and what we might become.

A profound invocation of spirit, ancestors, and the heavens.

This is how we heal through ritual.

Learn more about healing through ritual with Conversations In Time and me in June at the free online event, The Power of Ritual in Ancestral Lineage Healing.

Last few days to register at the early bird price for the Melbourne Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive in August.

Link in comments for more and to register.

I took this video of the Taiwu Ballads Troupe at the Rainforest Music Festival in Sarawak, Malaysia, in 2017. Apologies for how shaky it is. It may be better to listen rather than watch.

10/06/2026

Lyndal Walker and I would like to invite you to this free online event on June 29th at 11.30am Spain/5.30pm Singapore/7.30pm Melbourne, where we will talk about what it means to do ancestral healing through ritual.

Conversations In Time

WHAT WE'LL EXPLORE

Connecting with spirit:
How this practice works, why it's accessible to everyone, and why showing up is healing in itself, for you and for those who were punished before you for doing the same.

Ritual elements in intensive work:
Offerings, song, and drumming as living vessels and how ritual creates the conditions for deep ancestral contact during intensive practice.

Working in a group:
The amplifying effect of collective spirit work, the healing of shared ancestral wounds, and personal examples, including cultural healing witnessed in Granada, Hamburg and Belfast, of what emerges when lineages meet.

The link to register is in the comments.

25/05/2026

Every so often white cockatoos will sit in the trees around my apartment. Sometimes they will call out and sometimes not. This morning they called to me as I was preparing food in the kitchen. There were about seven of them who settled in the bodhi tree next to my balcony, one of whom looked directly at me.

Known in many traditions as the bringers of rain, the cockatoo signals change, renewal, relief, and divine timing.

In Australia, the cockatoo is a profoundly sacred spiritual guide that symbolises wisdom, community, transformation, resilience, and acts like a messenger between realms, connecting the physical with spirit. They are a reminder of deep ancestral wisdom and kinship bonds. That we are interconnected with nature.

21/05/2026

Some people feel that ancestral healing isn't for them because they don't trust their families and fear making contact with ancestors. They come from hurtful families and are still dealing with the fallout from the harm.

If this was your early life experience and you have chosen not to enable and perpetuate abuse, it is a testament to your empathy, wisdom, and strength. It can feel counterintuitive to challenge harmful behaviour when it’s perpetrated in groups and is a dynamic that has been going on for a long time, possibly generations. Most people will just go along, if for no other reason than to avoid being the one who is bullied, berated or worse.

Abuse can also be subtle and hard to spot, like when families single out a family member to project their dysfunction onto so they can avoid accountability. This is just as debilitating. These stressful dynamics repeat in our adult lives and become internalised, developing into mental health struggles or chronic and serious illness.

But maybe deep down you knew there was another way.

You have a right to be treated with dignity and for others to be accountable for their behaviour toward you. This doesn’t always come from your family, but your well and wise blood ancestors love and respect you fully and unconditionally. They have your back.

If they were harmful to you or others when they were alive, in my experience they want to atone for this and offer their support to you now wholeheartedly. They can see the bigger picture and beyond the limited perspectives they had when they were living. By helping you, they help themselves to elevate and become more vibrant and well. But there must be willingness to relate to them.

There is an enormous source of support, healing and wisdom available to us when we connect with ancestral guides who have our very best interests at heart. They are closer and more available than you think. You are not alone and never were. There is light within reach. Just look up.

21/05/2026

Lyndal Walker is an artist, ritualist, and ancestral healing practitioner who shares in this interview about healing, ancestors, ritual, spirit, culture, and how she was given a very clear sign that her skepticism was not always helpful when she stepped into ancestral healing.

You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts here:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/53xcLWZbPro6k8jyeHTpgO?si=a472bd27dbed48ab

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/turned-on-wild-free-sexy-in-your-midlife/id1500335240

Last year, we started to co-run an Asia-Oceania practitioner network group, and this August, we're co-leading an Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive.

https://www.conversationsintime.org/intensive

Join our 3-day ancestral lineage healing intensive in Melbourne to connect, heal, and foster cultural and family well-being through guided rituals and ancestral practices.