Grace Alvarez Sesma
Explore an Indigenous approach to ancestral healing that reveals how generations of migration, assimilation, and colonial expansion have reshaped our relationship with ancestry.
Learn how to release inherited burdens, reclaim your lineage, and carry its wisdom forward for future generations through guided practices, visualizations, and rituals.
Every family carries stories. Some are spoken with pride around the dinner table. Others were buried by necessity — hidden beneath generations of migration, survival, assimilation, and colonial change.
Even when those stories are forgotten, their imprint often remains. They can quietly shape how we see ourselves, where we feel we belong, the burdens we carry, and the possibilities we believe are available to us.
Ancestral healing begins by bringing those hidden influences into the light — with compassion rather than judgment.
Join curandera and cultural educator Grace Alvarez Sesma for a transformative 7-week live video course exploring an Indigenous approach to ancestral healing that invites you to reconnect with a living inheritance, so your lineage can become a source of strength and healing.
Together, you’ll discover that ancestry is far more than a family tree. It’s a living relationship with those who came before you, the lands they called home, the traditions they carried, the communities that shaped them, and even the family you’ve consciously chosen. As your understanding of lineage expands, so can your understanding of yourself.
Maestra Grace affirms that families across the world have been shaped by migration, displacement, assimilation, colonial expansion, and countless other historical forces that required people to adapt in order to survive.
Sometimes languages were forgotten. Spiritual traditions were hidden. Family stories went untold. Parts of people’s identities had to be set aside in order to forge an easier path for future generations.
Those adaptations often helped our ancestors endure. Yet many of us continue to carry their unintended legacy — feeling disconnected from our roots, uncertain where we belong, or burdened by patterns we never realized we inherited.
Yet, alongside those burdens, our ancestors also passed forward extraordinary gifts: resilience, creativity, intuition, courage, wisdom, and an enduring capacity to begin again.
Under Maestra Grace’s tutelage, you’ll learn how to map your lineage in a way that includes ancestors whose stories were lost through migration and historical disruption.
Through guided visualizations, heart-centered meditation, reflective journaling, grounding practices, and other experiential exercises, Maestra Grace will gently guide you in exploring the influences that have shaped your family story while learning to distinguish inherited burdens from the talents, values, and inner resources that have also been passed through your lineage.
Rather than simply looking back, you’ll begin releasing what was never yours to carry and reclaiming the parts of your ancestry that can support your life today, cultivating greater self-trust, resilience, and a deeper sense of connection to who you are.
As compassion replaces blame and understanding deepens, healing becomes possible — not only for yourself, but for the generations connected to you.
Ultimately, ancestral healing isn’t only about honoring those who came before you…
It’s also about becoming more intentional about what you’ll pass forward.
Perhaps the greatest gift of this work is realizing that you aren't simply the product of your ancestors' choices — you also have the opportunity to become an ancestor who changes the story.
As you reconnect with the wisdom, resilience, and love that have always existed within your lineage, you'll begin carrying them forward with greater intention, helping create a legacy of healing and belonging for generations yet to come.
During this soul-nurturing course, you’ll:
- Discover how your family story may hold the key to understanding the deeper roots of who you are — and restoring a deeper sense of belonging
- Create a living lineage map that expands your understanding of ancestry beyond genealogy and bloodlines to include land, culture, spirit, and chosen family
- Recognize how colonization, historical disruption, migration and survival patterns shape identity and inherited burdens — and begin releasing what was never yours to carry
- Reconnect with the resilience, traditions, and wisdom that have endured through your lineage
- Experience guided visualizations, reflective journaling, and grounding practices that help you build a living relationship with your ancestors
- Learn an Indigenous approach to ancestral healing rooted in reciprocity, respect, and relationship — without judgment, appropriation, or romanticizing the past
- Create meaningful, ancestral practices that honor your lineage while deepening your sense of belonging and connection
- Begin living as a conscious future ancestor — helping create a stronger foundation of healing, resilience, and wisdom for generations yet to come
Shift faculty and founder of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Weeks
In this 7-week transformational course, Maestra Grace will guide you through the skills and competencies you’ll need to examine the emotional weight handed down through generations, release what isn’t yours, and rediscover the deep wisdom that flows through your lineage.
Join the Livestream — or Stream Later to Watch at Your Convenience
You’ll connect with Maestra Grace and experience her teachings through livestreaming video via any connected device. This connection is easy to use and will enhance the impact of Maestra Grace’s transmissions. Can’t make it live? After each class, you can stream the video and audio recordings to enjoy anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Course Sessions are on 2026-09-02 5:00:00 pm.
This course will feature LIVE teachings, interactive sessions, experiential practices, and Q&A with Maestra Grace. Each session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones, so you’ll learn the practices, rituals and principles to initiate ancestral healing and reconnect with the strengths, abilities, and ways of your culture.
Reclaiming Ancestral Memory: Build a Safe Foundation for Meaningful Ancestral Healing (2026-09-02 5:00:00 pm)
In this opening module you'll gain an understanding of ancestral soul wounds and begin to develop a foundation for reconnecting with your roots in a safe, ethical, and empowering way.
Starting with a decolonizing exploration of identity and memory, you'll learn about grounding practices, community agreements rooted in care, and reflective inquiry. In the process, you'll discover what you were taught to forget as a result of colonial policies and societal expectations - and learn to distinguish authentic ancestral work from spiritual consumerism.
In this session you'll:
- Understand ancestral work beyond genealogy
- Practice a Sabino Tree guided visualization to heighten awareness and revitalize your energy
- Learn colonization's impact on memory, identity, land, and lineage
- Reclaim your ancestral connection as your birthright
- Explore safety, consent, and boundaries in spiritual/ancestral practice
- Learn a decolonized definition of ancestral work
Mapping Your Lineage to Discover the Ancestors, Stories & Connections That Shaped You (2026-09-09 5:00:00 pm)
This week you explore the full web of ancestors who shape your life - blood, land, culture, chosen, and spiritual. Maestra Grace will show you how to practice decolonized story-based mapping. She'll also teach you reflective journaling to help you honor the known, the unknown, the erased, and the silenced - all the while tracing migration, displacement, and survival.
Along the way, you'll discover how certain memories may be informing your daily life. You'll leave with a living lineage map and a deeper sense of belonging, context, and connection.
In this session, you'll:
- Learn what "ancestors" means beyond biology (blood, land, culture, spirit)
- Experience a guided visualization to explore memories stored in your body and how they inform your daily life.
- Complete a Lineage tree, and journal about who lives in your memory, body, and silences
- Find out why ancestral reclamation matters in contemporary life
- Understanding migration, displacement, and survival stories
- Discover the difference between honoring, healing, and reclaiming
Recognizing Inherited Wounds & Inherited Wisdom to Release What Was Never Yours to Carry (2026-09-16 5:00:00 pm)
This session offers a compassionate space to explore the patterns and beliefs woven through your family line and the lingering effects of colonialism on memory, language, and identity.
Through a gentle guided visualization, you'll discern what has been inherited and what can be released with care. Optional, consent-based sharing allows your story to be witnessed without judgment, creating a subtle yet profound shift toward clarity, freedom, and embodied liberation.
In this session, you'll:
- Recognize how both inherited wounds and inherited resilience continue to shape your life today
- Participate in a guided visualization to help you uncover how and where you are holding anger, sadness, and unforgiveness
- Learn about cultural suppression and cultural survival
- Discover how colonial systems shape family patterns and coping strategies
- Understand ancestral gifts vs. ancestral burdens
- Use journaling prompts to uncover personal lineage themes
Repairing Your Lineage: Healing Without Bypassing or Romanticizing the Past (2026-09-23 5:00:00 pm)
Journey into your ancestral story with honesty and compassion as you explore the fullness of your lineage. This session reveals the multidimensional web of your history - woven through bloodlines, land-based roots, cultural inheritance, chosen family, and spiritual connections.
You'll honor ancestors, while also acknowledging histories of migration, displacement, and survival. In the process, you'll gain a more grounded understanding of where you come from and how these stories continue to shape your life.
In this session, you'll:
- Learn what healing means in a context that decenters colonialism
- Practice a body scan visualisation, sensing emotions/beliefs that hold you back from accepting wellness
- Discover how trauma, patterns, and beliefs pass through generations
- Recognize what you've been carrying that was never yours to begin with
- Come to understand that repair as relational, not individual
- Honor ancestors who caused harm and those who protected us
- Learn how to reconnect without reenacting colonial harm
Reclaiming Cultural Memory & Ancestral Wisdom By Restoring What was Taken, Hidden, or Silenced (2026-09-30 5:00:00 pm)
Maestra Grace will invite you to explore cultural memory as both resistance and resilience, guiding you to reconnect with meaningful traditions, practices, and ways of knowing that may live within your family history.
With gentle discernment, you'll reflect on what is truly yours to reclaim - and what is not - while identifying the strengths, values, and gifts carried through your family traditions. This exploration supports a more authentic, grounded relationship with your ancestral inheritance and the traditions that may have been forgotten or suppressed.
In this session, you'll:
- Discover how cultural memory preserves resilience, identity, and belonging across generations
- Reclaim language, foodways, stories, rituals, and land-based knowledge
- Reflect on discernment - what's yours to reclaim, and what's not
- Identify strengths, values, and gifts from your lineage
- Reconnect with your culture's forgotten or suppressed traditions
Creating Ancestral Practices That Honor Your Lineage With Integrity (2026-10-07 5:00:00 pm)
Maestra Grace will teach you the art of building rituals that honor lineage without repeating patterns of extraction.
This session will cover daily, weekly, and seasonal ways of tending to and nurturing ancestral relationships through reciprocity and relational responsibility. You'll learn to recognize and avoid colonial habits in spiritual practice while cultivating discernment - listening for what is truly yours. What results will be an authentic, sustainable ancestral practice rooted in integrity, connection, and cultural respect.
In this session, you will:
- Learn daily and seasonal ancestral practices
- Create an ancestral ritual practice aligned with what you've learned about yourself and your lineage
- Creating your personal remembrance space and ethical alter creation
- Discover the importance of reciprocity and relational responsibility
- Learn how to avoid colonial patterns in your spiritual practice
- Practice discernment so you can honor what is authentically yours to reclaim - and release what isn't
- How to carry the workshop's teachings into your daily life
Becoming a Conscious Future Ancestor - Create a Legacy of Healing for Generations to Come (2026-10-14 5:00:00 pm)
In this closing session, Maestra Grace will weave together everything you've explored, revealing how becoming a future ancestor invites you to see healing as a living legacy. Recognizing that you are already part of the story your descendants will inherit - and that your choices shape what continues forward - you'll step into this role with intention and care. Through reflection and integration, you'll discover how personal healing can become generational medicine, creating ripples of clarity, strength, and possibility.
In this session, you'll:
- Learn how to live in a way that shapes your lineage forward
- Practice a journaling reflection ritual to honor your ancestors
- Understand how community care is actually ancestral work
- Realize you are part of the story your descendants will inherit
- Discover that integration becomes generational medicine
- Step into your legacy, responsibility, and future-ancestor consciousness
SPECIAL BONUS OFFER
When you register by 2026-08-16 11:59:00 pm , you’ll receive special bonus offerings designed to complement Maestra Grace’s transformative 7-module course — and deepen your understanding and practice even further.
Reclaiming Ancestral Memory Through the Medicine of Food
Video Conversation With Curandera Grace Sesma & Kitchen Curandera Felicia Cocotzin
Join Curandera Grace Sesma and Kitchen Curandera Felicia Cocotzin for an inspiring conversation about how food can become a powerful bridge to ancestral memory, healing, and belonging. You'll discover how the ingredients, recipes, and kitchen rituals passed down through generations carry wisdom that can help you reconnect with your roots and cultural identity. Felicia shares practical ways to transform everyday cooking into a living ancestral practice that nourishes both body and spirit. You'll explore the traditional remedios, stories, and foodways that have sustained communities for generations and learn how they can support your own healing journey today. This heartfelt dialogue will invite you to see your kitchen as a sacred space where memory, resilience, and ancestral wisdom are still alive and waiting to be reclaimed.
Remembering Forward A Conversation on Lineage and the Healing Power of Returning to Your Roots
Video Conversation With Curandera Grace Sesma & Pegi Eyer
Enjoy a profound exploration of ancestral reclamation and what it means to reconnect with the wisdom woven into your lineage with Curandera Grace Sesma and author Pegi Eyers. You'll discover how ancestral healing can help restore a sense of belonging, deepen your relationship with the Earth, and reconnect you with traditions that may have been forgotten but never truly lost. Drawing from her groundbreaking work, Pegi shares thoughtful guidance for honoring your roots with authenticity, respect, and cultural integrity. You'll learn how to navigate the journey of reconnecting with ancestry without appropriation or idealization, while remaining grounded in justice and reciprocity. Whether you know your ancestral story or are just beginning to uncover it, this conversation will inspire you to reclaim the gifts, resilience, and wisdom that live within your heritage.
Plus... you’ll receive these bonuses too!
What Was Never Lost: Dr. Joe Tafur on Ancestry, Medicine & the Path of Return
Video Conversation With Curandera Grace Sesma & Dr. Joe Tafur
Witness a moving conversation about ancestry, calling, and the medicine that waits beyond the boundaries of conventional healing with Curandera Grace Sesma and physician-curandero Dr. Joe Tafur. You'll hear how a path rooted in Western medicine ultimately led Dr. Tafur back to the ancestral traditions that had been quietly calling to him all along. Through personal stories and hard-earned insight, he explores what happens when ancestral lineage awakens within us and begins to shape the course of our lives. You'll discover why some forms of healing can't always be measured or explained, yet remain deeply transformative and profoundly real. This inspiring dialogue invites you to consider what ancestral wisdom may be waiting within your own life, ready to be remembered and reclaimed.
Obsidian: Stone of Memory & Ancestral Wisdom
Video Conversation With Curanderos Maestra Lisa Martinez & Maestro Samuel Nez of Black Mesa Remedios
Join Maestra Grace, Maestra Lisa, and Maestro Samuel for an illuminating conversation on ancestral lineage, inner healing, and the transformative power of obsidian. You'll discover why this revered stone has been used across traditions as a tool for revealing hidden patterns, ancestral memories, and deeper truths waiting to be acknowledged. Drawing from decades of experience working with obsidian, they share how it can serve as both a guide and a guardian throughout the process of self-discovery and ancestral reconnection. You'll gain insight into the ways this powerful ally can support you in seeing what's ready to emerge while helping you remain grounded and protected along the journey. As a special bonus, you'll also receive a 15% discount on the purchase of obsidian and other offerings from Black Mesa Remedios.
What People Are Saying About Grace Alvarez Sesma…
Certified BodyTalk practitioner and Reiki practitioner, Massachusetts
Iowa
San Diego, California
POC Fungi Community
Join the Global Community
Releasing Colonial Wounds offers some of the most transformational online teachings available, within a thriving global community of learning and practice.
Join fellow students and practitioners to support and inspire each other as you integrate the teachings and practices Grace Alvarez Sesma will share in this powerful program.
You’ll join an international community on the leading edge of manifesting a world grounded in the principles of cooperation, harmony, and reverence for all of life.
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven 90-Minute Class Sessions With Grace Alvarez Sesma
Experience a unique opportunity to be mentored by and learn from curandera and cultural educator Grace Alvarez Sesma — from the comfort of your own home. Each class session includes a livestreaming video option and will guide you to uncover inherited wounds and begin healing and releasing the weight of what doesn’t belong to you. Course sessions are on 2026-09-02 5:00:00 pm.
Seven Video Recordings of Class Sessions
After each class, the video will be available for you to stream in a high-quality format. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can watch anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Seven Audio Recordings of Class Sessions
After each class, the audio will be available for you to stream. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can listen anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Seven Transcripts of Class Sessions
You’ll also receive the entire class transcript after each session is completed. You can then review, print, and highlight the insights and practices you found most impactful.
Interactive Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
Between class sessions, you’ll have the option of completing related exercises, practicing new tools, and answering questions to accelerate your learning and integrate each week’s lesson.
Online Community
Our exclusive online community is the perfect place to continue your discovery process after each class. Here, you can continue the discussion about your course materials and interact with your fellow students to take your exploration to an even deeper level.
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join the Online Course, Releasing Colonial Wounds
We feel honored that Grace Alvarez Sesma has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive LIVE online course. This is a unique opportunity to interact directly with a curandera whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world.
If you’re serious about uncovering the patterns shaped by your family history and loosening your grip on what was passed down, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind program.
If you’re ready to take the next step in your own evolution, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your Satisfaction Is 100% Guaranteed!
If you don’t absolutely LOVE Releasing Colonial Wounds — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form on or before September 16, 2026 and we’ll happily issue qualifying customers a refund.
More Praise for Grace Alvarez Sesma...
Denver, Colorado
Traditional birth attendant and student midwife
About Grace Alvarez Sesma
EDIT
Grace Alvarez Sesma, born in Mexico of Yaqui descent, was called to the path of Curanderismo (a traditional Mexican Indigenous healing system) in childhood during which she was profoundly influenced by the work of one of her aunts, a curandera, and an uncle who was a well-known huesero(traditional Latin American healer specializing in treating bone, joint, and muscle issues through hands-on, ancestral techniques), as well as by her mother’s remedies that were part of her family’s daily life.
Beginning in early childhood, Grace was visited in dreams by Our Lady of Guadalupe and a group of Indigenous Grandmothers dressed in the traditional clothing of different Native tribes of the Americas, who urged her to return to Indigenous healing ways and help bring forth the call from Mother Earth for a return to Indigenous values and the protection of the land, water, and holy places.
Keeping the words of the ancestors in her heart, in 2013, she successfully launched an online social media campaign that helped stop The Walt Disney Company from trademarking the revered annual ancestral observance known as Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead).
Today, Grace serves her community as a practitioner of Traditional Indigenous Medicine, a cultural educator, and a social justice advocate with over four decades of experience serving diverse communities across California and beyond. Her work centers on the preservation and application of Indigenous knowledge systems in contemporary settings, with a focus on healing, education, and cultural revitalization.
She serves on the Practitioners Council of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative and is also a member of the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine BIPOC Committee, where she developed the Traditional Indigenous Medicine curriculum for its Fellowship Program, designed for professionals seeking to deepen their knowledge in integrative healthcare.
A recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, Grace is an alumna of the National Hispana Leadership Institute, 1993 Fellow, National Hispana Leadership Institute, in collaboration with Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and The Center for Creative Leadership.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s a virtual course?
Can I still benefit from the course if I miss the live classes?
Can you tell me about the private online community group?
Are there scholarships available for this training?
Please note: Scholarship applications must be submitted before the refund deadline, as we are unable to accept applications after that point.
What’s your refund policy?
If you’re within the refund period, the deadline to receive a full refund is September 16, 2026. To request a refund, please complete this refund request form and submit your request. Qualifying refunds will be processed within five business days, and you’ll receive an email confirming the refund.
We’d also love the opportunity to address and resolve your concerns directly. If there’s anything we can assist with, please get in touch with us at [email protected] — we’re here to help!
Please note: Refund requests are not accepted after the deadline or for courses purchased with scholarship awards.
Do you have a mobile app where I can access content offline?
Yes! The Shift Network’s mobile app, Shift Companion, allows you to access your course sessions and resources directly from your phone or tablet — including the ability to download content for offline listening and viewing.
Whether you’re traveling, spending time in nature, resting away from screens, or simply wanting greater flexibility in your daily learning practice, Shift Companion helps you stay connected to the teachings that nourish and inspire you.
To get started:
- iPhone/iPad users: Download Shift Companion from the Apple App Store
- Android users: Download Shift Companion from the Google Play Store
Once installed, simply sign in using the same email address you use for your Shift Network courses.