Family Patterns
In the seventies and eighties we heard more and more observation that you can’t talk about a person’s behavior or challenges without looking at them in the context of the family system. Suddenly it was important to see that a person had assumed the role of family clown, or mascot or scapegoat because the other roles were already taken or because his or her temperament could bend to fit that.
Now, in 2011, much is offered to take that further. I recently saw a description of the work of Bert Hellinger. One description of “family constellation work” said that “unseen forces have the power to entangle us in fates that do not belong to us fates dating back over two, three or even more generations, that are the legacy of those unable to resolve them within their lifetimes.
That’s something to ponder! But I have experienced the truth of that even before I heard the theory. So much of my life I felt as though I was trying to resolve, or challenge or complete something I couldn’t name…but it was the unfinished business or trauma that belonged to my mother.
I’m back to my favorite moment in history again–with the fall of the Berlin Wall some of her lost story was revealed to me, and though it took me twenty years to put it all together, a picture started to form, a narrative of her life that made sense of her actions and beliefs but didn’t belong to my moment in history. So I needed to find the truths of my journey.
How about you? Has history, family history or world history, influenced who you are…and what you are becoming?