YOUR Family

Healing from our past involves facing the pain of having a childhood where our needs are not met, digesting the anger we hold towards our parents, and working out what we can do about it. The goal here is not for us to harbour self-pity or to blame anyone, but to validate our painful experiences, and to look at what we can do now to release the emotional poisons that we have carried for far too long. 

Not everyone has been blessed with patient, loving, and attentive parents.  Yes, some parents are abusive and neglectful, yet there are many parents who even with the best intention, fail to meet the needs of naturally emotionally intense and sensitive children. Often, our parents did the best out of what they knew. Their limited capacity often finds its root in the limited parenting that they had. 

Time spent with our close family members, especially parents, are often the worst triggers for our intense negative emotions. Sometimes we wonder why we are triggered by them even when they are old, frail, live far away from us, and can no longer influence our lives, even when we have successfully walked away and built a life outside of our home when in contact we can immediately revert to feeling powerless and frustrated like we are five-year-old again, or that we start behaving like a raging, uncontrollable teenager.  Even when we are living in independent adult bodies, we can feel caged by these strong emotional turmoils. 

In cases where our upbringing had been abusive, neglectful, or lacking in some ways, we may experience unease and even disgust when we interact with our parents. If there had not been a history of real emotional closeness, the interests that they now show in our lives could feel phoney. Blocked by their defences and our frustration, there can be little authenticity. Even if we love each other enormously on the deep down, real closeness may seem inaccessible. 

Intellectually, we know that our parents cannot change who they are; Rationally, we know that the past is in the past. On many levels, we have forgiven them.  However, these do not change the emotional reality that is raw, heavy, reactive, uncontrollable and full of rage. Although we cannot go back in time to alter the actual truth, we do have the power to change our inner reality. This involves not just an intellectual shift but an emotional soul shift. 

And this is not an easy or obvious process.  It may involve one step forward three steps back.

But what makes you not believe that this is your best? 

Many of us have a skewed understanding of what ‘best’ means. 

The truth is, 

at any given moment, we did the best we could, and that has to be the ‘right thing’. 

Becoming our own best parents mean standing by ourselves.

No matter what.

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” 
― Elizabeth Gilbert

Your experiment this week: a SYMBOLIC FAMILY CONSTELLATION

Throughout the week, take photographs of things, places, or anything to represent each of your family members.

Reflect on:

The kind of person they are, how have they impacted you, both in your childhood and today.

Who are you in relation to each of them?

How have these relationships affected your sense of self?

Write your answers in the visual journal.