Serbia

Most regions of the world carry the impact of past trauma and Serbia is no exception. When a trauma is buried within and not openly processed, it is imprinted on the cells of the bodies of those individuals who experienced the event. These old unresolved emotional traumas might travel transgenerationally to future descendants epigenetically, even skipping generations. They will impact the expression of the genes of the body.

During the month of May, I spent 25 days in Germany and several Eastern European nations including Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, and Czech Republic. During the visit to each nation a local speaker would share a great deal about the country in general, and also tell about the impact of communist rule on their life, their family, and their community.

Sharing Systemic Constellations

In June I went back to Serbia to stay with the family of my sister-in-law in a small town in the northern Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. I had no particular expectations for my vacation; however, I soon discovered that my trip was to shift toward my passion. I spent many days working with individuals, couples, and families on their ancestral histories, encouraging details and family stories forward that had never been told or heard.

I encouraged individuals to open their body energetically to accept and breathe in the new insight and inner images they were gifted with from others. I could visibly see family members began to heal as they listened to the unresolved emotional trauma of those who came before them. I encouraged others to honour the past journeys of parents and grandparents, and showed ways to have compassion and respect for those in relationship today.

Finally they could say, “Now I understand.” I was grateful for this opportunity to share my integrative body-focused systemic constellation work with others.

Past Emotional Trauma

Natural disasters, wars, starvation, separation, the outcomes of harmful government regulations, colonization, oppression, tragedy, accidents, death of loved ones, violence, loss, abuse, and rape create emotional holding patterns such as grief, sadness, anger, resentment, guilt, shame, longing, rage, fear, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, hyper-vigilance, and sorrow. These unresolved emotional traumas might be carried forward to your children and grandchildren until they are emotionally resolved and released from the cells of the body.

You can stop the emotional holding patterns from going any further in your family.  Rarely do individuals, families, or societies recognize the relationship between challenges, conditions, and issues experienced today with these past traumas. Whether there is unhappiness or other mental health issues, emotional patterns that don’t serve you well, physical conditions or symptoms, relationship difficulties, spiritual concerns such as questions about life purpose or lack of meaning to life, repetitive financial challenges, or relationship issues with family members or others, it is time to look to the big picture.

You are not alone with these issues. These issues develop through a greater family and community system and they are shifted through tapping into the greater family and community system.

Holiday Fun

My trip wasn’t all work though. I biked everywhere in the community, swam a couple times in a small nearby lake, socialized with locals, enjoyed the scenery, and also had the opportunity to dance and appreciate the good local food in the home where I was staying and when I attended a wedding celebration for community members.

I am always grateful for the opportunity to immerse myself in another culture even for a short period of time. I also spent a few days sitting outside, regardless of the weather, creating two paintings of the home where I was staying. I used acrylic paint and canvases that I had stuffed into my suitcase and brought with me from home.

This is a new hobby of mine that I love to embrace whenever I have a few hours of leisure time. This allows my right-brain to lead the way. This trip really was a great experience and a wonderful opportunity to share new ways of addressing life concerns and a great opportunity to learn from others.

The Traumatic Past

Some of the trauma of the past in Serbia or neighbouring countries is so recent that it is still raw in the psyche of the people and communities. Within the systemic constellation community we recognize that many issues or conditions that impact an individual are interconnected with their own familial and community context. Generalizations are difficult and they tend to be problematic. This is one reason why family constellation work doesn’t fit easily into empirical studies. One concern or condition may have a different origin in every family system that is explored.

There are however some common themes that do arise. I’m not intending to isolate Serbia or even Eastern European countries as the only nations with these energetic themes. These themes can be common to many other regions of the world as well. I thought I would share in a general way some of the systemic themes that came up frequently for the members of this small community in Serbia.

I certainly don’t proclaim to be an expert on the region, but with my interest in peacebuilding, broad societal conflict, world religions, political impacts, history, and cultural difference and similarity, some patterns were evident:
1. Cultural and national displacement has a huge impact on this community. With the constant change of state borders over the past two hundred years, these individuals I shared with were living in Serbia but mainly of Hungarian descent.

The descendants are living on the same land that used to be part of Hungary for the ancestors. Their land was once part of the Austro Hungarian Empire.

There seems to be greater allegiance to ethnicity than to nation in this region of the world. Many live in Serbia, but they don’t view themselves as Serbian per se. There is a fall back to ethnicity or ancestral origin rather than connection to nationhood. From my context, it would be like someone born in Canada not calling themselves a Canadian. When countries are named after one particular ethnic group it does pose an identity issue for inhabitants or immigrants with different ethnic backgrounds. This is a point of interest as immigration becomes more prevalent all over the world to regions that experienced little immigration in the past. These individuals maintain strong allegiance to their ancestral homeland.

When Serbia was involved in the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s, many country citizens did not consider it to be their war. This leads to many interesting systemic dynamics, especially since the tie to Hungary for these Serbian citizens is several generations out.

2. As I mentioned, the families I met consider themselves to be Hungarian, they speak both Serbian and Hungarian languages and frequently others, and they are strongly connected to their Hungarian origins. Many are taking advantage of Hungary’s current offer to its diaspora for the opportunity to take out Hungarian citizenship. The big advantage for many is that Hungary is part of the European Union. That brings up additional complexity for the European Union itself when many in the diaspora live in non-EU countries. I discovered that other family members, who once lived within Hungary, now have a border that places them in Poland.

Family life can get complicated. This issue of borders dividing peoples and families does impact families energetically and systemically. I believe a sense of not belonging can be felt in the cells of the body.

3. Growing up under communist rule seems to imprint a certain degree of hyper-vigilance in the body. There is a feeling that you are always looking over your shoulder. There is a sense that you shouldn’t draw attention to yourself. This is evident whether you live in the region now without communism or whether you have been living elsewhere for twenty years. This hyper-vigilance remains trapped in the body as a protective mechanism, even when it is no longer needed. This impacts an individual’s ability to trust, which is fundamental to wellbeing. Trust in relationships is very important if you want to go to a deeper, more intimate level of being with others.

4. Many of the individuals and families show the impact of a disconnection with father. Each generation seems to have a young man leave his partner and young children behind while he participates in a war or serves time in the army. This early childhood separation frequently sets up a separation trauma and emotional distancing with father. Frequently, if father goes off to war, he returns a different man emotionally. Many hold their war trauma within the cells of their bodies and don’t openly express their unresolved emotional wounds. They may carry survivor guilt. The children and the future generations may feel emotional distance with fathers and not understand why they can’t get closer emotionally. The children frequently end up feeling emotionally closer to mother.

5. The young men seem to be energetically closer to their mothers than their fathers. This would make sense given the frequent early disconnections with fathers. These young boys may have unconsciously and energetically stepped in to be mother’s helper while father was away. They would have attempted to carry or share mother’s emotional burdens. This burden is too heavy for any child to carry. This poses a life long energetic entanglement for the boy if he doesn’t do emotional healing work to build strong boundaries for himself. These entanglements are usually the result of poor individuation from mother around the age of 3 or 4. Either mother can’t let go or the child unconsciously can’t let go. It is important to develop strong healthy boundaries with our parents, letting the distance between you be the love between you.

Young men need to be firmly positioned in their father’s circle of energy from about the age of puberty. This allows a young man to move into adulthood in a healthy relationship with his masculinity and feeling strong as a man. He feels the support of the long line of strong effective men in the generations behind him. These healthy boundaries and healthy energy ties will bring out forward movement along a life path.

6. Many young women are energetically entangled in their mother’s boundary. They did not successfully individuate from mother when they were 3 or 4 years old. If there was a separation or bonding wound between mother and child, the child may have unconsciously decided to carry or share mother’s emotional burdens, fears, or unhappiness. The child may have merged with mother’s energy or rejected mother. In rejecting mother, the child may find subversive ways of showing her love to mother.

Whether there is rejection, merging, or both occurring, the child may show love by taking on mother’s emotional patterns such as anxiety or depression, the child may have a similar disposition as mother, or the child may take on the same physical conditions or illnesses as mother. The younger generation fears getting the illnesses and conditions of the parents when underlying emotional causes seem apparent. Young women need to be firmly placed in their mother’s circle of energy by about age 8 to 10. This permits a young woman to stand strongly in her role as a woman and be in touch with her feminine energy. She feels the support of the long line of strong effective women in the generations behind her.

7. Some families are troubled because the young adult generation is entering their thirties without a partner, marriage, or children. The parents are wondering if they will ever have grandchildren. It is a culture where the young generation often remains in the family home. Another room or two may be added to the home and the young people are often expected to remain there even after marriage. Many young people work in the family business or work the family land. Longing for grandchildren may be the result of inner longing for love. When we do our inner healing work and find healing within, we can let go of these longings that may or may not occur. Building a prosperous life can become never-ending work without life balance. When the young adults are unable to find or commit to life partners, the parents worry that their life work was for naught. They want to be able to pass their successes on to future generations. It helps these parents to live in the present and let go of worry for the future. The future worries may not ever arise. Look back long enough to acknowledge and understand the past, and use this insight to impact the future in a positive way.

8. From my travels in Eastern Europe in May, I was told by the local guides that the average number of abortions for women was very high. For many years under communist rule birth control options were limited or non-existent. Many countries did not import contraceptives. Some countries paid women to have more children. We witnessed the result of these laws in countries such as Romania. Many of these families could not support the additional children once they arrived and they ended up in orphanages. The emotional neglect within many orphanages and the early separation and bonding wounds from mother has created lifelong challenges for many of these children and their adoptive parents around the world.

Women that knew they couldn’t support the children from many pregnancies, resorted to abortions as a means of birth control. Abortions that are not openly addressed emotionally can create many issues for the partners involved, for other children of the partnership, and for future generations. This can lead to parents and children feeling stuck in life or depressed and not understanding why. They may be energetically drawn to the dead children but not understand this. The aborted children want to be acknowledged and accepted into the family system. It is valuable to find a positive way to commemorate the lives of these family members that did not come to life.

9. Many family systems have great grandfathers who were captured as prisoners of war during World War I and sent to Siberia by the Russians. Prisoners of war often receive treatment, and sometimes torture, that deeply impacts them emotionally. Current family members can acknowledge what occurred in the past and have compassion for the journeys of these individuals. If they were emotionally distant, creating emotional distance in the following generations, compassion is the way to healing in the family system.

10. This region of the world was under German occupation during World War II. They did not fight for the Germans. They fought independently. They wanted the Germans out of their country. However, when the war ended, family members with German ancestry were sent to prison. Mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers were suddenly taken away from their families. Depending on the age of any children forced to experience this separation, bonding injuries may have occurred.

11. Many families had members immigrate to other regions of the world when conflict broke out in the 1990s. These individuals frequently had to live as refugees in various neighbouring countries, sometimes for years, until they were processed and accepted by another nation. This separation has had a huge impact on family dynamics and people feel this disconnection from family and homeland. There is emotional trauma experienced by those who leave and by those who are left behind.

12. Like families all over the world, it was common to find children missing from the family systems. Many families have members with energetic entanglements because children of current or previous generations died young, were stillborn, aborted, or experienced accidents or other tragedies. Many of the grandparents and parents stoically continued on with life during these tragic times. The families seldom recognized these children as family members, perhaps saying that there were 5 children in the family rather than 7. Healing comes in acknowledging the loss of these children and welcoming them into the family system. Commemorating their life with a ritual or other positive action welcomes them into the family system.

13. During the communist rule of Tito in Yugoslavia, many families went hungry during the time period 1942 to 1958. For anyone born during World War II, this emotionally and physically impacted most of their childhood. Fear of hunger, hoarding, fear of waste, and other behaviours may flow from this type of emotional and physical trauma.

14. There were examples of wealthier family generations squandering away family inheritances and fortunes. This may be impacting financial spending patterns of individuals today – are you the spender or the saver? Does your life tend to rotate around money most of the time? This may carry with it emotional holding patterns of feeling like a loser. This may be impacting financial success today.

15. Stoic behaviour has led to emotional distance between family members and between generations. There was little open sharing transgenerationally about the traumas and wounds of the past. When these traumas go unprocessed, these unresolved emotional wounds travel epigenetically down through the generations until they are emotional resolved and released from the cells of the body.

16. Some children are entangled with dark energies that flow systemically through the family, community, culture, or nation. They may explore ideologies and realms that frighten their parents. Be open to the possibility that these explorations may be connected to some past family trauma or experience. I believe these children will benefit from knowledge about their family past. Together the family, if the children are older, can process emotionally what was left unresolved in the past.

17. The young adults are often energetically standing within their parent’s marriage, between their mother and father. They act as a buffer or mediator to keep the family together. This is a dangerous energetic position for the young people. These young people will often suffer in life in some way. The young people unconsciously feel like they will betray mother or father if they commit to an intimate relationship of their own. Healing actions can be taken by the mother and father to release the child of this burden. When the parents work on their own relationship issues, the child will no longer feel necessary in this family role.

Whether you live in Serbia or in some other region of the world, you are encouraged to look back long enough to acknowledge and understand the past in your family system. Family system healing comes in finding compassion for all those who lived before you, and taking the insight into the cells of your body to influence your future.