This blog post explores the topic of sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity from a systemic approach. This topic arose when an individual wanted my response to online criticisms of Bert Hellinger around the topic. So I will address the criticism that is out there in cyberspace, listen to Hellinger’s response in one of his books, and the move forward with a systemic look at gender diversity.
My last two blog posts on patriarchy and incest in the family system were acknowledgement that there are critics of the founder of family constellations – Bert Hellinger. I also recognized that most successful individuals do end up being criticized by some element of society. You can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t attempt to do so, otherwise innovation is stifled. It’s important to recognize that Bert Hellinger is a human being like the rest of us and susceptible to clashing with the belief systems of others. Family Constellations has been an evolving field and not without conflict and criticism. Most critics of family constellations tend to pull information out of context or attempt to compare family constellations to other accepted practices, comparing apples to oranges. I am certainly not an expert on the topic of sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity, however, I do plan to explore it in a systemic way since it arises in systemic healing for family systems along with any other human condition that is revealed. If you are a systemic wellness practitioner or systemic constellation facilitator it is important to educate yourself around the many dynamics that may arise. Sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity flow in complex spectrums or continuums. Life presents many dualities, polarities, and spectrums to explore. Life is rarely simple, or black and white. Each of us is born into the messiness of the human condition. As with any issue of the human condition, we do have a choice. We can take a rigid stance, or we can explore openly, understanding that change is healthy and inevitable.
What is Your Role?
On any topic, we can contribute to the continuation of ignorance and intolerance, or we can do something about it, serving to educate others. This is particularly important for those who do identify as gender diverse. How is it that your journey or challenges are meant to serve the greater whole of humanity? Have you done any systemic healing work within your own family system? Most of us have emotional healing work to do before we can live life fully. Have you shifted from woundedness to un-woundedness? Are you living through un-woundedness rather than woundedness? We each have a role to play in our family system? Do you understand your role and accept the challenge? Are you sharing yourself authentically with all those around you or does some deep inner fear keep you from doing that? Where in your family system does that fear come from? Who was afraid of showing up in the world? Who was focused on appearances and social norms? What is the gender bias in your family system? That will help you understand where your own healing work is necessary. Those around us unconsciously mirror or reflect what we need to see the most.
On the topic of sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity, contemplate whether you are the bystander or one who takes action? If we wait until we are experts on a topic, procrastinating or remaining silent, we serve ignorance. Ignorance is bred by fear. World War II was an excellent example of what happens when there are too many bystanders, observing without acting or taking risks. I encourage you to serve inclusivity and the flow of love in family systems and human organizational systems. Shifting the old rigid institutional human organizational systems that surround us does take work. Change is definitely worthwhile however, so educate and challenge others.
The Critical Voice
Question: Does Bert Hellinger suggest that homosexuality is simply a result of a confused child who is taking on the feelings of the deceased opposite sex sibling? For Hellinger to boast that he cured a client of the disease of homosexuality is insulting.
What Did Hellinger Have to Say
In Hellinger’s book, Love’s Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships, which he wrote with Gunthard Weber and Hunter Beaumont and had published in 1998, he states, “ First, I want to say a couple of general things about the systemic view. Everyone is an integral part of the relationship systems in which he or she lives, and everyone has an equal value in the functioning of those systems – everyone in the family system is essential to the system” (p. 70). He continues, “ I’ve rarely worked with someone who wanted to “get over” being homosexual. When I work with homosexual persons, homosexuality isn’t the primary issue. I merely try to bring to light any entanglements that might be limiting the fullness of life, but I have no intention of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation” (71). Hellinger speaks of times that younger family members have struggled in life when an older relative has been excluded from the family system because of homosexuality. On another tangent about intimate relationships, he discusses the inability of homosexual couples to produce children and that couples without children, heterosexual or homosexual, may find it easier to leave the relationship (p. 70). Hellinger states that any couple that does not have children need to be clear on the “purpose or goals of their partnership” to attain relationship longevity (p. 71).
Hellinger notices three main energetic entanglement patterns revealed in family constellations related to homosexuality:
- “A child was pressured to represent a person of the opposite sex in the system, because a child of the same gender wasn’t available. For example, a boy had to represent one of his deceased older sisters, because none of the other surviving children was female. Or another boy had to represent his father’s first fiancée, who had been treated unjustly. This is the most painful and difficult of the three patterns I’ve seen.” (pp. 71-72)
- “A child was pressured to represent someone who had been excluded from the family system – or who had been vilified by the system – even though that person was of the same gender.” Hellinger provides an example, “a boy was systemically identified with his mother’s first fiancé, who contracted syphilis and withdrew from the engagement. Although the fiancé had acted honorably, he was scorned and despised by the boy’s mother. The boy’s feelings of being scorned were very similar to what the man must have felt – as if they were his own feelings.” (p. 72)
- “A child remained caught in the sphere of influence of the gender-opposite parent, and was not able to complete the psychological movement of taking the same-gender parent.” (p. 72)
Exploring Systemic Healing
As with any other discussion of systemic healing, we look deeper, going beyond that which is lived on the surface of daily life. With sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity, I believe we can oversimplify a very complex aspect of the human condition. We can become confused with the terminology, which I will bring forward later in the post. Hellinger emphasized the importance of each individual to the family system. Everyone has a right to belong in the family system regardless of what they may have done or not done. If you are new to the concept of systemic healing, please read some of my past blog posts.
I can only recall one constellation (I was not the facilitator, but in the greater circle) where the individual had a sense of confusion around their gender diversity. It was a young man who was struggling in life in general and his sexual orientation was brought forward in the early interview. Individuals are usually seeking to address relationship issues with their mother, father, sibling, or other family members, or it may be related to other challenges entirely. Individuals tend to gain great insight about their family system from any systemic constellation that is set up. In this situation, the young man was entangled with a female sibling of mother’s that had died young and was missing from the family system. He was entangled with the fate of the one who died. His systemic healing came in accepting his own fate – that of a gender diverse individual. More work was suggested to leave the feelings of exclusion back with the aunt that died. It was her fate to die young. It was her fate to be excluded from the family system. It is his fate to go forward living life fully.
Why Systemic Healing?
A constellation brings forward what needs to be seen or heard and it may lead to a shift in the inner image we hold about others, or ourselves. A constellation may create an image of the current generation or one of several generations going back. The discussion of exclusion, shunning, or a missing family member often triggers cellular memory. It is something that rattles around the family collective psyche, sometimes for generations, seeking healing or balance. Shunning arises from fear. The individual with gender diversity may be energetically entangled with other family members that are missing or individuals who may have died tragically or too young. Each individual is free to either explore in this way or deny the possibility. Each of us has a choice. Wellbeing comes in taking responsibility for our own wellbeing and we are asked to take a deep dive beneath the surface of the emotional pond to find the answers. In systemic family constellations, gender diversity shows up in family systems in many different ways. Any element of the human condition may reveal transgenerational unresolved emotional trauma – sex and gender identity are no exception. Addressing core fears and perceptions, rather than sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity, is often a path to wellbeing. What is the message of the core fear within? I am excluded. I am different. I am not lovable. I am not wanted. I am alone. I don’t exist. Find the phrase that seems to be at the centre of all their emotional trauma and drama. When the core fear is not understood it can override everything in life. The gender diversity may reveal, but not always, the gender of the individual missing in the family system.
A client will likely bring up gender diversity (LGBTT2TQ – see terminology list below) if it seems relevant to their issue. Sometimes it becomes relevant if the practitioner uses a genosociogram to track the ancestral emotional patterns in the family system. A simple question may lead to disclosure. A client may be describing the year that all of their life challenges seemed to begin. It was the year they started to struggle with co-workers on the job, the year they ended up being fired from the job, and the year they struggled in family relationships and ended up estranged. When the facilitator asks, “What happened emotionally for you the year or so before all these challenges began?” The client may recall, “Oh, that was the year I came out of the closet – the year I told everyone I was gay (or other gender identity).”
Family Emotional Patterns
Recognizing the timing of correspondences is vitally important. Within systemic healing, we pay attention to dates and anniversaries that appear significant because they usually are important. The unconscious mind brings them to the surface of consciousness for a reason during a session. The unconscious seeks healing to bring about unity and wholeness. When the family members attain wellness the family system attains wellness. The trauma in the current lifetime may be triggered by the trauma within the ancestral family system. The current trauma serves the family system to raise awareness. This is why it is important to understand your role in your family system. You, as the descendant, may be carrying an emotional burden for a parent or ancestor. Who was shunned? Who felt excluded? Who was vilified? Who was excommunicated? Who was caste out? Emotional trauma left unprocessed or unresolved gets stored in the cells of the body and in our memory and it travels transgenerationally, and perhaps epigenetically, from generation to generation. We often revert back to the survival mechanisms we developed as a child to emotionally respond to a situation of trauma in the family system. These emotional response patterns may help reveal parent or grandparent emotional trauma. Healing involves letting go of these old survival mechanisms and developing new healthy adult ways of responding. Healthy adult emotional response strategies include developing a healthy energy boundary with others and the capacity to self-soothe, self-parent, and self-love. What we feel we didn’t get from our parents we have to give to ourselves.
The History
Until the past few decades, and still to this day in many family systems and regions of the world, homosexuality has been viewed as taboo, often contemptible and a deep family system embarrassment, and often designated a family secret. Coming forward with homosexual leanings was frequently excruciating or avoided altogether, denying self, with the corresponding emotional trauma around identity held in the cells of the body. It frequently created a family secret that often compounded as the unresolved emotional trauma journeyed down through the family system. Individuals married into heterosexual relationships to appear “normal.” A secret was created within a secret. Often the spouse and children of the union were not privy to the secret. What we discover through systemic constellations and systemic approaches to family wellbeing, where there is unresolved emotional trauma in the family system, perhaps a family secret, a descendant tends to carry the wound or follow the excluded or missing family member until it is addressed and healing occurs.
It would be so much easier if individuals were open to great diversity, however, centuries of genderism, divisiveness, exclusion, and intolerance created through governmental or religious structural rigidity, has impacted individuals within family systems, human organizational systems, communities, cultures, and societies in many ways. The ego loves the status quo. The ego loves similarity not difference. The ego does not readily embrace change. That is where human beings get stuck. As we discover through systemic constellations, any aspect of the human condition can arise when looking systemically at the transgenerational unresolved ancestral emotional trauma in family systems. It has only been the past few decades that gender diversity has moved into the light beyond the absolute silence of family and cultural taboo. We do still have a long way to go since many family systems and whole regions and sectors of the world are holding their position of intolerance. Progress is steadily being made, however, it doesn’t feel fast enough for those impacted by the intolerance. Many still remain in the closet, suffering the emotional trauma that comes with denying full healthy self-expression and self-acceptance. They evaluate the risk because coming out of the closet may generate the emotional trauma of exclusion or shunning by family, the workplace, or society more generally. Each individual weighs the pros and cons of each of these forms of emotional trauma – in the closet or out of the closet – and outsiders have no right to judge either decision. As we see in systemic constellations, shunning, exclusion, and family secrets reveal family wounds in the past that seek to be healed.
To Shun
The use of the word “shun” often resonates with the deep inner soul. Who was shunned in the family system? This is how many family wounds are revealed. As we seek to uncover family wounds, we look for individuals shunned or excluded in a family system, children missing in the family system, the black sheep of the family, or the one who moved across the country to separate from family. Wounds of the past around gender diversity exclusion or persecution are fairly common in family systems. Perhaps an ancestor identified as homosexual and he or she was treated poorly by the family system. In World War II, individuals of gender diversity were exterminated in the concentration camps along with individuals of the Jewish faith, Roma (Different term: Gypsies), those with different physical abilities (Different terms that may or may not be acceptable to individuals: Disabled, Handicapped, or Crippled), and various other ethnic groups seen as inferior. Unprocessed emotional trauma travels down through the generations to the descendants in many ways. Over the years, gender diversity has been pathologized. Institutions sought to change the individual. Although mainstream medical and psychological systems have labeled individuals of gender diversity pathologically in the past, it is vital that today we embrace gender diversity within the realm of what is normal, letting go of stigmatization.
Terminology
I have witnessed and participated in numerous constellations with facilitators and clients that identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, two-spirit, queer, questioning, or asexual. In a systemic discussion, labels are sometimes helpful, but more often than not, they can be problematic and confusing. In the discussion of sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity, it is worthwhile learning some of the contemporary labels, although they may continue to evolve as time goes by. Education has the potential of breaking down barriers and opening mindsets. I have gratefully tapped into the University of California Berkeley Gender Equity Resource Center for some of their straightforward terminology:
Agender: A person who is internally ungendered or does not have a felt sense of gender identity.
Androgynous: A person appearing and/or identifying as neither man nor woman, presenting a gender either mixed or neutral.
Asexual: A person who is not sexually attracted to any gender.
Bigender: A person whose gender identity is a combination of man and woman.
Cisgender: A person who by nature or by choice conforms to gender/sex based expectations of society (also referred to as “Gender-straight” or “Gender Normative”).
Cisgenderism: Assuming every person to be cisgender therefore marginalizing those who identify as trans in some form. It is also believing cisgender people to be superior, and holding people to traditional expectations based on gender, or punishing or excluding those who don’t conform to traditional gender expectations.
Crossdresser: Someone who wears clothes associated with another gender part of the time. This term has replaced “transvestite,” which is now considered outdated and offensive.
Drag: The act of dressing in gendered clothing and adopting gendered behaviours as part of a performance, most often clothing and behaviours typically not associated with your gender identity. Drag Queens perform femininity theatrically. Drag Kings perform masculinity theatrically. Drag may be performed as a political comment on gender, as parody, or simply as entertainment. Drag performance does not indicate sexuality, gender identity, or sex identity.
FTM/F2M: Abbreviation for a female-to-male transgender or transsexual person.
Gay: Men attracted to men. Colloquially used as an umbrella term to include all LGBTIQ people.
Gender: A socially constructed system of classification that ascribes qualities of masculinity and femininity to people. Gender characteristics can change over time and are different between cultures.
Gender Conformity: When your gender identity, gender expression and sex “match” according to social norms.
Gender Diverse: A person who either by nature or by choice does not conform to gender-based expectations of society (e.g. transgender, transsexual, intersex, genderqueer, crossdresser, etc.) preferable to “gender variant” because it does not imply a standard normativity.
Gender Expression: The way in which a person expresses their gender identity through clothing, behaviour, posture, mannerisms, speech patterns, activities and more.
Gender Fluid: A person whose gender identification and presentation shifts, whether within or outside of societal, gender-based expectations.
Gender Identity: An Individual’s internal sense of gender, which may or may not be the same as one’s gender assigned at birth. Since gender is internal it isn’t necessarily visible to others. Gender is often confused with sex. (Gender identity: man, woman, transman, agender, and many more)
Genderism: The system of belief that there are only two genders (men and women) and that gender is inherently tied to one’s sex assigned at birth. It holds cisgender people as superior to transgender people, and punishes or excludes those who don’t conform to society’s expectations of gender.
Gender-Neutral/Gender-Inclusive: Inclusive language to describe relationships (“spouse” and “partner” instead of “husband/boyfriend” and “wife/girlfriend”), spaces (gender-neutral/inclusive restrooms are for use by all genders), pronouns (“they” and “ze” are gender-neutral/inclusive pronouns) among other things.
Gender Non-Conforming: A person who doesn’t conform to society’s expectations of gender expression based on the gender binary, expectations of masculinity and femininity, or how they should identify their gender.
Genderqueer: A person whose gender identity is neither man nor woman, is between or beyond genders, or is some combination of genders.
Gender Role: How “masculine” or “feminine” an individual acts. Societies commonly have norms regarding how males and females should behave, expecting people to have personality characteristics and/or act a certain way based on their biological sex.
Heterosexuality: Sexual, emotional, and/or romantic attraction to a sex other than your own. Commonly thought of as “attraction to the opposite sex” but since there are not only two sexes (see “Intersex” and “Transsexual”), this definition is inaccurate.
Heterosexism: Assuming every person to be heterosexual therefore marginalizing person who do no identify as heterosexual. It is also believing heterosexuality to be superior to homosexuality and all other sexual orientations.
Heterosexual Privilege: Benefits derived automatically by being (or being perceived as) heterosexual that are denied to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, queers and all other non-heterosexual sexual orientations.
Homophobia: The irrational fear and intolerance of people who are homosexual or of homosexual feelings within one’s self. This assumes that heterosexuality is superior.
Homosexuality: Sexual, emotional, and/or romantic attraction to the same sex.
Institutional Oppression: Arrangement of a society used to benefit one group at the expense of another through the use of language, media education, religion, economics, etc.
Internalized Oppression: The process by which an oppressed person comes to believe, accept, or live out the inaccurate stereotypes and misinformation about their group.
Intersex: A set of medical conditions that feature congenital anomaly of the reproductive and sexual system. Intersex people are born with “sex chromosomes,” external genitalia, or internal reproductive systems that are not considered “standard” for either male or female. The existence of intersexuals shows that there are not just two sexes and that our ways of thinking about sex (trying to force everyone to fit into either the male box or the female box) is socially constructed.
In the Closet: Keeping one’s sexual orientation and/or gender or sex identity a secret.
Lesbian: A woman attracted to a woman.
LGBTIQ: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer.
LGBTT2SQ: Lesbian, Gay. Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Two-Spirit, Queer or Questioning (not on website).
MSM: Men who engage in same-sex behaviour, but who may not necessarily self-identify as gay or bisexual.
MTF/M2F: Abbreviation for male-to-female transgender or transsexual person.
Non-Op: A trans-identified person whose identity does not involve receiving Sexual Reassignment Surgery/Sex Confirmation Surgery.
Out (of the Closet): Refers to varying degrees of being open about one’s sexual orientation and/or sex identity or gender identity.
Pangender: A person whose gender identity is comprised of all or many gender expressions.
Pansexual: A person who is fluid in sexual orientation and/or gender or sex identity.
Post-Op: A trans-identified person who has received Sexual Reassignment Surgery/Sex Confirmation Surgery.
Pre-Op: A trans-identified person who has not received Sexual Reassignment Surgery; implies that the person does intend to receive such surgical procedures.
Queer: An umbrella term to refer to al LGBTIQ people (may not be seen as acceptable to older LGBT people who feel the word has been hatefully used against them), describes a complex set of sexual behaviours and desires, and/or a political statement (and sexual orientation) advocating to break binary thinking and seeing both sexual orientation and gender identity as potentially fluid.
Sex: A medical term designating a certain combination of gonads, chromosomes, external gender organs, secondary sex characteristics and hormonal balances. (Common terms are “male,” “female,” and “intersex.”)
Sex Identity: The sex that a person sees themselves as. This can include refusing to label oneself with a sex.
Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS)/Sex Confirmation Surgery: A term used by some medical professionals to refer to a group of surgical options that alter a person’s sex to match their sex identity.
Two-Spirit: Indigenous/First Nation/Native American persons who have attributes of both men and women, have distinct gender and social roles in their tribes, and are often involved with mystical rituals (shamans). Their dress is usually a mixture of men’s and women’s articles and they are seen as a separate or third gender.
Ze: Gender neutral pronouns that can be used instead of he-she. (Ze (pronounced zee), Hir (pronounced here), Hirs (pronounced heres), Hirself (pronounced hereself).
As this partial list suggests, the topic of sexuality, sex identity, and gender identity is complex. Taking the time to educate ourselves can only help to serve inclusivity and all those marginalized within family systems, the workplace, human organizational systems, and society.
Homophobia
Those who are homophobic have their own healing journey to embark upon. Any time you reject others, for whatever reason, some wound within yourself, and/or your family system is triggering you emotionally. Homophobia is inherently fear driven. What you reject in others you also reject within yourself? The wound may be unconscious, however, it is very real as far as the family system is concerned. What we reject or shun in others is attached to something in the past. Just as individuals don’t become alcoholics (or take on any addictive behaviour) or bullies in isolation, homophobia does not arise in isolation either. What transgenerational unresolved ancestral emotional trauma within your family system is seeking to be addressed? Who shunned or harmed or denigrated others around sexuality or gender or identity? Who was shunned or harmed or denigrated by others around sexuality or gender or identity? It may even be shunning around another issue altogether. This is the direction of the search to find healing for an unhealthy family pattern or relationship. How do you need to change? Are you going to resist change, living through fear, or will you take the time to understand and embrace diversity, learning from your challenges.
Children of Couples with Gender Diversity
We discover through systemic constellations and systemic healing that the biological parents of children are key to finding their emotional wellbeing when struggle is present. Separation from biological parents may create certain unconscious transgenerational unresolved emotional trauma whether the parents are heterosexual or homosexual. Many same gender couples are raising children today by adopting, involving another individual into the reproductive process as surrogate or sperm donor, and in vitro. We do tend to look to the family biological relationships in systemic healing, however, we also bring in any relationship of significance to an issue. As in the situation of adopted children, we systemically heal when we find compassion for the emotional journey of the biological parents and their family systems, and we honour the adoptive parents for stepping in to raise the child. The child is given up to adoption because of unresolved ancestral emotional trauma in the biological family system. The adoption often occurs in response to unresolved ancestral emotional trauma in the family system of the adoptive parents.
Because emotional memory is cellular, the adoptive parent doesn’t fully replace the biological parent for systemic healing to occur. They can go a long way with wonderful nurturing, however, having worked with adult clients who were adopted, the healing journey is heavily directed toward acknowledging, seeing, hearing, and accepting the biological parents. They are often missing from the family system of the individual, or vice versa, the individual is the one missing from the family system. The families of the biological parents are usually also missing. Any siblings that are not acknowledged are also missing.
We need to acknowledge that the children of alternative birthing dynamics, like the children of any family system, may be emotionally impacted by their family system and need to address issues down the road to find wellbeing. The alternative is to proactively embrace the individuals and their family systems that are missing. In this situation, whenever we add another family system to the dynamic, there will be energetic complexities and consequences. A sperm donor needs to be acknowledged as a member of the family system, as well as, his family system. Surrogate birth mothers also belong in the family system. There may be other cultural dynamics to honour as well. All of these situations create unconscious emotional dynamics within the cells of the body of the child, which, if not emotionally resolved and expressed fully, impact the adults and children involved and their family systems. If it goes unresolved, it may pass down to the descendants of the child, sometimes skipping a generation. Everyone has a place in the family system.
Responding to the Critic
Going back to the critical question posed earlier, have I done genosociograms of a family system where someone identifies as gender diverse and discovered that an individual of the opposite gender is missing or excluded in the family system? Was there ancestral trauma related to that individual? Is the person somewhat drawn to the individual? Yes, that has occurred. Is it the only possible image? No. In the situations I have experienced, it was not usually a sibling that was missing, shunned, or forgotten, but usually someone a generation or two back. Sometimes it was an aunt or uncle, the sibling of the mother or father, or perhaps the former intimate partner of a parent or grandparent. Sometimes there was a family tragedy involved. The individual will have an energetic sense of whether they are identifying with someone in the family system. They may feel stuck in life in some way.
The intent is not to change the individual but to find resolution around their relationships with others and their connection to self. We seek to transform unhealthy relationships into healthy relationships. A lesbian may say she has felt like a boy all her life. She may be strongly aligned with the men of the family line. The father may have wanted a boy and feels her energetically as a son. In that situation, I might be drawn to look to see if there is a boy missing from the family system. A male child may have died young or tragically and they are energetically missing from the family system. We look to see what ancestral emotional trauma went unprocessed or unresolved by the family system. There may have been silence around a tragedy. The child may not be included when discussing the number of children in the family. This is just one or many options available for exploration. Systemic healing isn’t about the woman who identifies as a lesbian changing her gender identity, but rather about shifting the wellbeing of relationships in the family system or she may choose to release herself from entanglements with the past so she can move forward with wellbeing. Wellness comes when we shift to reference internally, rather than externally, no longer being triggered by the opinions of others.
Systemic Wellbeing
As with any individual, systemic wellbeing comes in going within to connect with their deep authentic inner core. Wellbeing is not found in the outside world through external referencing. As with the wellbeing of any individual, heterosexual or homosexual, wellbeing is interconnected with the ability to take in one’s mother, father, and ancestors just the way they are or were. Being able to take in their love just the way it is offered. Wellbeing is about being able to say, “YES,” to life just the way it was given to you. When one is well emotionally, physically, spiritually, psychologically, financially, and relationally, the opinion of others takes on less importance and you will eventually trigger with less emotional charge.
If an individual lives defensively, constantly intellectualizing, they are living through the conscious rational mind, avoiding the emotional discomfort found in the cells of the body. It is time to address the unresolved emotional childhood and ancestral trauma of the family system and the greater systems within which they grew up. The goal is to let go of the emotional response strategies or the survival mechanisms that created the survivor self in childhood and to increase the portion of healthy self within through self-care and self-love. What we reject in our parents and grandparents, we reject within. This keeps many individuals stuck in unhealthy repetitive life patterns.
Un-wellness arises out of the family system and wellness is found in the family system. An individual with a healthy connection to core self learns to have a healthy energy boundary with others, to let go of being in agency with others, to self-soothe, to self-parent, to internally reference, and to provide unconditional self-love. When we live through love rather than fear, the criticism from others is not relevant to our wellbeing. We may acknowledge their criticism of our ideas and thoughts, but it is no longer felt as a criticism of self. Our self identify is no longer in question. We know who we are! A lack of wellbeing in the outside world no longer creates a lack of wellbeing within. We no longer feel the need to blame or judge either. This occurs because we no longer have the unconscious ego driven need to compare ourselves to others.
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