From Family to System

We don’t heal ourselves and our families and then simply go on with our own aims for growth. No. If the motivation and context for reconciliation in our family system isn’t to then apply it to larger systems, it’s not likely to complete. It’s not likely to complete because there isn’t enough weight to our endeavor without the larger human family system in mind. Having a motivation outside ourselves and our own family system is what keeps us humble. We realize that the work won’t be done in this lifetime. People were working for international peace before our time and will continue what we worked towards after we die. If we don’t have that frame of reference, we’re being insular.

We don’t do family constellations to change family members or get them to see us. We do family constellations to change ourselves and see ourselves. From there, we might take new inspired action and reconciliatory movements of our family soul’s might occur.

We heal in order to have more capacity for ourselves, our families and also, to confront systemic issues. We heal to have greater impact. We heal to discover and hone untapped talents gained from how we navigated our first system’s complexity. If we are focused on how wrong and bad the other out there is without seeing how we are that too, we have more work to do.

To change and see ourselves, we often need some or a lot of physical or emotional distance from our family system or members. We get enough distance from the system in order to do some work on the legacies and inheritances that we embody. The part that’s too selfish, too selfless. The part that’s too angry, too sad. The part that’s frozen, the part that’s impulsive. The pattern of pushing people away and the pattern of pulling people in too close. The parts and patterns need space to breathe, too. In family constellations, we gently find this right space and distance with the tenderizing power of compassionate witness.

Conflict often begins with notions of superiority and inferiority. If we read about war and despots in the news, we can reflect on our own imbalanced notions of superiority and inferiority within. We can learn to greet and include these parts with curiosity and tolerance. We can feel the rage. We can acknowledge the shame. We can include the pain. We can grieve the loss. We can build momentum towards reconciliation part by part.

An odor in the nitrogen

Two students enter

As the field starts its spacetime equations,

The leaves on the trees whisper in the wind

Nervous yet cheerful, they rattle “here we go!”

The worms beneath the soil burrow

There’s an odor even in the nitrogen

Jupiter and Mars square off above

Generating a hum; a cosmic accompaniment

The two take their stance

As they widen their shoulders and hips,

Bend their elbows, knees and necks

In opposition, only to relish in one another's gravity

They nod their heads in fellowship

Recognizing that they both breathe the same air

Displaying themselves in proud humility,

they raise their eyebrows in agreement,

“I’m in.”

Their stomachs quiver

And then settle

Symmetrically bewitched, tremors thrill the air

The field intensifies

Unconfined electricity provokes a step towards one another

As they move in,

an irrepressible grin

Forward, Back

Hot, Cold

Bound, Free

Intrigued, Disgusted

High-harmonic generation

Anharmonic stagnation

Rejoicing. Suffering.

Death. Rebirth.

Life means keep surrendering.

Pop Transference, Evolutionary Transference

Transference is when we project feelings from a there and then to a here and now.

This is typically spoken about in psychotherapy and more so in psychodynamic psychotherapy. [Psychodynamic psychotherapy is the term for the modern form of psychoanalysis versus more divergent offshoots, e.g. cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychodynamic psychotherapy emphasizes transference and the therapeutic relationship itself in order to get to the root of relational predicament and more.]

Transference happens outside of therapy too when we step into mom, dad, son, daughter or someone else with one another. Codependency is much about being trapped in this. Age can speak to who is who but can also happen in reverse order, like in an original belonging.

Transference is not bad. It’s part of platonic and romantic attraction. It’s part of the life force which magnetizes and repels us around. It’s in the pan-animistic eros within and without all of us and the cozy threads of healthy reparenting inherently longed for in the human condition.

If we find ourselves often as the object of someone else’s transference, we’re likely to hold weight and depth. This might be from composting well our pain or navigating a great quality or quantity of systemic adversity and complexity. While people often feel safe to unload around a larger sized person, it’s important we still stand next to and not too often behind. And regardless of how we got it, with weight, depth and power comes responsibility. Care, caution, pacing and boundaries thwart overwhelming transference. Transference is more likely when we’re not present - when we’re triggered, stressed, dysregulated, insecure or being fawned or preyed upon. We have to take ongoing account of our relationships with pleasure and power in order to navigate these waters well. When transference is not made conscious, we might get our needs met in unconscious acts, creating foggy and chaotic attachments instead of respectful accompaniment.

In order to sort out these dynamics and receive the treasure of them, we must keep flexing our minds open as we sort out what’s ours and theirs. When we’re adamantly certain about our interpretation of a dynamic, we might have more opportunity for evolution and primordial freedom in it. Relief comes when we can access the both-and of it. The co-created nature of it. The dual responsibility of it. And realizing each time unseen and unloved parts through it.

In family constellations, representation and the resonant field are employed as alchemical thirds to break up dyads and reveal loyalties to original transference dynamics that might be repeating, in mind and material reality. We work with what’s elemental, observing primary disorder and imbalance in the representation. The three-dimensional representation of what’s in our minds clarifies with compassionate witness, and with more essence than content.

Social media meme therapy has both given wider access to powerful psychological tenets and has diluted the terms down to non-nuanced binaries that other through labels. Parasocial and much virtual relationship has added new complexity to unchecked transference. Perhaps we’ve dysregulated from our soul in transferring our reciprocity with Earth, spirit and our non-human family to the field of the insecure internet.

To acknowledging and sorting through what’s real, present and alive within and without us!

Bonding and Collaborating

It can be quite something to individuate from entanglement for uncomplicated relationship.

It can be quite something to loosen self-sufficiency for regenerative synergy.

So from there, how do we continue to relax our defenses against the world…

…after we’ve found a couple sturdy enough people who won’t cling desperately?

…after a big band of endearment breaks our avoidance?

…after someone’s big tender respect for us breaks our excessive congeniality?

…after feeling the humility of our learning errors?

…after we’ve acknowledged who and what got us here?

When we grow, we have to change. It can take a minute for the benefits of costly change to outweigh the costs of staying where we’re at. And in change, we might have to revisit and compost some more the wounds of our original belonging - the tendency to get too close, run away…to shrink…get defensive or inflamed…or some other symptomatic revisiting of our systems rearranging.

So maybe we’ll have to take a refresher on those balancing acts that freed us from an original imbalance.

If we lean too far into the vision and away from the people who got us there, we might tire and tend to lazily-yet-hastily employ the soulless games and gimmicks of greed…unconsciously sabotaging what we’ve been building.

If we get high off of our progress, we might forget to thank and give back to our allies and accompanists, going at a pace that honors them or keeps them with us. If this goes on too long, we might lose our progress as we endeavor to expand and then we’ll find ourselves without the necessary width of our belonging to keep going.

We can be brilliant with many faculties but if we become hubristic and aren’t humble about the humans helping us, we’ll find ourselves all alone again.

We don’t need to be ashamed of our desires to grow and expand and be one with our vision. However, our freedom is paradoxically bound up in others. Our emergent freedom can grow when we’ve collected the capacity to withstand feedback and risk rejection asking for what we need.

On the other hand, if we get too close with too few too fast who are emerging with us, we’ll get enmeshed and entangled and implode from the inside. We must not give away parts of ourselves in over-devotion to the other. Our own connection to the forces of love and life must come first. So in this case, more of the cozy visionary within is in order.

We can be really great at relationship building but over-focus on the connecting and not enough on where we’re going does not serve the forward-facing harmony with the people we are so excited about.

We don’t need to be ashamed of our excitement to unite forces with the other but if we don’t remember to slowly build the weight of our synergistic formation, we might find ourselves collapsed or imprisoned.

-

So for some, it’s a balancing through a little bit more of the rapport building and the vulnerable communication that calibrates and navigates the complexity of relationship.

For others, it’s a balancing through a little bit more sovereign stepping out and forward without everyone in our lives in perfect understanding and agreement to us and our vision.

Of course, there are many other balancing acts, too. What is it for you?

To balancing between “where’d everybody go?” and “there’s no space for me anymore”!

courting the collapse of control

I cradle this collapse in my arms,

Arms strengthened by years of chest presses

Fortified by the shouldering of incubatory compressions

Years spent in a thin cocoon, never quite in or out of it

As I caress the once-but-no-longer-serving abstractions and fantasy-fueled attachments,

I simultaneously and quite tenderly loosen and untie them

And then next

I Allow them.

First a reprieve and then a release

I further kindle the undoing with a bit of ash and tinder

A post-heat-wave cool 67 degree breeze

With the dirt that’s happily secured inside my wide nail beds,

I kiss it with lips which touched lifetimes of apocalyptic-utopian air

The kiss turns cough, conjuring up preverbal grief

The grief is what’s most nitrifying here

Next, the most precious element for a full sun

The flooding, a wellspring-level watering

For flowers, and not just cacti

But for mesopotamian-ancient pickling-emergent apple blossoms

To complete the concoction fertilizing the soul’s sacred orchard,

A too-long-minimized going-back-through, a recycling back to bypassed self-indulgence

And now, a post defragmentation neural reprogramming

Psycho-celestial acupuncture

Threads and tentacles return to roots and shoots

Control collapses to spontaneous paths of authenticity, guided by soul-led agency

Blue Hydrangeas for her Grandmother

“You fucking idiot.” She said aloud to herself self-soothingly.

There he is again. Ugh. Why does he so often show up as I lean into a little more ease and success?

Flick. “Stay down little girlie!”

“Menacing self-talk is the only way to keep it together!” Prick.

Whew.

Stepping back into her freedom, she embraces the fresh opportunity to affirm:

I’m doing it differently.

Pesky legacies.

Her two big green feet step in.

This is me. I’m doing it differently. She weeps feeling the relief of calm and the absence of racing thoughts. Her belly warms. Tinglingly prepared.

I’m doing it differently.

His big red feet. She steps into them.

Shockingly unstable. Insecure. Suspicious. Reality, distorted. The rage, a mask for terror. The tower crumbling unceasingly.

I’m doing it differently.

Two little pale blue feet step in, in front of the big green ones. They settle in securely.

“Ouch. He is not safe,” the little one rests with knowingly.

I’m doing it differently.

“I’ve got you,” The big one says.

I’m doing it differently.

With each acknowledgement, his feet move farther away.

I’m doing it differently.

His parents step in.

“Will you take him from here?,” the big one asks them straightforwardly.

I’m doing it differently.

“Absolutely,” they reply in unison.

I’m doing it differently.

Order brings some relief to the system.

I’m doing it differently.

The Dinghy Tender

What’s a dinghy? 

It’s a little dinghy!

Ruff ruff! You mean like Arnold has a dinghy? 

No, like a small little boat dinghy! 

I grew up around boats, I know about boats. I’ll take it from here, m’ladies. That’s it now! Take it from the stern!

What? What are you talking about?

Oh never mind, it’s boat talk, you’re still new to all this. 

The quartet cruise into the sunset breeze and employ the salty air to reset their ease.

OK, the smell of fish is making me hungry! Back to the dinghy thingy! 

You’ll be fine alone with the whole dinghy situation, right? I’ll just be in the way, I imagine.

Well gee, if you don’t mind…since you know about boats and all.

OK, I’ll steer the ship!

Well no, you don’t have to go that far.

Ah OK, I’ll just grab the clip then…got it. 

Accompaniment 

All of a sudden, the wind picks up and catches the dinghy, carrying the two farther and farther away from the dock.

Two people. One oar. Their comrades and a three-legged dog ashore. 

Just make it to the row of kayaks and from there we can think more clearly and reassess! 

OK well done, here we are. Now, we’ve got a few options. Maybe we could make it to the dock stilts and slowly haul ourselves up against the tide….or….

Hey, look! The wind caught us!

Yah, no shit, I can see that!

OK, maybe if we throw you the line!

All of a sudden, they notice that there’s less thwarting wind now. They’ve found their place in a pocket of reduced hardship and more resonant resource. They proceed earnestly to their destination.

When in doubt, break up the dyad!

Goodbye Vincent

You greeted me so graciously when I moved into the building. I asked how long you’d been living here and you replied, ”Longer than you’ve been alive, Honey!” We both doubled over with laughter.

“I’m eighty-one years old, can you believe that?!”

When we saw one another coming and going, there was always great affection and delight. “Oh it’s so good to see you!” “Oh isn’t that funny seeing you again!”

Some of my strongest memory from the pandemic is sitting outside of our building together. We were on the same wavelength, a rarity under the circumstances. We would confess our fear and also find levity together. While watching some women run inside for the curfew, you protested, “I’m not following any curfew, the sun hasn’t even set yet!” (We stayed three feet from our building’s door, however.)

We didn’t exchange phone numbers nor did we ever knock on one another’s doors. “I think about you often but I respect people’s privacy.” We might drop off a little something or message here and there. I once dropped off some Christmas tree chop from the park and you dropped off a wax-sealed note of thanks. Stamped with “V.” I told our neighbors that you are a living icon and deserved some special treatment on your last birthday. They left cards, flowers and baked goods. “Oh Vincent? Of course!”

A retired stylist with a closet full of high fashion suits, you would tell me “try to dress decently just one day a week.” And to wear “just a little lipstick and tiny bit of blush.” Only from you could I receive such tips with fondness. The two days a year I get dolled up, I’d always just happen to run into you. “Oh wow, you look fabulous!,” you exclaimed with significance.

I didn’t know just how much our chit chats meant to me until they were in jeopardy. I found myself grasping for more stories, more insight, more wit. More intrigue, more serendipity, more time.

In the ambulance, I held your hand and you said, “I feel your strength, don’t let anyone take it for granted.”

The day before you died, you asked me to take out the rest of the air in the helium “I love you” balloon at your hospital bedside. You said that the balloon was a bit depressing because it was now only half inflated. I inhaled the rest of the helium and squealed “Vincent, it’s time to get serious!” The gleaming luminosity in your laughing eyes was surely earned.

When I returned home, waiting for me in our building’s vestibule and just outside your apartment’s door, there was an “I love you” balloon that my brother sent me for my birthday.