The End To An Old Pattern

Depression shows up as a lack of energy, a block in the flow of energy, or an inability to receive the flow of energy from one generation to the next. She clenched her teeth and shook her head. I asked her what she liked about her parents and the ways she had been raised. As she spoke about their family dynamics, she stiffened and relaxed in response to what she had and hadn’t liked. So, what did they do as grandparents that was okay and fun? I asked. They really knew how to celebrate the holidays, she said, smiling reminiscently. Can you bow to that? I asked. She did with somewhat of a grin. What else can you bow to and thank them for? Before she could answer, a look of astonishment crossed her face. My backache’s gone! she cried. As we explored further, it wasn’t lost on her that it was something sweet that had triggered her falling out with her parents. She commented that she had always thought her grandmother was too harsh.

No Place To Go

Within a few minutes, she had recognized that her own reaction to the candy incident and her resulting rigidity were repeats of her grandmother’s inflexibility and lack of sweetness. Once Jill could see the pattern, she could set it down and realize that sometimes a little sweetness in life is allowed. Her backache never returned, and her parents and children see each other often. Something went wrong, and it’s all over. A decision has been made personally or somewhere in the system that seems undoable and inescapable. Systemic work is helpful here, especially using constellations as a way to finally be able to see and experience what has happened, hear the language that is keeping you stuck, and begin to see, speak, and feel your way out of what feels like a mess and into the flow of life again. Depression can also be seen as the end to an old pattern, signaling the deep need for a new one. If depression lives in you, you may be both the concluder and the beginner. This is something you might explore with a systemic worker, therapist, or someone who is skilled at walking you through this. The principle involved might be any one of the three depending on the event, but the process and outcome are to give the old pattern its place after resolving what wants to stop, and then to give the new pattern its place in your heart as you move forward. Some forms of diabetes stem from an inability to generate, process, or take in the sweetness of life. This condition often runs in families, and systemically we ask, Where did this begin? How did it affect the original member of the system? How is it affecting subsequent members? What wants to stop, and what wants to start in order to change this? This condition is, like most others, highly unique to the precipitating event and the choices and decisions made.

My Soul's Got Wings

The resolution is tailored accordingly. People who have been told they have hypochondria often haven’t been given the answers they need in order to know that they and their bodies are okay. Something has been said, not said, or not addressed in the area of the body’s health, and unconsciously it preys upon the person’s mind, placing them in what seems to be an inescapable limbo and an ongoing quest for the information or words that will allow the body to know that it is well. Hypochondria can also express when an illness or condition was excluded or unaddressed in a prior generation. Once it is seen and acknowledged, the client can finally put down the systemic ghost they have been carrying in their minds and bodies and move on. It holds onto what you can’t or won’t process until you do. Infertility is one of the most interesting spaces to explore systemically. In brief, we often see that a woman or her line or a man or his line do not feel safe to create and pass on life. This can happen as a result of rape, where the act of producing life is unconsciously associated with invasion, shock, damage, and the threat of death. I have seen it where there was a rapist in the man’s line and subsequent members were infertile. It also appears when having children was not a happy event, or being a child in an unhappy family shut down the desire for a family that might repeat the pattern. Guilt, anger, and withholding are also patterning that I have seen around infertility.

Just To Keep Satisfied

In each case, we traced back to the event that started it all, then created new language, feelings, and actions that made creating life possible, devoid of shame, danger, or burden. Even in cases where discovering the initial event is not possible, creating new language, feelings, and actions around conception or raising a family often changes the situation. In systemic work, when clients are obese and cannot lose weight, it’s helpful to ask when they began to notice that they were putting on weight and what was happening in their lives at that time. Sometimes we notice that a traumatic event creates a need to protect one’s body from being invaded, and the client may do this unconsciously by taking on weight as a protective mechanism tool. It’s important to notice that often the threat has come and gone, but the client is still holding onto the weight as though the event were happening right now. In some ways, it still is, since they haven’t been able to shift their words, thoughts, and feelings beyond what happened. Completion needs to occur. We notice that clients unconsciously expand their mass to include members of the family system who are missing or excluded. They sense an important lack or absence in their system and try to fill it by including the weight of the one who is not there. The body can be quite literal.