A quick note on family patterns for anyone feeling low on energy or wondering about boundaries and healing (credit to NLP Marin for first introducing me to Bert Hellinger, who speaks of this in his own ways):
There is a myriad of ways in which we improperly take on our family’s emotions. This is different than empathy. Consider unhooking from this pattern, on behalf of your parents, past generations, yourself, and future generations.
How? Remember that “letting” someone have their pain is actually very important. We get out of order (individually, within our families and as a species) when we try to take on or prevent pain that belongs to someone else. It is each person’s birthright to “have” their pain, and navigating one’s pain is important for their standing upright and for dignity (parents’, especially).
Again, you can still have empathy and take action to prevent injustice, etc.! A great guide when seeking clarity about this is to not do anything for your parents (etc.) that you wouldn’t want your daughter (etc.) to do for you. Ex: You wouldn’t want your daughter to hide her pain from you for fear of your pain.
The more inappropriate/out-of-order “take-ons”, the LESS (!) healing. For example, if I as a white person try to have the pain of a person of color, or try to “prevent”–ha!–a person of color’s pain by being less ok myself, or if I deny my pain because I am being comparative (disrespecting my own pain because it’s “not as bad” as someone else’s) we get more out of order, less vital and able to truly help and heal. (There’s a whole book to be written here, of course. Today I am focusing on immediate family systems and there is MUCH more to be said about the other systems of which we are a part.)
Within a family system, “order” has an even more specific meaning. Specifically, parents are bigger than their children; we are always “littler” than our parents.
We need to let our parents parent us. (Of note, there are many ways to do this even when our parents are not interested/wounded or even dead!) We need to remember our place in relationship to our parents (even as, when we grow, we may talk to them more like peers and eventually even do things like help them with self-care, their finances, etc.). Being your mom’s/father’s daughter (or son), honoring her/his “bigger-ness”, is one of the very best things you can do to support their wellbeing, as we all do better when properly seen, in our proper and true reality/place.
Related, within friendships, slow down when tempted to do something non-ideal for yourself because you “don’t want other people to feel bad”. As within a family system, this robs a friend-system of it’s truth and, therefore, vitality. A great guide when seeking clarity here is “Would I want my friends to do this for me?” How would you/they feel if you were outed–for example, I just ate this thing that hurts me because I don’t trust that you can handle your feelings about eating differently! (!)
Honoring yourself and what is is an invitation for healing for all of us.
