Many families throughout their history have held many secrets close to their heart. It‘s generally done to protect others from the pain of the truth, a simple truth about some less than pleasant matter. Over time, sometimes generations as we see in systemic, ancestral Constellation healing processes, those protective secrets cause more pain and suffering than ever imagined to immediate or successive generations of future family members.
Ironically, the future generations are still reacting to an unknown truth or secret cover-up designed to protect them and it has become the bane of everyone’s existence. Like an energetic bubble or boil that has been festering in space and time, it became more negative, poisoned, and toxic while outliving the age of its usefulness — an anachronism of events that have long since vanished from the family’s collective memory of all concerned.
We find the present generation is burdened by the past of those who came before. They inherited life and along with it the survival and coping mechanisms deployed by their forbears as protection from unnecessary pain. In any Constellation or other healing process, the simple truth of what caused the pain releases the energy heaped onto the wound that prevented it from healing in the first place. The reaction to an invisible secret causes much more damage than the original pain it was created to avoid. Maybe it was created for social standing or protection of one’s reputation or to sanitize the family name. Many societal pressures abound from Victorian or religious sensibilities of a time and place from whence our beloved ancestors came.
To heal in this time and space where tabloid secrets are fodder for gossip and fame, it’s ironic that in the 21st century we want all these secrets and dirt about anyone or anything. Whole careers are made over intimate sex tapes or vicious gossip. Yet everyone seeks the truth that is hidden behind the behavior. The truth will set us free and the million dollar question is do we have the courage to face the truth and let it go? If we have love and compassion in our hearts we can then find the strength not to suffer as those who did before us. It isn’t a betrayal as we have plenty of pain and anguish that life gives us at present to keep us more than busy. We still belong and can have a much better life without the secret suffering kept hidden by those who came before. Why wait? The simple truth is here and it is alive now!
The secret to happiness is simple, be truthful, have compassion, and move on. This way we do not have to drag a ball and chain of the past for others no longer present. We can live openly and honestly with a pure heart even if unkind or brutally honest truths are revealed. The irony is that we are all the same, no better, no worse. Honesty and truth will always prevail if we let it. Only expressing our truth, moment by moment, will set us free, as one, together.
Once the family secret is revealed as a simple truth which is actually much healthier than the reaction to the lie or secret that has been a charade for many generations.