Check out our first post in this series, Is forgiveness really required? Part 1
As children, we were forced to accept the way we’re treated by our family or situations.
Some situations are good as the adults agreed to take care of our well-being. In other cases, guardians did not do such a good job. Many people come from broken homes. Sometimes it’s another relative who can be our advocate, protector, or champion, but far too often, children are left to fend for themselves in homes filled with trauma.
As we age, we may reflect on our childhood and wish that it were different. The cruel irony is that we waste so much time on shoulda, coulda, woulda that we forget to be present in the now. Trauma hijacks our bodies and takes us into the past, demanding we keep going over past events in an attempt to change them.
But the past can’t be changed. We siphon off days and hours of our present trying to fix a past that will never exist.
We can’t cahnge the past. But we can transform our perception of it.
As adults, we can energetically transform our perception of the past and our conscious beliefs, which enable us to begin healing. Continuing to re-examine our personal history in an attempt to change it keeps us trapped in a perpetual rut through recreating family dynamics in our current relationships. Routine, innocuous, and comfortable family dynamics evolve into inescapable patterns that—knit together over the generations—form a patchwork quilt that defines our family. We feel trapped.
It is natural to remember bad events much more than the good ones, this is how our brains are wired.
A million situations and reactions transpire between birth and adulthood that train our brains, bodies, and hearts what to believe and how to respond.
It’s funny how selective our perception and memory can be. Each one of us creates a movie where we’re the director with the power to edit in a way that supports our beliefs and feelings. We seldom realize we have that kind of power to do so.
As we age, we can proactively find help or a myriad of therapies to sort things out. If we’re lucky, we find inner peace and resolution before death. Others continually react as if the negative events were still happening or create new ones that match the old familiar ones of days gone by. May the living hell of a trauma loop be damned.
The danger and hidden truth of trauma is that it’s addictive.
We were taught a learned pattern from trauma that is continually re-patterned within us as we hit similarly triggering events in the present. This type of duplicated scenario becomes a dysfunctional “negative habit” or “comfort zone” well into adulthood.
It is a cruel irony that we recreate the original negative situation over and over again leading us to behave like a hamster running on a wheel. The catch-22 is that we are not conscious that we are duplicating the same traumas of our youth well into adulthood. We often feel like we’re victims of our own pasts but not aware of the subtle ways we learned to secretly perpetrate those self-same patterns against ourselves.
Could it be that the most destructive part of any childhood is that we became “conditioned” to repeat the cycle over and over again throughout our adulthood?
Did our ancestors do the same? Yes, our behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes are part of the larger family systems continuum, into which we became indoctrinated at birth, continuing into childhood and beyond.
The real challenge is how to disengage from this self-destructive pattern that no longer serves us in a positive way. Being aware of how we create it is usually a good place to start. Many people do not even think they have a problem. This is just the way things are. It’s the only way they know how to observe the pattern and its effects. Many people are unaware that their “comfort zone” is actually a loop of the internal perpetrator, inner victim dynamics expressing themselves daily in the dramas of their lives.
Many are not aware or even conscious of their behavior. Few people fail to recognize that they are unconsciously playing the victim against a perceived evil, malicious, perpetrator who wronged them so long, long ago.
Many people were taught by their families of origin to carry the situational, negative energy physically in every cell of their being.
This is the real tragedy. The long-lasting impact of any trauma lies in the internalization of the aggressor which actually becomes incorporated into our very own inner perpetrator aspect.
Can we engage or transform this?
Can we break this bad habit?
Can we transform our comfort zone?
Can we regain our innocence?
Dare we BREAK the cycle?
Yes, there is a way out. Contrary to popular belief it’s NOT through FORGIVENESS. The only healthy aspect of forgiveness is forgiving yourself and having personal compassion for yourself not being able to change.
Some people don’t even have choice to know that they are allowing themselves to be trapped in a negative pattern. Even worse that they were taught you to embody this ancestral conflict inside out and outside in. The real tragedy is that we can’t tell the difference or feel how we sabotage ourselves in the minutest of ways. Thereby, we unconsciously express the “perpetrator/victim cycle” that’s now known to us as our comfort zone.
Always remember “every perpetrator was a victim first”
Our re-enactments are often unconscious embodiment or our desire to regain our long-lost innocence. The repetition of trauma helps us remember how we were before any negative life event took place.
Could it be that the ingrained trauma is a distraction from processing the original event?
Do we avoid being innocent again because of a perpetual mistrust?
Is victimization the real issue or is the deeper issue loss of the ability to trust?
I believe it’s possible to change and transform as adults by first admitting the internalized polarity of the perpetrator/victim dynamic. Is it possible to see that the perpetrator was a teacher and that you’re forever linked to the bitter lesson as part of your lifetime fate and destiny? Is it safe now to transform this big, traumatic lesson and release ourselves from the negative bond that was created so long, long ago? Yes, it was most unfortunate, but we did survive and that has to be considered to transform and deeply heal in order to resolve the past indiscretions against your being.
Once we can admit these deeper truths and express the energetic truth of these prickly emotions, we can then open up to perceive our delicate personal history in a new way. This is how the Constellation experience healing process can begin in earnest.
Bert Hellinger once eloquently stated, “We can only release after we embrace.”
We can honor the person, the place and lesson this aspect of life created and more put in our path. There’s always a bigger reason that these events happened. Yes, we were wounded and more importantly, we survived. Now it’s time to find our courage to release the past’s negative hold while having ACCEPTANCE for the place and the lesson it brought into to our lives.
What I have found is that if we were strong enough as children to survive this negative bonding through trauma and more importantly, we reached adulthood in spite of it, this shows a soul strength of determination. Innately, we have the strength to embrace any past situation in a new way, by facing it head on. Remember, we survived in spite of it and now it’s more than safe to explore or process past trauma to transform it to let any negatives in our personal history go.
Let the past be the past, be fully present in the NOW!
All you have to do is trust that ACCEPTANCE will free you in ways you’ve never experienced. You may still have a childhood scar or two, but the wound can finally be healed. Even your negative perception and dysfunctional or neurotic behaviors may change as well. Every day you’re alive is a new chance for a fresh start.
If we can come to terms with the past while honoring our fates and destinies, this is a true sign of adulthood. In ACCEPTANCE of this negative energy or “perpetrator element” being a catalyst of strength that life demanded of us. We just might have earned the FREEDOM to escape and walk away. Finally, the past is put to rest while opening a clear yet unwritten future in front of us to evolve toward in a new way.
Just maybe if we are lucky our childhood INNOCENCE and WONDER can be restored. We can finally be “free at last” from a past perception that doesn’t serve us. Now true adulthood and maturity can be finally reached!
A powerful Exercise to not forgive but accept in order to energetically release and heal
- Bow Down in thankfulness and gratitude as you ACCEPT the “Gift of Life” the way it was given. “BOW DOWN”
- Bow Down to EVERYONE who came before, as their energy remains alive at your innermost core. You often see the world through their eyes.
- Bow Down to the suffering and strife that your ancestors endured, surviving the conditions that led to you receiving the “Gift of Life”.
- Bow Down to all the pain that life may have caused, for you are the JOY of their toil and labor that can’t be ignored. Your BIRTH was the hope of a better day.
- Bow Down yet again to your parents, even if their “gifts” to you weren’t apparent.
- Bow Down to the mysteries of life that often fail to make sense; it’s God’s way of showing there’s always another chance.
- Bow Down to it all, no matter what you think. If you do not stop to do this, your life can be gone in a blink.
- Bowing Down is a humble act of honoring those who came before. If you can’t Bow Down to your creators, then what in your life means more?
- Bow Down…
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