If you’ve been around constellation work long enough, you’ve heard how important it is to “take your mother and your father.” This can sound understandably worrisome to many of us with parents who weren’t safe for us. So, what does it really mean?
The accidents of fate that surround our birth are innumerable. The fact is: we are here, despite and because of all the joy, suffering, limitations, and gifts of those who preceded us, including our parents. This is also true for our parents – they received life from those who went before despite and because of their varied and often difficult lives.
Sometimes this lands very hard on the children. As Bert Hellinger says, “Children are absolutely powerless to change anything about this first giving and taking.” But if they survive it, they become adults who want to live as fully as possible, despite the conditions of their coming-into-the-world. How do we do that, if our earliest conditions were so harmful?
Obviously, this question has more than one answer. There are many things we probably need to heal and become whole. But one healing movement is to find our way to a full, robust “yes” to the conditions of our birth and the life we are being invited to take from our parents. This is not the same as approval or liking, but it is a way to be fully on our own side about the fact of being here at all.
As Bert Hellinger’s colleague Hunter Beaumont puts it, “This means taking [our] actual mother and father and seeing them through the eyes of an adult standing in the Order of Love, not through a distressed child’s eyes.” The child can’t (and probably shouldn’t, to stay safe), but we as adults can – with care, support, and the permission to take our time.
When we do this more and more, we can become more fully ourselves and take our powerful place in the world, having received (taken) our lives completely. There can also be profound dangers when we don’t do it, leading to a persistent temptation to look for those resources elsewhere – projecting the ideal parents on various people and institutions, partners and work, that cannot possibly live up to the job.
What helps you take life from your parents more fully? I love to hear your stories and thoughts! Please share on my blog below!
I love this – “This means taking [our] actual mother and father and seeing them through the eyes of an adult standing in the Order of Love, not through a distressed child’s eyes.” it makes so much sense. It’s so important to help the client see this from their adult self, because most often they see their parents through the eyes of the wounded child.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom on this topic Leslie. x