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One more thing to let go of
Dear Creatrix,
Welcome to week three of the FAMILY chapter of the CREATRIX School.
How do you feel? What have you learned in the last two weeks? Can you already notice any changes in your life?
Today, we are going to think about one more aspect, one more possibly hidden baggage, that we might carry around with us, and that might be making our lives unnecessarily heavy, so we can drop that as well, and move on even more freely.
As I’m writing this, it is six o’clock in the morning, and I’ve already been up for two hours because my dog had diarrhoea and needed to go out, and, after releasing what needed to be released, was quite unsettled still, so I stayed up with him.
And while it wasn’t one of my happiest moments when he woke me up, I’m quite happy about it now, as it reminded me of something that might be good to think about on this journey we’re on together, to create the family life of our dreams.
So, I thank the universe, for aligning things perfectly, once again!
Let’s start with a quick review, though:
In the first week, we thought about our family situation in general, and also began to think a bit more about what we don’t need any more and what it is that we want and wish for – and we will go into what we wish for in more detail this week, which will be fun and exciting!
In the second week, we looked at things, that we grew up with, and that have possibly limited us in what we have experienced until now.
We looked at the different Inner Child Archetypes and reflected on what we learned from the different roles we took on as children, how these patterns still come up now, and how we can now focus on the positive aspects, and the learning, we experienced through them.
And we looked at our whole lives from a different perspective, imagining what it would feel like, if we had actually chosen to live the life we live, hardships and all, for a specific reason – and we found a lot of empowerment in the process (or not?).
So, while working with the Inner Child Archetypes, and also while choosing to see our lives from a different perspective, we mostly saw the things that we didn’t have and how we coped without them or which strategies we developed to deal with things that weren’t there, that we might have needed or wished for.
But we might not only have missed things, we might have also made our lives harder by adopting some of the malfunctions and unhelpful behaviours that have become traditions in our families – which we may call our secret or hidden family inheritance.
And that is what I would like to look at today.
It’s quite an interesting aspect, no?
Genital mutilation could be seen as something like that. Or the suppression of women in general and how different things are expected of girls and boys.
But also just being grumpy about certain things and not about others, or expecting things to be and go certain ways because that’s how they always did.
And while these things often do not make us happy when we are growing up, we still pass them on to next generations – until we consciously decide to break these patterns.
But besides these first examples, which are quite obvious, there are also more subtle and personal family traditions, that can easily go unnoticed as such, such as grumpiness, or when we are stressed or afraid.
And that’s why they might be extra valuable to investigate, today, so that we can let go of all of these unhelpful habits, thoughts, or attachments as well.
For this, I will share two examples from my own life:
The first one is quite straightforward and was resolved very quickly, the second one is a bit more tricky, but I think together they will give you a good idea of how to investigate and resolve these things in your own life as well.
Here’s the first one:
While I absolutely love having a clean house, I never liked cleaning my house.
And whenever I had to do it, I was grumpy.
I was annoyed at the dogs being in the way, and when I still lived with them, I always asked my flatmates to stay away when I cleaned because their presence was just going to upset me more – and they gladly did.
If I saw someone walking over the wet floors that I had just cleaned, it felt like my life was pointless and basically, as soon as I picked up a broom, a vacuum cleaner or a mop, I was surrounded by a big black cloud of resentment, self-pity and frustration. I always felt happy when it was done, but the process to get there was horrible for everyone.
Until one day, when I realised that these were not actually my feelings, but that I had just adopted them.
