By Yael Reiss
It sometimes take courage to reach out to others. Even something simple as catching up with a family member or a friend can be challenging for quite a few of us. Some people find in difficult to reach out to their own partner. We sometimes need courage to allow ourselves to be who we are while with others. We don’t always feel safe doing that.
Sarah came to a Family Constellations workshop that I once participated overseas.
I couldn’t not notice that she was a beautiful woman.
The problem she wanted to address was that she couldn’t feel really loved as a woman. It was hard for her to let go of the tremendous sense of rejection she felt when the father of her child left her, even though they stayed good friends all those years after the separation, and he was always supportive in any way he could be.
The facilitator asked her to choose a representative from the workshop participants to represent the father of her child. Then she asked Sarah to stand a few steps in front of him. She was then asked to say to that man in one sentence what she felt.
As she said “I feel you never loved me as a woman”, tears were quietly running down her cheeks.
The representative of the ex-partner was very sad when he confirmed that this is true.
The facilitator asked a man and a woman from the workshop participants to come and stand a bit behind and to the sides of the representative of the ex-partner.
She then asked Sarah to look at these people, as representing her own parents, and to say the same sentence to the parent that it felt right to say it to.
A bit shocked or amazed Sarah turned and looked to the representative of her own father, and said, now with more tears: “I feel you never loved me as a woman”.
After a long pause in which Sarah softly cried, she said she was the youngest of four loved daughters, and that when her mother was pregnant with her, her Dad was desperate for a boy, especially since her parents did not plan to have any more children. She realized that since she can remember, in order to get his attention, in different unconscious ways she was trying to be the boy her Dad would never have, and not letting herself just be ‘Daddy’s little girl’…
The representative of her father was struck with sadness once he’d known how this had such an impact on his youngest daughter. A few sentences were exchanged and within a few minutes this constellation came to an end. All the participants seemed very moved by this constellation (I was in tears too…).
When a baby or a child tries to reach out for a parent, and repeatedly or consistently finds herself or himself denied, that is so painful, that the child makes an unconscious decision to stop reaching out. The child will turn away, typically very quietly and without a struggle. Out of sense of helplessness the child will no longer expect to be met with love. The initial pattern of turning away versus reaching out is something we usually adopt early in life, and it will determine our approach to the world and to others in some or in most areas of life. Those of us with a good Reaching Out Movement installed in early childhood, generally have an interest in the world, naturally turning towards life and others in an open way. Those of us suffering from a Turning Away Movement, or An Interrupted Reaching Out Movement, will be pulling back in an inside withdrawal, closing up and finding it difficult or unsafe to connect with people as well as with loved ones.
Different childhood experiences are prone to interrupt the child’s reaching out movement. Some common ones happen when a parent or child are hospitalised or for another reason are away from each other for a long duration, or when a parent is emotionally unavailable to the child for a long period. Sometimes a very loving parent, for reasons beyond their control or awareness will be emotionally unavailable.
In Sarah’s case above, her father was unavailable for her as a female child. Unaware, he probably only met her boy-ish efforts to reach out to him and ignored the girl-ish attempts at reaching out. Sarah then gave up reaching out as a female, applying it later on in life with men, unconsciously keeping her femininity from men. In Steve Biddulph’s famous book ‘Raising Girls’, he writes and brings research evidence of how important fathers are not only in their daughters life in general, but also specifically how important a father is to his daughter’s own confidence as a woman later on.
If you are curious about how it implies to you, you can ask yourself a couple of questions:
- Is your main movement in life a Reaching Out Movement, or is it Turning Away?
- If you have a problem with someone or with typical people, find what is the sentence you can say to them that reflects most accurately what you feel in regards to them. (In Sarah’s case it was “I feel you never loved me as a woman”). Then, in your imagination place your own parents behind the representation of the person you have a problem with. Check out what you feel and what happens when you say the exact same words to one of your parents.
Family Constellations workshop is one of the best ways to address and help heal issues stemming from an interrupted reaching out movement. From now on the workshops will be held on Saturdays, to make it easier for you to attend.
Join us in the coming workshop.
