‘How is my body doing?’ Full of confidence in her expertise I lay on her table while her hands scanned my inner energetic state.

‘It is not giving it away.’

‘What do you mean, it is not giving it away? That is not usually my way, is it?’

‘No. It is not giving it away. From your parents. You do not give it away and you pay a high price for it.’

‘What is that ‘it’? And is it mine or is it my parents’? Or am I carrying it for my parents?

‘I do not know. It is not giving it away.’

I was surprised and not surprised at the same time. My body is an open book during a treatment, always glad to be seen, felt and understood. I myself am a torrent of words during a session like that. I had resolved to say a little less this time. Just as an experiment. To see what would happen then. And that is the first thing I get to hear. You get what you create. Rather funny, really; I could not help smiling.

‘It is time you got rid of it. Your parents are pulling at you.’

‘That is true, but it is a movement in two directions, isn’t it? After all the work I have already done, the pull keeps creating disturbances in my own body.’

I was not panicking, disappointed or angry. There are many layers that may be fathomed. This was simply another layer. ‘It’s all about levels’, said my teacher Michael Barnett, a sentence I have often repeated to myself and that brings calm.

‘Is it mine or theirs? It does not feel like mine, but it does feel as though I sense it in them and carry it along and have somehow made it my own. Perhaps I can look at it as if I have borrowed it and the loan period has expired.’

‘It is time you got rid of it. It is holding you back.’

‘It would help if the secret that is always there as background noise were to come out.’

‘Certainly, it sits like a stiff part in your body. It slows you down and paralyses you. I think it will not be long before it comes to light.’

‘Everything comes to light. I do not want to be the only one who knows.’

I had no intention of waiting. That Stiff Part interested and intrigued me. I think it makes a lovely title for a book or a blog and I have a tendency to write it with capital letters. The Stiff and the Supple exist side by side in me. I know them both. High time to give the stiff a little extra attention and fathom it more deeply. That is no chore for me. I am mad about this kind of unravelling process.

The Stiff Part is the language of the body, which brings its message in a unique way, but hidden in a coded language that we may learn to decipher. What is your Stiff Part telling you?

‘How do I start with that Stiff Part? The older my parents get, the clearer it becomes to me how their patterns have been worn into me with the utmost subtlety, as if they were my own. I have indeed made them my own. It is time they were released. All the preparations have been completed. Just a few more steps now. What do I have to do for it?’

‘The price is too high. Your body is suffering from it. It is time it stopped.’

‘Perhaps I should look at the patterns that keep repeating themselves in me,’ I murmured, rather to myself.

‘Go back to your childhood, make a real job of it. Look for those patterns you are seemingly no longer concerned with,’ said the encouraging voice behind the hands that had discovered the Stiff Part.

‘I am keen to do that. Like a Sherlock Holmes I will solve the riddle. Mark my words.’

In my trainings I compare the taking over of our parents’ patterns to a piece of fabric. At first sight the fabric looks like one even piece. With a more focused eye you see how all the threads are woven together very finely. So finely that we hardly notice it any more. That is how what we saw in our parents is woven into us. Some threads are very usable and favourable. Other threads bring irregularities in the pattern to the surface. They do not always stand out straight away. The art of it is to weave our own fabric, with the threads we have created ourselves. Unravelling our old weaving pattern and creating a new one can keep us busy for years, until we finally come closer to our own uniqueness.

Systemic constellations or family constellations can help by shining light on what you do feel but cannot put your finger on. They show the emotional pain, but also the way out of that pain. They show the past, but also the way in the present. If we dare to (re)take our place in the now, parents can be parents and children can be children. The pain has softened or disappeared.

A new series of family constellations is starting.

With a zest-for-life greeting

Hilde Van Bulck