‘How is my body doing?’ Fully trusting in her expertise, I lay on her table while her hands felt their way across my inner energetic state.
‘It’s not giving it away.’
‘What do you mean, it’s not giving it away? That’s not like me, is it?’
‘No. It’s not giving it away. About your parents. You’re not giving it away, and you’re paying a high price for it.’
‘What is that ‘it’? Is it mine or is it my parents’? Or am I carrying it for my parents?’
‘I don’t know. It’s not giving it away.’
I was surprised and not surprised at the same time. During a treatment my body is an open book, always happy to be seen, felt and understood. I myself become a torrent of words during a session like that. This time I had decided to say a little less. Just as an experiment. To see what would happen. And that is the first thing I get to hear. You get what you create. Rather funny, really; I couldn’t help but smile.
‘It’s time you got rid of it. Your parents are pulling at you.’
‘That’s true, but it’s a movement in two directions, isn’t it? After all the work I’ve already done, that pull keeps creating disturbances in my own body.’
I wasn’t panicking, disappointed or angry. There are many layers waiting to be fathomed. This was simply another layer. ‘It’s all about levels’, my teacher Michael Barnett used to say, a sentence I have often repeated to myself and one that brings calm.
‘Is it mine or is it theirs? It doesn’t feel like mine, but I do feel it in them and carry it with me, and somehow I have made it my own. Perhaps I can look at it as if I had borrowed it and the loan period has expired.’
‘It’s time you got rid of it. It’s holding you back.’
‘It would help if the secret that is always there like background noise were to come out.’
‘Certainly, it sits like a stiff spot in your body. It slows you down and paralyses you. I don’t think it will be long before it comes to light.’
‘Everything comes to light. I don’t want to be the only one who knows.’
I had no intention of waiting. That Stiff Spot interested and intrigued me. I think it would make a lovely title for a book or a blog, and I find myself inclined to write it with capital letters. The Stiff and the Supple exist side by side within me. I know them both. High time to give the stiff part some extra attention and to fathom it more deeply. That is no chore for me. I love this kind of unravelling process.
The Stiff Spot is the language of the body, which delivers its message in a unique way, yet hidden in a code that we are invited to learn to decipher. What is your Stiff Spot telling you?
‘How do I begin with that Stiff Spot? The older my parents get, the clearer it becomes to me how their patterns have worn their way into me with the utmost subtlety, as if they were my own. I have indeed made them my own. It’s time for them to be released. All the preparations have been completed. Just a few more steps now. What do I need to do?’
‘The price is too high. Your body is suffering from it. It’s time for it to stop.’
‘Perhaps I should look at the patterns that keep repeating themselves within me,’ I murmured, half to myself.
‘Go back to your childhood, really work on it. Look for those patterns that, at first sight, you no longer seem to be dealing with,’ said the encouraging voice behind the hands that had discovered the Stiff Spot.
‘I’m really looking forward to that. Like a Sherlock Holmes, I will solve the mystery. Mark my words.’
In my trainings I compare taking on our parents’ patterns to a piece of fabric. At first sight the fabric looks like a plain, even piece. When you look more closely, you see how all the threads are very finely woven together. So finely that we barely notice it any more. In the same way, what we saw in our parents is woven into us. Some threads are very useful and beneficial. Other threads bring irregularities in the pattern to the surface. They are not always immediately noticeable. The true art 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 who we truly are.
Systemic constellations or family constellations can help by shining a light on what you do feel but cannot quite 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 forward in the present. When we dare to (re)claim our place in the now, the parents can be parents and the children can be children. The pain has eased or disappeared.
A new series of family constellations is starting.
With zestful greetings
Hilde Van Bulck
