I wonder how much fear of the unknown keeps me from seeing, doing, and being. I've had a couple of conversations over the last few days about the stories we tell ourselves and how much fear inhabits our narrative. Fear tries to tell us it's too scary, too hard, or that we are not smart enough, good enough, or worthy enough. I am learning how to sit with fear instead of running away. Fear is usually trying to stop me from believing in myself, fear likes to keep me small, and if I let it, fear can rob me of my joy. When I find my self believing fear, I quickly remember........
Fear is a tricky foe. I think my ability to look fear in the face comes from the interpersonal work I've done around my Family of Origin issues. Fear played a huge role of keeping me in my addiction, I believed fear when it told me I wasn't good enough, or smart enough, or worthy enough of God's love and light. Fear kept me in the darkness. I had to go back to my past to fully understand the source of fear in my life. Here is an excerpt from my clinical theory of counseling that explains the root of fear in many peoples life:
"For those who have been wounded, especially as a result of early childhood trauma, unraveling their family history can be long and arduous process, but it most often a vital and necessary step towards healing." In her essay, The Labyrinth of Truama, Dr. Alexandra Onno discusses the client who comes to us with a history of trauma:
"These are the ones who enter our hopeful offices suffering from what over time has become a terrible inner battle, and often a self-destructive one. Resulting from profound issues of survival and attachment and loss, born out of living with relationships characterized and poisoned by danger rather than nurture, these are the survivors of relationships that wittingly or unwittingly betrayed the first contract, the contract to keeping safe the young ones in our care. (Onno, 2012, p.2)"
As therapists, we are entrusted with the responsibility to meet each client we receive with a tender awareness of the history of trauma their stories may hold.
The lack of secure attachment, where a child received “consistent, emotionally attuned, contingent communication with their parent or primary caregiver” (Siegel, Hartzell, 2003, p.103) is perhaps the deepest wound a person will experience in their life time. A broken heart may go unnoticed by the untrained eye, as those who have this wound often work hard to conceal their hurt and pain. My work as a therapist is to look for that which is hidden, to help mend broken hearts, and to facilitate the process of becoming whole again. There is a place in all of us that longs to be whole, to be a “worthy member of the tribe” (Onno, 2012), and to know that we are enough.
In Onno’s essay, To Fill This Cup: The Quest for Secure Attachment, she describes that:
"Secure attachments are born out of state of enough: enough affection, warmth, and responsiveness, and enough consistency, structure, and safety. We need the sweetness of life as well as stability, roses as well as bread. Secure attachment is ‘the full cup’ that does not leak—the cup holds something worth holding. (Onno, 2012, p.3)"
The art and beauty of the healing process emerges when the client and therapist are able to join together in creating a cup that can release the bitterness of the past and hold the sweetness life has to offer today. If the client is ready, I believe that I can hold the container that will allow them to find the answers that exist inside themselves. Answers that will tell them that they are competent, lovable and that they belong on this earth. In our work together I will make space for conversations about developing acceptance and how to be forgiving as a way to heal from the past and be fully alive for the present.
We are not always aware of the impact our families’ history has on our functioning, but we are born into system that has a need for us to function in a specific way. In utilizing Bowen Theory my hope is that I can assist clients in understanding that their stories began developing when they were infants in the care of their parents. I believe the stories we tell ourselves are the verbal DNA that connect us to our family of origin. This DNA is passed on from generation to generation and will shape our beginnings and stay with us until the end of our lives. We will pass this DNA onto our children, and they will pass it onto theirs. Bowen theory recognizes this pattern as the concept of the multigenerational transmission:
The multigenerational transmission process describes how small differences in the levels of differentiation between parents and their offspring lead over many generations to marked differences in differentiation among the members of a multigenerational family. The information creating these differences is transmitted across generations through relationships. The transmission occurs on several interconnected levels ranging from the conscious teaching and learning of information to the automatic and unconscious programming of emotional reactions and behaviors (The Bowen Center, 2012, p.1).
Increasing a client’s understanding of family of origin issues and how they manifest in their present day life is a key component to my role as a therapist. Family Systems theorists would say that we are born into the most influential narrative we will ever encounter at any point in our lives. At birth our parents consciously and unconsciously convey their messages about our lovability through how they welcome us, nurture us, and accept us into their lives. The messages received and all interactions between parents and children contribute to what Bowen Theory calls the nuclear family emotional system. Using the Bowenian lens I am able to help clients deepen their knowledge of how this emotional system may be a source of anxiety that is still alive and impacting their current relationship and quality of life. I believe that the stories we develop about ourselves, both positive and negative, play a significant role in every aspect of our lives, and therapy is one of ways to understand how the past lives in the now.
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