This is my 3rd blog on Transforming Holiday Family Heartaches.   In the 2nd, I outlined the principles of Five Star Family Healing, and then spoke about these in our first teleseminar session.  Both of these are just below this text on the page.   Today I'll explain the first two stars.

Star One:  Explore the nature of human family souls.  So what are they anyway?  Just like a sports team, while made up of individuals, has its own characteristic identity and wholeness--the same is true of the human family unit.  In each one, the members have different skils and jobs that contribute to success.  But there are two big differences.  

First, most of the roles in the sports team involve conscious choices.  A tall guy might or might not decide to play center in basketball.  But since it is tens of thousands of years old, and essential to the survival of our species--many of the human family's roles are built-in to our nervous system.  They happen without our ever thinking about them.  And the live on in our unconscious reactions.

Second, the sports team exists pretty much only in the present.  Retired players don't affect the point totals.  In workshop experiences all over the world, however, it has become clear that the human family actively includes ancestors 2 and 3 generations back--even if they are deceased.  They can actively influence, and be influenced by, the passing on of life and love among the living. 

So the human family soul is a partly unconscious, transgenerational, pyschically active organism.  The main thing it does is try to preserve (or else restore) harmonius inclusion.  All the members have a right to belong.  Of course, you yourself belong to one of these.  You grew from it as a branch does from a tree, and while you have plenty of scope as an individual--your particular family soul remains a major part of your psychic root system forever.

Star Two:  Look for the shape of your unique family soul.  So the question becomes then:  what condition is your root system in?  This depends somewhat on what has happened in the past.  But breaks or clogs in your root system are created primarily by important events that the family was unable or unwilling to feel, process, and accept. These echo down through the generations and can affect your life in powerful ways.  Often you can spot these kinds of events by looking for what everyone knows, but no one is supposed to talk about. 

Because you will find similar patterns of suppression or exclusion repeating, you can start looking for the shape of your own family soul in any generation--your own, your parent's, your children's, your grandparent's, or your grandchildren's.  The trick is to start looking BETWEEN individual family members, and then across generations.  It's all about emotion and it's in the patterns through which these are exchanged (or suppressed).  As your focus comes off of individuals and into the emotional interactions between them--you will start seeing how your family system works.

Deep in the heart of your family, you can find not only insight, but healing.