Time Bombs in Families and How to Survive Them
In 1999, Dr Averil Earnshaw published a book with the above title based on
thirty years of research into what she terms Inner Space and the dangerous
collections of undigested experiences from our lives, which never disappear.
She explores and comments on parallel events (especially major life events) in
the lives of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. She suggests, in
particular, that some physical illnesses may be of psychosomatic origin,
perhaps unconsciously inherited from our parents.
In short, her theory is that our lives may be seriously affected by what she
calls age-linked life events of other family members, in particular of our
parents. She suggests that we are particularly vulnerable in our lives at the
very same ages at which our parents experienced major events in their lives.
She further suggests that if we are aware of these potential time bombs, we
may be able to exert a personal influence on the outcomes.
As well as offering pertinent observations from her career in psychotherapy and
speculative cause and effect arguments for her ideas, Earnshaw devotes many of
the pages of this book to short practical analyses of the biographies of many
famous individuals: writers, poets, writers, actors and artists, musicians and
politicians. Among her special subjects are:
Darwin, Einstein, Freud, Picasso, Keats, Fleming (Alexander), Robert
Oppenheimer, Jane Austen, Marie Curie and Bertrand Russell.
There is obviously further scope for self-analysis and biographical analyses by
those who find Earnshaws hypotheses convincing.
Ten years on, people are finally beginning to pay more attention to this
original thesis. To give an idea of the wide appeal of her research and
speculations, I reproduce below two extracts, one on a poet, the other on an
actress.
( C Copyright Averil Earnshaw)
Reproduced, with permission, from Time Bombs in Families and How to Survive
Them, Part 3: Time Will Tell, pp 93-4.
ISBN 0958714517
On 06/08/2010, at 9:41 AM, Anne Beversdorf wrote:
I've mostly "lurked" here, but just had an experience and thought I'd like to
share. (I do group constellations rarely, and individual constellations
somewhat more regularly, when they seem called for in my normal astrological
practice. I've been doing this since 1998.)
So, I've got a story to tell followed by a question...
I just did a constellation for myself, preceded a few years ago by a vision
in which I "became" my grandfather, a young boy of about 5, weeping
inconsolably because his parents were at the graveyard. I'd long known his
general history: his father died, his uncle took the kids from the mother
(German-Texan law), the mother raised a $500/child bond to regain custody and
promptly died herself. I only recently learned he was 5 when his father died,
so only recently realized he effectively lost both parents when he was the
age I temporarily "embodied". (His mother died when he was 12, but I don't
know the year when she regained custody.)
I remember my own childhood until age 5 as happy, with me ridiculously
self-confident and optimistic, and remember that after that I became more
"serious"--melancholy even, but can't identify anything difficult that
happened in my life at that time. As an adult I've suffered periods of deep
depression for no apparent reason. So my personal constellation reconnected
me with my grandfather and seems not only to have rescued me from a bout of
depression, but has triggered some big inner shifts I am only beginning to
see.
So here's the question. We see so often the effect of family history in
constellations... Do you think it's at all possible that "mirror neurons"
work across generations? According to my neurologist brother, these have a
specific location in the brain. If emotions are carried by parents into the
offspring, is it possible that mirror neurons are involved in
multigenerational trauma (or success, for that matter)?
Anne Beversdorf
Counseling Astrologer
Western and Vedic
www.stariel.com
anne@xxxxxxxxxxx
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