Hi Tom,
once I ignore your personal jibes at Lutz, I can see you make some
interesting and valid points about Bert Hellinger's differentiation between
"accepting"and "taking" This seems to be the difference between a superficial
acceptance, tolerance or "putting up with" versus a deep acceptance which is
encapsulated in the words "I agree". As you point out we can avoid this with
our parents by either holding on to resentment or by idealising them.
Also deep acceptance can be confused with resignation. In fact it is a
necessary prelude to skilful action. This may even include the necessity to
protect ourselves from a harmful parent. Hellinger accepts this implicitly when
he says to someone in a constellation "It is not safe for you to stand with
this parent. You are better off standing with the other one."
The relationship between deep acceptance and skilful action is outlined by
Marsha Linehan the founder of Dialectic Behaviour Therapy for people with
Borderline Personality Disorder. Here she talks about acceptance and change.
You can read "skilful action" where she says "change". Just as she talks about
the Borderline needing to learn from or take their experience we all need to
take our parents exactly as they are. Then we can act skilfully from that point.
To work effectively, keeping both client and therapist in the room working on
the problems at hand, the therapist had to somehow figure out how to hold both
acceptance and change in the therapy simultaneously, a synthesis that, when
found, could engender both new client change and new acceptance. The wish to
change every painful experience had to be balanced with a corresponding effort
at learning to accept life's inevitable pain for a number of reasons. First, it
was impossible to work on changing one set of problems if the client could not
at least temporarily tolerate the pain of other problems. Without tolerance, at
least for a short time, all problems converged and threatened to overwhelm both
the client and the therapy. Second, the inability to accept one's own behavior
prohibits any ability to change, because it leads either to withdrawal and
avoidance or, alternatively, to emotional responses such as rage or intense
shame. Both interfere with the observation and self‑understanding necessary for
effective change. It was as necessary for the client to hold the synthesis of
acceptance and change as it was for the therapist.
Hasta la vista
Chris Walsh
Melbourne, Australia
Website www.constellationflow.com
-----Original Message-----
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of TomBuoyed@xxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2005 5:48 AM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Taking Bert as he is? Or not!
Lutz wrote from the land down under:
__________________________________
Hi Thomas,
this is a response to your posting from 3.9.05!
You write in your posting about "Uncle Bert". I assume that you refer to Bert
Hellinger. I remember that in previous postings you used the wording "Uncle
Bert."
I have a strong reaction to that. I really don't like it!!!
No matter what your view is about Bert Hellinger - it does not make him "Uncle
Bert" unless you want to degrade him in one way or the other (I can't imagine
that this is your intent).
Lutz Pamberger, Western Australia
___________________________________
Lieber Lutz!
I acknowledge your dislike of my use of the title "Uncle Bert." Yet I have also
equally used the designation "Pope Bert," and you did not object to that use.
So you feel that I am possibly degrading Bert by calling him "Uncle," yet you
seem not to be upset at my calling him Pope, which implies "Holy Father."
I'm grateful that you brought the issue up because I'm sure that there are
several others out there who feel the same way but who were not ready to say so
on the forum. You are correct in assuming that my intention is not to degrade
Bert. Quite the contrary. It is actually my breezy, carefree and exuberant way
of actually praising and honoring Bert.
For example, when I was in a group of students working together on physics
homework problems in college, we would refer to Albert Einstein as "Uncle
Albert." It was a way of simultaneously honoring Einstein as a modern physics
"god" and yet bringing him down to our student level, so that we might
understand the actual physics and not be intimidated by his elevated iconic
public status.
Similarly, my use of "Uncle Bert" may connote to you a kind of cheeky
familiarity which is not earned, and since Bert is our esteemed "father figure"
in this "family system" of facilitators, it may stir up feelings of sibling
resentment because I am violating your sense of honor and reverence toward him.
Yet I believe I am both honoring him (as father) and pulling him down to my
level (as my equal). In short, I am TAKING Bert as he is, as my father in the
FC facilitator system, and by so taking him, I can actually move beyond him.
In Bert's book _Acknowledging What Is_, on page 93, there is this exchange
between Bert and Gabriele ten Hoevel concerning the issue of accepting vs.
taking,
an issue I wrote about last Sept. 8 in message 1567
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ConstellationTalk/message/1567: ;
I quote the whole exchange below:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
<< BERT: . . . I differentiate very carefully between accepting and taking.
Accepting is gracious and tolerant. When I take, I take whatever is available,
exactly as it is. This kind of taking is humble and acknowledges the parents as
they are.
In taking I also acknowledge myself exactly as I am. It has a deep
conciliatory quality --- a coming to rest. It's beyond judgment of good or bad.
Boasting about one's parents is also a sign of not having taken them.
Idealizing shuts out the essential as well.
GABRIELE: So taking is beyond admiration or idealization, as well as
condemnation?
BERT: Yes, it is totally elementary and without judgments. Those who can take
in this way are clear with their parents and with themselves and they can fend
for themselves.>>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Again, Bert teaches us to find the "golden mean" between two opposite extremes.
It is very easy to see that if a son despises his father, wishes he were
different, etc., then the son is really not TAKING his father as he is. But
it's a lot more difficult to see that if a son is idealizing his father, or
even bragging about his father, then the son is equally guilty of not taking
the father as he is.
The point is that the son may not even be aware of the fact that he is
idealizing his father as a way of actually NOT taking his father as he is.
Perhaps he is graciously tolerating his father, thus accepting him but not
TAKING him in Bert's sense of the word.
And so, Lutz, I wonder if you might be caught in this very subtle trap
yourself? I sense your ambiguity and confusion so I ask. On the one hand you
are upset that I may be degrading Bert; on the other hand, you cannot imagine
that is my intent.
Might you not be so involved in your own reverence for Bert and his work that
you are inadvertently IDEALIZING him to the point of actually not TAKING him as
he is?
I am very familiar with this phenomenon because I have been a student of Rudolf
Steiner and his anthroposophy for the last 30 years. I have also been a Waldorf
teacher in NYC and LA for several years and I am painfully aware of the way in
which Waldorf teachers and other anthroposophists idealize Rudolf Steiner
beyond reason. Now that I am studying Bert Hellinger, I can see that the
Steiner followers are not taking Rudolf Steiner as he is.
If it is true, Lutz, that you are idealizing Bert, then you may suffer the fate
of never being able to go beyond what your "father" Bert has accomplished
himself. The wonderful paradox that Bert shows us is that both condemning and
idealizing our parents results in our becoming just like them to the extent
that we are never able to transcend our parents because of our own self-imposed
limitations to our growth.
Rudolf Steiner once thundered to a group of hapless anthroposophists in his
inner circle: "I don't want to be revered; I want to be understood." think Bert
feels the same way about his followers, groupies, devotees, etc.
Transference, anyone?
Thomas
our parents results
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