Dear Thomas and All,
Maybe I should make it clearer that my comments are primarily of a general
nature and not necessarily specific. Yet it is also true that if it is not
my shirt why put it on.
In any case the levels of subtlety within a constellation and consequently
within our consciousness never cease to amaze me. The fascinating thing I
found about the past or more precisely about the feelings that are
associated with the past is that in fact they are in the present.
In that sense is now the foetus dead or alive? On the experiential level if
the pain is in the present is the trauma in the past? Well may I say we
need not take sides, because in practice we may find ourselves habitually
compelled to do so.
What I find safest is to allow all a voice, to support all and to refrain
form assuming that I know what the other thinks or feels. I may offer
suggestions or invitations but never an authoritative direction. Thank you
Thomas for sharing about your years of hospice care of the dying.
Best wishes,
Robert
On Fri, Aug 2, 2013 at 12:17 PM, Thomas Bryson <tb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
**
Dear Robert,
My statement about all life being predicated on killing is not something
that I would say to a client in a constellation. I say it in the context of
a conversation about Hellinger's authoritative statement.
I agree with you about not taking sides. I am suggesting that life and
death are neither good nor bad. They seem to be in a perpetual dance where
one does not seem to exist without the other.
If the mother and fetus are caught in a moment of trauma, like we see with
many representatives of people who have died in trauma, screaming in that
moment may make sense.
I can understand it and have empathy for that position as well as
understanding the willingness of a mother to die for a child and a child's
willingness to die for the mother.
In the constellation I would first recognize the present reality that the
fetus is already dead and that the actual moment of trauma is in the past.
I would work to add resources to the client and to the fetus so that the
quality of the relationship between the two could evolve. I might ask the
representative of the fetus, 'Now that you are dead, what do you need, if
anything?'
I appreciate your intention to facilitate for all those in the field. By
stepping into a space where I say that life is predicated on death, I am
taking the view of the field itself which contains those in the field in
life or death.
Doing this can feel cold when only in writing.
In person the communication would have the tone of voice, body language
and the look in the eyes making it obvious that it isn't cold or unfeeling
towards the one who dies or the one who kills. In my many years of hospice
care of the dying, I learned that my suffering because someone else was
suffering didn't help the one suffering. The most helpful thing that I
could offer in the moment of death was my own willingness to die with
tranquility so that when the dying person looked into my eyes they could
feel that tranquility if they were open to it.
All the best,
Thomas
