Peace with My Parents: Seeing Them, and Seeing Myself
There's a kitchen, a smell, a sentence someone said thirty years ago. And to this day, when we walk into our parents' home, something in us goes back to being eight years old. We feel love and anger in the same moment, longing and difficulty, and sometimes a silence with no name.
The relationship with our parents is the most primary place we have. That's why it's also the most charged. And when we want peace, it isn't always clear what that even means.
"Peace" doesn't have to mean reconciliation, and doesn't have to mean a close relationship. Peace can be inner: seeing parents as people with a story of their own, who gave and received what they could. Distinguishing what belongs to them from what belongs to me. And taking responsibility for my part without holding theirs.
Family Constellation lets me see my parents and myself within a wider system, with the generations before them and their stories. Sometimes this wide view changes how we feel toward them. There's no promise of that, and no need to feel "fine" with everything that happened.
A short exercise: a letter that isn't sent
Fifteen minutes, a page and a pen, and no one will see it.
- Write: "What I received from you, and still carry with gratitude..."
- Write: "What I didn't receive, and still hurts..."
- Write: "What I understand today that I didn't then..."
- End with one sentence: "I accept life, and leave with you what's yours."
- Read it silently to yourself, and notice what happens in the body.
If something arises that you'd like to meet with support, you can book a constellation session or a personal session, on Zoom or in person in the Algarve.