“The cave you fear to enter hides the treasure you seek.” Joseph Campbell
As I drank a hot chocolate, looking out at an autumn sky, my eyes fell on the book on the table nearby. I like to do this sometimes, find an inspirational book randomly, pick it up and read what’s there. The section I read talked about fear, and that’s when Joseph Campbell’s quote landed for me.
I thought about my caves and the places dormant and dark within me. It took great courage for me to shine a light into my life. It took 14 years of psychotherapy, 18 years of mindfulness coaching, and spending thousands learning to become a counsellor and life coach. Until one day, I stumbled upon Family Constellations and Internal Family Systems.
Many of us fail to go into our inner worlds – the ones nobody sees – and to explore our shadows, pain and guilt. I know many who are deeply unhappy because they’ve refused to open up old wounds. “Why do I need to keep rehashing the past? I’m done with it.” My answer to you is, “You’re never done with your past. It will always keep coming back – all your mistakes and shortcomings.”
I chose the hard route and stepped into my childhood patterns, and all of this through the work of Family Constellations. I’m not going into its origins here. I’m here to talk about the treasures I found beyond the cave.
I made peace with a failed marriage, a dead son, a mother who died of Alzheimer’s and a father who suffered a similar fate. I‘ve had my fair share of pain carried from an early childhood of sexual abuse and parental neglect.
I am what many call a ‘wounded healer.’ I want my past to be a catalyst that can help others navigate the stormy waters of their lives; the ones willing to walk into their inner world, to do the work. I’ve learnt to deal with my inner rescuer because sometimes she gets in the way of me allowing others to find their truths and discover hidden possibilities for growth and aligned with inner peace.
None of us needs to feel that we are meant to carry the burdens of others, especially our parents and those who came before them. In this work, you are asked to drop the burdens that bind you. Once you do this a treasure of inner peace awaits you.
I’m a work in progress, I’ll admit, and still finding a treasure within and a way of sharing it with the world.
In family constellations, we work seven generations back and seven generations forward. What you do for yourself, you do for others.