Preface

Recently, more and more people, faced with illness, misunderstanding in the family, failures at work or financial difficulties, are looking for the causes of their problems not in external circumstances, but in themselves - in thoughts, energy and the subconscious...

All problems cannot be solved at once, so I invite readers to first deal with difficulties in family and relationships, focusing on the influence of the power of the clan. What is it and how does this unknown force affect our lives?

We are not always ready to agree that family relationships, the relationship between a man and a woman, are the most important thing in our lives. But this is true, because it is in these relationships that a person opens up, draws energy, or, conversely, closes down and loses vitality. When creating a union with someone, we are full of hopes for the best, but, as a rule, we do not suspect that it is not just a man and a woman who are uniting, but two different genders, and this merging brings both joy and sadness. All the problems and conflicts that haunt an established couple on their life path are predetermined in advance; this is an imprint of ancestral forces that have a huge impact on a person’s fate.

Finding a solution to a problem in any area of ​​a person’s life often leads to a dead end if one does not take into account the influence of the power of the family. Outwardly, it seems that the partner or both partners love each other, are doing everything possible to maintain the relationship, but still something does not work out. What's the matter? To find a problem in this case, it is necessary to take into account the influence of generic forces.

I recommend that you first read the entire book, decide on the problem for which you want to find a solution, and then return to the section that interests you. If you need time to take the first step, put the book aside for a while. At the end of each section, summaries are made that provide options for solving the problem facing a person, based on the strength of his particular type.

Remember, the power of the family is always with you, throughout your entire life journey. All life’s problems and difficulties are a pointer to a connection with something in the fate of your ancestors, and all your achievements are to something creative, to the creative power of the family. It is your birth field that creates all the encounters in your life. And that is what brought you to this book. If you picked it up, it means that you need this information for something.

I hope that getting to know yourself, family relationships, and destiny with the help of ancestral relationships will help not only release the power hidden in you, but also solve your internal family problems, establish harmonious relationships with the people around you, and avoid making irreparable mistakes on your long journey in life.

Chapter 1
CAUSES OF PROBLEM SITUATIONS IN A PERSON'S LIFE. START SEARCH

FAMILY SYSTEM

Every person has a body, mind and soul. Every family has all this. Every family is born and dies. Any family consists of parents and children. All family members are in close interaction with each other. The state of health, psyche, emotional state, and attitude of one family member inevitably affects everyone. Each family is a family system that exists according to its own laws. Several families united by common ancestors represent genus. Family system- This is the destined structure of the family. It is in it that the reasons for all successes and misfortunes, illnesses and health, tragedies and successes lie. In a family, the main thing is people with their system of family values, rules and norms of upbringing. But if you look closely at these rules and values, it turns out that our beliefs belong not only to us, but also to our parents and grandparents.

Each person enters into a large number of relationships along his life path. Without them there is no life. The strongest and most durable are relationships within the family system, that is, between members of the same family. Even if people live far from each other and do not communicate for any reason, the bond between members of the same family (parents and children, brothers and sisters, husband and wife) is very strong. Unresolved conflicts and tasks of previous generations are inherited by the next. People often live other people's lives, repeating the mistakes of their ancestors. All our problems in life are not real, out of love we copy other people's destinies, the destinies of previous generations.

We are a continuation of the lives of our ancestors, regardless of what they were like. We continue their lives, and our children continue ours. We continue our ancestors in that we inherit their appearance, character traits, and destinies. We solve problems that were not solved by them. In our lives, we once again live through the fates of our mothers or fathers, grandmothers or grandfathers, we often carry their repressed experiences, their feelings.

Our life is a patchwork quilt, where each patch is an element of someone else’s fate: in some ways we repeat the life of our ancestors, in others we experience the feelings that they once experienced, in some situations we we make a similar choice. They continue their lives in us. We are forever connected with our family, we belong to it.

In my practice, more than once people were surprised to notice in themselves some character traits or behavior patterns that were inherent in their parents or other relatives.

At one seminar, Olga said that in her family, when communicating with her husband and children, she often joked and made witty comments. One day her husband asked her how she knew them. Thoughtful, Olga remembered that her father used to joke like that when communicating with his loved ones. It turns out that Olga, without thinking, mechanically, used the same jokes as her father when communicating with her family.

During the consultation, Sergei told how one day he needed to make an important decision, but he still could not come to any conclusion. To this, his wife noticed that he doubted and hesitated for as long as his father. And Sergei agreed with such conclusions. At crucial moments in his life, it was difficult for him to make choices, just like his father. They both preferred that someone else make decisions for them.

During the consultation, Svetlana noticed that in appearance she looked more like her grandmother, but all her relatives and friends noted that in her gestures, gait, voice, and the way she held her head during a conversation, she was a copy of her mother.

During consultations, Evgeniy expressed a lot of complaints regarding the people around him and the events taking place. When I asked who in his family behaved this way, he replied that everything and everyone around him was criticized by his grandfather and uncle, who took an active part in his upbringing, since Evgeniy’s parents were divorced.

There are many similar examples when a person inherits certain traits from previous generations and manifests them in actions, decisions, and reasoning. We don’t notice this, but nevertheless we still continue our ancestors.

BELONGING IN A FAMILY

No one can survive alone. Every person needs a family or a group of people replacing it, they need relationships. A person is strongly connected to his family. The unconscious fear of being rejected by one's family, of losing belonging to it, is stronger than the fear of death. Despite all the quarrels, conflicts, claims, grievances, divorces and losses of loved ones, all members of the family and clan are connected to each other by a strong, invisible, unconscious connection.

Each person contains information about his family, his family, and all the events that happened in the past. All family values, beliefs, rules that unite people into family systems are in the unconscious of all family members. We are aware of some rules and values, and some are not. Every person has loyalty to his family, to his clan.

Loyalty- this is a person’s unconscious loyalty to the orders and foundations, actions and misdeeds, rules and prohibitions that exist in the family system. The basis of loyalty, on the one hand, is love for members of one’s family, on the other, the fear of losing belonging to one’s family, that is, of being rejected by it. Out of loyalty, each person considers the beliefs, rules and practices of his family to be true and correct.

K. Whitaker, a family therapist, wrote the following about loyalty: “Why don’t the bride or groom try to change their own family, where they came from? First, they learned from infancy that loyalty to their family is a matter of life or death. If you are not loyal to your family, they will not feed you. If you bite the breast, you will die of hunger. Later this attitude becomes less noticeable, but very firmly rooted. Loyalty to the family gives credibility to your existence: you are the family, its personification. To renounce your family is to renounce your personality, your body. To fight against the family, you need to stand on some other basis, outside the family world, and this is impossible.” Based on family values ​​that determine what is good and what is bad, a person divides people into right and wrong, good and bad. When making our choices, making decisions, we are always under the invisible influence of generic rules. It’s as if we are enclosed within a certain framework, captive to our beliefs. A person is not as free in his choices, decisions, actions as he sometimes thinks.

The basis of such unconscious loyalty to one's ancestors is the desire to belong to a group. Every person needs relationships, he needs a group of people to belong to. And for the sake of this belonging, he is ready to comply with the rules and orders that reign in this group (family, team). When a person follows the rules of the family, he belongs to it, he is good. When he violates, he is bad, he has no right to belong to the family, he is an outcast.

FAMILY SOUL

As we have already said, every person has a body, mind and soul. The mind can be divided into conscious and unconscious parts. The body consists of organs and systems. The soul is in constant interaction with the mind and body. Through the unconscious, the soul communicates with the consciousness and body of a person. When a person makes a decision, makes his choice, the mind interacts with the soul. This is how a person’s life path is created. The soul knows everything!

Humans and all living and nonliving creatures have a soul. It would be more correct to say that they all possess a part of the great Universal soul. Family also has a soul. Teams, companies and organizations have a soul. All groups of people form a single field, which is part of the large Universal soul. The soul of a person is not contained directly in him. It goes beyond the boundaries of his body, embracing his family, his clan, his country, his planet. The soul is everywhere, it covers the entire Universe. And man is part of this soul. It embraces all family members, all nations and peoples. It contains information about everything that happens in the family, in the country, and on the planet as a whole. We are all one. The soul guides every person. The soul controls our body. The soul controls our life. The soul controls us.

A person is in contact with his soul. If a person makes the same mistakes every time, if he experiences similar unpleasant situations in his life, then this is only the path of the soul. The soul knows when the moment of change comes. For changes to begin to occur, it is sometimes necessary to repeat similar situations over several generations. The soul leads and provides the opportunity to begin change. To each his own time! All that remains is to trust her. It is sometimes difficult for a person to accept such a position. After all, people are accustomed to thinking that they decide everything themselves, that everything is under their control. But sooner or later, every person faces powerlessness in his life. These are situations that resulted in the death of a family member. This is powerlessness over the trauma that caused a person’s disability. This is despair in the face of a serious illness of a child. This is powerlessness over the alcohol addiction of a loved one. In these and many other life situations, it becomes clear that human control is a myth, an illusion.

George wanted to determine the cause of his serious illness. He underwent surgery and treatment - chemotherapy - due to cancer. Georgy was a successful businessman who always achieved his goals. But when I found out about the disease, I felt that I was losing control over my life. During the treatment, physical weakness appeared, and a breakdown occurred in my soul. Georgy said: “Life began to lose meaning, nothing made me happy - neither family, nor business, nor friends.” The treatment gave positive results, but Georgy himself lost faith in the future. After working on the reason and reconciling with it, Georgy said that he felt significant internal relief. He noticed that in search of reasons he had completely exhausted himself and blamed himself for what was happening. And now, seeing that his illness was largely predetermined by his birth program, he feels relief and inner agreement with his fate .

Angelina worked as a lawyer and was interested in psychology: she read specialized literature and attended seminars.

Three years ago she was in a terrible car accident. The spine was damaged and four operations were performed. After the accident, Angelina was unable to walk. She said that she had always felt a certain inner heaviness in her life. Before the accident, her career was progressing quite successfully, but in the most successful, good moments of her life, she did not feel joy from the results obtained, she always “felt sad.” When I asked her about her family, it turned out that she was one of a pair of twins. Her brother died a week after his birth. She learned about this only six months ago from her mother. As a child, she played football, climbed trees, and rode a bike with the boys. Angelina unconsciously wanted to go after her brother all her life, that is, to die. After working on Angelina’s problem, we saw her a year later. She returned to private practice and things were going well. She said: “All my life I've had the feeling that I was carrying someone else's burden. Something always prevented me from feeling the joy of life. I searched for a long time for the reason and read literature on psychology. But it is a huge relief to know that the cause was external and not internal. It helped me accept my destiny. Everything in life gradually began to change. But most importantly, my perception of life has changed. Surprisingly, now, being in a wheelchair, I feel calmer and more confident than before. Life now has meaning."

Conflict situations in the family, loneliness, losses, illnesses, accidents, failures in career or business, problems in relationships with children, addictions (alcohol, drugs, gaming) - all this is the path of the soul.

Everyone has their own path, leading sooner or later to a revision of the family or ancestral program. This does not mean that man is a blind instrument in the hands of the soul. Man has a destiny that is controlled by his soul. And the majority in their family system has the opportunity to listen to the orders of the soul, to free themselves from life-destroying influences.

ORDERS OF THE SOUL

The human soul follows other rules, sometimes significantly different from the family values ​​fixed in the human mind. The soul controls a person’s life, guided by values ​​that he himself is not aware of. B. Hellinger practically formulated three basic orders of the soul, which I adhere to in my work.

First main order states: everyone in the system, living or dead, has an equal right to belong. If one member of the system is denied the right to belong - for example, due to the moral assessment: “he is a scoundrel”, or “he is a drunkard”, or “he has an illegitimate child” - the consequences of the denial of the right to belong are the same, regardless of what exactly is blamed on such a family member.

Second main order states that if any family member is denied an equal right to belong to others, then order will be restored by replacing such a family member. Replacement occurs, as a rule, in this way: the younger one replaces the older one (the one who was excluded) for the purpose of compensation. The younger one suffers just like the older one and becomes just like him. So the system has to once again face the struggle between good and evil.

So, the two basic orders of the soul are an equal right to belong and compensation for denial of belonging.

Third basic order requires that those who appeared earlier in the system have an advantage over those who appeared later. The family conscience and family soul ensure that the advantage of the elders is respected, otherwise the younger ones are sacrificed for the purpose of compensation. If the advantage of the seniors is not violated, then the juniors are exempt from repetitions.

Galina came for a consultation to sort out her conflictual relationship with her son. As a teenager, he began to behave aggressively towards his parents, especially his mother, who took a more active part in his life. During the work, it turned out that the son was replacing her own father, that is, his grandfather. Galina herself did not know her father, since her mother divorced him when Galina was only two years old. The mother then remarried. She never spoke about Gali's father. Everything she heard about her father – this is that he was a “bad person,” “tough and confrontational.” Galina herself treated her stepfather as her father. The topic of her own father was never raised in their family. When, having grown up, Galina wanted to find out something about him from her mother, she said that she had crossed him out of her life and did not want to talk about him. Galina's son replaced his expelled grandfather. The whole process occurred unconsciously on the son’s part. By his actions, he seemed to return to the family, clan system that which had once been expelled and forgotten from it. What happened next during the consultation, what solution was developed for Galina, you will read in subsequent chapters. Now it is important to understand:

Sergei came for a consultation out of despair. His son has changed a lot lately. He got involved with bad company, began to lead a “wrong lifestyle”, and was even accused of hooliganism and fraud. But the matter was hushed up. During the conversation, Sergei repeatedly noted that he could not understand what was happening to their son, since their family was decent, no one had ever behaved like this. To my question whether there was someone in the family of Sergei or his wife with antisocial behavior, Sergei gave a negative answer. We continued our work; and it turned out that Sergei had two brothers. He knew nothing about one of them. From Sergei’s words it was only clear that their father abandoned him. When Sergei's brother committed some “bad deed” (perhaps he was accused of theft), his father kicked him out of the family. Sergei's father was a powerful man, and his mother was forced to agree with his decision. Thus, Sergei’s exiled brother left for another region, and nothing was known about his further fate. They forgot about him. Sergei's son replaced with his actions his uncle, who was expelled from the family. Why did this happen? Why did Sergei’s son begin to replace the expelled relative? What happened next during the consultation, what solution was developed for Sergei, you will read in subsequent chapters. Now it is important to understand: no one can be excluded. The expelled person will be replaced by someone from the younger generation.

Anatoly came for a consultation because his family life was not working out. He was outwardly attractive, was engaged in business, had a good income, and repeatedly made close acquaintances with women, but the relationship did not go well. He read a lot of literature on psychology, tried to understand the problem, but the result remained the same. As a child, he lived with his mother and younger brother. Parents divorced when Anatoly was six years old, his younger brother was two years old. During the work, it turned out that after his parents’ divorce, the boy unknowingly became “instead of a father” for his mother. He, the junior in rank, unknowingly took the place of the senior (next to his mother), which did not actually belong to him. In this way he firmly connected himself with his mother. The information revealed did not turn out to be anything unusual for Anatoly. He himself said that in the family he is the support of his mother and brother. He was always the head of the family. When I asked if there were any situations that posed a threat to his life, Anatoly listed a number of such events - a car accident, being stabbed during a fight, being shot by an unknown person (a bullet hit him in the shoulder). Why did life turn out this way?.

Anatoly and he could not start a family, you will read in subsequent chapters. Now it is important to understand: Everyone in his family takes his own place and does not have the right to take the place of the eldest in rank.

We are not aware of the order of the soul. These laws apply to everyone without exception. And ignorance of these laws does not exempt you from the consequences.

The family system has a soul that is guided by its own rules. And all family members are subordinate to them. Many family members are intertwined with the fate of someone from their family. Our life, our actions, our feelings are influenced by the past destinies of our relatives.

On the one hand, a person is guided by family values ​​that belong to his family. On the other hand, his life is influenced by the orders of his soul, which sometimes run counter to the beliefs of his parental family. Family rules reflect evaluation criteria within the framework of “good - bad”, “guilty - right”. For the order of the soul, it does not matter what is good or bad, who is right or wrong - every person has the right to belong to a family. The soul does not divide people into good or bad.

Accepting this position is not always easy. As a rule, most people believe that everything they have achieved in life is their own merit. They make choices, are responsible, and control their lives. Only when faced with situations of powerlessness and difficult life trials do people begin to think differently. Success and failure, illness and health, relationships and loneliness - everything has its beginning and development in the destinies of previous generations. As a rule, people begin to listen to the voice of the soul after difficult life trials. Blows of fate, failures, illnesses, problems in the lives of children - all this forces a person to look for answers and listen to something more.

Anne Anseline Schutzenberger, a psychotherapist, writes: “Each of us is a link in the chain of generations, and sometimes, to our surprise, we have to “pay the debts” of our ancestors. This kind of “invisible devotion” pushes us to unconsciously repeat joyful or sad events that happened previously in our family. We are less free than we think, but we have the opportunity to win freedom and avoid fatal repetitions in family history by understanding the complex intricacies of our own family.”

LOVE OF THE INNER CHILD

Why do soul orders and family values ​​differ? Why does this conflict exist? Inside a person is the love of a child. From birth, a child is attached to his family, its values, foundations, and orders. This devotion, the feeling of belonging to a family for a child is love. There is no conflict. Everything happens out of love! For the sake of his loved ones, the little creature is ready to do anything. The child is ready to pay with his health, well-being, happiness and even life. For the sake of belonging to the family, the child is ready to make sacrifices. Such love sometimes tries, through self-sacrifice, to protect a loved one from troubles, illnesses, failures, and death. But this is impossible. Childhood love strives for the unattainable, for illusion. The goal of such love is unrealistic and leads to even greater pain, unhappiness and tragedy. This childlike, pure, naive love, commitment to one’s family system remains with a person for life.

Without realizing it, an adult already sacrifices himself, his life for the good of loved ones. Already inside an adult, the love of a child remains. But, having matured, a person, having discovered childhood love in his life, has the opportunity to reconsider this program. He can realize the fact that he cannot overcome misfortunes, troubles, illnesses and death of loved ones with his sacrifice. It is worth accepting and agreeing with it. The love of the inner child can grow up, find another creative solution and, if still possible, change what leads to unhappiness, loss and death.

For example, for a child, love for parents is “to be like them,” “to live like a mother,” “to become like a father.” And these attitudes remain for life. A person’s connection with one of his parents is especially strong when the latter is rejected. Children unconsciously want to be like the rejected father or mother. This is why many, unwittingly, repeat in adulthood what they denied in their parents. When a daughter or son says: “I will never be like my father,” “I will never do like my mother,” for some reason this is exactly what they do. A rejected parent means excluded. It is with the excluded parent that the child is connected for the rest of his life. By rejecting his parent, he can never truly separate from him. Having entered into marriage, such a person will still internally look at his rejected parents, being only half present in his young family. You will read about this in more detail in the section on relationships between a man and a woman.

In reality there is no conflict. We are loyal to our family. We support family values. We follow family rules and are attached to them. We are influenced by the orders of the soul. From this our destiny is formed, to which we belong. And it is precisely this destiny that already contains the opportunity for growth and change. Anne Anseline Schutzenberger writes about this: “It is safe to say that in our lives we are less free than we think. However, we can reclaim our freedom and avoid repetition by understanding what is happening, recognizing these threads in their context and complexity. In this way, we can finally live our own lives, and not the life of our parents, or grandparents, or, for example, a deceased brother whom we “replaced”, sometimes without even realizing it.”

The goal of working on yourself on your own or with a therapist is to find a solution, not just a cause. It is necessary to immediately get rid of illusions and solve all life’s problems with one consultation, reading a book or one seminar or training. The first meeting with a therapist or participation in distance training is only the first step in your growth, in your development. A therapist or distance training is only an intermediary between a person and his decision. K. Whitaker wrote: “I must push them to grow. It's not my place to tell them how they should grow. They must discover their formula for growth... You cannot tell them how to become closer to reality, but you can only contribute to the process of personal interaction in which you participate with them... Family growth does not happen because the therapist... does that for them. It is not the family or the therapist, but the family and the therapist who set the family mechanism into motion.”

Each person has an internal image of the existing relationships in his family system. The image of our family is a kind of diagram of the existing relationships between family members. This image encrypts the problems that the family faces. When working with a therapist on a problem, it is important to see, understand, accept the existing image - this is the first step. The second step is to find a solution, to change the chaotic, sometimes destructive, image to a creative one. The third step is to make a new decision and give it the opportunity to act in real life. A person does not need to try to change his family members, prove or explain anything to them. He himself needs to accept a new permissive image. This doesn't mean other family members shouldn't see a therapist or take distance training. On the contrary, it is good when several members of the same family system are ready to begin searching for a solution. But this is everyone's voluntary choice. Coercion is inappropriate here. As Thomas Kempis said: “Do not be angry that you cannot make others what you would like them to be, for you cannot make yourself what you would like to be.” A person's problem is always within his power. Even in severe cases, when a resolving image cannot be found, no one except the person himself will be able to solve his problem. Whatever the final result, this is a person’s fate, and only he can understand, accept and come to terms with it. In such cases, a new productive solution will come with time.

A new image triggers changes in the person himself. He perceives his place in the family, his destiny, and his family members differently. His position towards family members and the current situation is different. If something changes in a family in one of its members, then the entire family system cannot remain unchanged.

Natalya came for consultation because of a tense relationship with her mother. From her point of view, her mother did not give her the opportunity to start a family, she was jealous of men, threw mud at them, and said that they would leave her. This time too, she was negatively disposed towards Andrei, whom Natasha had been dating for about a year. The young people were going to get married. Natalya’s mother had been divorced for a long time, did not strive to create relationships anymore, and treated men with contempt. Natasha left the consultation after the reasons for her mother’s behavior were found and we jointly found a solution to this problem. A month later, Natasha called and said that recently, on her birthday, her mother suddenly said: “You know, loneliness is hard. Andrey is a good guy. Marry him." Natasha was surprised to hear such words from her mother. But what struck her even more was that her mother did not look the same as always; her expression was unusually soft and kind.

The solution to a person’s problem always depends on him, and not on the rest of his family. At the initial stage, it is worth moving away from past failures and abandoning blame for mistakes. In the past, you did what you thought was necessary based on existing family values. By receiving information about the actions of the orders of the soul, a person understands that past decisions were not always correct. But we all go our own way. Everything has its time. The steps we took in the past are stages of our life journey, gaining experience. And it is this experience that is also necessary in the future. It is he who has now brought us to this point in our lives, after which another period will follow. Nothing was in vain. Nothing was superfluous in life.

INTERNAL RESISTANCE

But perhaps the new image will not be realized in life, because the time for change has simply not yet come in a person’s life. And if you prove something to him, convince him, it will not bring any results. We already know that distance training or a therapist are only intermediaries who gave something to their client, and he took something or rejected something. And then everyone goes their own way. People cannot be protected from their lives, from their fate. Any efforts by a therapist or loved ones to find solutions if the person is not emotionally ready for this are doomed to failure.

The goal of a therapist or training is not to cure, not to rid a person of his problems, but to reconcile his consciousness with the root cause, to give impetus to changes in his life. Sympathy, pity, the desire to save a person from suffering is not what he needs to solve a problem. And this is precisely what relatives strive to give in the first place. But a person often lives with his problem for several days, although he may have only recently realized it. And he needs support, respect for his fate, because it is this position that gives him strength. But pity, on the contrary, makes a person weak and helpless. A person can cope with a problem on his own, and a therapist or training is a mediator who gives respect. Help, especially that which no one asks for, elevates the helper, but weakens the other, preventing him from finding a solution. No one can solve a problem better or get out of a difficult situation than the person himself.

Often women come to a therapist with a specific goal, for example: “I want my husband (son) to change.” Or the relatives of a patient with alcohol addiction want to “help him stop drinking.” It is useless to work with such desires. There is no point in setting such goals for yourself, because it is impossible to change another person. But if the goal is formulated, for example, like this: “I don’t understand what’s happening with my husband, why our relationship is like this, I don’t know how to improve it,” then working together with a therapist is possible.

In the first example, I described the situation in the relationship between Galina and her son. Initially, Galina tried for a long time to persuade her son to come to see a psychotherapist. He refused, and the situation in the family became even more tense. When Galina literally lost her temper, she used threats and blackmail to force her son to come with her to a psychotherapist. But at the reception, he refused to work, saying that he “has no problems, it’s something that doesn’t suit my mother.” He left the consultation. Galina burst into tears and complained about her son. When she calmed down, I suggested that she look into the problem alone. After all, it was Galina who did not like her son’s behavior. In the course of further work, we searched for a solution and created an image that resolved the situation.

Often, relatives of people suffering from addiction (alcohol, gambling, drugs, etc.) set themselves the goal of forcing their husband (son, daughter, etc.) to change. When I explain to them the consequences of this position, disappointment appears on their faces. Most of them leave for further searches. But some return, setting themselves other tasks. Anna came to see me several times. Her husband drank, was coded twice, and now did not want treatment. On her first visit, Anna wanted to find out how she could “lure him and persuade him to undergo treatment.” About six months later, she was interested in the question of how to influence him (in other words, how else to blackmail him) so that he would come to his senses. The third time (about a year and a half passed after her first visit) she came with the following question: “I understand that he is dying and I am with him, what should I do with him?” Each time I told her about the principles on which life in such families is based. But Anna couldn’t hear me well. After another two months, she was able to ask the question: “I don’t understand what’s happening with my husband, my life, is it possible to fix something?” Only after a year and seven months did my work with her become possible. But this case is more the exception than the rule.

Many people have a strong internal resistance to change. Oddly enough, it is often easier for a person to suffer than to begin the process of change, to accept something new. As Osho wrote, “If people are asked to choose between happiness or unhappiness, they will choose the second because they have invested too much in it.” Why does this happen?

Most people are used to suffering. When they feel good and are truly happy, they feel guilty. They suffer because of loyalty to their family system. Such people often experience the feelings that their ancestors carried through their lives. Or they may feel guilt that was repressed by someone from previous generations. Something happened in the family, because of which someone from the subsequent generation unconsciously chose the role of the sufferer. They are afraid of losing their right to belong and unconsciously repeat something from their family system. A person, looking at a problem differently, in search of a creative solution, seems to involuntarily question family values, foundations and orders. Because of this, he experiences discomfort. After all, he doubts the correctness of family orders, their truth, and sometimes centuries-old inviolability. Therefore, the first step requires strength and courage.

RESPONSIBILITY

The question arises: if a person’s life is so strongly influenced by the orders of the soul, then is he responsible for something in his life? The ability to make choices and responsibility for one’s actions is one side of the coin. Recognition of a certain force behind the orders of the soul, behind the influence of the Universal soul on human life, powerlessness before this force, humility and acceptance of this fact as a given - this is the second. When making a decision, taking responsibility for your life, there is always a danger of falling into the illusion of complete freedom to choose your destiny.

We are powerless in the face of an accident that has resulted in the death or disability of a loved one. We are powerless in the face of serious illness. We are powerless if a child is born with physical or mental disabilities. We are powerless over the choices of our parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters.

We are left to family foundations, our soul, their forces, which give us a certain destiny. And at the same time, we are responsible for our actions.

My position is this: fate controls me. Family values ​​influence my life. The soul guides me. There are higher orders according to which my destiny is structured. And agreeing with this position allows me to accept my life as it is, with its ups and downs, with joy and pain. As Martin Luther said, “If God’s justice could be judged just by human standards, it would not be Divine.” I come to terms with the fact that there is something higher that I cannot know. But realizing such a position may take months and years.

Chapter Summary

1. Every person needs to belong to some group of people. Because of the fear of losing his right to belong, a person consciously and unconsciously follows the rules and orders that prevail in this group.

2. Each person is part of the family, tribal and Universal soul. The soul guides a person through his life.

3. There are three basic orders of the soul.

4. Out of love for his ancestors, a person unconsciously partially or completely repeats the fate of someone else (one of his ancestors).

5. Changing the unconscious image of family and tribal relationships, searching for and choosing a new solution can free a person from connection with the fate of his ancestor.

6. Change begins with the first step - accepting your destiny and coming to terms with it.

Searching of decisions

While reading the first chapter, you probably already thought about the situations described in it. Perhaps some of the examples given in the following sections will address an issue in your family.

What can a person do on his own after receiving information about the influence of generic forces on his life?

1. At the beginning of the work, you need to answer the questions that I give below. You need to answer them in detail and collect relevant information.

Who is your natural (biological) father? Who is your birth (biological) mother?

If you were adopted, who are your real parents?

Collect all information about siblings, including step-sisters, outside of marriage.

Were there any children who died, were stillborn before you were born, or were given up for adoption?

Did your parents have a significant relationship before marriage, before you were born?

Were there any cases of violent death in previous generations?

Were there any cases of early death in previous generations? Resulting in?

Were there people in previous generations who committed crimes?

In previous generations, were there people who committed murder?

In previous generations, were there people who had a negative or positive influence on the destinies of other people?

Were there people with difficult destinies in previous generations?

In previous generations, were there people with serious illnesses?

Were there people in previous generations who suffered from alcoholism?

Were there people in previous generations who led an antisocial lifestyle?

What did the ancestors from previous generations do (work, fight, etc.)? Where did you live (did you move or not)? How many marriages were there, how many children were there, whose last name did they bear?

2. Next, I recommend drawing a diagram of your family - a genogram. A genogram is a family tree. A geniosociogram is a commented representation of a genogram, that is, supplemented with information about the life of ancestors. In this scheme, each generation occupies one line. First come you and your spouse, as well as partners before your marriage and your siblings. The line below is your children. The line above is your parents and their brothers and sisters. Another line above your parents are your grandparents, and so on.

3. Attention! When starting to work on your own, decide on the issue that you would like to solve first. Don’t set yourself many tasks at once, don’t try to solve everything in one fell swoop. Focus on one question first. Be clear about the problem itself and how you want to solve it.

Chapter 2
FAMILY VALUES

Why do many people become frustrated with their partner? What creates problems in life in your relationship with your loved one? Why is everything good that was between two loving people destroyed?

HOW ARE PERSON’S BELIEFS FORMED?

Much in a relationship is determined by the system of values ​​and beliefs present in the conscious and unconscious of every person. Parents pass on their beliefs to their child almost every day in the process of raising their child. With their words and actions, they show what is good and what is bad, what is possible and what is not. A child, like a sponge, absorbs information from his parents. Every child needs a family, so he quickly learns the rules of the game that prevail in it. The child certainly loves his parents, and their beliefs are law to him. He is afraid of losing his family, of being rejected by her. On the one hand, he is driven by love for his parents, and on the other, by the fear of losing his belonging to the family.

Children are brought up in such a way that they receive the love and attention of their parents only when their demands and conditions are met. And this is one of the mechanisms for consolidating beliefs. The child strives to meet the expectations of his parents, thus trying to receive their love and attention. From infancy, children are in an environment where they can perceive themselves positively only if others are happy with their behavior. Many parents do not want to take into account the individuality of their child. The child's needs and desires are ignored and suppressed. In an effort to do “what is best,” parents make efforts to adjust the child to their ideal, their expectations. And the child unconsciously tries to conform to family values, rules and procedures. After all, this loyalty to the family system allows him to feel like he belongs to his family. As C. Castaneda wrote, “people tell us from the moment we are born that the world is such and such and that everything is so and so. We have no choice. We are forced to accept that the world is exactly as it is described to us.”

Children do not choose their destiny. Fate is determined, on the one hand, by family values, on the other, by the order of the soul. Why was the child born into this particular family? This, apparently, is some kind of predestination that the little man cannot change. Most of our beliefs are passed down from generation to generation. Many are not realized by us, and we do not remember where they came from.

As adults, most people create families “in the image and likeness” of their parental family. They pass on the family values ​​and beliefs learned from their parents to their children. As A. Chekhov wrote: “You should have decent, well-dressed children, and your children should also have a good apartment and children, and their children should also have children and good apartments, but what is this for - the devil knows.” When a person behaves as prescribed by the order of his family, then inside there is a comfortable feeling of belonging to his family system. Belonging means safety, security, intimacy. If someone's behavior goes beyond the norms that exist in his family, then, on the contrary, feelings of anxiety and fear appear inside. They signal to a person that he may be excluded, expelled from his family. Invisible to consciousness, fidelity to family values ​​(loyalty) allows us to make one or another choice in life. A person always unconsciously strives to comply with all the rules and regulations. When he does the right thing, he is perfect. Otherwise, a person may be condemned, expelled from the family, punished, abandoned or even destroyed.

In my practice, there have been many cases where a person was excluded from the family. There are such people in almost every clan system.

Alexander committed an offense when he was 20 years old; his strict father broke off relations with his son, forbidding all family members to communicate with him. 16 years have passed since then. Alexander suffered punishment, is now married, works, and is raising a daughter. But his brother and sisters still don’t communicate with him and treat him as a “disgrace to the family.”

Olga does not remember her father, does not know anything about his fate. He drank, Olya’s mother divorced him, and raised two children herself. She had previously spoken badly about her husband, Olin’s father, and forbade her children to “even remember him.”

Tonya and her brother do not communicate with their sister Elya. She previously took drugs and now abuses alcohol. Their parents “fiddled with her” while they were alive, but disinherited her. Brother and sister do not communicate with her now, do not maintain relations with her, and do not know anything about her today.

Diana's parents and brother turned their backs on her 12 years ago. She was pregnant, and her potential fiancé left her for work in another country. Now she is married and has two sons, twelve and six years old, but she still does not communicate with her parents and brother.

Sergei and Nikolai are two brothers suffering from alcohol addiction. Each lived with his family in different areas of the country. They have been in conflict with each other all their lives. When their families met, the brothers argued, sometimes it came to a fight. When their parents died, the brothers' disagreements regarding the inheritance reached such a scale that Sergei killed his brother in a drunken brawl.

These examples show how complex and confusing family relationships can be, how close people can turn away, punish, abandon or destroy one of their relatives as a result of differences in beliefs, and how tragic events can unfold. These are all examples of how the family system reacts to a person whose behavior does not conform to the rules of the family. They may stop communicating with such people because they are “bad,” “traitors,” or “did wrong.” Such people are black sheep, a thorn in the side of the whole family. Their descendants condemn them and do not accept such behavior in the people around them. But one of the subsequent generations repeats the fate and actions of the rejected ancestor.

Why do exceptions occur? Why does one person or the whole family turn away from the offender? He builds all a person’s expectations regarding other people and the world around him on the basis of his beliefs and family values. And when the pain from disappointment and worry is so strong that a person cannot cope with it, then an exception occurs. Crossing out a person or event is necessary in order to move on with your life. Exception helps not only the individual to survive, but often the entire family.

THE INFLUENCE OF BELIEFS ON OUR LIFE

Each person has his own value system, without which he would not be able to live in the world around him. Most beliefs are not realized by a person, but nevertheless they can significantly limit a person in his choice.

Beliefs push a person to continuously search for facts that confirm their truth. We don't see, hear or feel anything that contradicts our beliefs. People do not try to figure out whether it is true or not, but they perfectly notice all the facts that confirm them. It’s as if a person is wearing glasses through which he looks at the world and people around him. And he divides everything that comes his way into real and unreal, good and bad, in accordance with his beliefs.

Most of our beliefs belong to our ancestral system, that is, our parents and grandparents, and until now these beliefs continue to influence our lives. The question arises: is there any point in continuing to support long-outdated beliefs? After all, the world does not stand still, it develops and constantly changes. Maybe you don’t see the true state of things and it’s time to look at the situation from the other side?

Now I invite readers to look at one example from my practice from two points of view.

Svetlana came to the reception in order to establish the reasons for her failures in her personal life and find a way out of the current situation. She earns good money, lives with her five- and six-year-old sons from her first marriage, and reads literature on psychology. Svetlana considers the main obstacle to be a lack of trust in men. “Men cannot be trusted” was her belief. I invited her to answer a few questions.

– What has the belief that men cannot be trusted helped you achieve?

– Nothing, – Svetlana answered. – After the divorce, I live alone with my children, my personal life is not going well.

– What helped you prevent the belief that men cannot be trusted?

– Perhaps it helped me avoid even greater disappointments in life.

– What does the belief that men cannot be trusted allow you to do?

– Well, firstly, always protect yourself from men and their attention, and secondly, do not allow them to use you. And thirdly, justify your loneliness and not strive to create a relationship.

– What allows you to have the belief that men cannot be trusted?

– By and large, nothing, although the answer to this question is that I get complete autonomy and independence. But this doesn't make me happy.

– Who does the belief that men cannot be trusted allow one to be?

– A lonely woman.

– What's right about men being untrustworthy?

– Nothing. What's right about this? On the contrary, it turns out that you initially do not trust anyone and expect betrayal from any man approaching you.

– What are the benefits of believing that men cannot be trusted?

– None. What good is it to be in a constant state of protection and defense of your territory and your life from men?

– How can something that men cannot be trusted be used against others?

– Don't know. Deny them your attention.

– Did the fact that men cannot be trusted put others at a disadvantage?

– May be. After all, by being distrustful and condescending towards men, I probably put them in an awkward position. Every person will intuitively feel distrust.

– Where did the fact that men cannot be trusted lead you to?

– To loneliness and, I think, to the appearance of diseases.

– What did you learn from the fact that men cannot be trusted?

– Don't know. Nothing.

– The solution to what problem was that men couldn't be trusted?

– I think that almost every action I took was imbued with this conviction. After all, all the decisions that I made, I made on the basis that men cannot be trusted, and therefore, you should always rely only on yourself.

– What has decided in your life the belief that men cannot be trusted?

– The most significant thing is that I decided not to start a family or have any serious relationships with men. That it will be easier for me alone.

What happens if this statement is true?

What happens if this statement is false?

What will not happen if this statement is true?

What won't happen if this statement is false?

Svetlana came up with the following picture.

What happened? On the one hand, if the belief is incorrect, then Svetlana will be able to trust men and, having created a couple, will not be lonely. But if it’s the other way around, then she will continue to live alone.

Limiting beliefs can be identified by the individual himself. To do this, you need to track how often you use the words “possibly”, “impossible”, “never”, “nobody”, “nothing”, “everyone”, “always”, “means”, “necessary”, “should - not” must”, “I can’t - I can”. If possible, observe yourself from the outside or ask someone to help you by pointing out the use of these words. What are you saying when you use these words? Or what are you proving to someone (and actually to yourself)? What are you condemning? Once you discover your belief, determine how it serves you and what consequences it entails.

WHY DO WE HAVE SUCH BELIEFS?

But now I propose to look at the distrust of men and Svetlana’s situation from the other side. Where does she actually get this belief from?

Continuing to work with Svetlana; It turned out that she divorced her husband when the children were three and one and a half years old, her mother and mother’s sister divorced their husbands when their children were small, their grandmother (mother’s mother) lost her husband in the war, a new relationship with a man did not work out. In Svetlana’s family, all the women were distrustful of men, based on their life experience. All women were forced to rely only on their own strength. Sveta did not maintain a relationship with her father; she treated him with contempt and disrespect, since he paid a small amount of alimony and did not help her mother financially anymore. Now my father is in his second marriage, but he drinks often and has been coded many times. Svetlana did not maintain a relationship with her ex-husband, refused his help and did not want him to meet her sons.

What did we gain from working with Svetlana on her problem?

Firstly, out of loyalty to her mother and grandmother, Svetlana initially chose a man who would not live up to her expectations. Relationships with men were lost for several generations, that is, her choice of partner and divorce were predetermined. Sveta had a conviction about distrust of men long before her marriage. This is not her experience – this is the experience of women of her kind. And out of loyalty to the women of her family, Svetlana chose as her husband a man with whom the relationship was doomed to collapse.

Secondly, her attitude towards her father is a significant obstacle to creating her own family. By judging and blaming her father, Svetlana remains psychologically and emotionally connected to him. This means that she cannot separate from her parent. Moreover, Svetlana unknowingly chose a man similar to her father. What a person condemns will invade his life again and again.

Thirdly, her relationship with her ex-husband is not completed, and, therefore, this is also an obstacle to creating a new family. Out of loyalty to the women of her kind, she also condemns men, just like them. But such a position closes the opportunity for a new relationship for a woman. Every new man will feel a similar negative attitude from the first days of meeting him, even if he is completely different in character and lifestyle.

Each person has his own definition of “what is good and what is bad.” We judge people, the world around us, based on our beliefs about good and evil. But as a therapist, I agree with Mark Twain, who wrote: “Every man, like the moon, has a dark side that he does not show to anyone.” Within every tribal system there is both good and evil. But each person, according to his beliefs, sees only the good in himself, in his family system. From a family perspective, goodness is what aligns with our values. And, accordingly, has the right to belong to her. And evil is something that contradicts family values ​​(sometimes even jeopardizes them) and, accordingly, has no right to belong to this system. What we like, what is easy and good for us - we consider all this correct, good, necessary. What we don’t like, what is difficult and bad for us, we consider all this wrong, bad, unnecessary. But if you look at all this bad and evil from the other side, then a different understanding of the problems will open. It is difficult situations, illnesses, pain, things that require courage from us, mobilization of strength, that awaken hidden possibilities in us, pushing us to change, guiding us in life.

The soul has other values ​​and orders that do not coincide with human ideas about justice.

What is good or bad, kind or evil for people, has no meaning for the soul. Everything that is divided in human life is united in the Universal soul. Goodness in the soul is a broader concept; it is higher and more significant than any family or tribal values.

Firstly, everyone - good and bad, from the point of view of family values ​​- has the right to belong.

Secondly, the one who was excluded - no matter whether he is good or bad - will be replaced by someone from the younger generation. What does "replaces" mean? This means that, sometimes without wanting it, a person repeats the mistakes, actions and misdeeds of the excluded descendant. And the family will condemn this younger one in the same way. It is the younger generation, replacing the rejected ones, that forces the elders to reconsider their views. If the elders work to reassess their views and understand the processes occurring in the family system, then the younger ones are freed from the need for such repetitions. Changes are happening in the life of the entire family.

Thirdly, those who appeared in the system earlier have an advantage over those who appeared later. And this means that everyone has their place in the family system. Each previous generation is higher in the hierarchy than the next. No one can be one level higher or lower than their place. If this happens, then trouble cannot be avoided.

In the case of Svetlana, the women (Sveta and her mother) excluded their husbands and fathers of their children from their lives. They took the position: “I am good, he is bad,” “I am right, he is to blame.” But from the soul's point of view, every person has the right to belong. And these excluded men can be replaced by someone from the younger generation; one can assume that one of Svetlana’s children will take on this role. The solution for Sveta is to end the relationship with her first husband, accept her father and free herself from loyalty to the fate of the women of her kind.

A PERSON'S BELIEFS AND HIS FAMILY LIFE

A person in the process of his life goes beyond the boundaries of his family system. He enters into various relationships. A person encounters people with different beliefs and values ​​and evaluates them as good or bad. In the same way, other people evaluate a person. The people around us are influenced by the beliefs that exist in their family system, and their beliefs may differ significantly from ours. It is necessary to understand: what is good from our point of view may be bad from the point of view of another person. Many people are strongly connected to someone from their ancestral system. Out of loyalty to members of his clan, a person repeats in his life something from the destinies of his ancestors. He is the bearer of the beliefs and values ​​of someone from his family.

B. Hellinger writes: “We are captured by the idea that we are free, and therefore we ourselves are responsible for our actions and our destiny. Therefore, there are “bad” people and “good” people. But if you look closely, it turns out that this is not so. The victims of the concentration camps were innocent of anything, they were “good” people, but this did not change their fate. Also, the killers were unable to change their fate. They were also intertwined. Despite this, everyone is responsible.”

People strive with all their might to create a family, while believing that marriage is the goal. You need to join it (“it’s customary”). But in fact, starting a family is a continuous process that takes many years. A family is not a static entity; something is constantly happening in it. People live in it, not frozen mummies. When people enter into partnerships, start a family, they face differences in views with their partner. A man believes that what is right in his parental family, what he is convinced of should be the norm in his new family. The woman believes that what is normal in her parental family, what she is convinced of, should be accepted in her new family. Sometimes one of them gives in on some issues, and sometimes a real struggle unfolds in the family. Spouses can become involved in a years-long search for an answer to the question: “Who is right and who is wrong?” When children appear in a family, they seem to be torn into two parts. On the one hand, they want to support their father, on the other, their mother. Children are forced to adapt to both.

What to do in this case? First, pay respect to your partner’s parental family and recognize that their values ​​and beliefs have a right to exist. Secondly, the husband and wife must find a way to combine the rules of both families. Here it is necessary to jointly reconsider some beliefs and, based on parental values, create new ones for your family. Of course, this process causes internal discomfort in both partners, because by revising the system of views and beliefs of the parental family, a person questions the inviolable rules. Internally, he feels guilty towards his parental family, feeling the threat of losing belonging to his parental family. But this is exactly how a person becomes more mature, builds his relationships and life. As K. Besser-Sigmund wrote: “We become mature when we do something, despite the fact that our parents (doctor, teacher, aunt, boss, etc.) find it right.”

Andrei and Katerina came to the reception because they could not come to a common opinion on many issues. They had been married for three years and their marriage was falling apart. He, a supporter of working for an employer, criticizes everything around him, and in raising a child often takes the opposite position to Katina. She is a representative of the creative profession, works for herself, is tolerant of the people around her, but now she is the one who is determined to get a divorce. Our work together showed that their marriage had too little chance. These problematic situations were predetermined by a number of reasons hidden in the generic system of both spouses. (The solutions for this couple are described in detail in the chapter “Man and Woman.”) Seeing this, already at the consultation the spouses softened somewhat towards each other. I invited them to independently understand their beliefs using the method proposed above. This was necessary in order to determine what influence they have on their life together, to make a choice in favor of those beliefs that will improve it. If something doesn’t work out, you need to come for a consultation. They returned three months later to clarify some of the issues they had encountered while working with their beliefs. They looked more confident and calm. Family is always joint work, working on yourself, on the relationships you create.

Chapter Summary

1. Each person has a set of beliefs that reflect the family values ​​of his family system. Consciously and unconsciously, he follows them throughout his life.

2. Because of family rules and orders - “who is right and who is wrong”, “who is good and who is bad” - a person’s right to belong is violated, the order of the soul is violated.

3. Violations of the order of the soul require compensation, resulting in problems in relationships and illnesses.

Searching of decisions

1. Follow all the steps in the Finding Solutions section in Part 1.

2. Take one of your beliefs that limits you in some way or creates conflicts in the family.

3. Consider this belief from the point of view of a logical square or from the point of view of the questions indicated in the example with Svetlana. Find out what this belief gives you in life and what it limits.

4. Look at your genogram. Ask yourself the following questions:

Whose belief is this? To whom in the family, clan system does it belong? Who reasoned like this?

Why did your parent or your ancestor need this belief? What did it give him in life? Did it help him live? If not, where (in what generation) did it make sense?

5. If you are ready to change your belief, then imagine it in the form of an image or pick up an object that could symbolize it.

6. Imagine that your ancestors are standing in front of you in the form of a drawn genogram. You look at them, and in front of you on the right is the mother, on the left is the father, behind them are their parents in the same order, and so on. For convenience, you can place a sheet on the floor for each of them.

7. Mentally contact a relative who has a belief that is stopping you in life. Pay respect to his destiny, to what he carried in his life. Say internally: “I see your destiny. I respect your destiny.

I respect your pain (if there is any). Out of love for you, I carry part of what you carry. Now you have a place in my heart. What helped you live then in your time limits me now. I return your conviction to you, where it belongs. Thank you for life." If you want to say different words, add something, do so. After all, this is your destiny, your beliefs, your family soul. Address similar words to everyone who has carried a similar conviction all these years, and perhaps decades. It may turn out that this belief comes from so far away that you cannot even determine exactly which generation it is from. It's not scary.

8. All words that a person internally says to his ancestors must be pronounced with respect and humility before his fate, before the fate of his ancestor. This is not a formality. How to get to this state? You need to feel what this belief brought into the life of the ancestor, what role it played in his life, in the life of subsequent generations. Here it is important to see not only the negative, limiting aspects, but also the positive that this belief once gave to previous generations.

9. Feel if you need something to change your belief. Perhaps you need some resource to help you change your belief. A resource is the power that you lacked in your life. Where can I get it? Imagine that somewhere far away there is that ancestor who possessed the necessary resource. Turn your back to your ancestors so that they are standing behind you. And the ancestor who has the resource stands behind your ancestors and passes on the necessary resource to you through many generations (in the form of light, color, energy). Feel what has changed in you after receiving the resource? Perhaps something has changed among our ancestors? The main thing is not to rush to quickly complete this exercise.

Chapter 3
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

HOW DOES NEGATIVE FEELINGS BE REPLACED?

Most parents teach their children not to show their negative emotions, to restrain them, to suppress them. But the more a person denies, ignores, and suppresses negative emotions, the more severe the consequences for his psyche and health. Emotional burden appears, which is physically felt by the person in the form of weakness, increased exhaustion and fatigue.

In my opinion, negative emotions are not bad if you are in contact with them. It’s just that most people have been taught since childhood to think that showing negative emotions and crying are bad. In childhood, negative emotions are a natural reaction of the child, an expression of his dissatisfaction or protest. Parents, by punishing, demanding obedience, manipulating, intimidating, blackmailing a child, cause him to feel anger and anger. These emotions are directed at the parents, but the child is immediately taught to suppress them, since the manifestation of such emotions towards them is considered indecent. Parents are ashamed of this behavior of their child, because their parents also once taught them to repress their feelings. The child is forced to obey his parents, he cannot resist them, because the child is loyal to his family system. Children are afraid of losing belonging to their family, so they try in every way to earn and maintain the love of their parents. After all, if he does not suppress his emotions, if he does not learn to control them, he will be rejected by his parents. Any manifestation of dissatisfaction or punishment on the part of the parents is perceived by the child as rejection, as a threat of loss of belonging to the family. But the child, although he strives to suppress his emotions, is still not able to fully control them. Therefore, when he experiences anger, anger towards his parents, he also feels a sense of guilt for his emotions. And if at the same time the parents begin to shame the child for such reactions, then the feeling of guilt intensifies. Thus, first in a child, and then in an adult, emotions he has suppressed accumulate - anger, fear, anger, hatred, guilt.

Negative emotions such as anger, anger, resentment, hatred towards the person who caused pain are a natural reaction. But parents and society convince children that this is not so. And the child quickly learns this, because the rules of good behavior guarantee him the love of his parents and belonging to his family. The child begins to suppress negative feelings, and the feeling of guilt for life establishes a ban on the manifestation of negative feelings towards the one who needs to be loved. As an adult, a person continues to suppress negative emotions towards his partner, just as he suppressed them towards his parents. Gradually growing up and displacing emotions, a person ceases to be aware of them, he loses contact with his feelings.

PSYCHOTRAUATIVE EXPERIENCE

Every person has some kind of psychological trauma that he has experienced in his life. Many traumas come from our childhood. Most people repress the pain, the emotions that they experienced as children. Few adults who come to a psychotherapist can describe their childhood in detail. And this just means that at an early age a person experienced something so difficult for him that it was subsequently repressed. But nevertheless, all these experiences are preserved within the person, and repression prevents him from coming into contact with his feelings. Some people don't feel their feelings at all. They do not feel their anger, anger, hatred. They have learned to suppress pain so much that they do not notice it, do not give themselves the opportunity to feel it. This suggests that negative emotions were strongly suppressed in childhood. Such people often strive to achieve success and meet other people's expectations. They seem to internally say to themselves: “I can handle it, I can do it, I can do without you.” They took control of their lives. They control everything. Will, control, suppression of feelings create the resistance that the psychotherapist encounters in his work.

Self-control, control, and calmness in stressful situations are considered good qualities. Not reacting to stress requires strong internal control. What does such control give? A person is less influenced by other people, because he controls himself - that’s it. He doesn't react to people - that's two. As a result, he isolates his world, his emotions from other people. As a result, a person stops feeling both negative and positive emotions. It would seem that he is protected from unnecessary worries. This kind of control is draining. There is a feeling of tension, heaviness, as if a person is carrying a load. Emotional burden appears. If you don't take action, it will begin to destroy the body. Then the person will begin to treat the disease without eliminating the causes that caused the disease.

So it turns out that control is not needed? It is necessary, but it must be justified and healthy. This means that in certain circumstances a person can “give some slack.” But healthy self-control requires being in touch with your feelings.

In my practice, I often encounter situations where people, repressing their emotions, are unaware of their negative feelings towards loved ones. For example, a mother is unaware of her hostile feelings towards her child; she says that she loves him. But when, at an appointment with a psychotherapist, she looks at her, talking about her attitude towards her daughter, her facial expression changes. The face becomes angry and hostile. Or a man, talking about his love for his wife, constantly clenches his fists, an expression of anger appears on his face. The negative emotions of many people are repressed and closed. Only a therapist can notice, see people's suppressed feelings in their facial expressions, facial expressions, gestures when they talk about their loved ones or look at them.

Why do people repress their emotions? They learned this in childhood from their parents, who also repressed their pain. Denial of your negative emotions is one of the strongest defense mechanisms. Parents' rigidity is their protection from pain. This is their life experience, which they pass on to their children. Out of loyalty to his family system, a person repeats what his parents, his parents’ parents, and so on experienced.

EMOTIONS OF ANCESTORS AND OUR LIFE IN THE PRESENT

All emotions can be divided into primary, secondary and adopted. All feelings that give energy, an impetus to action, are primary feelings. They encourage a person to new achievements, sometimes turning his life upside down. They unleash creative possibilities and make unimaginable changes. Primary emotions are at the origins of all human endeavors. They have energy and power. And the people around them feel the power coming from the person.

Emotions that take away energy, causing a person to suffer, to be weak, instead of acting, are secondary emotions. Sometimes the manifestation of such feelings is demonstrative, pretentious, full of drama that does not correspond to the situation. In this case, the person finds himself in the position of a victim. Secondary feelings cause inaction and powerlessness. They feed self-pity, lead nowhere and can last a lifetime.

The next category is adopted feelings. When a person says: “I felt like I wasn’t myself,” “I experienced feelings that were uncharacteristic for me,” “At that moment it was as if I had been replaced,” this often means that the feeling does not belong to him. Adopted feelings are those that do not belong to the person himself, but to someone from his family system. Emotions such as revenge, rage, and the desire to establish justice often indicate that the feeling has been adopted. A person experiences these sensations because of inner love, loyalty to the one to whom this feeling actually belongs. Many emotions can be both primary and secondary, as well as adopted. Those emotions that take away energy, tie us to the difficult past of our ancestors, people often experience and carry them with them all their lives.

All our feelings have their source. Some emotions come from today, others from our past, and others actually belong not to us, but to our ancestors. Each person is part of the family system, his soul is part of the family soul. He experiences those emotions that are in his family, tribal system. This process cannot be controlled or interrupted. You cannot separate from the family soul and stop experiencing the emotions of the family system. Tactics such as repression and suppression of emotions also come from the family system.

Much of what we experience is not our feelings. We experience in life what our ancestors once felt. Our emotions may belong to our mother, or grandmother, or father, or great-grandfather. And every unpleasant feeling is some kind of story from our family. We may not know much from the life of our ancestors, but their experience, through various feelings and sensations, continues to live in us. And this sometimes difficult experience can be realized and freed from its destructive influence on life. Those unpleasant feelings that unexpectedly overwhelm us, plunging us into a state of fear, anger, worry, anxiety, rage, aggression, have their beginning in the past, tens, and perhaps hundreds of years old. Our ancestors once experienced difficult, perhaps dramatic situations. What happened then was difficult to cope with, but it helped them survive. Unpleasant experiences are stored in the body, in the unconscious, in the family soul. And then our body gives us signals: a feeling of heaviness, a lump in the throat, tightness in the chest, severe anxiety, trembling in the body, arms, legs, headaches and other similar symptoms.

These sensations from the past of our ancestors were once repressed by them. This allowed them to make some choices that made it possible to survive. Then in the past, when going through something difficult in their life, a person did not have the resources. The injury happened quickly, the event was too big, too strong, the person had no choice. As a result of this, she did not survive to the end. And so subsequent generations begin to feel what was repressed and not experienced by their ancestors. And these feelings and experiences are a task for the family system. If parents don’t solve it, then their children do it. Now descendants have other opportunities (training, therapy). What was once unfinished can now be completed.

Those who have experienced severe traumatic experiences pass them on to subsequent generations. And then the descendants may experience states of numbness, unreasonable fear, panic attacks, outbursts of rage, aggression, and obsessive states. Such an experience can so envelop a person’s psyche that it is as if he is not here, but in the past. Unconsciously, a person is connected to past traumatic experiences. The more severe the trauma, the less present the person is in the present. His ability to create relationships is hampered. Dropping out of life in the present, a person is not able to free himself from such influence or change anything. You can get out of this state only if you come into contact with your unpleasant sensations, do not repress them, but become aware of them. Usually people don't want to do this. After all, to become aware of these feelings is to encounter a traumatic experience, and this creates even more unpleasant experiences. When a person refuses to feel, then children do it for him.

A person carries one or more traumatic experiences in his body. By repressing, without realizing his feelings, a person is more absent from this life than present. His attention is drawn to past experiences of which he is unaware. That's why, towards the end of life, people say that life has passed unnoticed. After all, part of it was as if they were in a dream.

GUILT

There are situations in life when a person intentionally or carelessly caused harm or damage to another, then guilt can become a primary feeling, provided that it is recognized. In this case, it gives strength. If a person represses the feeling of guilt, proves to others (and in fact to himself) that he had nothing to do with it, then this emotion creates internal discomfort and weakens the person. But this is the case when we are talking about a person’s real guilt.

Every person has a feeling of guilt. If it weren’t for him, then all of us, regardless of how we see ourselves, what we have, who we are, would consider ourselves worthy of love. By saying: “Shame on you,” parents make the child feel guilty for being something different or doing something wrong. Parents teach their children that they will be loved if they do this and that, that is, they behave well, as their parents once taught them. This feeling of guilt is secondary. This is the most common case.

When a person assumes that he must be perfect, act without mistakes, then any reproach or criticism addressed to him causes a feeling of guilt. Moreover, such a person constantly criticizes himself. Striving for an ideal built in the inner world, a person can live with a constant feeling of guilt and shame. But it turns out to be unattainable, and therefore a person lives his whole life with a feeling of guilt. But here it is also important to understand why a person blames himself. Perhaps this is an adopted feeling?

In any life situation, Alexandra blamed herself for what happened. Even during an ordinary friendly conversation, she managed to apologize several times for something that no one accused her of: “Sorry I couldn’t meet you earlier,” “Sorry I didn’t hear the phone ring,” “Sorry I didn’t managed to clean the apartment,” etc. Her closest friend constantly felt discomfort because when they met, Alexandra managed to apologize dozens of times “for unknown reasons.” Alexandra's husband insisted that she go to a psychotherapist. During the work, it turned out that the feeling of guilt was adopted. Who felt guilty in Alexandra's family system? It was her grandmother, whose three children died during the war. Feeling the pain that her grandmother was experiencing, Alexandra burst into tears. She needs to internally tell her grandmother: “Darling! It was hard for you to cope with the death of your children. I feel your pain, and out of love for you, I bear this pain with you. I'm really sorry. Whatever your fault, I leave it to you now. I honor your destiny. Now I leave your pain, your fate to you. My mother survived, and that’s why I exist. I accept my life. Grandma, be kind to me when everything goes well for me.”

When someone else's guilt lives inside a person, it is an adopted feeling. Often this feeling of guilt was repressed by an ancestor. And his descendant is trying to correct his mistake. This weakens a person, because everyone has their own destiny. By unknowingly taking on someone else's guilt, he creates difficulties in his life.

Oleg came for a consultation because he believed that everything he did in his life was going “wrong.” He was pessimistic about his future. Oleg said that he had the feeling that he was following a certain program and was redeeming something. He is a believer and has found in Orthodoxy a kind of “justification for his life’s suffering.” During the work, it turned out that there was pain inside him about the early death of his brother Sergei. He died at the age of six in an accident. Oleg's parents blamed each other for the tragedy, although it was not their obvious fault. Since the death of their brother, their parents have lived like strangers. Oleg unconsciously sought to lighten their burden by taking part of the blame upon himself. In this case, Oleg needed not only to get rid of guilt, but also to accept his life. Oleg considered it unfair that he was alive and his brother was dead. Oleg had to internally tell his parents: “Dear dad and mom, I feel your pain because of Sergei’s death. I am your child and you are my parents. I'm only your child. I respect your destiny and your pain, but I leave them to you. Whatever the fault, I leave it to you. Whatever the relationship between you, I respect you as parents. I accept and respect everything you have given me." With this position, Oleg puts everything in its place in his family system. He is a child, they are parents. He cannot bear their guilt, pain, fate. He leaves it to them. Parents must recognize the problem; their pain, destroying their lives. Oleg must take care of his own. This position changes Oleg’s attitude towards that; what is happening in their family system. She will change his relationship with his parents and his parents with each other.

Survivors of war as a result of accidents experience guilt. Those who survive feel that they did not do something to save others. Or perhaps they survived because others died. If parents, grandparents, great-grandparents repress and try to forget such traumatic experiences, dead people, then they thereby exclude them. Then children and grandchildren will be forced to bear these repressed experiences for them, possibly through psychosomatic or other chronic diseases.

FEAR, PANIC

In cases where a person experiences causeless anxiety or obsessive fear, then, depending on the intensity of the symptoms, the help of not only a psychotherapist, but possibly also a psychiatrist may be needed. In other cases, fear is the primary feeling. It exists to warn a person about the danger that threatens him. Thanks to fear, a person’s self-preservation instinct is triggered in various situations. When setting some goals for himself, a person faces obstacles that he either overcomes or not. Fear pushes a person to find a solution to change the situation. Such fear is a primary feeling. As Friedrich Nietzsche said: “Fear develops more than love.”

But if a person suppresses his fear, he becomes passive and inactive.

A sense of internal security arises from an early age and is passed on in the family system from generation to generation. Many people felt a sense of powerlessness in the face of significant historical events leading to global changes in the country: a change of power, war. The feeling of fear due to uncertainty, due to a possible threat to one’s life and the life of loved ones is present in many family systems. Despite a person's success in business, in his personal life, the lack of a sense of security remains within the person for the rest of his life. The feeling of security runs through the family. First of all, it is expressed in how capable the parents are of unconditional approval of the child, how much they themselves have a developed sense of security.

Sometimes fear intensifies so much that a person panics.

Stanislav (30 years old) has been suffering from panic attacks for 11 years. They arose in two cases. The first is that sometimes at night Stanislava wakes up with a feeling of inner restlessness and fear. “I always feel like I need to get up and run somewhere,” this is how she described her feelings. The second case was when at work she had to answer a large number of questions from her potential clients. “I always want to stop answering questions, avoid communication, as if I could make an irreparable mistake and everything would turn against me” - this is what her second panic state looked like. Both conditions were accompanied by cold trembling in the arms, legs and rapid heartbeat. According to Stanislava, my maternal grandmother also experienced this. She felt anxiety, fear, became fussy, restless, walked around the house and began to clean, sort through dishes or things, because it was distracting. My grandmother's condition was slightly alleviated by taking tranquilizers. However, taking medication did not help Stanislava much - he only felt better for a while. Stanislava decided to take action because of her daughter, as she began to notice the same conditions in her. Whose panic is this that Stanislava, her grandmother and daughter periodically experienced? Stanislava’s great-grandfather once headed one of the regional departments of the NKVD of Ukraine in the 30s and 40s. The family never talked about this. Once Stanislava began to ask her mother in detail about those events, but she did not want to talk about this topic, saying the following: “It was a difficult time. Perhaps we survived precisely because my grandfather held this position at that time. It’s hard to talk about it now.” Our work with Stanislava showed that this was a panic of victims, for whom NKVD workers came (often at night). What did Stanislava need to do? She needed to tell the victims internally, “I see you. Now you have a place in my heart. You are next to us. I live because you suffered. I live because one of you died. And I respect that. This panic is what I carried for you. And now it's in the past, and I leave it to you with love. I owe you my life, and I respect that you had to suffer through this.” She should have said to her great-grandfather: “Dear great-grandfather, now I see you. I see your destiny. Whatever happens, I respect it. You will remain my great-grandfather. Now I accept my life as it is.” Stanislava’s daughter’s condition changed almost immediately, but with Stanislava herself it took us a little more time for her to feel better.

RESULT, HATE, RAGE

Resentment arises when a person encounters something bad, alien, or unwanted. The offended person considers himself good and not deserving of such treatment. He condemns the offender, makes claims against him, makes accusations. Resentment is passive, it is secondary, it does not lead to any solutions. Resentment is a reaction to a threat to the truth of beliefs and family values. A person, according to his beliefs, expects one thing from people and circumstances, but receives something else. Resentments tend to accumulate and can develop into hatred, rage and even aggression. Fury is unleashed on the weak. It is the result of anger, the result of long-suppressed desires and emotions. Hatred is more powerful, difficult to control, and can cause aggression on the part of the offender.

ANGER, ANGER

Anger and anger can also be primary and secondary. Anger, which allows a person to defend his position and defend himself in case of injustice, gives a person strength. Once justice is restored, emotions pass. An offended person expects the world around him and people to change. Anger, on the contrary, motivates a person to take action to resolve the current situation. The offended person expects changes from others, and the one who is angry makes changes himself.

But there is also secondary anger. For example, when a person gets angry instead of looking the problem in the eye.

After the conflict with Denis, Olga was angry with him for a long time. She couldn't calm down for several days. What was the reason for her anger? She understood that she had upset Denis by not warning him about dinner with her friends, and by coming home late. The next day Denis expressed a lot of complaints to her. Olga, in turn, began to defend herself, recalling his trips to football with friends. The conflict flared up in earnest. They haven't spoken to each other for several days. Olga was angry with Denis because she had upset him, but did not want to admit it. With this anger she tried to protect herself from the consequences of her guilt, placing it on someone else. This type of anger is an avoidance of responsibility for one’s actions towards others. It frees you from the need to act. It makes us weak. The problem is not solved, such anger is followed by resentment.

Valery came for a consultation at the insistence of his wife. Lately he often comes home from work angry and irritated. For nine years now he has been working as a department head at a successful company. He came to work as an ordinary employee, but thanks to his professionalism, energy and perseverance, he very quickly made a career. Over the past three years, he has been experiencing internal dissatisfaction because his superiors give him little encouragement for innovation, for concluding new contracts and agreements. According to him, he himself is not going to beg for anything, although he notes the fact that his colleague, the head of another department, “knows how to approach his superiors in such a way that they always agree with his arguments and reward him more generously.” Valera's grievances have been accumulating over the past two or three years, but the last straw was that, over the past six months, his colleague has been receiving almost twice as much as he, although Valera's work volume is greater. Valery is angry that he cannot take what he could or should have taken. He didn't demand what he should have. He didn't insist what he should have. Instead, he is angry at those people who did not give him what he believed they should have given him. This kind of anger is secondary. It leads to resentment and inaction, and removes responsibility from Valery. Such anger frees one from the need to act and, as a result, does not lead to any changes.

Anger, hatred, anger can be adopted feelings. This can happen when someone in the family suppressed anger, then someone younger in the family will begin to show these feelings.

Raisa came for a consultation about her daughter Galina, nine years old. The daughter did not find a common language with her father; moreover, they often conflicted with each other. Galina recently told her mother that she hates her father. Raisa was frightened by her daughter’s statement; she wanted to find out what to do in such a situation. Galina's father was a calm person, treated his daughter well, and took part in her life. Raisa sought to soften her daughter's attitude towards her father; the reasons for her behavior were unclear to her. The daughter's statement of hatred towards her father shocked her. I asked Raya a question about her relationship with her husband. How does she feel about him? Isn't this anger and hatred hers? Raya was somewhat embarrassed and hesitated to answer. But then she shared her feelings. It turned out that her husband, a successful businessman, completely supports the family. In addition, he has a three-year-old illegitimate child, with whose mother he does not maintain a relationship, since he now has a new mistress. Raisa learned about her husband’s hobbies when their child was four years old. It turned out that he led such a lifestyle throughout their entire life together. Raisa was shocked, asked her husband to change his lifestyle, and threatened with divorce. The husband then said that he was not going to change anything in his life, but at the same time he was against divorce, because he loved his daughter Galya. Raisa never decided to divorce; she kept the family together because of her daughter. According to her, over time she even came to terms with her husband’s extramarital affairs. But a year and a half ago, she found out that her husband had an illegitimate child - a son, whom he fully provides financially. Emotions overwhelmed her again, but she did not contradict her husband. According to Raisa, her daughter Galya knows nothing about her father’s extramarital affairs. Raisa said that, although outwardly their family looks quite prosperous, inside there is complete discord. Every year it becomes more and more difficult for her to restrain her emotions. Here is the answer to Raisa's original question. Her daughter shows the same emotions towards her father that her mother suppresses. – This is both anger and hatred. Galina, as the youngest in the family, outwardly shows what her mother suppressed inside herself. When we looked at Raisa’s clan system, it turned out that there were men with similar behavior in their family (that is, the choice of just such a partner was not accidental for Raisa). What is the solution in this situation? Raisa needed to internally tell her daughter: “Dear Galina! You are only my daughter, and I am your mother. What happens between me and your father does not apply to you. This concerns only me and him. You don't have to be responsible for our relationship. We are your parents, and you are our daughter. We will remain your parents and will love you no matter what happens in our relationship. The father you have is the best. Dear daughter, you feel my pain. But you don't have to bear it for me. I will bear my pain myself. This is my destiny, and I will bear my cross myself.” Two weeks later Raisa called me back. When she returned home after the consultation, her husband and daughter were at home and talking about their daughter’s passion for music. Raya noticed that they were talking animatedly; Galya was friendly towards her father. Over the next two weeks, Galina did not show any conflict or aggression towards her father. Even Rai's husband noticed a change in his relationship with his daughter. Raya did not tell anyone in the family about the consultation.

In the case of adopted feelings, a double displacement is possible - a person experiences anger repressed by someone towards another object. As a rule, anger is transferred from a strong person in a family system to a weaker one.

Natasha was worried about her attitude towards her husband. They, due to problems at work with their husband, had many disagreements. The shortage of money led to scandals and claims. The husband “withdrew into himself, did not take any part in solving the family’s material problems,” Natasha was constantly “looking for someone to borrow money from, getting out, looking for opportunities for the family to live on the available funds.” She was tired of the current situation, and claims of a different nature were accumulating. The husband was inattentive, indifferent, and lacking initiative. Natasha noticed that she gradually became conflicted, irritable, and aggression towards her husband appeared. As Natalya said, during conflicts she became “not herself,” “there was a desire to beat her husband severely so that it would reach him.” But what surprised Natasha most of all was that she was, in principle, a calm, understanding person, not prone to aggression, but when communicating with her husband she experienced such strange feelings for her. Which of the women in Natalia’s family felt this way towards men? This was her mother, who had been angry with her father all her life, but did not outwardly show these feelings. Natalya’s grandfather was a very difficult person, tough, greedy and capricious, which is why his relationship with his grandmother did not work out; they separated. But he maintained a relationship with his daughter (Natasha’s mother) and paid alimony. He was a wealthy man and had a son from his second marriage. After his death, he bequeathed everything to his son, although before his death he always told his daughter that in the will “he did not forget about her.” Natasha shared that her mother never said anything about her father, never visited his grave and did not maintain a relationship with her brother. In this case we are talking about double transfer. The daughter transfers the anger she received from her mother towards her father to someone who is on the same level as her, namely her own husband. Natasha's mother never outwardly showed her negative feelings and experiences towards her father; instead, they were shown by the daughter in relation to her husband. That is why the suddenness and intensity of these feelings were incomprehensible to Natasha. It really wasn't her feelings. What was the solution? Natalya had to internally say the following: “Dear mother, you are my mother, and I am your daughter. I understand and feel your pain. You had reasons to be angry with your father. I love you and that’s why I bear this pain for you. But this is your pain and your destiny. I'm really sorry. Now I leave your pain and your fate to you. Free me, if you can, from the need to express those feelings that you suppress. This is your pain, your anger and hatred. Please be kind to me, then everything will be fine with me.”

As a rule, those who take on other people's anger, hatred, and anger suffer, and this makes them weaker. At the same time, they constantly defend their rightness or consider themselves victims of circumstances.

Negative emotions towards their parents, unconscious, repressed, are transferred to their partners. The negative emotions that we experience towards our spouse are suppressed emotions towards our parents. Anger and hatred of a partner are a projection of one’s negative feelings towards a parent, which is why family conflicts are not resolved as quickly and easily as we would like. If you suppress your anger, it will turn into hatred and rage. If you don’t feel your anger, it will transform into hidden hostility towards your partner, and over time it will bring indifference and coldness into the relationship.

When you are insulted, criticized, when something is demanded of you, do you take a defensive position, withdraw into yourself? When you are offended by a remark, when you are threatened with divorce, do you take a defensive position and withdraw into yourself? In all such situations, you thereby strengthen your hostility.

Crying is one of the main mechanisms for releasing accumulated emotions. It’s not easy to give in to crying; most adults hold it back. Small children, especially infants, easily give in to crying, freeing themselves from pain, resentment and fear. But adults have such strong internal defense mechanisms that it is difficult for them to free themselves through crying. This is especially true for men, because many of them do not cry. Sometimes it takes months or years for a person to properly begin to release pent-up emotions.

If you defend, prove something or feel like a victim, then it’s worth thinking about what you are carrying, for whom in your family system are you doing this? The first thing you need to learn is to be aware of your feelings and get in touch with them. When you feel angry or irritated, ask yourself: “Why am I angry? What am I protecting myself from? What am I afraid of? Whose feeling is this? Is my reaction adequate to the current situation?”

A person who cannot feel suppressed emotions and remove psychological defenses will not be capable of love. A person can suppress emotions, but he cannot force himself to love, rejoice, or be happy. The solution is to recognize these barriers. Having become an adult and accepting negative feelings, realizing their source, giving them a way out, a person can feel in his heart love for his loved ones, for his parents. He will have new opportunities to feel love for his partner. The therapist’s goal is to resolve internal conflict and help understand suppressed emotions and their manifestation.

PITY, SACRIFICE, SUFFERING

Victims love to feed on pity from people around them. Their calling is to suffer. Pity is definitely a secondary feeling. Pity humiliates both the one who feels sorry and the one who feels sorry. The one who takes pity rises above the one whom he pities: “That’s how poor and weak you are, but I’m strong and I’ll take pity on you.” With this behavior, he recognizes the weakness of the victim. But every person wants to feel respect for themselves. Therefore, you unconsciously want to respond to pity with something bad. This often happens in life - people who feel sorry expect gratitude, but in return they get nothing but trouble. Pity is much easier to show than respect and love, which is why it often takes its place. Psychologists have long described the “dramatic triangle.” It details the relationship between victim, rescuer and stalker. All actions can be described in the form of three acts. The first act is the interaction between the stalker and the victim. The second act is when the rescuer comes to rescue the victim. The third act - the rescuer attacks the pursuer. But then a new drama begins: the pursuer becomes the victim, the rescuer becomes the pursuer. And the victim takes the position of the rescuer... These unfolding dramas move in a circle, the players change positions all the time, there is a kind of competition for the position of the victim.

For example, a wife has a conflict with her husband and accuses him of something. She is the victim, he is the persecutor. The mother-in-law gets involved in the conflict, defending her daughter. She is a lifesaver. The mother-in-law attacks her son-in-law (persecutor) with her accusations. Thus, the son-in-law turns into a victim; the mother-in-law turns into a persecutor, and the wife, starting to defend her husband in front of her mother, becomes a rescuer.

These games involve people complaining about each other instead of directly saying what they want. The same game of “who is to blame?” is going on. A person who does not get what he wants tries to make others feel guilty for it, and therefore others hear an endless stream of complaints from them. Or they use indirect methods, manipulating another person to get what they want from him without even asking for it. How to refuse the role of a rescuer? After all, it has really become a habit, when there is a constant desire to help everyone around.

Salvation is doing for another what he can actually do for himself. This is an encroachment on someone else’s space, coming from the position: “I’m just trying to help you.” This is a "talking above someone" movement that puts the other person below. This is a subtle way to control, manipulate others and undermine their self-esteem. In families of alcoholics, such people are known as “permissives” and “do-gooders.” Often it is the role of the rescuer that, unnoticed by others, supports the development of alcoholism (or other addiction) in a partner, which is why it is so important to recognize it in time and avoid it.

There are many life situations when one person needs the help of another. And that is why the temptation so often arises to become a rescuer or a victim. I repeat once again: rescuers support the authorities from above, doing what they are not asked to do for another person, believing that it will be better. But the person himself could successfully do this for himself. And then, feeling depressed, the victim can turn into a persecutor. Thus, by becoming angry with the rescuer, he gives him the opportunity to turn into a victim.

Relatives, especially wives of patients with addiction to psychoactive substances (alcoholism, drug addiction, substance abuse), are distinguished by their attitude of suffering and sacrifice. Tatyana brought her husband Konstantin, who suffers from alcohol addiction, to a consultation. Konstantin, in a conversation with a doctor, said that he was not going to stop drinking, since now he “has no problems with alcohol.” Now he uses it almost every day, but “in small doses, since his health is no longer the same.” He came to see the doctor “so that his wife would leave him alone.” Previously, Konstantin had been encoded several times, as he noted, “for his wife, so that she would calm down,” but he only survived the encoding period after the first encoding. Tatyana was in despair. From the very first days of their marriage, Konstantin abused alcohol. Even while meeting him, she felt the need to “help and save this man,” which she did throughout their entire life together. She saved him while he was abusing alcohol. She sorted out all his problems at work, negotiated with his boss so that he wouldn’t be kicked out, and sometimes bought sick leave. She soldered him and “treated” him when he felt unwell after heavy drinking. The driver is repeatedly coded. As Tanya noted, her husband is “another child in the family.” Several times she thought about divorce, but did not dare to take such a step - there were three sons in the family. Now she feels that she has reached her breaking point. All her thoughts are occupied with his alcoholism, but she no longer has the strength to fight and save him. Aggression appeared, a desire to “do something with my husband.” Throughout the entire story, Tatyana asked the question: “What should I do with him?” I tried to explain that her position of “rescue” did not lead to anything and in such a situation she needs to begin to reconsider her views. But Tatyana could not hear anyone this time. She immediately objected to me: “If it weren’t for me, he would have died long ago.” My comments were unnecessary here. There is no point in objecting to such a position. Tanya did not want to change anything, just like her husband. They treated the situation the same way: “I don’t have any problems, it’s he (she) who has problems.” I recommended that she read the literature on this issue and then perhaps continue our conversation.

Why do people find it difficult to let go of the victim role? Isn't it hard to suffer all the time? But if you take a closer look, it turns out that suffering is a unique lifestyle of victims. For them, suffering is a habit, it is filling life with meaning, it is attracting attention, pity, and love to one’s person. Suffering “raises” a person to a different position. Since he suffers, he seems better than those around him, which leads to the appearance of a certain (in most cases unconscious) claim. Since it has no basis, the claim cannot be satisfied, which in turn re-establishes the person in the role of suffering victim. “Nobody understands me” or “everyone is against me” - these are the main beliefs of “chronic” victims who remain captive to suffering. Moreover, the victim does not need to act, to take responsibility.

Where does a person come from such sacrifice? What happened in the clan, family system, are there people-aggressors and victims there? What do the victims bear, why do they suffer so much? What do people who behave aggressively towards others carry within themselves? Often in the tribal system in previous generations there are also aggressors and victims. What does it mean? We are talking about someone's aggressive behavior in the generic system. Often it can be traced back through several generations in a row. Sometimes the aggressor is in a generation about which information has been lost. But it does not matter. Aggression is a way to relieve internal tension present in a person. Alcohol, drugs, gambling are also ways to relieve stress. It comes from one of the ancestors, cannot be controlled, requires a way out and some kind of decision. Such tension destroys a person; behind it is an unconscious desire to die. If there are aggressors in the family system, then there are also victims who suffered from it, it does not matter whether they are in this family system or whether they are strangers. The aggressor and the victims are connected to each other. And in subsequent generations, part of the family stands on one side (the aggressor), and part on the other (the victim). When people in the family system begin to realize whose side they are on, whose fate they and their loved ones unknowingly bear, they stop viewing destructive behavior as something that can be controlled. They see that everything that happens in their family system is determined by the destinies of their ancestors and requires a deeper understanding and search for a solution at a different level.

It is difficult for those people whose ancestors were guilty of something to be active. Out of loyalty to their system, they are passive and often unsuccessful. Those who deny their guilt (soldiers and officers who took part in military actions that “had nothing to do with it”) produce aggressors and victims in subsequent generations. But because of loyalty, it is difficult for a descendant to give up the role of a victim or an aggressor. Only when the one who bears the cross of victim can let love for the criminal into his heart will he leave his actions on his conscience. When he respects sacrifices, then the need to sacrifice himself will disappear.

Valentina came for a consultation with the goal of getting rid of the “heavy burden of childhood.” She grew up, as she said, “in a dysfunctional family.” Her father drank and died - he drowned when she was six years old. Her mother was a cruel person, she humiliated and beat her daughter, and often changed lovers, who were distinguished by cruelty and aggression. The mother was beaten by one of her cohabitants and died from injuries when Valentina was 22 years old. Valentina herself was sexually abused by her uncle, her father’s brother, from the age of twelve. What happened in this family; why did Valentina’s parents and herself become victims, and her uncle a rapist? Mother's father served as an officer in the NKVD. During the Great Patriotic War, my father's father went over to the side of the Germans and served with them throughout the war, then was captured by Soviet soldiers and shot. In this tribal system there are rapists-murderers who had their victims. Out of loyalty to their families, Valentina's father and mother became victims, and her uncle became a rapist. What was the decision for Valentina? She needed to internally tell her family the following: “Mom and Dad, you were victims out of loyalty to the sacrifices of your fathers. You did this out of love for your fathers. All your life you have been looking at victims, looking at death. It was too heavy a burden for you. And I began to bear this with you. We experienced what the victims of my grandfathers experienced. Uncle, you became a rapist out of loyalty to your family. Dad and Mom, you are my parents, and from you I received life, and I accept it. Everything that happened to me did not deprive me of respect for life. I have no other parents, you have a difficult fate. I'm sorry. You are my parents, and I am just a child. Those parents who exist are the best. I took upon myself everything that happened to me out of loyalty to the victims, out of love for you. I leave your fate to you now. I'm staying alive. I will live my life."

notes

Notes

1

All examples given in the book are given in terms of the topics covered in the chapters. Practical work on an individual human problem is more extensive.