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Dear ,
The approaching end of summer is a sign that the year is slowly drawing to a close. This can bring a feeling of melancholy as it reminds us of the transiency of life itself.
Our life has seasons too, and we might be tempted to sometimes look at our past with grief about what has gone, what we cannot retrieve or regain. But isn’t it rather a matter of perspective?
I have dedicated the last two months to the writing of my book. Gathering my thoughts and reflections and everything I wanted to share with the world, I reconnected more and more with my training in logotherapy and existential analysis. Even though it might not seem so at a first glance, I discovered so many parallels between Viktor E. Frankl’s wisdom and Bert Hellinger’s transgenerational approach. One of them in regard to our relationship with transiency.
Frankl tells us:
"Usually, man sees only the stubble field of transience. What he overlooks are the full barns of the past. In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost; rather, everything is indelibly protected.”
During the process of writing I realized how full my barns are with everything I was allowed to experience, the decisions I made, the beautiful and sometimes painful moments, the people I met, the encounters that sometimes felt like miracles, the relationships that ended and the ones that linger on, the difficulties that I managed to master, the moments full of joy and love, the tears and the laughter, the projects I was able to accomplish, and the list could go on and on.
Becoming aware of all this, there is no longer place for regret or sorrow or doubt. There is only place for gratitude and the awareness that everything that I have already brought into my barn is protected and everything I will still be allowed to add to my harvest will be safe too. It felt like a deep reconciliation between the past and the future experienced in the present.
In the transgenerational approach and constellations, we often focus on the negative and heavy experiences of our ancestors and on our entanglements with them. We wish things could have been different and this contributes to our suffering. The moment we acknowledge what is and we realize that everything has contributed to us being in this world, that we are here because or sometimes despite of all this, the moment we say “yes” to it, we can also see the love and the strength, the gifts and the blessings. And we can trust that as we were held in the past, we will be held also in our future.
Both concepts tell us about the importance of the present and somehow for me writing this book (which is now in the phase of proofreading and editing) was a symbol for life:
Sometimes you go to the past, you recover memories and lessons you learnt and integrate them with gratitude. But you have to get back to the present if you do not want to get stuck.
Sometimes you think of the future. Will I ever be able to do this? Will it ever come true? But then you take a deep breath acknowledging that you don’t know and that the only way forward is to keep on going.
It is only in the present that living, just like writing, takes place. By integrating the past and trusting in the future.
I wish you a fertile month of September with the awareness how full your barns already are, the gratitude for it and the trust that there is enough safe space for everything you will harvest in the future.
In the spirit of love and reconciliation
Ursula |
