Why I Do Family of Origin Work

I do my family of origin work for me.

There's a lot of talk in and around where I do this work that it's helpful to my mother. It's said that cultivating an understanding of the stuff that happened to me, within the context of the family I grew up in will somehow create compassion for them.

As if knowing what some of my parents’ lived experiences were, what their parents’ experiences were, the lessons learned and applied would somehow change my experience.

Thinking about their context has allowed me to soften. I've experienced how the knowing of such things changes how I consider my family and allows more space to have compassion.

And.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez (@priscilladupreez) on Unsplash

If I'm honest with you, I am not doing this work for them. I am not even doing this work so I can have compassion for them.

I am doing this work for me. I'm doing this work to understand how I got to be this way.

That understanding isn't so I can fix it or change it, though that might happen.

That understanding allows me to give myself the grace and mercy. Something that has more compassion underpinning it than Okay. Well, that sucks. It is not the end of the world and may not kill you for it.

Believe it or not, the compassion level in that sentiment so far outpaces how I used to talk to myself most of the time. These days, there’s more acceptance of the way things are, even if I can’t always find the fully positive side of the playground (and often don’t want to).

Jack Kornfield in Buddha’s Little Instruction Book said that any version of “compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

And for a lot of years, and through a lot of programs, I focused on having compassion for everyone but myself. Whether it was the church or therapy, the focus was figuring out how to have some compassion for my mother.

Well, crud.

When will I actually talk about what happened to me as a child?

When will I actually talk about the stories I walked away from my childhood with about my own worth?

When will I call a spade a spade?

Yes, therapy provided tools I needed to not end up in jail and to more effectively cope with my life. What therapy didn’t provide was resolution or acknowledgment or healing.

For better or worse, tools are just tools, and unless you’re applying them in the proper context, they don’t fix squat.