I'm so grateful that the car called normal is rusting away in an abandoned car yard. It barely made it, creaking along with the wheels falling off, the rowdy horn no longer scattering people back home to check their credentials of acceptability. Not for everyone, though has this car been abandoned. Hell, no. But slowly, slowly, it's a dilapidated, untrustworthy thing; so unreliable, so without evidence, trundling perversely against the traffic flow. I don't know how a car analogy came to mind, I really don't.
In the families of my circle of friends and acquaintances - and I'm sure, yours - there are endless differences of expression of the human being, made clear in neuro-diversity, a range of physical abilities, diverse academic and sporting achievement, musicianship, degrees of sociability, morning and afternoon and nocturnal people, lavish eaters and people with little appetite, straight and LGBTQI people, visual artists, writers, readers, movie goers and stay at homers. Parents with children who are 'different'. We're all so different. And so alike. Fixated on difference, if it falls outside the putative normal range. Avoidant of outliers. Avoidant of even discussing what it means. And yet we all have someone or know someone who does fall outside what is the 'norm', that figment of collective imagination. We need to completely relegate the notion of normal human being to the rust heap.
It is one of my delights to advocate for there is no norm being the normal mindset. Then we could love and like and speak of it all and everyone as treasures; always include them, value their gifts and talents, and understand the essential selves that they are. No barriers. No judgements. Only acceptance. Can we avoid the drama of Look Who's Coming to Dinner and all the other figments of grandeur, supremacy, and one upmanship; let people be who they are?
Around the world, the nth degree, the extreme of othering ends in death: just think George Floyd, Brianna Ghey and all the examples that have entered collective consciousness, where the victims have become household names. There are still deeply misogynist 'jokes' about Monica Lewinsky, who narrowly avoided suicide after her liaison with Bill Clinton and the ensuing bullying of her on a global scale. How dare she be good enough to intern at the White House and be sexually involved with the POTUS? You think that I have wandered off piste now, but I haven't. Being ambitious, being successful, stepping fully into who you are and want to be is another kind of difference that is not tolerated, especially in women. Julia Gillard. Sanne Marin. Jacinda Ardern. Michelle Obama - just for example.
Andrew Solomon in his TED Talk Love, No Matter What - What is it like to raise a child who's different from you in some fundamental way (like a prodigy, or a differently abled kid, or a criminal)? - pleads for us to love no matter what, no matter how hard it is to do so.
“I could never trust anyone who's well adjusted to a sick society.” ― Andrea Gibson
In systemic constellations work, there is fundamental awareness of the phenomenon of exclusion in all the ways that that is manifest, in the present or previous generations. Everyone has a place in the family system, indeed must have a place, and their precise place. Exclusion of a member of a family (system) causes disturbances, often expressed in the loyalty and identification with them of a newer person, for example a niece or nephew of the excluded uncle in the previous generation. Maybe that person is called, or implicitly understood to be the black sheep of the family. Bert Hellinger, the founder of Family/Systemic Constellations had this, and more to say about the black sheep in family systems.
'...The so-called black sheep of the family are, in fact, hunters born of paths of liberation into the family tree.
The members of a tree who do not conform to the norms or traditions of the family system, those who since childhood have constantly sought to revolutionise beliefs, going against the paths marked by family traditions, those criticised, judged and even rejected, these are usually called to free the tree of repetitive stories that frustrate entire generations.
The black sheep, those who do not adapt, those who cry rebelliously, play a basic role within each family system, they repair, pick up and create new and unfold branches in the family tree...'
Bert Hellinger, in translation from German
Family Constellations is fully inclusive. Dip your toes in via a private session or a soon to be held workshop.
Copyright Karen Sole 2024
Karen Sole is a member of the Internatonal Institute for Complementary Therapists, and of the International Systemic Constellations Association (isca-network.org). She took her first training from Yildiz Sethi yildizsethi.com of familyconstellations.com.au . Karen's profile can be found on all three organisational sites.
References
www.andreagibson.org Colorado's 10th Poet Laureate, activist, musician.
Look Who's Coming To Dinner, 1967 movie starring Sidney Poitier, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy et al, directed by Stanley Kramer
Andrew Solomon TED Talk: Love, No Matter What - What is it like to raise a child who's different from you in some fundamental way (like a prodigy, or a differently abled kid, or a criminal)? In this quietly moving talk, writer Andrew Solomon shares what he learned from talking to dozens of parents -- asking them: What's the line between unconditional love and unconditional acceptance?
Andrew Solomon is a writer, lecturer and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University. He is President of PEN American Center.
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