Theme & Topic: Men integrating and taking responsibility for their MALENESS – individually and collectively. It is high time.
I feel in human evolution story, MALENESS is both the most Dangerous and the most Innovative impulse or driving force. It is the father of Patriarchy. I tie this impulse or driving force directly to the Y-Chromosome. The Y-chromosome is one of a pair of chromosomes that determines the genetic sex of individuals in mammals, some insects (wasp, fruit fly), and some plants. It is what distinguishes a Mare (female) from a Horse (male), stag or buck from a doe, duck from a drake, Cow from a Bull, Tigress from Tiger, Bitch from a dog, Wom(b)an from a Man. I have given details of this maleness through some research articles down below.
As a womb-bleeding woman, I do not have any trace of maleness (Y-Chromosome) in my body. If I did, I would not menstruate nor would I have my ovaries, womb, etc. Even without any traces of the Maleness in me, I had to watch out, be acutely aware, and understand this maleness from when I had to venture outside the safety of my home because my survival dependent on intuiting the impulse of this maleness in the here and now, and it exists to this day – anywhere I go in the world. Men do not get it because they can choose to be unaware of their own maleness because it runs the world.
My whole life I have been acutely aware and present to this maleness in boys, and men around me including animals like dogs or bulls. Early on (even in 1st grade), I got the feeling that this maleness had no impetus to get me or feel or understand me like I was required to. Even more, it was not able to see or get me.
What saddens me and scares me even more today is that MEN or MALES have no impetus even to this day to become conscious of, recognise, call out, take responsibility for this maleness in their own self, and in their peers. That is a MAJOR PROBLEM in the World.
Atleast once in my lifetime, I would like to walk into any workshop or training or program facilitated by a Male or man who can outright take responsibility for this unrbridled Maleness in the world (in him and his peers). I hope to someday hear the acknowledgement atleast in trauma-informed spaces that all the problems in the world (war, destruction of nature, rape and abuse of women, selling of children) and also, the direction of human innovation in the world is derivative of this Maleness of the Y-Chromosome.
I as a wom(b)an am not the cause of it, and not in it.
This entire world today is a linear expression of this unmanaged incontrollable insatiable Maleness of the Y-Chromosome. It definitely is not serving me, it is not serving the earth, and it is not serving men either.
As I study more and more the evolution, driving force (impulse) and impetus of the Y-Chromosome, I realize that it’s driving force has been to separate out of nature and to determine its own unique existence. SOME INFO ON THIS Y-Chromosome: https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/y-chromosome-animals.
While X is the innate grounding impulse of Nature – Earth and has retained this almost in its entirety from the autosomes, Y is the impulse that strives to separate out from it to have its own identity (sex). In the process, the Y-Chromosome paid a huge price. It became small in length. I feel this is ingrained in the unconscious fixation in Human male’s impulse for grandeur, magnanimity, and sheer size of its male expression.
Competition, competence, and strive for victory is built into the sperm (expression of the Y-Chromosome). This maleness is driven to break free of nature to know itself, and also, to know peace.
The most modern expression of this maleness is the Penis looking rocket breaking free of the earths gravitation field, and wanting to go soooooo far into space to determine peace and stillness.
The most spiritual expression of this maleness is the impetus in the male consciousness awareness to break free of the body (beginning) and rest in the bodiless state of consciousness and then feel at peace.
I applaud maleness for how it has shaped modern life. Sometimes I am inspired to briefly accompany this maleness on its impetus but then I want to return back to the Earth.
I stand here on Earth in my body, and I am at peace here. It is only from here I would like to meet the maleness, and see you and be with you. I have tried to align, receive, adjust and take on this maleness and male-world but the more I situate and move into the Wisdom of Beginning, I realize that I am here on Earth – in this body and that is what gives me peace. I will meet you here – feet fully on the ground – if only you can learn to manage, take responsibility, and integrate the impulse – impetus of your MALENESS.
I do not want this maleness to Negated-Rejected-Shamed-Absenced. It cannot be done as it is what makes Men males. I am in awe of this maleness and I recognize its virility. My body feels it. However, most of the time my body is also, afraid for its own life when I donot see this maleness consciously held, worn or embodied by men.
I acknowledge this maleness and its phenomenal evolutionary directive and direction for humanity. When it is managed, and taken responsibility for, it allows me to be in Awe of it, fully receive from it, and even follow and walk by its side as an embodied Wom(b)an.
QUESTION: HOW DOES A MAN INTEGRATE HIS MALENESS ***** Wom(b)en have no direct role to play in this. She needs to get out of his way. At the least she can make room for it to happen. ******
A Man has to fully receive, and surrender to the source of his Maleness – his FATHER and FATHER line. There is a deep line of pain, denial, rejection, violence, abuse, and absence in the father line of most males. Human males have to acknowledge, agree to their father, and allows its place within their own bodies and psyches. This order needs to be integrated for Maleness to have conscious direction in a male man. Till men as a collective group or consciousness move into doing this work, the world is unsafe for everyone including men.
Bassel Vander Kolk is one of the only males I have seen begin his trauma presentation saying that almost all trauma (for men, and women) in the world is caused by men, and that is the truth, and its high time this truth is held and voiced and expressed.
Personally, I am no longer called to SAVE MEN or their maleness in anyway. I am pained to see the helplessness of men in acknowledging and owning it in their body. However, it is not my place. Just like it is not a man’s place to teach me about being a Wom(b)an. U have no clue about it.
What I promise is to not contribute to the pain of maleness consciously.
However For that I need to start seeing more and more men becoming conscious of their maleness, start voicing – healing – integrating the trauma from it, and taking FULL responsibility for it. Men have to learn to Bridle their Maleness themselves in a healthy, conscious way.
The SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY MIGHT JUST DEPEND ON IT HAPPENING.
Systemic SPHERE OF INFLUENCE is something we need to sense, feel and respond to inside of us. That’s where most of our pain and entanglement is held and revealed.
One of the journeys of my life has been to fully see my parents – father (in his line) and mother (in her line) in my inner image as my physical origin in this world irrespective of what my parents relationship with each other is. That concerns them and however that is – whether they r together or not – doesn’t change their place as father and mother inside me. This was only possible thru Family Constellation work. I am still only fully receiving it. It has brought immense peace and fulfillment within me in a way that nothing ever did.
*****Family Constellation is a therapeutic modality discovered and cognized by Bert Hellinger*****
To me being in this body and biology of a wom(b)an is not a chance happening. It’s part of my fate and contract in this life. it drives my purpose in ways I cannot fully comprehend yet. So locating myself in this body is essential and that has something to do with the pathways of the sphere of Influence.
Whose sphere of influence are you in your life – your mother or your father or family or a teacher or, universe (god or nature)? Maturing into an Adult requires us to slowly move towards the sphere of influence of the universe and receive our life and the world from there. However, that movement needs to go through its natural process of moving thru the physical spheres of influence we are born into, raised in, and in time also, separate from.
Every life begins in the sphere of the Mother. Mother is the beginning – first home. Then depending on the extent of mother’s relationship with the father, we are able to tune into the sphere of the father, and find our movement into, towards and under it. Then we are able to see and receive from the father. This is essential for a child’s whole healthy development. I feel girls enter into this movement towards the father early on around 6-8 years of age, and for boys maybe around puberty or adolescence,12-13 years.
In our biology, a physical maturation process is coded in. It opens the gift of our maleness and femaleness. To fully receive from this process, it is essential for the parents to support their children to navigate their spheres of influence in a healthy way. Of course that means they needed to have navigated it first themselves. This movement is different for boys and girls.
At puberty or adolescence, it is healthy for the son to move from the mother, into the sphere of influence of his father and stay there. This movement of separation from the mother needs to be allowed time and space. A mature mother facilitates it consciously. She makes room for her son to separate, and go to the father; even guides him into it. This doesnot mean the boy doesnt have his mother. He will always have his mother but now, he needs to be in the sphere of influence this father, and find direction for his maleness from there in the world.
A girl naturally will move towards her father around 5 years of age as she starts becoming present to herself. The mother needs to allow this movement consciously while being intuitively present to the safety of the daughter. If the father’s maleness is directionless – wounded, then the daughter is not safe. While the mother acknowledged the place of the father for the daughter, she might have to talk to her about protecting herself. The nearness of a healthy conscious father allows the girl to become familiar with healthy maleness. However, at puberty or adolescence, it is healthy for the daughter to return back into sphere of influence of her mother and stay there. This movement of separation from the father needs to be facilitated in a healthy way. There needs to be room for communication. Of course, this doesnt mean the girls doesnt have her father. She always will but her sphere of influence shifts. Now the mother needs to welcome her back with both arms; rejoice in her return.
What purpose does this systemic Sphere of Influence provide. BOYS BECOME MEN by standing in front of their father’s sphere of influence. A male receives something very integral to his sex ie, his maleness from the father (and his line). It channels their maleness. To be able to fully integrate that maleness and to give it forward in a healthy way, he needs to integrate his father within. Now if the father’s maleness itself is unhealthy, then the boy needs to be supported or guided to resource his maleness in a healthy way. The mother cannot do it but she can guide him to healthy male role models. She needs to also, support her son to completely step out of the sphere of her influence.
GIRLS BECOME WOM(B)EN by standing in front of their mother’s sphere of influence. Femaleness and womb rhythm is a gift from the mother (line). To receive it fully and to engage with it forward in the world, the girl as a woman needs to receive and integrate her mother fully. Also, a woman is able to receive the maleness of a man into her womb only when she is able to completely step out of the sphere of her father’s influence.
Moving into the sphere of influence allows us to receive the gift of our biology. For everything else, we need the whole picture inside with the father and mother.
Within a patriarchal system, this movement is not fully facilitated. One main reason for that is that the maleness of the father itself could be dangerous and directionless. Mother never feels comfortable in this movement and so she denies the father completely and this further perpetuates patriarchy.
Sons never fully become men as either they donot fully move to the father and continue to stay on under the influence of their mother, or the father’s maleness itself is dangerous and directionless. This affects their ability to access and gift their maleness fully in any relationship forward in a healthy way. He is not fully able to become a man.
It is even more challenging for a female within a Patriarchal social system. Patriarchal Myths and stories like Zuez (Shiva) birthing Athena (Kali), the patriarchal daughter out of his head makes it difficult many times for the daughter to recognise the invisible mother as the beginning, and return to her. Mother-daughter relationship is quite compromised in a patriarchal system. So a girl is not fully able to become a Wom(b)an.
By keeping boys from becoming men, and girls from becoming women, Immaturity perpetuates Patriarchy further. We never fully reach the universal sphere of influence but stay stuck in our immature realms unable to see and hold the big picture. Has your sphere of influence moved its natural course? If not, How can you facilitate it as an adult consciously? These hidden movements become visible in constellation. It is one of the wonders of my life. Schedule or Attend a Family Constellation session to find your right place in the world.Post Written by Rekha Kurup, Certified Systemic and Family Constellation facilitator.
This is a compilation of several posts from my Facebook page @Rekha Kurup that I did July – Aug 2021. You are encouraged to hold these posts not in the Truth of the words but also, allow it to open questions, explorations, and insights in your inside.
7 of 10: Healing this Systemic Illness in Human Soul.
Patriarchy is a systemic illness in humanity reflected in all the conscious and unconscious inner and outer movement.
Wrapped in this movement is all of our un-integrated complex trauma pockets. It is personal. It is collective. It is inter-generational. This requires a painful effort to first recognize patriarchy in oneself, because even though the expressions my vary – it is rampant in each and every person on the planet today,
Patriarchy it in-forms who we are, how we show up with each other. So any shift in patriarchy has to involve a gradual in-formation within the individual of a new conscious movement. While we do that, we need to also, sit with each other in safe conscious spaces in relating – regulating – resonating this in-formation, so as to in-form it with new in-formation.
Slowly, gradually in time and space and across a few generations even, this conscious individual and collective in-formation will gain enough strength, competence, and stability to inform a consciously integrated out-formation – a new leadership pattern emerges.
How do I begin the work on this in-formation specifically to transform patriarchal – domination narrative. It requires human males and females to become more and more conscious of their in-formation of movement.
We need to Find our way – Re-turn to our Beginning (Home) inside, and Find new movement to and from there into the World. It is an Everyday choice – choosing – learning.
FIVE STEPS that we can all begin to explore 1. Find tools & practices to SLOW DOWN immensely in our inner movements (elongate your exhale),
2. Choose to STEP OUT of the ways of the world (blame, shame, competition, othering, isolation, force) & how success – worth is defined. NO MORE ANYMORE,
3. Practice RADICAL COMPASSION for oneself & the other – (I am enough. There is enough),
4. Have a RADICAL COMMITMENT to recover back responsibility (ability to respond) for the un-integrated trauma history that moves inside of us. Learn to recognise it outside. Recover ability to respond to it with awareness of step 3 – Radical compassion.
5. Have RADICAL COURAGE to explore – learn – walk one’s own path founded in one’s inner compass in every possible scenario.
What!! Make it more clear. This all feels absolute. In the next two posts, I will clearly state the way I am still discovering & learning to recognize and take responsibility for patriarchy – within and without me. Exhale…. I am hopeful …..
8 of 10: PROPOSED CURE FOR THE SYSTEMIC ILLNESS CALLED PATRIARCHY IN THE MAMMALIAN HUMAN SOUL. Nature does not have this problem because everything, everyone and every aspect of nature is surrendered to the Beginning – Nature – Feminine without choice or choosing.
MOVEMENT FOR HUMAN MALES MALENESS needs to SURRENDER to the Beginning – Nature. MALENESS needs to SURRENDER to the Feminine – within. MALENESS needs to SURRENDER to the rhythms of the Cosmic Womb.
MALENESS needs to SURRENDER to the biological rhythm of the Womb-Mother in a Human Female as something he does not have, will not have, and does not need to have. He learns to receive it from her. NOTE- Here maleness does not mean masculinity. I am using it to refer to the distinct energy of the Y chromosome that emerged out of the need to separate out from the feminine. It gave the impetus of linearity.
MOVEMENT FOR HUMAN FEMALES Human female needs to align, situate, tune into, and walk the Biology of her Feminine Womb – Nature’s Dark / Light rhythm on earth. She needs to make that her inner navigational compass. Then the Human female needs to make room to recognize, hold space, and befriend (subject to movement one) the quality of
Maleness (not masculinity) in a human male as something she does not have, will not have, and does not need to have. She learns to receive it from him.
Both these movements influence a cyclic flow of balance on the planet. It is individual, inter-relational, and inter-dependent.
One cannot happen without the other.
It is a new conscious movement that we have to co-explore, co-learn, co-express, and co-habit.
In the biology of Human female, I am becoming more and more present to my movement of stepping into my Womb Wisdom of the Beginning, and healing of my trauma in the disruption of my attunement to the womb rhythm. And I am also, recognizing maleness as something very distinctly unique to human males.
Sometimes its irks – irritates me. More often than not, my body feels unsafe, threatened, and withdrawn in the nearness of MALENESS that not grounded in the feminine. That un-grounded maleness is the cause of patriarchy.
While I can recognize and hold space for this MALENESS and its un-groundedness, I cannot directly do anything. This movement of grounding the Maleness in the Feminine is a movement utterly at the beck and call of males. Human Males have to start taking responsibility for it in their own self, and in their peers. There is no way out of this.
This is a compilation of several posts from my Facebook page @Rekha Kurup that I did July – Aug 2021. You are encouraged to hold these posts not in the Truth of the words but also, allow it to open questions, explorations, and insights in your inside.
4 of 10
So Where are we? Matriarchy – Precursor to Civilization – Mother from Beginning. Patriarchy – Origin of Civilization – Father from Domination.Here I am referring civilization to mean social organisation held in the concept of marriage, land ownership, women and men legally bound to each other through a social law. Legal Marriage of this form is purely human creation, and absent in nature.
LET ME MAKE IT EVEN MORE CLEAR BASED ON FACTS FROM TODAY.
While the right to beginning, maternal and mother’s place is well-established to bring security and safety for the child, the place of the Father is invisible biologically from the beginning.
So in cultures where a marriage did not exist (like matriarchal), fatherhood was invisible, or it was established on the word of the mother. This is visible from existing matriarchal cultures like Mosou, Yao, Miao, and Tan peoples in China; the Chiang people of Tibet; the Minangkabau of Sumatra; the Ainu of Japan; the Trobrianders of Melanesia in the Pacific; the Khasi and Garo in Northeast India, and the Nayars of Southeast India; the Bantu of Central Africa; the Akan and Ashanti peoples in West Africa; the Berbers and Tuareg of North Africa; the Arawak people of South America; the Cuna and Juchitecan societies of Central America; and, the Hopi and Pueblo people as well as the Iroquois people of North America. In matriarchal cultures, belonging was informed through the beginning (birth – mother). That took precedence over relationships of copulation. So the concept of power-operated on the principal of “natural authority” that flows between mother and child, grandmother and grandchild, brother and sister, sister and sister, brother and brother, brother and sister’s children. This natural authority founded in the natural order of belonging through the mother informed everyone’s name and identity. Even today it exists. I recognize it in my parents original names – K.P Balamani, and K Govidnankutty. The K.P and K represents their matriliny going way back.
SEXUALITY & COPULATION In matriarchal cultures, Women and men enjoyed considerable autonomy around sexuality as they were not required to be tied to each other through rules and regulations. That is Male did not have a natural authority over the woman he mated, and the woman did not have a natural authority over man she mated. All Children born through this union belonged to the beginning so with the matriliny. Women and men continued to stay with the beginning. They were not required to leave their dwelling of beginning. Their responsibilities and loyalty were to the beginning. Of course, copulation between males and females with the same beginning was strictly prohibited. It was unthinkable.
While all this supported a deep sense of autonomy and freedom of movement for adult males and females, it ended up denying the natural order of the father in the life of the child. In almost all mother-entered cultures, in the social organization of families, the natural order of fatherhood did not have a place. It was given to, or taken by the maternal uncle (mother’s brother or male associated with the beginning). Of course, it still worked for however long it lasted. Often, matriarchal cultures are called cultures or societies of peace because there is not much evidence to these societies being in war. But many of these societies also just vanished – poof, and I wonder what caused that.
The question I ask is WHAT HAPPENS TO AN ABSENCE OF THIS NATURE IN A CHILD? Fatherhood IS NATURAL. IT IS NATURE-DRIVEN. ITS PLACED IN THE CHILD ie, the father is in the child. Overtime what happens to that unconscious unclaimed denied unrecognized absence.
On Whom – how – where did this absence get projected! With what – how – where did this absence get filled! Who – how – where stepped into this absence?
And for me, hidden in this ABSENCE is the male’s unconscious need to dominate BEGINNING – WOMAN – WOMB to direct fatherhood. That is the beginning or patriarchy, and one of the most visibly dominant aspects of patriarchy is Marriage – lawful socially-sanctioned tying down of a woman’s womb with a man.
I am giving two simple images I created to demonstrate how the place of male shifted from natural to unnatural. See how it feels in the body. We are all in the second image literally in every way in everything we birth. Stepping out of patriarchy is stepping out of this image for both male and female. Nature stands behind as witness in both. Why – How – Where this shift.
5 of 10:
What I say is not cognitive truth. See if you can feel – think it. It might open – light up and then go away. However, when I even briefly align with its revelation, I experience a deep sense of peace inside – a surrender into something that holds me dearly. In a patriarchal social organisation founded in the domination of the Beginning, our ability to hold space for the elemental nature of the universe is compromised.
What is that elemental truth: EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED IN NATURE. WHAT IS COSMIC IS ATOMIC, AND WHAT IS ATOMIC IS COSMIC. Meaning we cannot take the cosmic nature out of the atomic, and the atomic nature out of the cosmic.
Our patriarchal thinking makes us believe that things exist in separation, and intelligence resides in the human brain.
Intelligence must laugh out loud for it exists independent of human existence; it permeates through every micro-nano-cosmic space of universe. This intelligence makes us. We did nothing. It brought us here. It can take us out. We are only in-forming everything through IT. Nothing is a coincidence here. Nothing is left to chance here.
In the atomic nature, there is no separation from this intelligence. Intelligence permeates Everything here, and is driven by it. In our own body, at the cellular level this intelligence is more potent than in our brain. It is more potent in its true nature in the movement of the sperm and the egg than in our knowing of it. So let us hold space for this Universal truth:
A CHILD HAS ONLY ONE FATHER, AND ONE MOTHER. IT IS DETERMINED ONLY BY BIOLOGY. Any absence or denial of this atomic truth will show up in the cosmic movement of the whole in more ways than we can comprehend.
WHAT MAKES US MALE AND FEMALE IN THE HUMAN BIOLOGY: Our sex chromosomes, X, and Y.Each human usually has one pair of sex chromosomes (XX or XY) in each cell. Typically Females have two X chromosomes, and males have one X and one Y chromosome. Both males and females retain one of their mother’s X chromosomes.
While the Y chromosome informs uniquely male passed from the father to the son, the X Chromosome informs male and female.
Females retain their second X chromosome from their father. Since the father retains his X chromosome from his mother, a human female has one X chromosome from her paternal grandmother (father’s mother), and one X chromosome from her mother.
Male get their X chromosome from their mother, and Y chromosome from their father. In that way, maleness of the father is more directly visible in the male child than in the female child.
AND EVEN MORE INTERESTING IS THE ORIGIN STORY OF “Y CHROMOSOME” Shortly after mammals evolved from reptiles, approximately 300 million years ago, a regular pair of autosomes (non-sex chromosome) began evolving into what would become the modern X and Y chromosomes – that are distinctly separate. The autosomes overtime mutated through the SRY (Sex-determining Region) gene to become the Y chromosome, while, the X chromosome retained its genetic integrity and size. So “The SRY-bearing chromosome became the Y chromosome and its SRY-deficient partner became the X chromosome.”
So in the evolution of life, there was a distinct movement to separate and become male. I feel energetically that determined the beginning of distinct Masculinity as Separate from the Feminine.I see the X chromosome as retaining the memory of Beginning and the Feminine while the Y chromosome retaining the memory of separation from Beginning and the Masculine.
So while in females the beginning can be phenomenologically felt and experienced, it is not so potent in the male biology. In the same way, Masculinity is a nature of male in a way that it is not so in female biology. They are distinct and separate in each other. In coming together in the biology, a natural wholeness is experienced, and it is also, present in the life that comes out of this wholeness as male or female. The denial of any part is dangerous to human existence.
SO EVERY CHILD HAS DEFINITELY ONLY ONE FATHER AND ONE MOTHER.
Even when a child is fostered, adopted, step-child, guardianed, or surrogated, the place of the biological father and mother cannot be denied in the child. In the son it exists very clearly as the maleness of the Y chromosome. In sons and daughters, it exists the feminine of the X chromosome – the beginning.
The denial of a father or mother in a child over time creates an unconscious absence. This unconscious absence emerges in the child as nonverbal un-safety and helplessness. Over time, it will be resourced through its own coping behavior. It will distort, break, and inform our belonging, balance, and order in the cosmic system. This unconscious absence is the birthing place of patriarchy – father by the domination of beginning – woman – womb. Now let us recognise patriarchy more closely in this distortion before we try to shift it.
6 of 10:
I am beginning to see Patriarchy as a systemic illness in the soul of humanity. There is no more anyone to blame here. The wounds are passed down systemically and it keeps perpetuating more wounds.
This illness has become etched in masculine becoming the proprietor of beginning (feminine – nature – woman – womb), and femininity (especially in bodies of women) forgetting its natural right to beginning (feminine – nature – woman – womb). It now looks like the domination of Femininity in the bodies of men and women by the forceful power-over competitive Masculinity in men and women. It is unconscious unintegrated trauma. It is as much in each individual as it is external. It is the foundation of most systems that exist in the world and is embodied in the bodies of men and women equally.
This systemic illness in the soul is a deep cutting wound. It gets activated in two core ways in the bodies of women and men.
Whenever masculinity is denied, dismissed, negated, hidden, or threatened in anyway, it moves to dominate the beginning = feminine to find its way back.
Whenever femininity emerges in its autonomy, it is hushed – pushed – conquered – threatened – dismissed – negated – shamed – destroyed.
1 causes 2, and 2 cycles to 1. And this loops and keeps the forgetfulness of beginning wisdom in women, emotional numbness – disquiet in men.
Masculinity and Femininity are both unable to find and reach its mature expressions in the bodies of men and women in a patriarchal or matriarchal culture.
Understanding Nature of Domination or Power-Over. Patriarchy came into being through domination of the Beginning (nature – woman – womb – egg – cycles). Domination shifts the natural. Man then stands as the conquerer, ruler of nature – hovering above. Image of Father God emerges.
Patriarchy creates an unnatural hierarchical sanctioned movement of power from above to below. The one at the top knows what’s best for those below. Top promises all those below safety and protection from itself, and this behaviour keeps trickling down. Every layer below pledges allegiance to the one above.The fewer access to the top, the better functioning the system of hierarchy us.
Something so unnatural can only be kept in its place and sustained through brutal force, rules and regulations that enunciate what is right (good) and what is wrong (bad), elaborate laws and systems to enforce these rules and regulations, the establishment of a punishing Father God or Patriarch looking down, etc. Rights and wrongs over time become culture. The most visibly sanctioned and celebrated behavior in patriarchy is obedience, and loyalty at the cost of individuality. It secures your place of belonging in the system. The obedient is the Good husband, good wife, good father, good mother, good son, good daughter, good child, good employee, good servant.
Domination of beginning = womb means that women have to be made to forget, fear, and disconnect from her inner embodied compass to and of beginning = nature. Any woman living in her knowing of the beginning is seen as a threat for she will not obey. Patriarchy results in the domestication of women – her body, sexuality and everything connected to it is managed.
Over time, this has become has resulted in a complete take over of the bodies of nature and women completely in service of the patriarch. Over Years and years of domination, and the wounds inflicted through domination, the collective women’s consciousness also forgot herself as the beginning. She looked to man, male, masculine to direct her in the wisdom of beginning. She lost self-autonomy, choice, and the ability to choose for herself. It furthered patriarchy.
Over time, and even now, men (as male doctors, husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, bosses, leaders, trainers) think they are the beginning, and women need to follow their knowing of beginning. Women have followed to a great extent because to not follow might have been the end. However, what is denied, dismembered, and forgotten becomes even stronger in the unconscious systemic conscience.
In most patriarchal homes, these movements are played out unconsciously.
Mother tries to hold-on to her Son tightly – smother him – love him like trying to save him from the oncoming harshness of the world, while she becomes harsher to her daughter (she who is in her own image) like she is with herself maybe in the hope this might support her to survive. The Daughter learns to hate her mother, and in the process also, hate beginning and her own femininity. That closes her back to Beginning and Femininity. Beginning conquered. Patriarchy propitiates.
Father tries to favour his daughter like to protect her from the oncoming harshness of the world, while he may become harsher to his son (he who is in his own image) in an attempt to separate him from the mother sooner than later. Son learns to be afraid or even hate his father, and in the process also, hate his own masculinity and himself as a man. Father denied. Patriarchy propitiates.
These movements can be really subtle in families or visibly expressed and sanctioned in their brutality. Whatever may be, it needs to be seen as an illness
This is a compilation of several posts from my Facebook page @Rekha Kurup that I did July – Aug 2021. You are encouraged to hold these posts not in the Truth of the words but also, allow it to open questions, explorations, and insights in your inside.
#1 of 10 Patriarchy In the etymology of the word are hidden many truths. So let us look at the words – patriarchy, and matriarchy. Both have roots in greek (Heide Goettner-Abendroth, SOCIETIES OF PEACE: MATRIARCHIES PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE). Patr in patriarchy means father.It forms the root for words like paternal, paternity. It is also, connected to its sanskrit word Pitr which forms the root for words like father, Pitru, Putra, Pitratva… In the same way, Matr in matriarchy means mother. Even in Sanskrit and almost, all indian languages this is the root word for mother. However, Archy has its roots in the greek word Arche which means both “beginning” and “domination” depending on the context in which it is used. Matr (Mother) + archy (beginning or domination??)Mother as beginning or Mother by domination. Patr (father) + archy (beginning or domination??)ie. Father as beginning or father by domination Hmmmmm.. which makes more sense. Who – Where informs the beginning of life for any human child? Who – Where –has the natural right to beginning?Is it mother or father? Who has the natural right to beginning?
2 of 10 Patriarchy:
WHO IS THE NATURAL BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE. Mother is the default Nature-designated beginning for every human child. go further – The Womb of the Mother is the First Home for every human child. go even further – In the womb the beginning started as a Fertilized Egg. And before that, the beginning was an activated Egg waiting in the womb to be fertilized. Of the millions of sperm that enter into the womb, to the few that make it to the egg, it is clearer today that the egg thins its walls to allow entry for one sperm and sometimes more than one. How – why – what transpires between those millions of sperms that fight it out, the few that make it to the egg, the one that is allowed to enter the egg, and their eventual mating is still mind-blowing mystery to science.
And even before that, the Egg was dormant-asleep in one of the ovaries – one among the million-ly abundant eggs.
And This beginning is cyclic in nature. In the process of Ovulation – rhythmically every month, one egg from alternating ovaries (from the stock of nearly million eggs) is released into the womb, and the womb thickens in preparation for pregnancy. This is a default movement – not a choice. If unfertilized and unmet by a sperm, this unmet egg dies, and it needs to released out of the womb – out of the body, and also, the prepared thickened womb needs to disintegrate, and regain back its original size. Both are crucial for the cyclic health of the womb, and also, for the furtherance of human life. This happens through the process of menstruation. Blood of death flows through the same path or channel that also, births life. Menstruation restores the cycle back. if menstruation doesn’t happen rhythmically, the womb’s ability to birth also recedes.
This cyclic beginning rhythm is entrained.
The biology of a woman’s womb is entrained with the rhythm of the moon around the earth (lunar cycle), the movement of the earth around the sun (seasonal cycle), and the movement of the earth around its own axis (circadian rhythm). This beginning rhythm is cosmic. It is systemic. It is natural. It is nature. So this beginning is not only cyclic; it is Nature. It is Earth.
This nature informs the biology of a woman. She is nature. She is the ONLY natural beginning of human life. Woman = Mother = Body = Earth = Nature is the natural right to beginning for every human life. So matriarchy is the mother from the beginning.
That makes Patriarchy father by domination. But why? What’s the need? Isn’t father’s place on a child’s life natural even if not at the beginning? What – How is the Rise of patriarchy?
3 of 10 Patriarchy:
PATRIARCHY EMERGES IN ITS ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING FATHER BY DOMINATION. As shocking as it might feel that is the energy of patriarchal systems. The default expression of power – energy in Patriarchal systems is hierarchical domination held through rules and regulations, and everyone’s obedience to the patriarch(s). Today the patriarch(s) energy can be in a male or female, and it is everywhere. FATHER BY DOMINATION. But Domination of what?? DOMINATION OF BEGINNING – MOTHER – NATURE – WOMAN – WOMB.
What was the original- before patriarchy? The original small hunter-gatherer way of living (pre-civilization) were Mother-children centered. Nature – Earth – Mother – Woman – Womb informed the Beginning. Children were allowed to hang on to the safety of mothers’ bodies, and given the time and space for a natural transition from her. The expressions of Power were mirrored in Natural authority that emerged from the Beginning relationship of mother-child. So mothering or mother-mind was the embodied expression of power irrespective of gender. There was an absence of the father-mind in those systems like we see and recognize today in men.
NEXT QUESTION TO ASK IS WHY DOMINATE BEGINNING? Why did the Beginning need to be taken by force to establish fatherhood or paternity of the father? Is that not a given in a child? Why was there a need to Dominate the Beginning to legitimize the place of the father with the child? Most reasons sighted for the advent of patriarchy (famine, war, natural calamities, civilization) did not settle well in my body. It was still not going to the root. Something was amiss. I arrived here in my own natural process of finding my roots of matriarchy, my movement towards my mother and matriliny, publishing my research of the “Rising Daughter, Silent Mother, Fading grandmothers”. In the process slowly I was becoming invisible to the place of my father and patriliny. I remember my father even posted this question to me few years back – “You are only interested in your mother ‘s taravad (ancestry). Your book and research is all about the mother and matriliny. Is father and the paternal line not relevant for a woman? Is it not as important?” And with #metoo movement opening up and patriarchy word becoming louder, I felt the unsettling in my father. I wanted answers that I did not have.
Then I began training in systemic and family constellations. Through a systemic phenomenological process, I discovered love’s many hidden truths and symmetry. That helped me acknowledge my father and mothers equal place in my life. also, helped me feel patriarchy and matriarchy differently. I saw the shadows in both. So I started exploring more phenomenologically.
One thing is becoming clear to me – While motherhood (and mother) is visible, clear for the child and also, the world, fatherhood is not. Fatherhood (father) is completely invisible, and can easily be denied or negated. Father is not a biological process for a man like it is for a woman.
Today research even shows that fatherhood is learned thru the cues of the mother. A woman’s womb houses, feeds, grows, and births the baby literally, and in that movement, she is fully visible and seen as the mother. Man as a father has nothing happening in the biology as a natural process that demonstrates his legitimacy with the child. In the absence of marriage, fatherhood (or visibility of the father) is completely resting in the trust of the mother (woman) of the child revealing or pointing to the right male.
Isn’t that a very vulnerable position to be in for a man if there was no marriage or socially sanctioned binding to the woman?
One has to ask: What wounds were and are still caused in the psyche of the male in the areas of fatherhood or fathering? Even while the father’s place is biologically present in the child in the DNA, it is not naturally visible in the child. In the hunter-gatherer societies, the father-mind is not worn like it is in the modern world, and it is also, not glorified. I feel fatherhood or father-mind is a movement that happened over time. I feel in the emergence of the father mind and it wanting its place, is also, embedded in the birth of patriarchy. Fatherhood felt the need to be established through force and domination of the beginning (a woman – her womb – child). Patriarchy now feels like the collective male psyche – “I do not want to be in that place of not knowing anymore and I will make sure of it.”
However, the sad part is when the Beginning is dominated, it shifts safety and home for everyone including the one dominating. No one is safe anymore in a system where Beginning is hovered over by the conquerer or patriarch(s). And that is the energy of patriarchy to me.
Is there another way for fatherhood to be met? How do we shift the narrative within and without? How do we surrender to the place of beginning, and also, make conscious room as a culture for fatherhood as a post-cursor to beginning in a way that it is not about hierarchy anymore but the flow of love? I feel this is a new movement for humanity, and that makes me hopeful. Otherwise I was trying to find answers in a glorious past and there are none there.
In couple of years, I will enter half century of existence on this planet.
In this timeline, I became fully present to this English word, Patriarchy and the extent of its influencing nature on civilization and culture only in the last decade through my Masters in Arts in Women’s Spirituality at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Prior to that I didn’t so much have a word for it but I felt it, knew it, fought it, armoured against it, and also, armoured through and with it; without even knowing it. When I found the word, suddenly it was all I saw – everywhere, and even within me – Patriarchy was what was wrong with the world. And then I also, returned back to India in 2013, and then it became worse for me as I realized for the first time – how patriarchy steeped and embedded into every aspect of life in India in a broken confusing way.
In United States, Patriarchy is very clear – it forms the foundation of every fabric of life there. USA is built on patriarchy. It is worn proudly in the bodies of all systems. When I met it the first time – it shocked me to the core. In India, while patriarchy is is predominantly seen and visible; when one looks deeper one also, sees it interspersed with something else which may have a non-patriarchal root. When I was a kid, that non-patriarchal was more visible and accessible. Have you seen those multiply exposed photographs. It used to be there when I was a kid – when you look at it straight you will see only Krishna, and then if you tilt it a little you will see Jesus from left, Goddess from right, and then there might even be another hidden image that required a little more effort to look. In India, patriarchy is what you see directly – prevalent all over but there are so many layers hidden. However, in the last decade I am beginning to see even that tilting image slowly disappear and a more fixed single image emerge. That surely scares me.
In the last decade with my exploration with She Stands Tall Project of creating safe, open spaces for girls and women to come together to re-member, remember, and reclaim who they are, I have got to know patriarchy more closely – within and without. My master’s thesis, also, paved the way for me to meet my matriarchal (mother-centered) ancestral roots which stood in start contrast with patriarchy. However, I knew that there was something quite off in the way both matriarchy and patriarchy met and informed in my body. Something never quite sat well in my phenomenological experience even of matriarchy.
It is only when I started training in Systemic and Family Constellation therapy and the exhaustive body of trauma research, that I began to discover many hidden layers of patriarchy and matriarchy lurking in the absence – fragmentation – disassociation – in my shadows. In the last couple of years, as I have been finding more time and space to explore, acknowledge, and integrate my trauma, a whole new awareness inside, and a whole new sight outside is beginning to happen. I am still finding language for it. This is a direction in that.
HOW DO I SEE – DEFINE – EXPERIENCE PATRIARCHY NOW?
SOME INSIGHTS I SIT WITH NOW: For one, I feel every single person on this planet today is patriarchy-birthed, informed, experienced, navigating – in every way. The world today is most patriarchal, and it began to move into patriarchy from the very beginning of civilization – this is a fact that I have no conflict with any more. And matriarchal civilization are a precursor to patriarchy meaning it will lead to patriarchy in time. Even our tendency to glorify the past is patriarchal in nature. I now know that the most promising expression of the world is in me – now. Its collective expression is yet to come. It is a new futuristic movement informed and birthed only as majority of us begins to cycle back into our inter-connectedness with nature.
So now let me share as I know patriarchy now.
I feel, in the etymology of the word are hidden many truths. So let us look at the words – patriarchy, and also, matriarchy. Both have roots in greek as I have larend through the work of Heide Goettner-Abendroth, (SOCIETIES OF PEACE: MATRIARCHIES PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE).
Patr in patriarchy means father. It forms the root for words like paternal, paternity. It is also, connected to its sanskrit word Pitr which forms the root for words like father, Pitru, Putra, Pitratva… In the same way, Matr in matriarchy means mother. Even in Sanskrit and almost, all indian languages this is the root word for mother. However, Archy has its roots in the greek word Arche which means both “beginning” and “domination” depending on the context in which it is used.
Patri (father) + archy (beginning or domination??) Matr (Mother) + archy (beginning or domination??) For this we need to explore the roots of beginning of human life. Who – Where – What informs the beginning of life for any human child? Who – Where – What has the natural right to beginning?
The Beginning of all Human Life.
Mother is the default Nature-designated beginning for every human child. go further – TheWomb of the Mother is the First Home for every human child. go further – In the womb the beginning started as a Fertilized Egg. before that, the beginning was an activated Egg waiting in the womb to be fertilized. Of the millions of sperm that enters into the womb, to the few that make it to the egg, it is more and more clearer today that the egg thins its walls to allow entry for one sperm and sometimes more than one. How – why – whattranspires between those millions of sperms that fight it out, the few that make it to the egg, the one that is allowed to enter the egg, and their eventual mating is still a mind-blowing mystery to science. before that, the Egg was dormant-asleep in one of the ovaries – one among the million-ly abundant eggs.
This beginning is cyclic in nature.
In the process of Ovulation – rhythmically every month, one egg from alternating ovaries (from the stock of nearly million eggs) is released into the womb, and the womb thickens in preparation for pregnancy. This is a default movement – not a choice.
If unfertilized and unmet by a sperm, this unmet egg dies, and it needs to released out of the womb – out of the body, and also, the prepared thickened womb needs to disintegrate, and regain back its original size. Both are crucial for the cyclic health of the womb, and also, for furtherance of human life. This happens through the process of menstruation. Blood of death flows through the same path or channel that also, births life. Menstruation restores the cycle back. if menstruation doesn’t happen rhythmically, the the womb’s ability to birth also, recedes.
This cyclic beginning rhythm is entrained.
The the biology of a woman’s womb is entrained with the rhythm of the moon around the earth (lunar cycle), the movement of earth around the sun (seasonal cycle), and the movement of earth around its own axis (circadiam rhythm). This beginning rhythm is cosmic. It is systemic. It is natural. It is nature. So this beginning is not only cyclic; it is Nature. This nature informs the biology of a woman. She is nature. She is the natural beginning of human Life.
Woman = Mother = Body = Earth = Nature is the natural right to beginning for every human life. So matriarchy is mother from the beginning.
Where is the place of the father if not the beginning? In the womb, and even afterwards for the first 12-19 months, the human baby’s life is consumed by the mother. When this consummation is allowed, the child blossoms as is now evident in early child developmental research. While in the womb, and even post birth, the child’s movement towards the other is informed through the mother’s felt sense of safety. As safe feels the mother with the other, so feels the child with the other. So it is the mother’s safe felt sense of the man (or father) that allows the child’s movement towards the father. If the mother is unsafe with the man whose sperm fertlized her, that unsafety is also, transferred to the child from the beginning in the form of a threat-based or danger-based nervous system.
SO what am I saying – Mother is the natural beginning. When that beginning is seen, held, acknowledged, surrendered to, and allowed safe passage for the mother and the child, then in time as the child is able to cognise and know the world, the mother needs to guide the child into the safety of the father – bring in the father in a way to lead the child into the world. It is a MUST for the child to find both. That is how the child meets own safety and stability at home (inside) and in t he world (outside).
Patriarchy is father by or from domination
The question to ask is: Domination of what ?? Domination of beginning
That is the root of Patriarchy. The question I kept asking myself again and again was Why did the energy of the Father need to Dominate the beginning to finds his place How or where does this need to dominate the beginning arise in the male consciousnesswhen The place of the father in the life of any child is undisputed with or without marriage. So why, when and how did this need to control the beginning arise?
A child can only have one father and one mother. Every child is 50% thru father + 50% thru mother. This is undeniable. It cannot be refuted or replaced. I realised that I had not fully acknowledged this within me.
When I discovered the matriarchal roots of my past, I was so taken into and by it to the point of seeing such glory and solution in it. It was mother, and everything maternal, and I feel some of my early attachment longing of the disrupted beginning got activated. However, at some point, it just hit me that I had almost stopped speaking about my father who was an equally powerful guiiding force in my life. I was beginning to deny my father’s equal place in my life. There was also, an unconscious dismissiveness arising in me of a kind I had not met in the past. My inside were feeling imbalanced, and I was struggling with this need of being without men- male. It was so subte. I also, saw this in women’s movement and conferences in the west like we donot need men. It was almost, negating the presence of the father in our bodies. It was through systemic wisdom that I began to find my way back to my father and mother – in a balanced way. As I situate more and more in my body and biology, I find more deeper resourcing through my mother line for sure. Yet, the place of my father is undeniable in my life. It informs my masculinity in ways I cannot quite comprehend or express yet.
That is when I slowly began to also, recognise the shadow in matriarchal cultures, and what it does to the biological male energy. In any organized matriarchal culture or civilization (including my own), there is no place for the biological father in a visible named way. While the right to beginning, maternal and mother’s place is well-established to bring security and safety for the child, the place of the Father is invisible – unspoken and many times, denied, rejected and dismissed. Father’s place was given to, or taken by the maternal uncle (mother’s brother). At an unconscious cellular level, I am sure it affected the child especially the son. It definitely creates an unconscious absence inside of the father that leads to an unconscious unsettling and unsafety. I am sure over generations, this absence can either take on a strong, willfull, avengeful, damaging, violent, wrathful embodiment, or a silent, directionless, debilitated, weakened ego inthe bodies of the sons and daughters. Man’s masculinity definitely gets affected without the presence of a biological father. This absence is unconscious. And I feel this absence as the breeding ground of the birth of patriarchy. In Kerala, it is so catastrophically visible. That absence will get projected on women’s bodies in time. I feel that is a given.
So arises patriachy, with the need to not just claim fatherhood but also, dominate the beginning in a way to find its own place
Then what – now where to – covered in my next post.
Childhood is when you experience the emotion of fear in the most intense way that is because you are not strong enough to protect yourself. Fight or Flee which is the most powerful response in nature to protect oneself is not fully geared or functional in children. So they require that the adults in their life protect them – fight for them or flee with them.
Today in my life I am in the process of “Recovering My Fear ” in a felt sense. Recognizing its patterns, process, sensations in the body as I had completely lost touch with knowing or feeling it. It allows me to respond to an unsafe situation – stand up and speak out, fight or defend myself, or take myself out of an unsafe scenario without judging or blaming myself for it.
I have been realising that somewjere in my life I lost this ability to recongise and name fear in the moment because even before I could feel the fear, my body’s learned coping strategy kicked in, and I responded in a way that was “negating myself”. Iti s a complex fawn response as neurobiology points out. I recommend reading this article by Dr Arielle Schwartz on fawn resposne – https://www.facebook.com/drarielleschwartz/posts/339098991119006
Of course, this fawn response supported me to survive for a long time but as I am beginning to claim my awareness of co-regulating with another and makign room to experience “I feel you feel me”, I realise that “not having my fear” by my side is debilitating. I donot want to be autonomic in my experience of connection. So fear needs to be explored. That is how I have unearthed many facts about my own life experience. I am also, realising that this suvival behaviour might even be deeply rooted in the collective trauma of this land which has seen thousand odd years of uninterrupted invasion, colonisation and conflict. This is how we are able to move in and through crowded extremely unsafe circumstances of streets, offices, public spaces and never feelign the need to change it.
HOW DID I DEVELOP THIS FAWN RESPONSE:
As early as I have recall, the emotion of fear literally has had no room to breathe or exist or be held in anyway in my life. It either would get ridiculed or negated or even worse, left to deal with alone. There were no adults around me who were drawn to explore the cause of the fear, or even, knew how to deal with the emotion of fear in their own bodies. The only available way of dealing with fear that I was mirrored and taught is “don’t be afraid”, “be brave”, “remember God” “chant mantra” “Breathe” “Think of this story of this god or character”
Everything was a way to cope with the fear immediately.
None of this acknowledged the presence and relevance of my fear. I almost never experienced my parents or any other adult (teacher or aunts or uncles) moving towards me to hold me, hug me, acknowlede my fear, and assure me of safety by saying – “I am here. Not to worry. I will keep you safe.”
Today we know that Fear is the most natural human emotion, and also, the most relevant to our survival. Our brain is literally scanning every moment for safety through its autonomic process of neuroception. So there is nothing more natural than fear. The opening of Fear only means one thing – “I am not feeling safe right now”. Now isn’t that something we need to immediately pay attention to instead of coping with, unless of course we know we cannot do anything to shift or stand up to the outside. Then we need to cope with it.
Fear indicates that I perceive or something in the outside is unsafe – it can be about my circumstances, environment, surrounding, situation, the people, things in it , what is said or spoken or expressed or the way things are moving or organizing outside. That means something needs to change – either it needs shift in the outside for the fear to subside in my inside, or I need to be able to respond to that fear to protect myself ie, I have to be able to fight or take myself away from this scenario.
What if both are not possible – what does a child do? We know from polyvagal theory that in the absence of fighr or flight resposne, the parasympathetic nervous system gets called into a dorsal vagal movement. Sometimes it emerges as a complex survival mechanisms of the ventral and the dorsal vagal working together. Overtime, if nothing changes, then this freeze or fawn resposne becomes our go to.
And the story of my life is about this very complex fawn mechanism of “connection and freezing happening together” in a way that I can be extremely calm, fearless, and able to connect in a pleasing nice way with the danger.
Today we also, know that when there is fear, learning, listening, understanding and also, the experience of love, joy, connection is impossible to access. So the body or the nervous system will try its level best to get out of this experience of fear if there is no one to support us in it. A child truly doesnot know how to deal with fear. All the child can hope or wish for is the nearness of an adult body that can hold it close, be there with the child thru this fear, and keep the child safe from whatever it is that is causing the fear.
So when you are told or mirrored as a child “don’t be afraid”, “be brave”, “remember God” “chant mantra” “breathe” “Think of this story of this god or character” the message a child unconsciously receives is
“The cause of my fear is not worth a mention. Its there for everyone. Everyone has to deal with it. No adult around me is capable of shifting or changing it for me. They had it worse. I have it better. It will continue to exist. I need to cope with this fear on my own. I cannot endanger them or put them at risk. So get out of this fear soon. Noone has time.”
So early on (maybe even 3 or 4 years) I learned to deal with fear on my own through a very complex fawn response – it is this process of “abandoning self for the purpose of attending to the needs of others.”
And with plethora of God and Spirituality at my aid on my land, and myths and stories that appluad this fawn response, I learned to fawn in a very complex way. I also, had some metaphysical experiences early on in life of transcendence & being held by the universe or nature. It happened through the negation of my fear. It felt “powerful & out of worldly” like I knew something that adults did not. It even became my gotos to absence fear. Today I recognise many of these early powerful “god- experiences” as my nervous system supporting me to survive early on in life by moving me out of the body. For fear didnot have a room to exist in my body.
There have been several instances in my life from early childhood, where I was at the receiving end of very catastrophically unsafe abusive behaviour (in the form of rage) at the hands of people I trusted as friends or responsible adults. When it happened, I was shocked to my core to be in it. Many of these situations were like daggers being pushed into and pulled out from my heart – that level of pain and sense of betrayal.
Now as I recover more and more my experience of fear, I realise that the only reason I couldnot see it or it felt unexpected was because I didnot have any room for fear to show me that it was an unsafe situation or friendship or relatiomship from the beginning. If I had room for my fear then as child and also, young adult, and if I had people in my life who would have supported me in my fear (instead of blame or accusations), I would have been able to fight or flee from it. However, the absence of support and the familiar fawn survival response drew me towards the cause of fear instead of running away from it or fighting it.
The grand finale of this fawn response happened in January 2010 when I was in an extremely predatory situation. That is what changed the course of my life’s direction. If I had to acknowledge that situation through nature’s reference, I would say I was in a extremely dangerous situation in my own home with a reptilian and ready to pounce feline (like charging tigress) nervous system.
I must acknowledge That was also, when I was in the peak of my spiritual path. My fear was so brief. The fear was gone in a flash and the next moment i had already fawned into this calm enlightening presence resourced in a focused nervous system to deal with this situation inseatd of rescuing myself from this predatory situation. That is also, the brilliance of this nervous system. I dealt with the situation like an enlightned being however, that was not my need in that moment. Unconsciously I knew I had no one to call on in that moment (inspite of the thousands of friends I have in my spiritual community) who would stand up and fight for me. Those who I could call on would have done what I did. I did it even better.
As I am recovering my experience of fear, I am also, experiencing my voice return, my valour return, my ability to fight return and I no longer have to be ok with what is, and I can acknowledge what is wrong with systems and people and behaviours in families, communities, spirituality, religion, nations.
I give room to the “not ok” ness to be held, voiced and expressed. It is not just how things are, but it is “how things are” when there is no room for emotional sensitivity. That is trauma.
Well… so make room for your fear to be experienced and expressed.
“You – your behaviour- your presence” makes me fearful. I donot feel safe with you or in this scenario.”
What happens when we are able to say that even as an adult to another? What happens when someone is able to say that to you? How do we show up as adults in it? How do we move into connection in these moment without blame, judgement but by taking responsibility together for it ie finding in us a resourced ability to respond to the situation? How would that look like in our families, friendships, relationships, communities, soceities, companies, politics, hospitals, schools, colleges, police stations, government offices, spiritual organizations, etc?
When will we make this a priority? NOW.
I am hopeful because there are pockets of change emerging, and there are people making this a priority. I am grateful to be part of that community..
How do we find our movement of love, trust and intimacy in relationship systems as an emotionally mature adult while bonding (belonging), balancing our giving and taking safely, and moving authentically in our rightful place? How do we find our movement in relationship systems without having to become big (authoritative – know it all – god like) or stay small (diffident – attached – child like)?
Now I am inviting you into a phenomenological experience. Donot go ahead if you don’t have the time to explore.
Take a moment to bring to your awareness a relationship system you are in. It could be your primary relationship (parents, sibling) or your present relationship of marriage (living together)? Choose one relationship system. Imagine yourself standing in front of this relationship system. You will slowly begin to see the key members of this relationship system in the field infront of you. Now you may explore the below questions with respect to the system as a whole or choose a person this relationship system, and then explore the following questions.
Look at the system or the person you have chosen.Slowly tune into your body. How do you feel in your body. What sensations emerge? What emotions meet you? What is happening in your heart?Is it opening-expanding, or closing or hiding? Is there a flow of love between you and this person?Are you able to receive the love? Are you able to open your heart to them? Do you feel a shift in your body size? Are you becoming big or shrinking in size or or something else is happening? Are you looking up, looking down or looking at to meet the persons eyes? Do you feel a physical movement arising in your body like moving towards, away, or something else? Observe the direction you are wishing to go.Do you see the system or the person also, shifting as you move? Do you feel safe or unsafe in this moment? Are you able to feel connected with this system (person), or do you feel distant (remote)?
There is nothing right or wrong about anything. You are observing or experiencing the relationship as is. Could you Just notice these feelings, sensations, and movements without judgement. Can you be curious about it. Just stay with whatever emerges and see what opens for you. Maybe you are moved or taken over by a sensation, or impulse or an emotion? Maybe there is remembrance or recall of a memory, a relationship, a metaphor, a story, or something else. See if you can acknowledge and allow that without having to do anything in this moment. What does it mean to allow and acknowledge whatever is emerging without naming it as good or bad, right or wrong. Now this is still only part of the story. Each of these people have their own origin system to which they belong so the story of your experience with them didn’t begin with you or them, it goes way back. Maybe you already sensed it or felt it in the above experience.
If you were able to get in touch with the phenomenology, you would have realised there is so much moving and informing the field of any relationship system we are in. You will notice that with each relationship system and also, each person in a relationship system our phenomenology (now experience) shifts and shows up differently. This phenomenological experience in any relationship is driven by an alive impulse that Bert Hellinger calls conscience. It cannot be understood but felt very distinctly if we give ourselves time and space to experience it. In constellation work, Bert Hellinger illustrates or talks about three types of conscience that he observed within systems.
Personal or Individual Conscience – The most basic and immature conscience is our individual or personal conscience. It informs our sense of bonding, giving and taking, and our safety in a relationship system as a child or in our childhood. It is situated and founded in the norms or rules, right/wrong, good/bad or shoulds/shouldnots that exist within every relationship system. Let me illustrate this with an example.
Take a moment to remember yourself as a child. Tune into your primary or origin relationship system of your parents & sibling – your childhood home space. Each one of our homes are unique and distinct in its ways, idea of right-wrongs, whats considered good-bad-evil, its philosophy of the people and the world, the dos/donts, the should/shouldnots, etc.
Tune into the field of your own family system? Whenever you aligned with your family systems ask of you, you felt seen – loved – cared for – safe in your family home. Bert calls this the conscience of innocence. Then there are moments when you also, resisted or fought or revolted with its ask of you. In those moments, your sense of safety, bonding, and feeling loved by the members of your family system were compromised. How did you feel in those moments? Bert calls this the conscience of guilt. The conscience of guilt makes us feel bad or helpless or uncomfortable whenever we behave in a way that compromises our safety in a relationship system. As a child the guilt conscience makes us distraught. We donot like to feel it, so we move towards innocence, and realign with the asks of our family system at the cost of our authenticity and instinctual knowing. It once again ensures our place in the family system. This is how attachment wins over authenticity in our growing up years. If a child is not able to do that, its unable to survive. So, Personal Conscience of innocence and guilt in our childhood ensures our needs within our primary or origin family system. To claim anything different from it’s sphere, will make us feel guilty.
You have to understand that Conscience of Innocence and guilt have nothing to do with good or bad, right or wrong. Like in a family of robbers, innocence conscience will be connected with stealing, and to “resist stealing or not stealing” will put the child into the conscience of guilt. In fact, the innocence of being is capable of committing outrageous violence and heinous crimes.
What is also, interesting about conscience is that we have a different standard of conscience with different relationship system we are part of, and also, the different person in that system. Like I recognise that as a child I had one conscience with my father, one with my mother, one with nature, one with my school or teachers, one with relatives, etc. My fundamental needs of bonding, giving and taking, and safety with my father was ensured through my doing or performance in the world. The greater my performance, the more I felt loved and seen by my father. While with my mother, it was all about who I was inside as a person – was I a compassionate human being? My father didnot care much for that, and mom didnot care much for my performance in the world. So my conscience of innocence and guilt with either of them were extremely different and many times in conflict. When I chose innocence with one, it brought guilt with the other. When I pledged loyalty to one, I came in conflict with the other. So in my own journey of growing up, very early on on my life, I had to start figuring out what is my own instinctual knowing, what is cosmic truth, what is God, what is spirituality? Since my mother informed my early spirituality of oneness and whole truth, I was at many times more in conflict ith my father than my mother. There were times when I was unable to recognise and receive his love just the way it was coming to me. So the journey of my growing up has been about maturing my personal conscience. That is when I also, met and encountered the other two types of conscience namely systemic (or collective) conscience and spiritual conscience.
What does it take to grow up?
“All growth will include guilty feelings.” – Bert Hellinger
As we move through life, and begin the process of individuating from our primary Family Energy Field, and start to make different choices from our family expectations and even values, we will feel conflicted – guilty. This could emerge anytime we choose to get a deeper understanding of our own truth, a larger understanding of life, or engage in the world on our terms – maybe we decide to choose a different profession or we explore our sexuality or relationships of love or get married or explore new faith/religion or take a new direction in life. In those moments, we have to be willing to loose the innocent (good) daughter or innocent (good) son image we have worked so far in our life. We have to allow the guilt of “feeling like betraying my family” to be acknowledged, met and held. Growing up into our own sense of self requires us to loose our innocence and meet the guilt. There is no other way.
Bert says innocence only looks good on a child. It hangs ugly on an adult.
When we are able to fully engage with guilt with our whole heart in whatever form or shape it shows up in us, then we are able to navigate the pains of growing up. Then we are able to not only take responsibility for our choices in life but also, how they may turn out. That is what being an adult is. We can learn to give ourselves what we need. We may fail doing it, but we are also, strong enough to stand up. On the other hand, if we choose to stay loyal and pleasing of our family system in all its ask of us because we are scared of the guilty, then we may preserve our innocence, but we will end up sacrificing our authenticity, and never attaining maturity in life. There is no greater loss that can match that because slowly over time we will also, start feeling empty, shallow, and untrue inside. Our innocence will start looking ugly and bitter, and many times this bitterness gets thrown on the members of the family system who stand clueless of its direction, and why its aimed at them. They only did what they thought was best for you. If their best is not ours, then we need to align with ours. But it is not always that easy, is it?
Why are we unable to choose our authenticity over our attachment needs? What movements of fate dictate or show up on our journey? How can I step out of my attachment needs, learn to loose or give up my innocence, and allow guilt its place? How can I endure and live with guilt with dignity, maturity and wisdom?
For that we need to understand the movements of the systemic and spiritual conscience. To be covered in next post.
#familyconstellations #constellation #systemic #family #relationships #berthellinger #hellinger Relationships are innate to being human. We are born into systems of relationship. We survive in the world only through attachment to our primary care relationship. Throughout our life, we are moving in and out of relationships in so many different aspects.
It is so important to understand the phenomenology of intimate relationship systems we are part of, drawing from, influenced by, navigating through in our life.
There are hidden orders that govern the movement of love in relationships.
Our primary relationship system consists of our father, mother, siblings. It is our origin system. However, our primary relationship system or origin system is not a nuclear system as modern day patriarchy societies makes us believe. Our primary relationship system is an exhaustive elaborate systemic field. It is more than just our father, mother and siblings. It includes and consists of
Our father’s and mother’s primary relationship system (that includes their siblings and their parents), their parent’s primary relationship system, and this goes way back into few generations. It includes the living and the dead.
All the children in earlier generations including the still born – aborted – miscarried children, and also, those who dies young, were killed, or disappeared.
all those who were outcast, cut-off, abandoned or adopted into the system.
all Events, happenings that influenced, changed the destiny and fate of the family system in anyway including wars, migration, colonisation, betrayals, murders, and those who significantly contributed to those events and happenings,
This field of energy is passed down and carried through the lineage and felt in the bodies of the people of the system directly and indirectly as behaviour patterns, stories, dos and donts, shoulds and shouldnots, etc. You do not need to know it directly. Your body knows it, remembers it as an imprint.
Like the roots of an ancient tree the exhaustive web of our origin system is often hidden from sight. However, it informs and contributes to the life of every sapling that forms or arrives on this root system above the earth at any given time.
Bert Hellinger, founder of family constellation philosophy, through years of constellation work observed and recognised, that there are certain orders that govern the flow of love and intimacy within relationship systems be it family systems or organisation or nation or any groups we become part of in our life.
I wish to explore that in the coming posts.
There are three fundamental needs that everyone longs for in being part of any relationship system:
The need to belong to that system. This sense of belonging grounds us. Our feet feel secure like having roots in the earth. Today research shows clearly that if a human baby doesn’t bond to a primary care relationship system, then it will die. For our survival it is absolutely essential that we bond to a primary care system in whatever way we possible can. There is only one origin system and that is of the birth parents. Even if there is adoption or foster care, it only comes after. It can never take the place of the origin family system that which gave birth to us. If we cannot situate our belonging in our origin system (whether we know it or not), we are distraught in someway and forever seeking and searching for that belonging in the world, and never feeling satisfied.
The need to give and take from a relationship systems in a safe balanced way. That is when we give (whatever it is we give), it is received by the relationship system. And when we are given, we are also able to receive and relish it safely. This balance is a dynamically shifting phenomenon. The incompleteness of this balance is what keeps the flow of love and intimacy in a relationship. When balance is attained, then the intimacy in a relationship ends. For example: if one person is only giving, or only taking or there is no longer any flow of giving or taking, then the intimacy in that relationship fades away. It will break – end – whither away naturally or thru some eventful happening. However, there are two exceptions to this flow: parent-child and teacher-student relationship. In this the flow of love is experienced when parent (or teacher) gives fully, and child (student) is able to take fully. Reversal of this movement like parent or teachers takes from the child or student, and child or student having to give to balance the parent or teachers giving, will disrupt the flow of love in this relationship. The only way the child (or student) can flow ahead in life is when they fully surrender to the gift of receiving and allow gratitude to fill their heart.
The need for a natural order and predictability in a relationship system. This order ensures our place, our size, our weight in it with respect to others. This order ensures our safety within the relationship system. This is know who is older than me, who is younger to me and this has to do with age in the system. In a family the grandparents come first in order, then parents and then the child. In a company or organisation, the founder or ceo comes first and then come those who arrived in their specific time and place into the organization. Love and trust is able to flow in when this order is acknowledged and surrendered to by those within this system ie, everyone knows their place and are able to honour it.
Take a moment to explore the relationships systems you are part of in your life, and how does it meet your fundamental needs to belonging, balance of giving and taking, and your place or order in it.
When we are able to fulfill our needs within any of our intimate relationship systems, then we also, experience safety and love. Otherwise, we feel dysfunctional, distraught, anxious, and even destructive when these fundamental needs are unmet.
And these are phenomenological needs meaning it is informed and experienced in our inside – in the body and feelings. It is not so much about the understanding or cognition or material movement of the needs. That is why Bert called these movements as Love’s Hidden Symmetry.
How do we find our movement in relationship systems so we are able to fulfils these needs, and experience trust, love in relationships. That is determined by the maturing of our conscience, and again it is not so much the English word conscience as an energetic experience in our inside.
Bert talks about three aspects of conscience that determine our phenomenology in intimate relationships systems.
I am using this word, Wom(b)an, to specifically locate within and refer to the biology of the body as birthed from and by nature. She who is born with a womb. She who menstruates, menstruated, or will menstruate in time. In this post and in my work, I refer to her as Wom(b)an – woman – she – her. You may pronounce Wom(b)an as “woman with b silent” or as womban emphasizing the ba sound.
Being a Wom(b)an is not a choice I made, or can make. Can I choose to not be a Wom(b)an? I do not know – perhaps. I can hope by taking away all the interconnected womb organs from breast to uterus to ovaries to fallopean tube to clitoris to vulva to vagina to ….. Can I really take away the memory of all of this from my body? Can I really erase the energetic footprints of all of this from my physiology? Can I pause the firing of the pituitary? Can I disconnect the autonomic nervous system from responding to womb memory? Human mind hopes.
Being a Wom(b)an is not a choice someone makes. it is ingrained in the biology of the body, in the rhythm of the Womb. It is not in the mind. it is not a narrative. It is not cultural. It not in the expression of doing. It is not even, in the knowing of the being.
Being a Wom(b)an is an embodied experience. It is the experience of Being in the body of Nature – interconnected, infused, integrated with
Nature = Body = Earth = Wom(b)an.
She is born immersed. So much so that many times girls till the age of 7 thru 9 might not feel the separation at all. She may feel everything around her as her body. This is the time to completely ensure her protection and safety so her remembrance of herself as Nature is intact.
It is only when her ovaries slowly begin to get aroused into activation, and her womb prepares itself for the egg, that the girl for the first time might start feeling this separating out. It is the most painful process not in terms of the physical pain (that we as a culture have given her) but the psychological and emotional pain of this separation from Nature = Mother as Other is excruciating for her. There is no language for it. It is something every girl has experienced in her own unique way in her process of separating out into becoming a Wom(b)an.
With the egg release and her first blood, she becomes a Wom(b)an – She who wears an embodied remembrance of Nature. In her womb biology, the rhythm of the Great Cosmic Mother as Creatrix, and Alchemist is intact. She has the ability to know herself as Other from nature and also, be fully anchored in the experience of Nature through her womb.
The 8 – 24 years of her age, a girl needs to be supported and apprenticed into knowing, embodying, expressing, containing, and riding the Dark – Light Cosmic Rhythm so she may not forget, abuse, neglect, bypass it or cause herself harm in and through it. She needs to be taught to fight and flee by all means possible to protect her body. If she is severed from her body, then humanity is severed from Nature, In her forgetfulness is the greatest loss because when she forgets, nature is forgotten. Every life birthed through her womb receives and embodies that forgetfulness. This experience can only be beheld in the body. It is not a narrative, a perception, myth.
Everything begins and ends in her womb to be birthed, and also, to be synthesized and released. She cycles life and death. Her pain capacity is immeasurable. Men cannot comprehend it – ever.
So Being a Wom(b)an is knowing to hold – contain – receive Nature in the rhythms of the womb biology as a Whole Body experience. Being a Wom(b)an is walking the Dark – Light path on this Earth standing between Nature and Man as a bridge, channel, translator, communicator, scribe to express Nature to Man, and bring Man to Nature. Being a Wom(b)an is knowing as well as teaching to bow down – be humble. When she looses it, life will loose it.
Being a Wom(b)an is a forgetfulness that needs to be re-membered, remembered and reclaimed in the biology; not in the mind.
You are invited into that journey. Look into your body.
She Stands Tall 