What Do You Want?

What would a good outcome be? Not surprisingly, she confessed that people found her to be too much, perpetuating the cycle of isolation outside of the family circle, stopping her from belonging anywhere. Her language caught my attention because it was right in line with the rest of her behavior. I asked about being quiet, and she told me that her mother and her aunts and uncles never spoke out when it counted. It was well known that her uncle had not spoken out when he found out someone was defrauding the family business, and it almost ruined them. This made some sense of her insistence on using her voice, but it didn’t explain her loud, demanding, abrasive nature. We set up representatives for Hannah, her parents, her siblings, her uncle, and the family business. The representative for the family business lay down on the floor, and her uncles and aunts went and stood next to him, eventually sitting down next to him. After a while, her father’s representative lay down on the floor and almost immediately her mother’s representative sat down next to him. Hannah’s sibling representatives all grouped around her. At that point, Hannah’s representative reported wanting to be sick and leave the room. Hannah went pale and quiet and couldn’t speak for a while. And this was the story that unfolded.

The Inner Voice Is So Urgent

Hannah was five and her father’s little princess. Life was great until he got sick. One afternoon she was sitting in the living room with him while the rest of the family was across the road with one of the aunts. Suddenly Hannah’s father clutched his chest and fell to the floor. Terrified, she ran across the road to her aunt’s house for help. It took fifteen minutes for her mother to finally allow her to speak. Her father was dead when the family got there. After the funeral, her mother went into her bedroom and didn’t emerge for a month. The siblings asked Hannah continually why she hadn’t spoken out. After that, nobody spoke about it again. As her mother and siblings grieved together, Hannah knew it was her fault and shut herself out. As an adult, Hannah was clear that silence was no longer an option.

Just Another Word For Pain

Manners and silence had caused her father’s death, and she raged against manners and pretty much everything and everybody. She had no idea how to process her father’s death and the circumstances, so she boomed and yelled and disagreed and interrupted all the time. The system kept trying to speak through her, and she had no idea what it was saying. She only knew that she didn’t belong and that she had to speak. Something had to stop, and something else was wanting to start. Years after her father’s death, the coroner told her older brother that her father had died instantly and that nobody could have done anything to save him. Her brother stayed silent about that until Hannah was much older, by which time the thought patterns of guilt and exclusion had been set. In her mind she was guilty, cursed, and didn’t belong. I placed a representative for the coroner next to her brother and asked them to tell Hannah it wasn’t her fault. Hannah began to sob as she listened and really heard the facts as if for the first time. Her representative sat down next to her mother and father, and then, after a while, she stood up again and shook her head. Hannah nodded and explained that she had consciously decided she couldn’t just dissolve into silent grieving like her mother and siblings, even though the situation had been so heavy.

Disconnected For Too Long

As we looked at the picture in front of us, she realized that her siblings were so busy looking at Mom, who was looking at Dad, that they couldn’t see her. They had all locked into that pattern. Her lifelong conclusions were unraveling in front her. Now that the coroner had spoken, her guilt no longer had a home either. I have been sad and guilty for so long over nothing, she said as she realized her exclusion wasn’t what she had thought it was. I asked what might have happened if she’d joined her mother and siblings in their deep, ongoing grief and silence, and that stopped her in her tracks. I think I would have died too, she said. Instead, I was free to choose something else, and I did. I thought they didn’t want me, so I was angry, and I struck out on my own. It gave me a life. Notice how Hannah’s conclusions are starting to change here? As we watched the constellation unfolding in front of us, I asked what a good outcome might look like, and her eyes widened. I don’t want to be afraid to look at the truth anymore, she said. I don’t want to be afraid to show people what happened or who I am. I asked if we could swing the constellation around so she could continue it in front of everyone, and she nodded. We shifted the constellation back into the circle and continued. She was at the pivot point, yet she was still focused on what she didn’t want, so I asked again. What do you want? I want to stop shouting at my family, she said, and she stopped. I never got to say goodbye to my father. I want to speak out when it counts but not all the time. It’s exhausting. The tears flowed. We walked over to her father, and she told him how much she missed him and that she wished she could have saved him but realized that she couldn’t. Use your voice wisely, it’s how you belong. What was your father like, Hannah? I asked. She wiped away her tears and sniffed. I am my father’s daughter, she said, making the room laugh again, and then she got serious. I am my father’s daughter, she repeated, and she started to shake.