Kinesiology - Family Constellations (Hellinger´s Therapy)

As with my previous Kinesiology post, this I write to remember a session I feel was important to me.

Yesterday I took part in a Family Constellations therapy. It is a bit like a psychodrama workshop, although a passionate kinesiologist would probably stop my Qi on reading this and cause it to flow backwards.
It is a method which through dramatic expression tries to help individuals restore their own place in a family system rather than letting them fulfill the destiny of another person from their own family. It is confusing enough as it is and I'm way too skeptical to dig to the depth of such explanations but this is what happened during my Family Constellation session.

I told the Mentor I was looking for the reason why my Dad has been depressed and an alcoholic for the past 30 years. (25?35?) (He's never ever been able to talk to anyone about it.) I told her I was very scared that depression, self-destruction and consequently cancer or suicide would "happen" to me in a way that I would not be able to avoid it. It would fall on me like a destiny. Like the destiny that has finished off my Granddad, my Uncle and now is devouring my Dad. This is a thought I have been becoming more and more obsessed with for the past 3 years even though I don't think I have told anyone about it before.

What happened after this was the most shocking and heart-breaking experience of my life. 5 random people from the group acted out a story with minimal instructions from the Mentor... My paternal Granddad seemed like he had an unfulfilled relationship in his life that he could never break away from. A relationship to a mother? lover? sister? who knows. To someone that came before anyone else in his life. Before his wife (my Grandma), before his sons (my Dad and Uncle), before himself. His sons could see that their Dad was too busy loving someone invisible rather than loving them. They felt furious. Competitive to one-another. Without any peace. My Dad had a constant stomach ache. (He has cancer of the liver in reality. His stomach hurts all the time.) They found it very difficult to approach, look at or talk to each other.
In the play the Mentor gave instructions to my "Granddad" to let that someone go. To tell him/her that he would keep him/her in his heart but he would have to go and live his life now. My Granddad seemed to be happy with this arrangement and together with my Grandma they said goodbye to this "thing", paid their respect and turned back to their sons. It was a happy picture at last. One where each family member faced each other.

Finally I had to go and join the group. My "Dad" looked into my eyes and said he loved me. I felt silly, because I didn't need a proof of his love. He's always been a loving and caring father. With depression. I wanted to know if his sadness would stay with us. He said he had to go but I needed to stay. And I needed to make the most of my life. The mentor made me repeat his words. It was godawful difficult. I was sobbing at this point beyond control. It felt like I was saying good-bye to him. When I finally said I would stay and make the best of my life my whole "family" held my shoulder. My Granddad, Grandma, Uncle, Dad and even the unknown person. The Mentor asked the participants to tell me:
"All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny."
And I could actually feel their strength. I cried so hard. Even they cried. It was a moment of realisation that I didn't HAVE TO be depressed. Neither suicidal. Neither addicted. Nor sad forever for an unfulfilled love. Instead, I HAD TO make the most of my life. With the strength I can receive from far away times, old destinies, ancestors, brothers. All that love me.

All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny. All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny.All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny....

Me. Myself. And I.

I've recently seen too many of these games but never actually participated in any. This time I couldn't resist and asked Dora to send me her questions.

If you would like to take part, here are the rules.

1. Leave me a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I’ll email you five questions, of my determination not yours!
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

These were Dora's questions to me:

1. Name one unpopular (yet to be discovered by the tourist crowd) place in Europe that one should visit. Why?

Slovenia. That is where I spent my last holiday in August and I thought to be awesome. This tiny little country has it all: the Alps for hikers, mountain bikers and white water rafters. Ljubljana for culture, good studenty vibe, restaurants and night life. And the Adriatic sea for sun-lovers. It is still relatively cheap and unpopular plus definitely bohemian. (Deep down I'm thinking I should have written Budapest because I would love to show you and Nasty around! But then Budapest is, I think, pretty touristy...)

2. You went backpacking in South East Asia once. What surprised you most about the area?
You seriously want me to write a full list? It was a culture shock. My first time ever out of Europe. Here are the LITTLE things from Thailand:
-everyone eats with fork and spoon. the fork is not to be put in your mouth.
-chopsticks are only ever used to eat soup (?!)
-beer is drunk with ice-cubes
-you sit down in a bus. ticket-vendor guy comes over to sell you a ticket. you buy ticket. 1 minute later inspector guy gets up from his seat and comes over to check ticket. inspector guy tears ticket up.
-road-signs only apply for pedestrians
-everything is misspelt in english: toliet, upstirs, pleas....
Shall I go on? :)

3. What is the best dish you can cook?
I make an awesome Hungarian dish, called layered potatoes. It has no official recipe, kind of gets passed on word of mouth and goes roughly like this:

-cook 4 big potatoes in salty water. (30 mins) peel them, let them cool. hard-boil 4 eggs for about 15 minutes. peel them, let them cool. slice chorizo-type sausage into thin slices.
-mix a big box of sour-cream with 1 egg-yolk, salt and pepper in a bowl.
-spread some butter in a casserole-type dish.
-make layers of above ingredients in the following way into the dish: thin slices of potatoes, salt, slices of eggs and sausages. spread sour-cream mixture on top. Repeat it once more.
-finish off layers with sour-cream spread on top. add salt and pepper, maybe even some grated cheddar.
-put dish in pre-heated oven for 25 minutes.
-serve with gherkins.

4. When you are down, what is the best way to cheer you up?
I have a few coping methods. I'm very fortunate I can choose the one I best like whenever I think I should choose one:
-hanging out with the most fabulous friend in the world, Erika. she is one cheerful, positive bubble
-going to an art cinema to see a truly sad film
-cycling in town
-going clothes shopping to H&M, Zara, Mango, Pull&Bear and Stradivarius. those are my favourite shops
-blogging
-eating out
-drinking good cappuccino in a nice cafe and reading a book

5. What do you want out of life?
A healthy family somewhere, where it is mostly sunny and sophisticated. Somewhere I understand the language. Somewhere I can work between having children. Sharing the whole experience with someone I can laugh/talk/travel/have sex with.
Greedy. I know.

Gap Filling Exercise

Here is something to fill the gap in my blog till inspiration returns. These days I find it hard to think/talk/write about anything that's not related to my break-up so I'm making super-human efforts right now to review all the movies I saw in January.

The Darjeeling Limited

A road-movie or rather, a rail-movie set in India, in the train called the Darjeeling Express where three mad American brothers set off on a several-week-long journey. The aim of the trip is a bit of a mystery for the viewer and also, for two of the brothers, who would like nothing more than being back home. However, along the rails, they do find brotherhood, spiritual peace, their lost mother, a new girlfriend, a new goal for their depressing lives, a poisonous pet snake and many other things. The brothers are Owen Wilson (totally mental, big-headed and I think autistic) Adrien Brody (neurotic, secretive and snobbish) and Jason Schwartzman (addicted to prescription drugs and Indian waitresses). The story develops slowly, as if in real time on an eternally long train journey, the whole movie has a very laid back and relaxing atmosphere. Whatever happens cannot be called real action, it is more of a light-hearted and bitter-sweet comedy of the characters with no important plot to it. A great movie for a boring Sunday evening for those who don't mind slow-paced stories about… well, not much.
7/10

Fuera de carta - Chef's Special

This typically Spanish movie has all I like about Spanish cinema. It is energetic, the story spins at a mad speed, the characters are all in love with each other, they live their lives as if it was all for the sake of entertainment and I kind of believe it watching them. Starring Javier Cámara, who is the ever so credible gay chef with no respect for anyone and anything but good food. The film is very roughly about a love-triangle between two men and a woman but it is more about accepting, loving and forgiving yourself to be able to accept, love and forgive others. Heavy subject hidden in a light-hearted comedy jacket.
7/10

Dirty Pretty Things

The main story is about a gang of self-made illegal surgeons who operate kidneys out of immigrants in exchange for a new passport and identity. Pretty gross stuff and heartbreaking to think about it. The drama within the main drama is the lives of two illegal immigrants living in London and fighting a miserable battle against bureaucracy, corrupt employers, homelessness and hopelessness. The two characters are played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou which is an interesting role for her after all the romantic comedy type roles she has been doing for the past years. The most interesting aspect of the movie is that not one character is a native English speaker, every single person in the movie has an accent of some sort. Which I think is the reality of London. The film could have been good but it felt too miserable and depressing in a way that made me want to look away.
5/10

Waltz with Bashir

An animated documentary film, which in itself as a genre is revolutionary. The film documents the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon in 1982, the beginning of a long and bloody war between Israel and Lebanon. Director, Ari Folman Israeli war veteran sets off in a quest to find his lost memories of the events, in which he did take place at the age of 19. He interviewed several of his friends from the army, the documentary also reports several conversations with a psychologist and the reporter who was in Beirut at the time. The movie was originally recorded to be a traditional documentary, however, many of the interviewees did not agree to appear in the final version for fear. That is why director decided to convert it into a dark-toned, almost comics-like animation. A very interesting experience, great movie, even if a bit too long for my taste.
9/10

Revolutionary Road

I have already written a bit about this film, which is my film of choice for the month. It tells us the story of Frank (Leonardo Di Caprio) and April (Kate Winslet), once rebellious, artistic and wild but by the time of the story a mundane, suburban middle class couple. We can see how they are dying a slow death of those who feel they failed their dreams and abandoned their aspirations, till one day April convinces Frank to move to Paris and live the lives they had always wanted to…I won’t tell you more about the story but it is definitely one I can very deeply identify myself with, one I fully understand. Kate Winslet’s acting was extraordinary and to me, fully credible. The motto of the film is: How do you break free without breaking apart? I’m looking for the answer myself.
10/10

Fargo

A long-time debt to myself, I have wanted to see this film for over 10 years, most precisely since 1996 when it won 2 Oscars for best actress ( Frances McDormand) and best screenplay (Coen brothers). As with most films and books that we really want to see / read because everyone talks about it – Fargo was a huuuuuuuge disappointment. I won’t even bother writing about it, I found it boring, depressing and disturbing in a bad way, full of irritatingly stupid characters and very bad acting. The falsest acting I found was without a doubt Oscar winning Frances McDormand’s and the only good thing about the whole movie was Steve Buscemi’s dumb face. Another proof for me about how overrated the Oscars are.
1/10

Evening Wisdom

Last night we broke up with Gingerman. It must have been the fifth or so time in our relationship but it had never felt so final ever before. It doesn't feel like the beginning of something. It only feels like the end of everything.

My arms, legs and eyelashes are coated in lead-like sadness. My heart and mind echoes silence. It is very possible to feel empty and heavy at the same time.

Morning Wisdom

When there are only ten minutes left till the alarm clock goes off after a tiring and stressful sleepless night spent tossing and turning and wrecking your brains - that's exactly when you experience the most peaceful and deep sleep of your life.

Ten unconscious minutes that feels like two seconds.

WWW as in What a Wonderful World

I work for a large American IT company. The large American IT company has 1700 employees in Hungary. The 1700 employees are all expected to be great team-players, fabulous problem-solvers, willing to work overtime and learn fast. Learning fast includes memorising all the abbreviations of our corporate language. The abbreviations of our corporate language are numerous and hard to learn as no one can remember what some of them stand for. The most frequently used examples would probably be these: GFSS, BPO, COB, ERP, MOC, NBA, APPS, SSC, ITO, TL, BTL, OM, ML, CELL. Do not be fooled, these are only a few examples. Our corporate vocabulary is richer than Paris Hilton and more complicated than quantum physics. I have figured by now that only those individuals advance in their career who manage to use the appropriate abbreviation in the appropriate place and time. Those of us who can not recall which one to utter during an important meeting will always lag behind. The ones who lag behind probably experience at some point in their career FOA or fear of asking for the meaning of a new abbreviation in case they should have known it before. Not asking the meaning will only lead to an even larger gap between those who speak fluent Abbreviation and those who do not.

An important new item in our corporate vocabulary was introduced last Summer. It was the name of an even larger American IT company than ours. (The name happens to be an abbreviation just like the name of our company.) The giant American IT firm reached into its corporate pocket and bought our IT company for a few zillion USD. The few zillion USD invested in our business was enough to buy them the right to edit our corporate vocabulary. Thus our thick volume of abbreviations have grown double, triple the size in the past six months. CRB, IPA, MPO, BSSC and RHG have been introduced and used in important meetings. The important meetings were only for those who became proficient in New Abbreviation, our one common language for our unified gargantuan American IT company.

Yesterday a new abbreviation appeared in our corporate gibberish. First it popped up in quiet corridor gossip. Later in enquiring voices over the telephone. By the evening everyone practised and remembered the latest addition to our dictionary. But there were a 100 who knew it better than others. They were the ones who obviously did not learn the other abbreviations well enough during all their time before yesterday. It is only ironic they were let go with a very short leaving present. The leaving present was no other than a powerful little abbreviation.

WFR. As in Work Force Reduction.

Kinesiology - The Library Exercise

-What's the door like?
-Incredibly high and heavy. Makes a creaky noise. The doorhandle is hard to reach but I manage to open it and enter.
-What's inside?
-Windows along the opposite wall. Bookshelves up to the ceiling. Ladders. Tables in the middle. An old, white bearded man sitting and reading. Probably reading chemistry or a book of magic spells. He looks a bit out of Harry Potter. He also turns toward me as I enter. I think he is annoyed.
-What are you doing now?
-I walk around quietly. Not even looking at the old man, he scares me. I stroke the backs of the books as I pass them. I try to skim the titles but none is visible. I finally take down one. Green. Hardback. Faded. Smells like a friendly old book.
-What is it?
-The Red and the Black. Strange, I have read it and I didn't really like it.
-What are you doing with it then?
-I think I'll just sit down opposite the old man and leaf it through. Maybe I want to be reminded of the protagonist's name. Or something about the story. I've completely forgotten it. I really didn't enjoy this book.
-Have you found anything?
-Yes, a picture.
-Of what?
-A black and white drawing. Of a young woman. Screaming.
-What's she like?
-Sad. Dark circles under her eyes. Like she has been wide awake for a lot of nights. She is screaming into nothing. There is no one to listen to her. She is screaming her anger.
-What's she wearing?
-A robe with a hood.
-Who is she?
-I'm a bit confused. But I really think she is the woman from The Scarlet Letter.
-Why is she sad?
-Because she has to wear a badge of shame. Something that her village forces her to wear. Something that excludes her from society and reminds everyone of her sins. She is sad because she doesn't think she committed a sin but still, she agrees with the decision of her village. She is tortured because she is confused. She feels guilty for something she doesn't think was a sin.
-Can anyone hear her scream?
-No, she lives out in the bushes. Far from the village.
-Can she do something about her relationship with the villagers?
-Well, she could go to church I suppose. And show how much she repents. The villagers might accept her then. But the truth is she doesn't want to do it. She is not a lier and she does not repent.
-What could she do then?
-Maybe move three villages away?
-Would there be anyone who accepts her there?
-She would not have to wear the badge to start with. And she would tell the truth. Nothing but the truth. And she would only tell those she trusts. Not to the whole village. The ones she trusts would accept her, together with her past.
-Where would she live?
-She would buy a small house. Inside the village but not in the centre. She has savings you see. She would put plants in the windowsill and stick a paper windmill in the pot.
-Wouldn't there be anyone who doesn't want her there?
-Yes, of course. The ones who pick up the gossip from the neighbour village and who think themselves perfect. But no one is loved by everyone, right?
-That's right... What now?
-I close the book. I smile. Feels like I found what I came here for. I put the book back on the shelf. I nod at the old man who looks annoyed at me for smiling and nodding. I walk back to the door.
-Do you leave?
-Yes. And I don't worry about the old guy. I slam the door. Just a little. Just to give him a real reason to be annoyed.

Happiness and other related hopeless topics (again)

I saw Revolutionary Road over the weekend. I don't want to get into too many details about the film other than that it scored a humble 10/10 on my scale of good movies. It has made me think about happiness, relationships, fulfilling dreams, failure and the hopeless emptiness that is the core theme of the movie. It gave me lot to think about. And I came to the following consequence as a result of all the hard thinking and as a result of my recent break with Gingerman.

A happy life does not exist.


As simply as that. With a full stop at the end to exclude any doubts.
In our lives there are happy moments, days, maybe weeks even. But a happy life is something that is as imaginary as the talking donkey in Shrek.
I now reduced an entire dictionary into two adjectives to describe human life around me:
a) unhappy
and
b) OK.

I guess it is not far from what animals experience in their lives. When a lion is forced into a 16 square meter cage it is unhappy. And when it lives in the vast savannah it is still NOT happy. It's OK. It lives its life and that's that. So that's probably the maximum I should fight for too. Looking for happiness and not finding it does make me frustrated and dispirited. Maybe I should stop the looking and strive for the still hard-to-achieve OK.

How does that sound for an ambition? It sounds crap. But it sounds true for some reason. I'm not even sad to come to this realisation. I feel quite relieved. After all, this might be the way out of the desperate search into a state that only exists in soap operas and in my own imagination.