What are Family Beliefs?
Family beliefs are the shared and collective judgments and prejudices that appear in a family grouping. The family in this context is usually biological in origin – the so-called nuclear family -- though today it often includes step-siblings and partners who may not be biological parents, but who relate to the children as parents and primary carers.
Speaking of her parents and the prevailing mood of lies in the family, a character in a modern novel describes the experience like this: "It wasn't so much any specific thing they said as the whole family atmosphere. It was the air we -- even that 'we' was a kind of lie -- breathed."
The family atmosphere is the experience we "breathed" in and it was, at least in part, the result of the concepts and beliefs held by the family.
Family beliefs may be shared in the sense of conformed to or they may be rebelled against. Either way we are interested in them in Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) because they reveal the client’s life orientation. It is important to see whether we accept or reject a particular belief, but whichever we choose, it may still become a part of us. In fact all the collective events, narrative, and fabric of the family become part of our ancestral heritage, even secrets and personal, private thoughts. This makes therapy sometimes extremely challenging as we try to embrace the client’s whole experience, including only tacitly known facts or suspicions. As SAT therapists we can hold even tentatively offered experiences, sometimes placing them on the back-burner as the emerging life story reveals a place for the smaller details.
Excerpt from SAT Online Training, Level 1 lecture manuscript
https://www.centerforhumanawakening.com/SAT-Online-Training-Is-It-For-You.html
PSYCH-K?Facilitator/Metaphysician/Spiritual Counselor
7 年So true. I did a short podcast called: Dissolving Expectations For Better Relationships where I spoke of something similar. Great post Richard!
Director at Doctor Robert
7 年Well done. This looks very valuable.
Serving your personal journey toward enlightenment
7 年One of the things I was struck by when I was introduced to Richard Harvey’s core Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) element, family beliefs, was how unconscious we are of the slow and steady indoctrination of these beliefs and the impact on our psychological and spiritual maturation. The “shared and collective judgments and prejudices that appear in a family grouping” that Richard Harvey speaks of as ‘family beliefs’ seep into our psyches like a slow-drip coffee machine making a made-to-order cup of our favorite brew. From our pre-natal existence, through the early years of complete dependence on our caregivers, through the formative years that solidify our ego formation and perception of ourselves, the world, and our place in it, the family unit leaves an almost-indelible imprint on us. By the tender age of 5, our character development is sufficiently complete that we know nothing else, nothing better, than that which has influenced us to that point in time. We accept the ‘story’ we have created as our truth and reality. And that story is told, primarily, through our family relationships. Our primary influencers are our parents. But our parents are not alone in their influence. Our siblings, extended family members (i.e., aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.), even our neighbours combine and congeal to create a set of beliefs about human relationships and our place at the core of these relationships. We very quickly believe the story and allow this story about ourselves, about others, about our place in the world to be what and who we think we are. This story we adopt from early life experiences, however, is not a conscious one. And the story plays itself out, repeats itself, in each successive relationship we engage in throughout our lives. How often have you witnessed others ‘marrying their parents’ or continuously getting themselves into relationships with the same ‘types’ of people? We cannot help ourselves. We keep playing the same tapes, the same film over and over again. Why? Because we are not aware of the story we have created and its influence on our psychological and spiritual development. The ‘story,’ however, is just that; it’s a story. It is not the truth. As unbelievable as it sounds, we are not our ‘story.’ We are not who we thought we were as a result of our family relationships. Don’t fool yourself though! Your family relationships are the catalyst to discovering the truth about yourself. Our early life experiences, primarily through our family relationships and beliefs, usher us toward ‘gates’ of transformation and enlightenment.