Quick Sketch of an Idea I want to Explore:
In what way(s) (to what degree) do(e)s the dominant personality trait(s) of each of my siblings track the on-going development of my parents' own personal maturation and/or their parenting practises?
How I see each of my sibs at the moment:
Sibling Gender Dominant Interior Disposition What they like to give What they most want
S M Artist Healing Acceptance
B F Artist Creation/Free-Exploring Empowerment
J F Scientist (Justice?) Provider Approval
R M Scientist Wholeness/Love Deep Intimacy
And myself? I am female but I also have a strong sense of a (male) "twin" within me. (Was there actually a twin who died in the womb during pregnancy??? Or is it "just" my animus?) I've long had a sense of JM.
I am most certainly the Artist (of that dichotomy). And honestly, I think I have to recognize that as for the other observations, I'd have to say "all of the above" because, surely, my "observations" come at least as much from my own interior experience as they do from any objective observation. But if I had to pick just one of each? What I like most to give? Empowerment (to myself and to others). What I most want for myself? Wholeness, because to me, that means Everything in "balance" and "complementarity."
How I see my parents? I think Mom's most dominant trait while I was growing up was Self-Sufficiency, and Dad's was need to give and receive Love/Wholeness. I think Dad imprinted on me more than Mom, but of course I experience the workings of both within me.
As I said at the beginning: this is just a SKETCH of an IDEA. If I really want to learn much about this topic, I have much more investigation and pondering to do! And, of course, it would be interesting to hear from my sibs their reflections on this, especially their responses to how I see them w/in the family-constellation.
I was prompted to reflect on these matters while reading Silf's Inner Compass, chapter 7, even though she doesn't write specifically about how our families have shaped our interior terrain. I supposed I meandered off to this reflection because I think very often of how my experiences of family have shaped me and I think in terms of "terrain." Meanwhile, Silf's motif for her book is that of "navigation" and this particular chapter uses many metaphors for "traveling" and discovering one's own interior "landscape." (So, it was her language that spurred me.) In any event, the content of my tangential wonderings and the content of her book really do relate inasmuch as they both have to do with Finding Our Way To/With God and that a substantive part of that is Understanding Ourselves.
