Working with money issues Part 2.

Taking a deep dive into Bert Hellingers work on “The Orders Of Giving and Taking” to find out how disruption of these natural laws can affect how we relate to abundance.

A need for balance in a relationship may be causing you to hold back, to limit yourself, or to acquire a physical symptom!

How does one of the key natural laws of human relationship, the balance of giving and taking, affect our sense of abundance in our life? Hellinger, the founder of Family Constellation work, teaches us that for relationships to work well there needs to be this balance of giving and taking. Our first experience of this with our parents is very different from that of later relationships but it is here that we learn all about receiving. Of course learning to receive, to be given to, is key to abundance in later life. If we find it hard to receive, to accept, to allow things – whether love, gifts or support it is much harder to have a sense of personal abundance let alone to see the world as a place that can support our needs.

Love flows best when there is a balance of give and take in adult relationships. If both partners give and take in relatively equal amounts love can flow with ease, if one gives more than another an imbalance results and the relationship will not work unless balance is restored.

In an ideal world as a child we take from our parents and our parents give to us. First of all they give us life itself then all that we need to sustain life, they give us love, nourishment, emotional care, support and as a parent they expect nothing in return. The child passes this love forward to their own children or others.

This love given to us our by our parents allows us to embody the knowledge that we are worthy, that we can expect to be nurtured, loved and cared for. We learn to accept all that comes our way if this love flows freely. We also see that love flowing down from generations before in the same way. It imbues us with a strong sense of abundance, there is an extended network of those who support us with love and care.

However if something prevents our parents from giving to us or prevents us from reaching out to our parents for all that we need. This affects our ability to acknowledge our worthiness, to allow love to flow to us, and can cause difficulties from bad relationships to inability to thrive, we may struggle with self care and independent living.

It is natural for parents to give to their children and for children to take from their parents but often this natural order is disrupted and there can be times when this cannot happen. The most extreme example is when the mother of a very young child dies, or gives the child away for adoption. When parents have to leave their child in the hands of carers to work can also disrupt this free flow of love. It can be disrupted by illness, of either the mother or the child, with one or other having to go to hospital. Another example could be if the mother is traumatised by an external event in her life when the child is young, say the death of her partner, or another child, or any close family member. This could, if she were not properly supported lead to a shut down in her ability to resonate with her child, too caught in her own grief or shut down from grief to tune in and know what the child needs, leaving that child abandoned emotionally if not physically. Absence of the father in whatever form it takes, can affect this flow of love too. The support that the father provides for the mother is crucial for enabling her to be relaxed and attuned to her babies needs. I believe there are ways that these dynamics can not be damaging to the development of a healthy child but key is the attunement of the main carer to the child’s needs. If the child feels able to reach out and get their needs met in early life and childhood they will develop a firm sense of themselves and be able to pass this love forwards to their own children with ease too.

Hellinger calls this disruption of the natural order “the interrupted reaching out movement” or IROM and we can begin to see how if this process of taking from our parents has been interrupted it may affect our ability to take from others later in life. If we learn early that the world is not a giving place, that our needs are denied, that we have to do without as there is no-one there to help us, instead of embodying a sense of worthiness, abundance and a free flow of support we innocently take in a sense that we don’t get what we need, that we are alone, life is a struggle, there is nothing out there for us.

In a family constellation we can help people to reconnect at the point of disconnect. Using a representative it is possible for anyone to relive the sense of connection and attunement, to get an embodied sense of it and to carry that forward in life, leaving behind the pain, resentment and anger that we carry. It takes time and work to reach the place where we allow ourselves to be held, to accept this love. We need to go through a deep process of acknowledging the consequences of taking on a role that we were too young to take on, or acknowledging that we have refused our parents love, shut down to the possibility of it and to express the anger and grief we feel. Then we can fall into our parents arms again. Where once the reality of our parents profound gift to us of life was clouded by all manner of feelings, it can become crystal clear and we can accept them exactly as they are and live our lives honouring them and with gratitude.

When children believe they can take care of their parents, that they can help them with their sadness, their conflicts with each other, care of siblings, their addictions, running of the household, the parents work. They are trying to give to their parents when their role as a child is to take. A natural Order has been disrupted and it leaves children feeling resentment and anger, often deeply buried and hard to access, because of a deep loyalty to the parent and to their adopted role as caretaker. They dedicated their young lives out of love innocently, too young to know, that their actions were compounding the issues and damaging to themselves. In psychotherapy this switching of roles is known as parentification.

It is likely that this reversal of roles continues into adulthood leaving the child unable to lead a full and healthy life focusing on themselves and their own families rather than the parent or parents. If they did not receive from their parents they cannot pass this giving forward to their own children, and so the difficulties carry on through the generations. Entanglements involving a disruption to the balance of giving and taking can be addressed in Family Constellations by identifying in which generation it started. Perhaps there was a great grandparent who was freely able to give to their child but then this child suffered a trauma, perhaps early loss of a child, an adoption, or abortion. So the inability to attune to their own child was blocked. This can be tested in a constellation by setting up the previous generations. When the role switch happened those involved can acknowledge their feelings, and what happened and can take responsibility for the consequences. So parents can set their children free and the child can take responsibility for moving forward and living their life to the full, in honour of the parent and with gratitude for the life they passed onto the child.

There are other, more complex ways that this balance of giving and taking can affect our ability to fully receive life, and to fully accept all that is offered, all life’s riches, abundance and possibilities – all of which lead to a sense of having all we need, whether financially or in any other area of our life.

Giving and taking in adult relationships

Hellinger dives deeper into his insights around giving and taking in adult relationships in the book ‘Loves own Truths - Bonding and Balancing in Close Relationships’. Here he explains how, ‘We have a sense of belonging that binds us to people and groups. It is constantly guiding and checking us, holding us firm in our relationships, just as our physical sense of balance allows us to move safely within the force of gravity’ (p172). He also says (p172-173) ‘Like our physical sense of balance, our sense of belonging guards us in the context of our surroundings, knows the extent and limits of our freedom, and guides us by means of our pain and our pleasure….We experience guilt and innocence only in relationships. As soon as it affects other people, everything we do is accompanied by a sense of guilt or innocence… our sense of belonging constantly distinguishes between actions that endanger relationship and those that support it...that which supports relationship we experience as innocence and that which endangers a relationship as guilt.’ Hellinger says this is our ‘conscience’. Our guilt and innocence working together and through their interactions achieving their goal – to further relationships.

The Italian Facilitator Titsiano Sguerso says that we have to loose our sense of innocence, to grow up – to stand alone in what we believe and how we want to live our life.

Titsiano says, ‘I became aware that I had to face my guilt by watching more experienced facilitators and that to step outside of my sense of belonging to my family or group I have to be able to manage my sense of guilt, to live with it, or to pass on any debts I owe in the form of giving to others. “I AM GUILTY! Guilt is what keeps you limited. You limit what you dare to do. You limit what you achieve. You limit your expression, your way on being, your doing. You don’t say what you feel because you feel guilty! You don’t ask for more because you feel guilty! You don’t dare to achieve more because you feel guilty! How did I grow my medicine? I became guilty! I became adult, I lost innocence. So I accordingly started to see others as such. Speaking to them as such. Giving to them a different dignity. The one that I gave to myself.” (T. Sguerso Facebook page – Language of the Soul May 2022)

To step outside of our sense of belonging we have to be able to manage our sense of guilt, to live with it. We have to loose our sense of innocence, to grow up, accept the consequences of our action – to stand alone in what we believe and how we want to live our life. If we can acknowledge the gifts that have been given to us, with gratitude and can pass them onto others through work that is life supporting, life enhancing, through giving to our children, our community or society we can feel light and free too.

Guilt places on us an obligation to give something back if we are given to, and we can react to this in many ways. Of course this sense of obligation may be so subtle we are able to ignore it. If the person then gives us something else this pressure builds and with the increase we may be driven by an uneasy feeling to return the favour, to give something back. This gift can be anything from a physical gift to a warm greeting, an acceptance, a good reference or kind words. This is simply the nature of human relationship, it builds our sense of belonging and is dependent on our conscience, along with the group conscience.

Hellinger says ‘When the pressure drives me to give something of equal value, I am liberated from my debt and feel light and free. Some people try to maintain the feeling of lightness and freedom by refusing to take something in order to avoid being under an obligation. Dropouts favour this form of freedom from debt, and so do helpers who give without taking. But this form of freedom leaves people feeling empty and lonely.’

So if we don’t want to feel indebtedness and the accompanying guilt we can avoid it by refusing that which comes our way or we can focus on giving but the consequence is isolation and imbalance in relationships which cannot survive unless this imbalance is addressed. The system we are in attempts to try and rebalance and we pay the consequences of not following the orders of love.

Hellinger also teaches about how we can feel an obligation to find a balance when fate plays out and we loose or gain something or someone at the expense of another. This need for compensation is not valid in this situation. It can be unconscious and carried forward from previous generations too. We may feel that we owe something if we have survived an accident that others died in, perhaps we survived in war when others didn’t, or a sibling died early and we lived on. We can refuse to engage fully in a relationship with someone who has been gained at the expense of a former partner, even if they have died. Children of a second marriage may refuse to fully accept parents and their advantages because room has been made for them by others.

In an attempt to rebalance we can impose limitations on ourselves, sacrificing something of value as a means of trying to rebalance. If this unconscious belief is playing out it can affect how successful we allow ourselves to be.

When fate has been kind this too can affect our sense of equilibrium. Hellinger says, ‘If they regard themselves as special and elite and boast about their luck, their luck may change for the worse, no matter how we explain it, because it becomes intolerable to themselves and others. We take advantages that come from fate or God appropriately when we are simply grateful for an undeserved gift.’ He also says that this gratitude offered must be the type that makes them ‘light up with joy and taking with love.’ (p177 B Hellinger, Loves Own Truths)

‘Just as we accept the positive when it comes undeserved, we must also accept the negative that we did not cause. If we bow to fate in both good and bad times, we are in harmony with destiny, and free. This bowing to fate I call humility’ (p177)

In summary there are many ways that our ability to feel a sense of worthiness, abundance, accepting of all life has to offer, including money. Here I have looked at Hellingers Orders of Balance – Giving and Taking to unpick the areas that we may need to look at if we find money does not come easily, or comes and goes too quickly – or whatever our form of lack takes. A good starting place is whether we could allow our parents to give fully to us and to take freely from them. What is the situation now in adulthood? Do we take with gratitude from our parents and allow them to give to us freely. Next we can check whether we tried to look after our parents innocently believing we could help as a child, reversing the natural roles. Are we are still trying to do this as adults? Acknowledging this is the first step to re-establishing the right order.

In our adult relationships can we look at our sense of belonging, what beliefs are restricting us in achieving success, not being able to reach for the abundance available to all. Are we prepared to feel guilty if we earn more than our parents, or do work that they feel uncomfortable with, Can we express ourselves freely if it goes against long held family values, can we ask for more.

Next we need to look at any entanglements in previous generations that may be preventing us from fully reaching out for our potential. Are we identified with someone from the past that failed and was excluded, or unfairly treated. Are we staying loyal to an ancestors who died young or trying to pay off a debt that is not ours?

Maybe all that we need to do is to feel the gratitude that is due to those that have given us our life, maybe we are just a few steps away from this place where love and support in all its forms can flow freely.