Dear Graduate,
Have you noticed how often transference happens? We all do it. It’s simply human. We are in a dance with the patterns of our childhood parents that now live within us. Often it is those patterns that we are least aware of, or most ashamed
of, that light up for us in the other, capturing our attention and our focus until we almost can’t see anything else. We project our disowned patterns onto others, and judge or blame them. We get triggered and go into our childish reaction, regressing to that
wounded child we once were.
When looking at transference remember that the patterns you see in others are also within you. You spot it, you got it! Ask yourself, with compassionate curiosity,
“How does this live in me?” If they were your parents’ patterns, you have them, too, in some way.
When we are in transference, we meet the other from the disempowered place of our patterns, as a child rather than an adult. When you can divest the current situation of your historical wounds, you can come back into presence, into adulthood.
This is the only place from which you can address what actually belongs to the current situation. And sometimes, the “current situation” may simply dissolve. As we say, “never waste a good trigger!” Identifying transference is a powerful tool of awareness.
Clearing it, can transform your relationships!
Today’s action step:
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Make a list of at least 5 traits that really bother you about someone you have a relationship with.
·
Ask yourself which parent or parents each trait reminds you of?
·
Notice how you feel, and what sensations you have. Perhaps remember a story or an incident as a child where you felt this way.
·
When you have identified what is familiar about it from childhood, and you have compassion for the child you were, then ask yourself with kindness, honesty, and curiosity, “How does this live in me?”
Next step: Download the attachment for additional information and more.
Your next weekly honk will be sent on Monday!
Love & Light,
Your Hoffman Teaching Team
