Follow the question in the heart of the family hero

Each of us has a heartbeat that measures out the rhythm of our days. We may know more about how our interactions change the actual structure of each other’s brains, and even alter the expression of our DNA to affect the future more than ever before, but the most enduring question remains. What kind of people are we? If we come from people that hurt us, or failed to understand what we needed as children, then hurt and failure are part of who we are, but they are not the whole story. They are simply the part of the story that provides a basis for the real story to unfold because any story that means anything involves a transformation. Without the heart’s desire, there is no story.  

 

Consciously or unconsciously, we are each the hero of our family story. Learning Stories are a hero’s journey that may start with one generation, but the spiritual heart of the family is the hero. Parenting and childhood are the methods of transformation. Nobody has to remain a hero or a villain forever, because the heart still desires to become. The story continues to change like a heartbeat, as long as there is learning.

 

A family story depends on each of its members for verification of what is real. There is no such thing as a true story that does not make room for different capacities to perceive that. Walt Whitman wrote, “Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so, Only what nobody denies is so.” We have to follow the question. We have to keep listening for the beat of the spiritual heart if we are going to recognize our true family, and be recognized for who we really are. In one sense there is a process of simplification needed to get to the heart of things, but oversimplification ruins the story as surely as it turns what might be true into what can only be false.   

 

We know that our patterns of interaction with others actually affect the physical structure of each other’s brains from the field of interpersonal neurobiology. We get into these grooves with each other where the actual process of perception in our brain circuitry can be hijacked by the overwhelming demands of emotional energy so that we lose the capacity to see what is actually there. Out of habit, we come to see what we expect to see based on past experience. To find something real, we have to want it enough to not settle for half-truths, especially our own. This raises a question that has to be followed with our whole heart if we are going to develop our capacity to gain a larger perspective than we already have. Who am I really, and what part in the story of my family am I here to stand for?   

 

We are born and learn what to expect through the actions of the people we come from. We may question the way things are, and wonder if the story has greater potential than anyone thought of before. Beginning in middle childhood, this wonder develops into an awareness that we desire to become a person who is not defined by what other people think of us, and do the thing that only we can do in our circumstances. If all goes well, we are able to face our challenges by drawing upon the strengths of our ancestors for the courage to reveal our true self, and create a new original character for our family. Once this becomes real, we can put ourselves in the place of others and begin to think about how to help them become the hero of the story from their perspective. 

* GODSPEED stands for “Gather Only Data in Sync with the Purpose of Every Excellent Deed.”