In the mid 1800's $100.00 could have bought 4 horses.
It is now 2006.
For $100.00 -- a psychotherapist told me that social ailments, struggles, and personalities are acted out due to "actions of our ancestors".
I am a by-product of an ancestral extra-marital affair.
A Portuguese ancestor ran off with her sister's English husband.
The Englishman, left his wife and children for his sister-in-law.
They fled to the Philippines with their one
love-child.
The love-child was my grandmother.
Theoretically, if it were not for the actions of my great-grandparents, my family would not have had to deal with an abundance of issues.
Betrayal, promiscuity, insecurity, abandonment, lack of parental instincts, stress from travelling, etc can be directly correlated to ancestral dysfunction.
When the man left his wife for her sister, there was betrayal and abandonment.
When the woman took her sister's husband, there was sibling betrayal and promiscuity.
When the father left his children forever, there was abandonment, insecurity and rather questionable parental instincts.
When the couple had to travel to a different country to flee the shame of their union, there was travel-induced stress.
The $100.00 cost included getting a group of people to stand in the place of my ancestors.
The idea was for me to be able to get closure from the visual of them owning their own burden.
Sort of like a seance (if you will)
I have to admit, at the time it felt pretty bogus.
However, if its purpose was for me to be relieved of someone else's yoke and to understand that this inherited load was something I could actually pass up on--I have to say it has worked.
It is called family constellation work.
In 1850 4 horses cost $100.00
Today the same 4 horses would cost $8000.00
I wonder if family constellation work will cost $8000.00 in 100 years.
Our children's children will have to pay somehow for our crap of today.