My name is....

My name was Patricia (I changed it recently) and I used to hate that name. I felt it did not suit me. It was too this or too that. I did not fit in it. After many years of being uncomfortable with it, and some work trying to understand the reasons of this resentment, I discovered (with trans-generational therapy tools) that in my family tree, it was the name given to a little baby girl who lived only 5 months. She died for unknown reasons. She died for hidden and mysterious reasons. Not to my parents - to my aunt. I understood then what the weight of the secret, the burden of the untold, the impact hidden could represent in one’s life. Mine. Specially since that secret that everyone tries to hide around you, the parents over the children, the deceased over the living, the ghosts over the embodied, will one day crack up to the surface and to your face. Always. One way or the other. Symptoms. Disease. Accidents. Always.

I hated my name. I could have changed it a million times but never thought about it really. But what if I hated myself? What would then have happened? What happens in the life of a young adult who knows that something is wrong, but cannot put anything on top of that wrong. What happens when nothing helps, when no-one or nothing can explain what this is made of.

Such discoveries, such epiphanies, I have met a lot through the last 20 years as a mother, as a daughter, as a partner, as a human being. I will always advocate the integration of stories, the integration of people´s stories. They say that that is not worked out, will come back and haunt you. The stories need to be told. The stories and the energies at play need to be recognised, given a space, a place. Then people can continue their path at peace.

We are clever beings, even the most horrendous acts we can understand. Pain and grief is made of us.

I am not able to take a pilgrimage to the grave of the little baby Patricia. She has none. But I can do something to integrate her in my family tree. She has a place and I am not here to replace her. Even if my parents symbolically wanted to do that. They did not know what they were doing. The family system is very strong and they were played. When we create more awareness in the system, the dynamics of the tree, we can install more autonomy and understanding. As we do, all pain dissolves. It’s not bypassing the body because “it’s just story”, we are fully in the body. We start unfurling and defrosting. We feel our power in ourselves fully, and also in connection. We make boundaries. We take somatic and psychological care of ourselves. We see there is nothing wrong with us or with anyone else.