Reader Response: I Feel His Pain

 

February 17, 2006

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/feb17.html

 

Dear Eric:

 

As an avid reader of Jonathan Cainer and subscriber to Planet Waves, I feel compelled to respond to the question you received from Eric H. with the grandfather issues. I feel his pain.

 

I recently had a major awakening regarding family/parental issues. I had some deep-seated issues with my father. He was abusive and alcoholic. I formed some negative boundary issues, including serious adult consequences, when dealing with men, being unable to form healthy relationships with men (I kept attracting violent or hurtful men like my father over and over again). Now, later in my life, I see clearly that my own choices and life experiences stemmed from my father's issues that were projected on to me. As a young girl, I didn't understand my father's issues so I accepted them as my own. Could this be what is going on with Eric H.?

 

His feeling was "My problem is I feel like I have an entire lifetime of my grandfather's repressed urges funneling into my own reality, as if he is trying to somehow live through me." My life is SO MUCH better now that I've realized that my so-called baggage was actually my father's negative emotional projections. My father had major issues with his mother (she was seriously abusive, had major power and control issues and was very unstable); perhaps her father had a similar relationship with her? From my father's experience with his abusive mother, he formed major power and control issues with women, so my mother and I were my father's whipping boys.

 

Could this be a generational process handed down between the sexes, adding that additional burden to understanding your own sexuality? A "sins of the father" type situation projected on the child of the same or opposite sex, depending on circumstance? According to Jungian psychology, the shadow side of both parents is projected onto the second-born child. Is Eric H. a second-born child?

 

I'm in the second born position (with an older brother who is gay, a younger brother who is straight and has problems with alcohol, and a younger sister who is gay. What a combo -- when my dad's in a good mood, he thanks God for giving him one of "everything"). I am blessed with amazing, loving siblings -- my anchor during my father's storms.

 

Could we have chosen these parents or grandparents, this situation to work out our own karma or our own issues? Is there something in Eric H.'s chart like the position of Chiron, so that as Eric heals his own wounds, this family issue Will Not Be Visited Upon his children or other relationships? I am not an astrologer, but I wonder about Chiron and its position in the charts of people who have situations like Eric H. or me. My own recent healing or awakening has lead to phenomenal changes in my life. I feel so much better! Like a huge weight of "a lifetime of other people's repressed urges" has been removed from my being. The really amazing and miraculous thing: I kept thinking my father had to change. In realizing my responsibility for accepting his negative projections and then letting them go by not giving them any power, my father actually changed!! I changed me and my father changed -- that is the point of power. We have a much healthier relationship because I realized: It's not my stuff! (It seems so simple that I could stand up and dance around my computer right now!)

 

So often people think the other person has to change or we need to learn to forgive them or forgive ourselves in difficult situations. Forgiveness is part of it, but the major component of family forgiveness comes from understanding why the parent or grandparent was projecting their pain on to us in the first place. My father had an ugly situation with his mother that he was not able to overcome.

 

My father could only project his pain -- but I feel I have overcome it. It may not be true, but it makes me feel better to think that some parents project their pain on to their children in hopes that they will be overcome, thereby raising the vibration of the entire family situation -- stopping the buck -- so another generation is not visited by the "sins of the father." I have healthy relationships with my sons and that was my motivator -- "it" would not happen to them.

 

I am so blessed!

 

I send much good energy to Eric H. so that he can learn and grow through his situation and reach his own highest potential. And I send much good energy to you to keep doing what you're doing -- you have a gift and it's wonderful for us that you share it!

Mary E.

 

 

Dear Mary E.

 

Thank you for your insightful and daring comments.

 

Yes, there are times when we grow and our parents change and grow, but it's probably better not to count on it. Yet as individuals, we always have the potential to become aware of, and to heal, their injuries inside us. We can if we want set down the burden of prior generations.

 

It is true, as you suggest, that Chiron is often prominent in the charts of people who describe these kinds of incident. Eric H.'s Chiron is in the 5th house, which is an important house of sexual awareness and at tines, legacy. Here is the chart from last week so you can see.

 

Chiron is making aspects to nearly every other planet in this chart. While I focused last time on two additional minor planets (mainly for brevity) Eric H.'s chart is really an outstanding study in Chiron, and it would be instructive to have a discussion of his lifetime of Chiron transits. I'll email him and see if he's willing to share those with us.

 

Of note, in any situation where a person says "grandfather," another planet to check is Pholus. This planet often has a theme of three generations. While I'm not going to analyze Pholus in this chart, it appears in the fifth degree of Aries.

 

Again, thanks for sharing your ideas and experiences with us.