It Didn't Start With You
Process
I just read this phenomenal book IT DIDN’T START WITH YOU: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How To End The Cycle by Mark Wolynn. I want to try to apply its teachings to developing our creative process.
The book centers around the idea that many if not most of the issues in your life are probably inherited from a previous generation. We come to be identified with unhealed traumas that happened in our families and unconsciously play them out in our own lives even if we don’t know about them. These are stories, or loyalties, or cultural legacies that get passed down through generations like genetics.
So you may have never lived through a Holocaust or World War, but if a grandparent did, your hoarding or binge eating may be because of it. Or if you find yourself chronically underearning (as many artists do), someone in your family may have been stolen from or may have cheated someone else, and you may have unconsciously identified with them.
The book lays out a series of tools to uncover these unconscious identifications. Let’s focus on the idea of any unconscious creative blocks you may have. Ask yourself the following questions. (The book highly suggests you write the answers down rather than answering them in your head).
What is your greatest complaint about [any unconscious creative blocks you may have]? Like, what’s the worst part about them? (This question correlates with unfinished business with your parents).
Write down the most important adjectives and phrases to describe your mom and dad. These are your core descriptors. These help you look for unconscious loyalties, ways you’ve distanced yourself from your parents (and maybe unconsciously repeating their blocks), old resentments and accusations. This is the unconscious reservoir of childhood experience we draw upon to project onto our work.
What is the worst thing that could happen to [your creative work]? What is your worst fear about it? This is your core sentence.
What tragic events occurred in your family history? This is your core trauma. This opens your systemic lens in looking at whatever may be blocking you. Often problems have origins in family history, sometimes generations back.
As you’re answering these questions, pay close attention to dramatic, emotionally charged words. These will point you toward the keys to unlocking what’s really behind whatever blocks you may have.
You may think you’re a procrastinator, but maybe you’re unconsciously loyal to a parent who never got what they want. Read the book — it’s a fascinating psychological study.