Awareness of one's Self as simultaneously mortal and infinite fuels the paradox compelling a self-anchoring desire for physical children. This metaphor demonstrates continuity within the holistic family elements as the intersection of dynamic forces: visible with invisible, tangible with intangible, and past with future. "Pro-creation," literally the Act of Creation, is the natural process necessary to physically reproduce a child. This creative melody, also called lovemaking or "making love," doubles as a metaphor for conception of the inner child whose essential quality is Love. This child is born as, and from, the "being in love" between god (man, masculine) and goddess (woman, feminine), literally the "making of love" or love making love. The symbolic value in the traditional missionary position (man above, woman beneath) illustrates spiritual father descending into earthly mother to produce their child and spiritual family. This posture affirms goddess, i.e., woman, as that which contains, supports and carries the love child, personally before as the biological mother and organically after their birth into reality as the human body as well as Mother nature and the Earth.
The idea "man was created in the image of god" references the spiritual inheritance and lineage of the personality as the culmination of divine parents and who, through self-expression or "expressing one's Self," demonstrates this mirror effect. This interrelationship is responsible for the popular "mirroring" idea found in some self-help programs shorthanded as, "what you dislike in another, you dislike in yourself." While true in certain instances, this application relies on the external environment for its value and validity. Instead, the personality as an expressing Self mirrors the communication and synergistic interplay between god and goddess, i.e., our spiritual heritage as divine offspring. As the inner child, our self-expression and the way we live is literally a spiritual family portrait revealing our Self-awareness. How we perceive ourselves in any given moment, by an internally or externally defined identity, determines the artistic medium through which this portrait unveils itself. Mirroring as metaphor is also evident in that physical children often do resemble one or both biological parents with comments such as, "he acts just like his father," potentially carrying both cryptic and literal significance.
Mothers working outside the home demonstrate the reemergence of the goddess or sacred feminine into the visible, tangible reality. Conventional thinking attributes the rarity of stay-at-home-moms with the epidemic of social chaos and emotional insecurity. In actuality, the working mother as metaphor invites us to purposely engage and express holistic family interaction in this world to insure healthy psychic communication, and hence, personal well-being. In daily living, trauma to this process results from identifying with or emotionally investing in experiences, including emotional sensations. However, rather than finding security in familiar emotions, these attachments produce experiences of isolation that fuel a search for comfort and sense of belonging with others of like emotional history. As patterns repeat and experiences accumulate, awareness retains a self-limiting facet since emotional need rather than holistic understanding determines a sense of personal identity. This relative vision obscures inner family influences so that the search for healing and answers becomes limited to personal history and the environment rather than transpersonal insight, self-knowledge and awareness. Since human parents, surrogates for our spiritual parentage, and their perceived shortcomings generally become the focal point of such a search, confusion and insecurity continues more often than it resolves. As adults in metaphorical terms, a growing desire to quench parched hearts through a family connection can cause parents to project their own personal emotional needs through investments (transference) in their children as reflections or extensions of themselves. Though compromising individual, holistic well-being, this represents an unconscious knowing that urges a self-identity basis as a manifestation of god with goddess.
Limited to the world of appearance, personal identity generally forms out of emotional dependencies and conditions in the tribe. Because emphasis is on biological, cultural, and racial or other tribe-determined parameters, the inner, holistic family is relegated to a purely psychological adaptation. To compensate for this near-sightedness, religious philosophies encourage some form of "love they neighbor as thyself" approach to others. In psychological terms, healing the inner child encapsulates the recovery of personal identity and is ultimately the quest to restore the holistic family structure. Emotional healing can encourage opportunities to experience spiritual wholeness as a daily endowment of the ordinary world, facilitated through a healthy internal family relationship structure. Any psychological work done with biological family members can be construed as a metaphor for this individual process. As healing continues, an externally derived identity eases so that support and nourishment become natural, on-going experiences orchestrated within the impenetrable security of the individualized spiritual family -- a genuine homecoming that initiates and supports a perpetual self-fulfilling prophecy of personal worth and well-being. We have truly come home.
The burgeoning epidemic of rage, violence, fear and depression caused by decades of separatist living is readily apparent in today's music and entertainment trends, body piercing, and prescription drug use. This trend is fed by isolation, anxiety and confusion. The persistent call to reawaken holistic vision between the unseen reality and the superficial facade a materially-oriented culture has fashioned over the past 200+ years beckons with increasing fervor -- the responsibility for everyone living in this period of transitional chaos is both a burden and a privilege. Although spirituality transcends philosophy or religion, the current trend promoting family values and religion as the solution to the discontent in America is a metaphorical call to restore integrity to the spiritual family structure. However, a cultural pre-disposition for tangible measurement values appearance, competition, superficial conformity and "political correctness" as criteria for approval and acceptance. These external security devices undermine integrity within the holistic structure, compromising authenticity and blurring our family portrait, the results of which are readily visible through current social and individual behavior patterns. Without authenticity, conflict between the visible, outer world (Root Chakra) and the invisible, inner world (Crown Chakra) results producing stress-filled lifestyles that constrict the child's (Heart Chakra) loving expression -- it is no coincidence that heart disease is prevalent in our culture, and a primary cause of death.
Maintaining and nurturing integrity in this spiritual unit is the unconscious yearning that fuels every person's desire to have or be part of a family. Cultivating holistic family recognition, unity and quality family time through meditation, prayer, energetic or other devotional practice facilitates Self-awareness, an ingredient paramount to overall well-being. The Art of Wholeness requires releasing ourselves from the bondage of ideas, beliefs and emotional residues restricting our true identity and genuine self-expression. Healing the widespread chaos in America requires releasing the pain and turmoil caused by this long-standing identity crisis and embracing our identity as the self-defined, holistic family. The security found in this structure encourages us to furnish the world with the realization of our selves, each other and the planet as divine children. Healing promotes awareness and awareness promotes holistic living. Within this awareness, equality reigns and peace becomes a realistic lifestyle rather than just the hoped for result of a weekend retreat -- the future of the culture, society and planet as interdependent communities depends on it.
Cheryl Stroup is a Reiki Master Teacher and has been providing Reiki and other healing services since 1993. As a Reiki teacher since 1996, her classes induce transformation while her teaching material is well known for its cutting-edge perspective. Transform your daily bathing routine into a healing, self-caring ritual.
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