03/16/2026
Don’t Let the War Make You Abandon Yourself
Once again we are plunged into the despair of war, in which there are always at least two losers, and no winners. This descent comes after the betrayal of repeated promises the leader made to bring troops home, to end forever wars, to give up nation-building, and to put our country first- our country, in which so many claim to follow the teaching of one who commanded us to put down our swords and to love our enemies. The blindness is obvious in those who boast of protecting us from others around the world who do violence, by raining what looks like indiscriminate lethal violence from great distances with the most advanced technologies in order to bring about transformation in people far away- people whose histories, beliefs and values our leaders know very little about. The moral injuries are deep from these arrogant actions, and our hearts are heavy.
The current situation is challenging, and yet there are additional layers to what we are experiencing that come from our ancestral lineage. We all have family members who have direct experience of war- if not among those who are still alive, then in our ancestors from generations past. The faint echoes of their experiences that remain in our ancestral inheritance can start to ring across the decades and come into our unconscious awareness, below the level of our everyday attention. Our muscles tighten slightly, our breathing becomes a little more shallow, and we don’t notice. The unresolved residues of the parts our ancestors played in the vortex of the victim-perpetrator cycles are stirred in us and begin to awaken anxiety, fear, dread.
Larger forces of conflict and war we didn’t personally choose can begin to take up space within us and crowd against our heart.
In a state of contraction, it’s difficult to dream. It’s very hard to make contact with the depths of the soul and to search consciously for our purpose- to keep discovering the gifts we brought with us into life, to develop and expand those gifts, and to learn the ways we are meant to give those gifts to our communities and to humanity. In the absence of safety the energies of our consciousness move into defense, and our creative impulses can be diminished. And still, there is another way to look at it.
Fear can be a great teacher. Not the kind of teacher from whom you can learn a skill, but a teacher that can help bring about deep transformation at the level of the soul, and provide an access to new strength. The change the soul seeks is not one that involves politics, or status, or laws. Fear can take us down, into the depths of the unknown, where we come closer to what is under the fear. It’s in the center of our wounding that our greatest gifts reside. Carl Jung wrote: "The descent into the depths will bring healing. It is the way to the total being, to the treasure which suffering mankind is forever seeking, which is hidden in the place guarded by terrible danger.” Other teachers with whom I’ve studied, either directly or through their writing- like Barbara Brennan, Joseph Campbell and Michael Meade- have all taught a similar approach to healing.
In our seminars we often mention the indigenous idea of Buffalo Healing. Numerous Plains Indian tribes observed the buffalo walking directly into the path of a storm, rather than turning their backs to it, in order to come through to the other side faster. They hold it as a metaphor for developing the courage and strength needed to manage life’s difficulties. In Family Constellations we often invite participants to go to the heart of the matter- to look directly at what's not at peace for them in their lives and with their families. The root of the word ‘fear’ is from an Old English word ‘faer’ which meant ‘to journey,’ to pass through, as in a thoroughfare. We invite you to consider what still holds fear for you in life, and what new gifts of your soul might await you on the other side of passing through that fear.
[For more essays like this one please see the Brief Teachings page at our website www.constellationjourneys.com]
