Puppet genogram for healing trauma.

 

The above video is a playful puppet show video sharing about a class I took at Southwestern College for art family therapy. I had been imagining making this video for a long time because this was one of the things I learned in graduate school that I actually found helpful for actual real healing. There were several things, to be fair, but I think the vast majority of the classes were useless. I don't mean that to be offensive towards Southwestern College, I just think that what happens when the culture we live in gets to set the standards for what is included in order for a school to be accredited, then everyone's in big trouble because the culture has an abusive agenda and it certainly isn't about helping people heal, lets be honest. 

Okay, with that said, the core classes at Southwestern College, the classes that the college was originally founded on, I found to be very powerful and helpful and actually as I have let the information settle into me over the past year and a half or so, or since I finished school in the spring of 2022, I really feel as though I am experiencing an awakening. I don't think it's finished yet because I am still in the phase of being horrified at all the lies that are thrown at us all the time, and I think true awakening is peace. But something profound is happening inside of me as a result of my time out west. Actually, the peace has come piecemeal.  I have so much peace about something I struggled with for so long, and that is romantic relationships. That part of my life feels fully free now and I feel genuinely at peace about it. That is a long story, but that was my main takeaway from my time out west. I also do not feel lonely anymore, and I used to feel lonely so often. The above video is about what we did in my family art therapy class, which was to work through the book It Didn't Start With You; How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How To End The Cycle by Mark Wolynn. 

We researched our family history and then created a creative genogram about our family. A genogram has to do with the patterns among family members and in our family tree and family history. It has to do with spotting the way that certain dysfunctional behaviors or losses or traumas can repeat themselves through the generations. I put little cut out paper circles up on my wall during the course of this class with everyone's names on them (including great grandparents) and I also had little descriptions of each person and what I learned about them taped next to their name. I lived with this on my wall for the duration of the school quarter while we worked through the book, It Didn't Start With You. 

I made puppets for my genogram. My grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents, siblings and myself were all represented by a puppet. I delivered them to all of my classmates and because the class was on zoom, we had a zoom puppet show. There was almost the perfect amount of puppets and classmates. One classmate had two puppets, otherwise it was perfect. 

We worked through Mark Wolynn's book during this class. He writes about how we carry the trauma of our ancestors in our DNA and it can show up in our lives in very unique and specific ways. I think about how Steve Jobs ended up having a child and abandoning her at the very same age that his parents were when they gave him up for adoption. A friend of mine who became a single mother noticed that she came from a line of single mothers. 

I think there were several reasons why this class was helpful for me. One main reason was to learn about the reality that we really can connect with those people who have passed on. I had another teacher at Southwestern College who was from Cuba and he told the class very candidly that his grandmother channelled dead people for a living. That was her career. He said that he watched her doing it and she was very grounded and sane. Apparently this is normal in Cuba, but, he noted, that in the U.S. she would have probably been erroneously diagnosed with Schizophrenia. 

The other thing I think it was important for me to learn in this class was the importance of honoring our ancestors, and that this is a real thing, that it yields real results and that these traumas that we inherit in our DNA are real and need to be addressed and honoring our ancestors is the way to do that. 

It occurred to me during this class that indigenous people do this all the time. It is built into the very fabric of indigenous cultures. I know that each tribe is very different and that there is not one blanket culture that covers all of native America, but there are many crossovers, and this seems to be one of them. I, personally, feel that it is a shame that Mark Wolynn doesn't mention this in his book and that we didn't really talk about it in the class. It seems obvious to me to take note of that. That what we learned about in that class through reading Mark's book is something that has been being done for thousands of years by healthy societies and healthy people. This really caught my attention and I think that had it not been for me noticing this, I may not have fully taken in the importance of what we were doing in that class. 

I also loved just the simple act of making these puppets. I don't know if it was healing, per se, but I think that making things is inherently healing and I had so much fun doing it. I remember sitting in my casita listening to the audiobook of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (J.K. Rowling) and happily sewing away surrounded by wool and yarn and bits of fabric. 

I think, honestly, there were a lot of things that contributed to healing this part of myself that has felt lonely and alone in the world. Doing parts work was also very very powerful for me, probably one of the most powerful healing tools I learned during that time in school, but I also believe that they are all sort of connected together. Sometimes when we clear away a lie that we've been believing for a long time, all sorts of things start to flood into our lives that help us and heal us and confirm the truth for us and I found that to be true about this lie or trauma that I'm alone in the world, or that there's something wrong with me because I'm not married. There was also a fractured part of myself that was down in my inner basement who I don't think I had ever talked to before, that I finally got in touch with. She had been trying to get my attention for decades and all she needed was love and to be seen and heard. 

I'll leave it at that for now. I hope you enjoy the video. 

Here's hoping that this awakening starts to spread wide and far.

To Bet. I See you. 

Love,

Suzanne.