To Be Big, We Need to Be Little

Imagine with me, two different images:

First, see yourself on a hillside, holding up a giant boulder. It takes all of your effort. You are trying to move it up the hill, but the truth is, you are barely keeping it from falling down on you, and yet you are using all of your strength. And, you are weakening. How long can you keep this up?

Second, see yourself on the helm of a ship, facing an enormous storm. Before it arrives to where you are, you take a moment to bow: to the immensity of the storm, which you cannot lessen; to the sea, which you cannot calm; and to yourself, who — no matter what you do — is and remains mortal, destined to join your ancestors someday. Then, having bowed, you get to work with all your skill to prepare your boat and crew for what is surely to come.

Bert Hellinger, the founder of Family Constellations, is famous for having said “To be big in the world, we must be small in our families.” On first hearing, for many people, this is a shocking and even perhaps terrifying bit of advice. Especially if their families were dangerous, then they may have spent their whole lives making themselves big enough to keep themselves safe. To be small in their families sounds like at best, a guarantee of further abuse; and at worst, a death sentence.

But this isn’t what Hellinger meant. What he meant is that there truly is nothing we can do about the fact that we come from these people and these circumstances. We cannot be unborn of our parents, and our fate is permanently tied to them. If our childhoods had gone even worse than they did, being defenseless and small, we could have died (many children do, right?). We had no power to prevent this, or change our fate in any way.

Hellinger was recommending that we bow to the truth of our source, and that we had no choice and could not avoid the fate our births. Our childhoods and the fate we are born into are like the storm and the sea and mortality itself: we can only bow to them with respect, and then turn and bring our adult capacities to what can and must be done next.

Ironically, the bow to what was and is, gives us strength. Without it, we remain like the person on the hillside, trying to move the boulder uphill with all our strength, unable to move forward. The bow is not a collapse, an approval of oppression, or making ourselves into some kind of doormat. It’s acknowledging what is and was bigger than us; what we were and are smaller than.

Then, we experience — deeply in our bodies and souls — our true bigness, our true strength. It’s not something over-asserted and aggressive (as it can be expressed in certain circles). It is true and lasting; both humble and proud.

Were you born to slaveholders and racists? Bow. Were you born to slaves and the oppressed? Bow. Were you born to both? Yes, bow.

Last week I went backpacking in the Sierra. (Here are some of my photos from this trip.) Faced by mountains and glacial lakes, I am reminded of my smallness. This year, for the first time, I faced a thunder storm, which scared me to my bones, but having survived it, I felt cleansed and oddly empowered by this force that was clearly greater than myself.

But we don’t have to go into nature to be reminded. All we need to do is look out our windows to see all the forces that are greater than us. Before we go out — to our jobs, to our relationships, to the protests, to our care for others — we can bow to all those things, even the negative things, and rise up stronger and in a position to bring out full skill and commitment to our actions.

What has been your experience of bowing and finding yourself empowered? What was that like? Share your stories on my blog, below.