The Importance of Embodiment and Holding on to Self: A Recipe for Differentiation
Jennifer Finch, M.A., LPC, NCC, SEP
May 25, 2024
Family dynamics and emotional functioning are key ingredients in the grand culinary kitchen of human experience. A poorly differentiated family is like a disastrous recipe where the ingredients clash, leading to a dish that's hard to swallow and leaves a bad taste lingering for generations. Imagine a concoction of stale traditions, overbearing expectations, and a dash of emotional repression, all simmering together. The flavors become muddled, creating a bitter, indigestible mess where no one is allowed to express their unique taste. Thinking, feeling, and sensing independently are entirely omitted from the recipe. Even newer, healthier food recipes of the younger generations seriously threaten the basic structure and survival of TRADITION! And are therefore taboo when introduced during the holiday supper.
When a family struggles with emotional differentiation, the offspring often find themselves cast into roles they aren’t quite ready for, thrust into the spotlight to hold things together. In psychotherapeutic terms, we know this as "role reversal." And it is single-handedly the most significant issue I address with my clients. Role reversal holds a parent/adult in a child-like state, fixed, static, and unchanging. Temper-tantrum-ing in anger, collapsing in grief or depression, spiraling in anxiety, or standing defiantly with a hand on jutted out hip. And it holds a child in a perpetuating savior of the unregulated damsels (or lads). Flying into the rescue. Requiring moment-to-moment adaptation. If the child isn’t careful, it can create an underlying foundation of a “hero complex.” And, as we often hear, true heroes of this world frequently don't even want to collect the reward for that title. It is a burden. Loaded with expectations. In the context of a family situation, it also keeps the child entangled in a co-dependent dynamic. A hero needs someone to save. In perpetuity.
The big question, though, is when do we, children who unknowingly or knowingly became “parentified,” step back? Sometimes, the most profound act of love is realizing we don’t always have to be the hero. For the next generation, it’s about being a parent without constantly hovering like a helicopter on overdrive. We can allow our children to disentangle from our inherited enmeshment patterns. We can teach them through modeling our thriving independence. And equally, we can lean on a friend when needed, but we don't need rescuing. We need support and validation…and here is the kicker….from other ADULTS….not from our children. There’s beauty in breaking traditions and/or adding to them and embracing flexibility, like tweaking an old family recipe to create something fresh and powerful for the next generation. And, the next.
Deconstructing Role Reversal
An immature emotional nucleus in a family can turn life into an ongoing science experiment for the other members. “If I do X, will Y happen?” This isn’t just idle curiosity—it’s a survival strategy. Our capacity to adapt and predict is crucial as it helps us separate ourselves from the family unit, allowing at least an ounce of growth potential. But it can keep us held as separate and hardened outside of the family. I wouldn't qualify this as pure differentiation. It is just enmeshment at a distance. This reminds me of Einstein's quote, "spooky action at a distance." Yes, it is precisely that. An entanglement of particles, just being fixed in space at a distance.
A poorly differentiated family system can go one of two ways. First, we might stay enmeshed, merging with the contagious emotions and thinking patterns of the “supposed parent in charge” and surrendering our sense of Self. It can feel rude or even dangerous to fully separate from the controlling nucleus. Despite knowing we are the caretakers seeing the bigger picture, the parents can make it seem like they “need” us so desperately that they would crumble without our presence.
Alternatively, we might go full tilt in the opposite direction, determined to “prove” our independence. We hold ourselves as impossibly separate beings from the family unit, essentially walking out on them, saying good riddance, and driving as far away as possible. “Not my problem.”
Sometimes, we dance between the two. We are flipping dramatically from one to the next. Helping out as a good daughter or son and then moving to Costa Rica. No choice is a good choice. In each scenario, we are losing contact with our Selves. We are too connected and fighting for independence, or we are fighting independently for some kind of connection. And, as my grandfather often stated, “This is all just a bunch of bullshit! I’m going to make a sandwich.” Neither of these tactics works. At least they won't long term. Eventually, they both dead-end at resistance.
So, a deeper question arises: Can we heal within a sick system that’s off-kilter without relying on sheer resistance?
Enter Dr. Murray Bowen and his family systems theory. He posits that our brains and our families are not isolated; they are entangled, influencing, and co-evolving with each other. Responsibility here is critical. Self-reliance is a must. Self-soothing is the skill. Differentiation is the result. Our culture often suffers from observational blindness, making it hard to see ourselves as parts of a larger family unit. We think we are one way or another because of how we were one way or another. Weird, odd, unloved, unworthy, too much, too big, not good enough, etc. And, perhaps, we view our children as the ones symptomatically full of anxiety, depression, etc. But when we place our single-celled (or our children's) being within the context of a whole universe of familial context, we can begin to clearly see what was even ours to hold (or what we are handing them). Maybe not much is ours in the way of what our parents gave us. And maybe a lot is in the way of what we are mainlining into our children. The apple. The tree.
And if it truly is our belief system, created by our belief system, that is very workable. If we are the ones who created it, then we can be the ones to dissolve it. It is much more complicated when we don't create it but somehow adopt it. How do we dissolve something that isn't in our power to dissolve?
Well, we hand it back. Or, drop it.
But we must first recognize that it wasn’t even ours. That can be the hardest part. This is the observational blindness that I mentioned.
When the emotional nucleus of a family dies, members tend to drift apart, revealing the fragile connections holding them together. When a client comes to me stating their mother won't stop calling or texting them, it might indicate a need for more separation and an anxiety reduction. When a client comes to me stating how fiercely independent they are, it might reveal a need for more intimacy, connection, and closeness. Often, there is an armor of entanglement riddled with anger, frustration, or even fury. I call this “the lone ranger syndrome.” And, when a client presents with the dance between the two extremes, either choosing connection OR independence, we can stabilize the dramatic impulses driving the quick reactions and confusion underneath. When we become more stabilized and skilled in impulse control, we can hold on to ourselves and develop a hierarchical order of thinking. This marks the beginning of a more heightened and embodied spiritual path. (I’m still fleshing this idea out, but it feels worth deeper contemplation.)
Until then, we need to go in the opposite direction of what we’re used to and what feels familiar. So, enmeshed individuals should move toward more separateness, while rugged individualists should strive for more oneness. There’s a clear, intoxicating point where you start to feel more like YOU. But it can feel shaky at first. So, go slow. From that centered place, we stabilize and ground in the Self, finding equilibrium. A perfect balance of connection and oneness, AND separateness. When we hold onto ourselves there, we can navigate extremely destabilizing systems with greater ease. There will be no need for merging or holding ourselves separate from it; we can simply be in the center of it but disentangled from it. Not disconnected or detached from it, but disentangled from it.
Object relations theory adds another layer to this. It tells us that a parent’s ability to tolerate their child’s anxiety builds the child’s capacity to manage their own.
Differentiation is the perfect balance between the electrically charged opposites of enmeshment and becoming a Lone Ranger. We can hold on to ourselves AND be in a relationship.
(This disentangling work is the embodiment work of the Realization Process created by Dr. Judith Blackstone. The work I have been teaching for the past few years).
The Science of Genes and Environment
A differentiated being is a healthy being. These individuals are embodied and can stand in their power and intelligence. They can go with the flow and also carve their path.
Differentiating is about functioning on a deeper level. We can first acknowledge that we come from a long line of generations. We can stand apart from that and allow ourselves to be influenced by it. But if we are influenced by it, it is only if we choose that it is positive and worthy of being the recipient of. If, for example, a parent tells a child, "You are worthless," the child can respond in their authority, "No, I'm not. I am full of worth." At the bottom line, we are the creators of our perception and how we interact with reality. The goal would be to ensure our perception lens is clean, clear and seeing purely without entanglements. Oftentimes, the child’s perception is clearer than the parents. It is fairly well known that our children are our Zen Masters. And, just to mention here, our cloudy lenses can also come from outside the family system. (Religions, cultures, systemic institutions, educational systems, etc.)
If born into a very enmeshed situation, one that is very poorly differentiated, we don't need to wait for the right cues to come alive. For example, to counter a belief of “I am not good enough,” does not require a parent, (or a teacher or school system) telling you that you are indeed good enough. If you are waiting around for your parents to “wake up,” I am afraid we don’t have that kind of time.
For some time now, in the ever-popular attachment theory, we have clung to the idea that having a secure attachment from our parents was the destiny that we have been missing. Take early-life stress, for example. It can lead to epigenetic changes that alter how our stress-response genes function, affecting how we handle stress as adults. Conversely, positive experiences—like nurturing family relationships—can lead to beneficial changes that enhance our resilience.
So, yes, having a secure attachment could give us an advantage, but we should keep going and not get discouraged, especially if we do not win the parent jackpot. Developing modern science, particularly epigenetics, paints a richer, more complex picture. So, if you are still furious you didn’t get that secure golden parachute, don’t fret. You can let go of that seeking for it “out there.” It is already within you. And it lies below our genetic make-up.
Some biology of hope is emerging as we learn that genes are not the static blueprints we once imagined; they are dynamic, responsive entities influenced by our environment. And our environment is much larger than our familial system. Why? How? Because we are no longer vulnerable children. We will never be that vulnerable again. We are maturing adults now. And, as we venture out as adults into the big world, our experiences expand our environment broadly, vastly, and biologically. Epigenetics studies how our environment can tweak gene activity without altering the DNA sequence. It's like a maestro fine-tuning an orchestra based on the acoustics of the concert hall. This is why there is so much wisdom in the sage advice of "you are who you hang out with." We are fine-tuning with them. And, if you don’t like who you are attuning with, you can host a garage sale.
As we become more differentiated through our maturation process, we can face even our biggest adversaries and still maintain our own unique frequency without getting lost in theirs. We might still consider their perspective as useful information, but we’re no longer letting it define us or leave a lasting imprint on our being. To achieve this, we must truly understand our own frequency and fundamentally know who we are. This is a long, winding journey—often spiritual in nature—and it demands a willingness to do the work, take responsibility, and learn to self-soothe. And, crucially, it involves breaking free from the need for external validation, especially when it stems from a parent who, in many ways, was the child in the relationship.
To help with this differentiated maturing process, we can go beyond the gene-centered science positing that genes are the primary determinants of our traits and behaviors and see how cells play an even more pivotal role in this process. Cells are the intermediaries here, translating environmental signals into genetic activity. They are the stagehands, ensuring the right lights shine on the right (genetic) actors at the right time. This interplay underscores the profound impact our environment and experiences have on our development. Our experiences can open us and help shape who we are.
We can help coach our cells through self-soothing. The more we learn to self-soothe, the less we get sucked into the entropic downward pull of enmeshment. With each self-soothing experience, we become more emotionally open and willing to risk intimate connections with others. We can let down that Lone Ranger guard, even if it’s just by 1%. Self-soothing helps us break free from old patterns in family dynamics and become more differentiated.
My top teaching philosophy is “experience over education.” People seek me out because they crave an experience that changes how they feel. They don’t want advice, labels, or diagnoses. They want an experience that helps them open up and become more authentically themselves in this world.
And embodiment is exactly that, an experience.
The Importance of Embodiment
We can change our course when we wake up to the idea that embodiment can influence our cells. This isn't just about mindful breathing or yoga (though those are great); it's about recognizing that our entire being—our physical body, energy body, mind, and spirit—are interconnected in ways that modern science is only beginning to understand.
When we breathe from our whole body, we're not just taking in the air but cultivating a subtle dimension that heals. Picture this: each breath is a gentle wave that ripples through every cell, carrying messages of peace and resilience. This deep, embodied awareness can transform how we interact with our family systems.
Even when our family system seems like it's putting us against all odds—like we're swimming upstream in a river of inherited patterns and unspoken tensions—we have the power to change the flow. Embodiment teaches us that our bodies hold wisdom, a cellular memory that can guide us toward healing. By tapping into this wisdom, we start to rewrite the scripts handed down to us. We can stand firm as separate beings and deeply connect to our loved ones. Without giving up any of ourselves in this exchange.
Imagine standing in the eye of a storm. The winds of family dynamics rage around you, but at your core, there is calm. This is the power of embodiment. It allows us to hold onto ourselves, even amidst chaos. It reminds us that we are not just passive recipients of genetic and emotional legacies but active participants in our evolution.
When we embrace embodiment, we begin to see that healing isn't just a mental exercise or a physical practice—it's a holistic journey. It's about acknowledging the inseparable connection between our thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations. It's about listening to our bodies' quiet signals and responding with compassion and care.
In essence, embodiment is a radical act of self-love, empowerment, and differentiation. It's the practice of being fully present in our lives, owning our experiences, and using them to fuel growth. By embodying our true selves, we cultivate resilience to withstand the toughest family dynamics and transform them from within. We can stand up as fully differentiated beings. This is confidence training.
In the end, the emotional maturity of a family’s core—its nucleus—shapes the emotional health of its members. We can carry this message forward compassionately. And, if we didn’t win the jackpot, we know there is a good path through embodiment to become fully differentiated. By embodying our true selves and holding onto our identities, we can navigate the labyrinth of family dynamics. It's about finding that sweet spot between connection and individuality and recognizing the intricate dance of influences that shape our emotional well-being. You are in charge. So, if you were influenced less than positively, feel free to start by changing up your family recipes.
Be Here. And Be Now.
Jen
