Project purpose is an idea taken from Recall Healing interventions. It is that time in life of your family where you weren’t even here. In Recall Healing is it the period 9month-0 point where 0 point is the moment of your conception. This may sound odd to consider your life from the perspective of the time when you weren’t present even as a foetus, it my be that you weren’t even an idea in your parents heads. So why is it important?
You would have heard about Vincent Van Gogh. The brilliant painter who one night in the mist of madness cut his own ear off. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family. However, this particular Vincent was born exactly a year after his older brother (also called Vincent) was stillborn. The child that was born to replace another child. As a child Vincent was a quiet and considerate child, however as an adult, Vincent was troubled by psychotic episodes and delusions for many years. They eventually caused him cutting his ear off. There is most likely a great complexity to the story, however it is curious to see that replacing someone else may also mean that you feel obligated to somehow live this person’s life whilst you are trying to live your life as well. An impossible task to complete.
I see many ‘replacement children’ in my therapy room. The adult who was born to take a place of a child that died or did not meet parent’s expectations. This can have severe consequences.
Let’s say your parents wanted first a boy and then a girl. But the first child is a girl. Your parents may love this girl, but on some level the expectations aren’t met, the plan has not been, and cannot be completed. Then you arrive, second child and you are a boy. In some sense second child is very different to the first child and their ‘function’ is different. So, if you are the second child, but are of a biological sex that the first was hoped to be, you may experience some unconscious confusion. At times you may find yourself living a life and feeling that it is somehow not yours, or not the way it should be for you. Almost as, if you were living life on behalf of someone else. The same will apply to your sister, the one that meant to be a boy.
Other stories involve children that were born unexpectedly or somehow too early (ie the parents weren’t planning to have a child and weren’t ready to have it just yet), children who take names from parents or other family members, children whose parents haven’t realised their own potential and dreams or the children who are born to make their parents happy.
None of this means that you are somehow unwell or are deemed to have difficulties. However, if you do, investigating your project purpose can give you some additional information and understanding of where the difficulties may stem from.
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