Reached for: Oatmeal
“Everyone leans on me. It's fine — I'd rather be the one holding it.”
The weight of other people is taken up as a matter of course, and the strength that carries it is real, which is exactly what makes it hard to set down. The position was assigned early, when one member of a struggling family became the floor everyone else stood on. What it asks for is being held by something, once.
Atlas at the western edge, holding the sky off the earth because it was decided he would. The form implies a task of finding out whether the sky falls when the shoulders shift.
- Essence
- Earned Keeping
- Rule
- I was needed, so I was never looked after
- Substance / Activity
- Plain sustaining food, staples, whatever fortifies
- Archetype
- Atlas
- Emotional theme
- Unadmitted need for nurture
- Behavioural pattern
- Over-responsible support of everyone else, with one's own depletion left unregistered
- Family dynamic
- The child who became host and mainstay of a dysfunctional family
- Core wound
- I was needed, so I was never looked after
- Exit
- Letting the weight shift and seeing what holds
What is the "Reached for: Oatmeal" pattern?
The weight of other people is taken up as a matter of course, and the strength that carries it is real, which is exactly what makes it hard to set down. The position was assigned early, when one member of a struggling family became the floor everyone else stood on. What it asks for is being held by something, once.
What does "Reached for: Oatmeal" sound like when it shows up?
Everyone leans on me. It's fine — I'd rather be the one holding it.
What is the archetypal form of "Reached for: Oatmeal"?
Atlas at the western edge, holding the sky off the earth because it was decided he would. The form implies a task of finding out whether the sky falls when the shoulders shift.
This is a pattern. Not a verdict.
It appears in many lives.