Carried: Thigh Problems (V)
“Every time I get near something that would make me larger, it feels like I'd be killing them to take it.”
Power in the world is avoided under a private prohibition: developing it would finish something in the parents, so success reads as an act of aggression rather than a natural growth. The result is a career of near-misses, capabilities left undeveloped and openings not taken, all of it experienced as reluctance rather than as obedience. The possessiveness that installed this was intense enough that the child's rise and the parents' diminishment came to look like the same event. What the shape asks for is the two events separated.
Perseus, raised at a distance under a prophecy that his growing up would cost an elder everything. The form implies a task: to grow anyway, and let the prophecy be someone else's fear.
- Essence
- The Withheld Fire
- Rule
- Becoming myself was set up to look like an attack on them.
- Body zone
- The outer thigh; strength turned toward impact in the world
- Archetype
- Perseus
- Emotional theme
- Shame about one's own potency; guilt attached to succeeding
- Behavioural pattern
- Systematic success-avoidance; leaving capabilities undeveloped; stopping short of thresholds
- Family dynamic
- Intensely possessive parenting where the child's advancement was felt as the parents' loss
- Core wound
- Becoming myself was set up to look like an attack on them.
- Exit
- Separating one's own growth from the diminishment of the parents, and crossing anyway.
What is the "Carried: Thigh Problems (V)" pattern?
Power in the world is avoided under a private prohibition: developing it would finish something in the parents, so success reads as an act of aggression rather than a natural growth. The result is a career of near-misses, capabilities left undeveloped and openings not taken, all of it experienced as reluctance rather than as obedience. The possessiveness that installed this was intense enough that the child's rise and the parents' diminishment came to look like the same event. What the shape asks for is the two events separated.
What does "Carried: Thigh Problems (V)" sound like when it shows up?
Every time I get near something that would make me larger, it feels like I'd be killing them to take it.
What is the archetypal form of "Carried: Thigh Problems (V)"?
Perseus, raised at a distance under a prophecy that his growing up would cost an elder everything. The form implies a task: to grow anyway, and let the prophecy be someone else's fear.
This is a pattern. Not a verdict.
It appears in many lives.