COYOTE ARCHIVE

Dick Prosapio aka, Coyote is a member of the TMC Advisory Council, ceremonialist, psycho-
therapist (ret.), author, leader of men's experiential workshops, & Co-founder of The Foundation for Common Sense. He lives with his wife and daughter in Stanley, NM

For more info about Dick Prosapio, visit his web-site:
Spirit/ Earth Path
 

When the Mobile Changes
by
Dick Prosapio © 2006

There is this concept that families and groups are constructed very much like mobiles, those carefully balanced dynamic sculptures. The theory says that when one aspect of the mobile changes, everything is effected.

This theory is readily seen in action whenever one member of a group or family, most often the latter, tries to break out of the dynamic, the rest of the group tries to sabotage the effort in some subtle, or not so subtle, way.

It's easy to see this going on in other families, but we all have a hard time seeing it in our own, mainly because most of us don't like disruptions in our way of understanding what we believe to be true about our selves and our families. This not always true of course, in a healthy family, change is a welcomed thing, so the dynamic doesn't apply across the board.

Our middle kid, now 18, has been diagnosed as a "RAD" kid. Reactive Attachment Disorder kids are VERY resistant to change. The deeper the "disorder", the more unlikely it is that the kid will get beyond it. On a scale of one-to-ten, with "ten" being the fire setter, animal torturer, potentially very dangerous kid, our middle girl is about a "5" or "6". To say she has been "difficult" is an understatement. In the 13 years I have known her there hasn't been a Christmas she hasn't turned into a nasty experience for everyone concerned. Mainly because she was never, and I mean NEVER, happy about the gifts and caring she was given. Always there was the "not-good-enough" attitude going on. The rest of the year she was the main "black hole" in the family into which everyone poured love in the hope that it would make a difference.... and received absolutely nothing in return.

Ever.

She was the one who got into every kind of illegal drug available, every kind of sexual acting out, every kind of outrageous behavior short of criminal, just short, you could imagine.

So, she went off to a Community College last July, one out of state, and for us, mostly, out of mind. She came home for Christmas, something we all dreaded.

She has come home; changed! And I don't mean a little, I mean changed! Co-operative, friendly, involved, a good worker, funny, sweet... a healthy human being! This is nothing we expected at all. In fact, we thought she would fail in school and create a wreck of her life.... and THEN perhaps she would finally "get it".

Nope. She is making it... and we are watching a miracle in the making, The mobile is shifting and our youngest can no longer play the "angel" in contrast to the "devil" older sister, leaving her with the need to search for another way to be in the family. We will see how this plays out. Right now we're seeing more childish acting out in this one and hoping this will dampen out over time as she adjusts to the mobile shifting.

I guess what we have learned, again, is that ANYTHING is possible even when you think it's not. We had this kid locked in to an expectation, and she blew us all out of it by getting out of the family mobile, being forced to deal with a separate reality in which expectations were different. And she rose to the challenge.

Amazing! We couldn't be more grateful to be able to see the true heart of this kid we had just about written off. And we have a whole new appreciation of what is possible when all the doors of potential are open.

What artful dancers we can all be if we will just take advantage of the miracles available to us.