Poop Bags and Bombs:
Holding the Truth of Being Alive Right Now
In family constellation work, we often see how war plays out in the field of a family system; generation after generation, and within what were once close relationships.
The presence of war creates more than destruction. It leaves a vast emptiness in its wake. A felt absence with a weight of its own. A kind of missingness that silences awareness and severs connection to self and others.
I’ve felt this void in constellations, in the stories clients carry, and in the way people fall quiet when trauma touches the room. I've seen it shape lives.
War makes people forget who they are. It makes entire families forget. Sometimes entire cultures.
Bert Hellinger began this work to understand the generational trauma caused by Germany’s wars. I began this work with a constellation about the invasions of Ireland and their imprint on the male line of a particular family and a culture. It opened something I didn’t know was closed.
Since then, I’ve seen war leave its fingerprints across many systems:
Generating addiction and illness
Cutting off emotional connection
Starting cycles of violence and silence
Leaving children feeling fatherless or motherless, even when their parents are physically present
Twisting family conscience into justifiable violence, passed down like an heirloom
Devaluing both masculinity and femininity
Breeding shame, guilt, rage, grief—and the unbearable burden of silence
It’s not just about tanks and guns. War lives on in disconnection, in avoidance, and in what goes unsaid.
I read this week about a man in Palestine carrying pieces of his children in plastic bags and child carrying pieces of his brother in a backpack. These are not metaphors. These are lives.
I’ve talked with Ukrainian, Iraqi, Congolese, Colombian, Nigerian, Russian, Laotian, Lybian, Syrian, and Lebonese refugees in Ireland, in the U.S., and in constellations. I’ve spent time with Germans, Italians, Americans, French, Polish, Irish, and British people who’ve been invaders and have been invaded. I descend from oppressed generations and immigrants; people forced from their lands and people who took lands and murdered innocent people.
Last night, I heard the news: the U.S. had bombed Iran. I texted a friend: “We attacked Iran.” We. Even if we didn’t vote for it. Even if we don’t agree or understand. It’s in our name. In our field.
There are many people in the world today, maybe even reading this, who feel powerless, ashamed, and heartbroken about what their governments are doing in their name.
This morning, I took a walk. I watched two neighbors greet each other as their dogs sniffed and wagged. And I thought: A bomb could drop right now. We’re not far from D.C.
We are unbelievably lucky to be walking our dogs and complaining about the humidity.
Both are true. The horror. The ordinariness. The beating heart of life. All at once.
I was holding a poop bag while thinking about war.
That’s what it means to be alive right now.
But here’s what I’ve also seen, again and again:
Love lives in the system too; no matter how dark or shutdown.
One moment of being seen can soften decades of pain.
A stranger’s kindness can shift the narrative that’s been echoing for generations.
A single healing sentence can move a weight held by an entire lineage.
So, what can you do today?
Be present. Acknowledge what’s real.
See people, not for what they represent, but for who they are beneath the story.
Speak healing sentences. Hold a hand. Be love, in whatever way you’re able.
You’re not alone. Not in your grief, not in your awareness, not in your ache to make the world more bearable.
We’re here. Together.
Love from my heart to yours,
Cathleen
P.S. You ready to put more healing into the world with constellation work? Let’s get started.