We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men... We are who we are because they were who they were. It's wise to know where you come from, who called your name. -- Maya Angelou

Genogram Exercise

This is our last “big picture” exercise. Today you are going explore generational and family patterns by doing a genogram. Genograms are used for lots of different things, but in this course, you are creating your genogram to explore your family stories (spoken and unspoken), values, strengths, weaknesses, and generational traumas. (So, even if you are groaning because you did one in some group in the 1980s, please stay with me here as we use your genogram to explore your life stories!)

A genogram uses symbols to depict a lot of information in an abbreviated way to facilitate new insights about where you’ve come from. Your story is shaped by those that came before, so I'd like for your to take a look back.

These are the symbols used to represent different members of your family. Use squares for males and circles for females. (Transgender symbols are a mix of both.)

You can choose to use different types of lines to indicate relationship patterns, but not all genograms do this. Add different lines as they feel important or useful to you, but ignore them if they do not.

Instructions:

1. Tape together 4 sheets of paper so you have room to work on your genogram.
2. Start at the top by writing symbols to represent your paternal and maternal grandparents and work your way down. See if you can do three generations of relevant relationships.
3. After you've written out three generations, look at the genogram and make some notes on the persons and relationships. (Any words that come to you and feel appropriate.) Remember to note both strengths and weaknesses (eg., alcoholic, creative, had affairs, hard worker, black sheep.) Note any patterns that you see running through your family.
4. Pay more attention to how you want to represent these people and relationships and less attention to doing it "correctly." Your genogram can be a complete mess and hard to understand. Only you need to understand it! Play with it until it feels right to you.

Here are a few examples to see how different they can look:

StoryList:

We will spend more time tomorrow reflecting on this exercise, but jot down any stories that may have come up for you today in your StoryList notebook.

Be kind to yourself today. You are doing hard work!

Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible. ― Camille Paglia