What do Jimmy Carter and Carol Burnett have in common? Answer: they are both "family emblems". This is the "superstar" pattern, where the individual consistently puts out at much more than the average bear's capacity. They are spectacularly successful in most areas of life, and they rise to the top of whatever endeavor field they engage.
But paradoxically, they come from a highly dysfunctional family in which virtually everyone else in the family spends their life groveling around in the shit of the family system and its effects on their lives. You wonder how in the world this individual could have come from that family.
The situation is that they were "too tough to tame", and so the family decided to "co-opt" them and to utilize their strengths and accomplishment capabilities to their advantage. So they go out of their way to pave their way to the vindicating and ego-stroking success that marks the life trajectory of the "family emblem". The trouble is, though, that the "Family Emblem" then spends their life feeling guilty about their success. They are vulnerable to the immune system disorders like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Epstein-Barr as a result.
HOW DID THEY GET THIS WAY?
What happens here is that the individual is too personally resourced for the family to coerce or con or cajole into fitting into the family system. So they decide to make an example of them instead. They then devote as many of the family resources as they can to set the stage for universal success by this individual. And that includes their backing off the processes of script-induction that hold for everyone else in the family.
They therefore set things up so the individual is in touch with more of their inner essence and "God-given" capabilities than most people ever are allowed by the vicissitudes of family life and the process of living in the world as it is. This in effect makes them appear to be "saints" -- all giving, all-wise and knowing, and comprehensively competent. And the family works hard at supporting and encouraging that impression and pattern of functioning.
However, the result is that the individual now has to live up to perfectionistic standards, as they serve as the "EXAMPLE". And they also have to deal with the jealousy and rage of the siblings, who, in addition to the obvious discrepancy of treatment and accomplishment, are having to deal with the fact that the "Family Emblem's" characteristics are being used to beat them over the head along the lines of, "Why can't you be like Johnny/Joanie?".
To make matters worse, the "Family Emblem" is encouraged to develop and they are massively supported and resourced as they do so, while the siblings are systematically destroyed and deprived. And then the parents do a lot of "rip off" messaging to the "Family Emblem" as a guilt-induction to "prevent them from getting too big for their britches" and to keep them emotionally enslaved to them.
In the meantime, the parents point with great pride to the "Family Emblem's" characteristics and accomplishments, deriving huge satisfaction in the reflected glory, and in the "proof" that the other children are the way they are for reasons other than the family characteristics and functioning pattern -- the "bad luck of the draw" on the "seeds" they got.
This whole pattern has the effect of putting the "Family Emblem" into a double bind in which no matter what they do, they feel like a total turd. For one thing, they experience it as their fault that their siblings are in so much trouble and misery. Yet if they don't live up to their potentials, they betray the whole family, and the siblings misery is for naught.
There is also another double bind with the family. And that is that as the "Family Emblem" begins to reap the rewards of success, the family insists on "cashing in" on them -- after all the "Family Emblem" owes it to them. If the "Family Emblem" complies with these demands, they get sucked into the family system by, for instance, allowing them to enter their world -- and to totally fuck it up. But if they don't, they are betraying the family, actively harming them, rubbing salt in the siblings' wounds, and adding insult to injury.
WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?
The result is the "superstar" pattern. The individual is superior, above and beyond -- and lonely at the top. They also feel guilty for the vaulted "rip offs" of the siblings, their feeling being that they wouldn't be where they are if it weren't for their getting the breaks "stolen" from the others. In addition, they have great shame about leaving their family behind in desperation due to their total misfit experience in the family. They even have a kind of "survivor guilt" when looking at the miserable masses.
The "emblem" tends strongly to be success-minimizing, and to feel lucky rather than specially endowed. They assume, "I got more at their expense" as the reason for their career. They are also forever fearful of entrapment back into the family failure system, along with the terror of family members showing up like the "Beverly Hillbillies" and ruining their reputation and lifestyle.
The "Family Emblem" finds that there is no joy at the top for this and one other reason. And that is that it is "lonely at the top", due to their high skills, their above and beyond soul and self-development, and their poor peer skills because there never were any peers as they were coming up. So they end up a much-regarded "island unto themselves" who has a great deal of difficulty dealing with their underlying depression and despair.
HOW DO THEY FUNCTION?
The "family emblem" is a compulsive contributor -- to give back what they've "stolen" or "undeservedly received" or "selfishly gleaned". They feel dreadful if they aren't contributing in some way, if they aren't giving from themselves, if they aren't sharing what they've acquired and become. They feel that they simply have to serve to live with themselves and to live with their "ill-gotten gains".
And that includes doing what they can to elevate the situation and position of their family members -- often by entering them into their work, their entourage or their notoriety, if they think the person(s) can at least minimally handle the tasks and responsibilities and not cause excess damage. Unfortunately, their judgement in these matters is usually not very clear, due to their feelings about the matter.
They also have to deal with the lack of comparable people in the populace and in their field of endeavor for the most part. In addition, there is the continuation of the problem of the jealousy of others, this time both from the people in their field and also the general public. Then there is their fear of "family skeletons" showing up and putting their trips on the "Family Emblem", disrupting their life, and ruining their reputation with their intensely crippled behavior patterns.
They also have to handle the fact that no one is in a position to comprehend them and their situation, so they tend to discount inputs from others unless the source matches their criterion of relevance and respectability -- which few, if any, ever do. They don't listen to the advice of fools when their life is involved. It is a "soul stuff" problem that requires self-protective moves. The problem is that this, too, feeds their guilt/shame issues, this time around "elitism" and "arrogance" feelings and accusations.
"Family Emblems" feel that they have to perform to perfection to justify the resources and presumed rip-offs involved in their success. They are in essence compulsive achievers in a bending over backwards to prove to their family that it wasn't their ripping off their siblings that led to their success and position. It's a kind of "I'll show THEM!" process. And it reflects the fact that at base, they still buy the belief that they really don't deserve to be where they are. They aren't really success-seeking. They are "maelstrom"-avoiding, very vigilant and self-protective, as they try to prevent being "sucked in" to the family system and to their own internalized family system. In other words, they are still undifferentiated from their family and they are compulsively tied to them despite it all.
Finally, there is the nagging fear of a "bad seed" (that shows up so much in the rest of the family's functioning) rearing its ugly head and bringing them down -- hard. These are their "The Truth will finally out!" feelings. That is, they often harbor the notion that they are somehow tainted and a fraud that will eventually show their true colors by commencing deterioration to the level of the rest of the family.
All this results in the sad irony that while the individual is hugely successful in the world, they are not successful in their internal state because of all the turmoil generated by the dynamics created by the family's way of reacting to their superiority in the first place. Furthermore, this whole pattern wreaks havoc with their intimate life. On top of which, because of their still being so caught up in the "tie that grinds", they have a heavy "fatal attraction"--"nemesis figure" propensity to become involved with the wrong people (who are re-runs and stand-ins for the original cast -- and act accordingly).
HOW CAN THEY BE HELPED?
For the relatively rare times that such individuals seek help, guilt-alleviation is the top priority intervention. They are highly responsive to information, and they can be reminded or informed of the whole "crutch" (dysfunctional) family dynamic and functioning system, as well as examining their own unique learning history with them in these terms. They can also be told that their "rip-off guilt" and "bad seed anxiety" are totally unjustified, though understandable, given the circumstances. They need to know that they are not their mother's, father's, sister's or brother's keeper, and they have to get off the "rescue" number before it destroys them.
In addition, they need assistance in feeling right about looking out for their own interests and protecting themselves. They need realistic inputs about rejecting all the hangers-on that latch onto highly successful people. They are so guilty about their family of origin, especially their siblings, that they tend to bend over backwards to accommodate such individuals. They are not responsible for other people's feelings and situations -- the other people are, period. They need reassurance that their "snobbishness" and "pickyness" around who they let in their life is reality-based, not cruel, arrogant or elitist.
Another area they need to work on is the acceptance of mediocrity, inadequacies and dependencies in themselves -- of their human limitations. They also need to learn to play, to love themselves and to contribute to themselves -- to be spontaneous, "frivolous" and joyful. They tend to feel that their life is very heavy with implications and ramifications, and to be super-somber about their life, position and responsibilities. They also tend to be perfectionistically merciless with themselves over normal human frailties. They are full of the "Wizard of Ought" feelings -- "It should be this way, it must happen in this manner, it ought to be what it is obviously NOT!".
Still another area that they need to work on is about doing things because they are their passion, not because of perfectionistic performance patterns or compulsive contribution conundrums. They have spent their life developing their capabilities in their chosen field of contribution as a kind of "justification" for all the "costs" and "harms" that have gone into their success. They need to let go and flow with their feelings as well, to develop other aspects of themselves for the pure joy of it, or to risk failure in new aspects of their forte for the sheer excitement of exploring themselves, their field, the world, and the cosmos further.
Finally, they need to release themselves to "lighthouse" for their true peers and intimates. In other words, they have risen above their origins and they have left their settle-for support people behind, and they are lonely at the top. They need to feel justified in putting out "all points bulletins" to the effect of, "If there is anyone who can decode this message because they are on my level and relevantly responsive to my wavelength, please step forward!".
This will also help in their difficulties with intimacy, which are brought about by their "fatal attractions" initially. They think they don't deserve any better. Later, when they do find appropriate intimates, they tend strongly to project their family and their family's needs onto their intimates and to behave accordingly. Acknowledging that they need truly relevant peers, resources and imitates to do their life work and because they deserve it will go a long ways towards healing this area of their life.
WHAT IS THEIR PURPOSE?
They are what they are -- superstars. It is an inherent soul and destiny thing, along with well-selected genetics. But they also selected their family of origin to train them in the ways and workings of the world, and in where people are at now. They also used it to "temper their metal" so they could really carry off their intended destiny.
And they have succeeded, especially if they have worked through the "side effects" of the training program. Then they are able to be a self-accepting major community and cosmos contributor who reaps and utilizes the rewards of significant manifestation very well indeed.
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