Joan Garriga: “We must not deny our wounds, but transform what we received”

Joan Garriga says the past cannot be rewritten, but the way people inhabit it can change. For the Catalan therapist and leading Spanish-language promoter of Bert Hellinger’s work, that shift begins with accepting the full story a person received at home.

In his first book, "Where Are the Coins?", Garriga uses coins as a metaphor for family experience. Some people receive love, care and protection. Others receive abandonment, violence or indifference. Accepting those coins, he says, does not mean approving the damage. It means recognizing honestly: this was my history.

The difficulty comes when people reject what they were given completely. Someone may insist, "I do not want to be like my father" or "I will never be like my mother," yet continue organizing life around that rejection. Garriga says this can leave people in victimhood, chronic anger, perfectionism, fear, withdrawal or pride. Defenses that once protected them from pain can later become a source of harm.

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Avoiding pain keeps us in suffering. We cannot change what happened. But we can change the way we live with what happened.

He illustrates the therapeutic process with a poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado about bees turning old bitterness into wax and honey. "Avoiding pain keeps us in suffering. We cannot change what happened. But we can change the way we live with what happened," Garriga says. "It is not about denying our wounds. It is about transforming what we received and not reproducing the suffering. It is never too late to have a happy childhood."

Garriga will visit the country in November to lead a workshop. His new book, "Change: The Seven Stages of Transformation on Life’s Journey," is scheduled for publication in September.

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It is not about denying our wounds. It is about transforming what we received and not reproducing the suffering. It is never too late to have a happy childhood.