The major credit goes to Sigmund Freud for making us aware of the early imprints in childhood and how they lay out the course of our lives to a degree much greater than commonly understood.
Actually, I sense a certain resistance in the public in appreciating and accepting the impact that our parents and our family have on our lives.
‘Yeah, I know’, people often say.
I dare to write, most actually don’t know.
I understand the reasons for not wanting to fully look into the mirror of our programming. It is the same for me.
It’s can be humiliating for this ego structure that I believe I am, to admit that the degree of my personal choice and freedom is much smaller then commonly assumed.
We all share one human experience, we are daughters and sons of parents – even the test tube babies are conceived via a human sperm and ovum. And we are born into our particular and unique circumstances in time and space, called our family.
Traditional psychological work started out one on one -- the famous ‘couch’ sessions of the early psychoanalysts, made famous and poked at, in movies like ‘Analyze this’.
Forty or fifty years ago, the spectrum of interest and research expanded to the family unit – the beginning of what we now call family therapy. Another expansion happened about 25 years ago, when a German Psychotherapist, Bert Hellinger, introduced a new approach to working with families, called the ‘Family Constellation Work’. Through his work, it became clear that families are like systems and within these systems certain ‘rules’, ‘laws’ or as Hellinger started to call it, certain ‘orders’ were observable.
The process of Family Constellation involves a group of people coming together, and each participant chooses to set up his/her family of origin. He/she will choose people to represent the members of the family of origin.
Once the initial set up is completed, the representatives are reporting what they perceive evoked by the ‘Field’ that has been established by the set up of the constellation.
The amazing phenomenon that takes place and often stuns the participants is that the representatives actually DO sense and feel and get information that they are passing on to the group and the facilitator. There are many gifts that arise through this manner of working with family issues. To the amazement of many participants and those who set up the constellation, the ‘Field’ thru the representatives, gives many clues and insights into the particular dynamic in the family.
Just being in the room and observing the family constellation processes can be life changing -- it is truly remarkable.
By observing and working with thousands of people, what appears to be clear is that within families the generations are inter-connected. For example a crime done in a past generation, that was hidden and had become a family secret, is in a way atoned by the following generation.
There is an invisible link between the members of a family that transcends time and space.
I know those of you who are scientifically trained to be skeptical, your hairs might stand up in doubt and criticism.
I understand, mine stood up too.
And I have experienced it many times. Incidents in the past DO impact the following generation, if they were repressed, hidden, not owned.
It is as if there is a hidden conscience working within a family system – this is Hellinger’s conclusion. If you are intrigued, go to hellinger.com and read up on amazing true stories from around the world.
Now, besides being astonishing and amazing, what can Family Constellation do for you and me?
Participating in the constellation work shifts the participants’ relationship to his/her family.
It allows for a deeper connection and a deeper understanding and experience of the BOND, that connects families. Often, family members are unconsciously violating the inner order the family, which in constellation work can be re established.
Let me give you a small example from my own process.
I am the second child out of three, and as it happened, had the chance to a higher education then my older brother. Without my conscious realizing, maybe from the age of 9, 10, I believed I was better then my brother, and that I knew more, and felt superior -- so in an hidden way rivaled with him to be actually the bigger one, the older one.
With this unconscious pattern I violated one basic principle of order in a family system namely that how much time a child has spent in the family determines his/her place in the family system.
My older brother was born first and is Nr. 1, then me, Nr. 2 and my younger brother is on the Nr. 3 spot.
When this became visible and was brought to my consciousness thru the constellation work, something shifted in me towards my older brother. I started to respect him as my older brother and stopped making myself better than him. I stepped back into my place within the family system. And as the order got re-established, our relationship really improved.
I never talked to him about it. Something in me shifted and our relationship became closer. I didn’t make this up.
Many people have reported this phenomena:
When something within our ‘psyche/soul’ (or inner world) shifts, the outer follows.
The value of Family Constellation Work cannot be overstated and I struggle on how to get that across.
Without knowing, most of us are entangled in an invisible net, which binds us in tragic situations, has us repeat patterns in relationships, affects our health, our capacities to be successful and to bring our unique contributions forward.
I worked with thousands of people over the last 25 years AND there is no way around other than to turn lovingly towards ones past and be curious about what is in there – and ask the question “what is it that I am entangled in, enmeshed, unconsciously impacted by?”.
The family Constellation is an elegant, profound, amazing, outrageous, artistic, wondrous and awesome process of setting your relationships with the fundamental people of your life RIGHT, in order – impacting the rest of your life.
Family Constellation is relatively new in the United States, yet you should be able to find information on the web about different offerings. One personal recommendation is my friend Peter Devries at constellationworks.com
I, myself offer my own version of this process in a seminar that I call ‘THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE SEMINAR’ which involves the basics of Hellinger’s work in combination with my personal inner Journey work, creating a power- and wonderful personal transformation.
The next HES takes placein Washington DC, May 9/10.
(There are also HE’s taking place in Florida, Vermont, Ottawa, Chicago and San Francisco) For more information contact me at michaelijs@gmail.com or call 415-990-5629
