What are Family Constellations?
Family Constellations are a remarkable way of connecting with the truth of challenges that we face that bring deep healing and transformation.
One of the ways in which family constellations support is by enabling us to identify if any of the life challenges we face might be because we have inherited trauma or challenging patterns from our ancestors.
Family Constellations give us an insight into what our ancestors were going through, with trauma patterns that may have become stuck, that we can bring movement to (“unstick”, as it were), freeing us from those inherited patterns.
Where did Family Constellations come from?
Bert Hellinger (1925 - 2019) was a psychotherapist from Germany. The Nazi party failed to recruit him as a youth, and he was classed as 'Suspected of Being an Enemy of the People'. He studied Philosophy and Theology, and became a priest, and then travelled to South Africa in the early 1950s as a missionary, and lived with the Zulu people for decades.
Whilst Bert never stated that Family Constellations were a reflection of the wisdom he discovered with which the Zulu people explore and shift challenges, Family Constellations are a reflection of how indigenous tribes around the world address challenges, found in Taosim, Native American, Native Canadian practices, and in tribes from across Africa, amongst many other peoples.
All indigenous peoples of the world understand that we are all part of a system; a collective in which each person belongs and has an important part to play. All indigenous peoples of the world honour and celebrate the important role our ancestors play in our lives.
Can Family Constellations be done 1-2-1?
Yes, they can. My love of family constellations has evolved into seeing how profound they can be using the Blueprint Essences® to represent what needs representing. I also use Systemic Constellations at the Golden Spiral International School of Homeopathy so that we can explore the histories of the homeopathic greats, and the greats in the natural sciences, as well as for personal transformational development.
How many sessions are needed?
This question doesn’t have a set answer. Some people bring one issue and experience resolution. Where there is a lot of trauma, several constellations may be needed. Also, it’s a way of healing life’s challenges or discovering more about ourselves and our ancestors which means that we choose to constellate or represent in family constellations regularly, in the way others might have therapy or a massage regularly. For some people having both individual therapy and doing constellations can be remarkably powerful as they sit alongside each other beautifully.
How do Family Constellations work?
Everything exists within a “Field” (of energy or consciousness). Trauma or difficulties, or repeating patterns can become stuck in “The Field”, if they weren’t healed or resolved at the time, and then that vibration gets passed down to subsequent generations. The Field is always seeking to bring peace to where there has been pain or chaos - it seeks coherence.
In constellations, we facilitate a safe space for what needs to be understood, shifted, and seen in order for something that is stuck to be able to move. We look at what is happening in “The Field” - the energy of the system - in this case, the family system. Family Constellations show the truth of a situation, which can bring a deeper understanding or a shift in perspective sometimes and with that healing.
Another Self Series on Netflix
There is a beautiful series on Netflix Another Self which follows a friendship group to see how the challenges each character faces could be a repeating pattern from something that happened to an ancestor. Each episode shows a different constellation, and is wonderfully depicted. The series was made in Turkey, so would need to be watched with subtitles if you don’t speak Turkish, and is so worth seeing. Series 2 and Series 3 have been confirmed too.