What Makes Love Work
The Magic of Systemic Constellations
Illness - Depression - Relationship Difficulties - Personal or Business Misfortunes
The very love that entangles us has the power to nurture and heal us once it is allowed to flow freely again.
Families have an unconscious mind that travels the generations and entangles those who follow in the fates of those who came before. Issues such as illness, depression or suicidal tendencies, relationship difficulties and poor fortune often have their true roots in our family. The dynamics of this larger family system lie beyond our awareness, yet their effect on our lives is profound. For example, a granddaughter haunted by depression is affected by her grandmother’s unexpressed grief for a stillborn child. Or a family's business misfortunes stem from the wrong-doing of an uncle. As children we may unconsciously take on a parent or relative's ill health, depression, bad luck or other misfortunes through mis-guided love and family loyalty.
Family Constellations reveal hidden loyalties to forgotten, betrayed or suffering family members.
How to find the threads that bind us to the fabric of our family's fate? In Systemic Constellations the tool is the use of Healing Circle participants as surrogate family members. Each participant sets up his or her family "constellation" by choosing other participants to stand as surrogates for family members. The participant uses his or her inner sense of how those family members are organized, and places each one within the circle. Once the constellation is "set," an information field forms. This field gives astonishingly precise insight into the hidden dynamics of each family. Surrogates tap into the feelings, stories and secrets of each family member, often with such precision that they unknowingly reproduce posture, voice tone, physical attributes or exact phrasing of the person they represent - without ever having met them! In this way, Constellation work can safely and easily reach deep into the inner workings of our family's unconscious mind to reveal and quickly release long standing difficulties.
Once the truth is revealed, order can be restored to our family systems and healing can occur.
The participant now has the opportunity to stand outside of his or her family system and see it and their role in it clearly, perhaps for the first time. Once hidden entanglements are brought to light, the facilitator can then gently guide the surrogate family members to find the placement and healing words that will allow love to flow freely in the family. The participant and his family regain the strength to face fully whatever fate life has given them. In acknowledging what is and telling the truth with love, the participant can find a true and lasting freedom.
Bert Hellinger...
is the creator of Systemic Constellations, and one of Europe's most innovative, provocative and well-loved systemic therapists. A former priest, an educator, missionary to the Zulu in South Africa for 16 years, a psychoanalyst, body therapist, group dynamic facilitator and family therapist, Bert Hellinger has brought a life-time of experience and wisdom to the development of this work. Now this exciting new systemic work is coming to America.
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