Family Constellation: A way to heal generational traumas
Contributed by :Ms. Gayatri Bari
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A Family Constellation is an alternative healing technique; a group process of trans-generational healing that has the power to shift generations of suffering and unhappiness. Bert Hellinger, the founder of this work from Germany, who studied and treated families for more than 50 years, observed that many of us unconsciously "take on- carry” destructive familial patterns of failures, anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, aloneness, alcoholism and even illness as a way of "belonging in our families”, which is a sort of blind love. Bonded by a deep love, a child will often unconsciously sacrifice his own best interests in a vain attempt to ease the suffering of a parent or other family member. It is the Unconscious legacy but disrupts life of that family member in many ways. Younger generations subconsciously try to bring Homeostasis to the family which may result in patterns which are not healthy and do not belong to them. Accidents, suicides, killing and murders, leaving the house or boycotting a person for whatever reasons, property disputes, cheating, untimely and unnatural deaths, miscarriages, abortions, still born, emotionally charged events and suffering patterns, hereditary diseases continue to disrupt lives of family members.
Constellation is the unique placement of stars in the sky. Similarly every system, every family has a unique placement of members organized tightly within the system Family Constellation supposedly attempts to reveal these previously unrecognized systemic dynamic that can span multiple generations in a given family and helps to resolve these deleterious effects of that dynamic by encouraging the subject to accept the factual reality of the past.
Family Constellations helps us to break these patterns of entanglements, carried over generations so that we can live healthier, happier, more fulfilled lives. It helps clear away blocks and restores the flow of love in your family, across generations. It frees you and your children from invisible burdens carried in order to belong in a family, across generations. It helps resolve conflicts within self and in relationships. Through this process, in a moment of insight, a new life course can be set in motion.
All unresolved and stuck areas of relationships, money, work, career, multigenerational-hereditary issues, and health problems are worked upon with Family Constellation. It gives an energetic skeleton of our issues which brings up hidden dynamics of all aspects into open and generates movement towards harmony. The results can be very transformative. It transforms your relationship with your family, work, health, money, life and much more, by uncovering and dissolving the blockages affecting them. It gives us an insight and helps us in making healthier and appropriate choices.
A session of Family Constellation is carried out by a facilitator for a client who comes with an issue. A client chooses a representative person for the self and places him/her in the central place intuitively, which is called ‘All Knowing Field’. He/she also chooses other personalities in the family (whoever has a significance related to an issue).
Also abstract things connected to an issue, for example: money, success, happiness, confidence, support, resource, wisdom, life, death etc and place them in the field. Each of them reveals the connection to a client, in a way shows the dynamics. Light is shed on the dysfunctional aspects of the family unit. In a startlingly real way, the family dynamic is accurately depicted and is often recognized by the members of the family for the first time. Then movements of all these characters take place towards resolution with the help of a facilitator. Every person placed in the ‘All Knowing Field’ in spite of not knowing anything about the personality they represent, feels and acts the same way as the client’s that particular family member does. This sheds light on specific emotions and relational aspects that have clear implications for the issue at hand. At higher level all human beings are connected. They are all one and a constellation session reflects that. At the end, a representative is replaced by the client to experience the shift that was created by a session.
Throughout your entire life, you maintain an emotional and energetic connection to your family, regardless of how physically distant you may be from them. This approach creates a very powerful and moving experience. Each member of a family, whether adult or child, longs to feel significant and find their place within family construct. Family Constellation sessions helps amazingly towards resolution of any issue one has in life. It helps you connect with the family in a healthy which is strength and at the same time it helps you to gain back freedom to choose your own life!
