Family Constellation

What would it be like if we could look behind the facade of our workplaces and discover the soul movements of the workmates, the boss and customers and unveil why we’re part of this organisation on a deep soul level?

We actually can! The soul healing modality of family constellation in the method of Bert Hellinger can also be used to look at organisations. The dynamics which we can see in family systems through accessing the information from the morphogenetic field of the family which has stored any kind of traumatic experiences throughout the generations can also be used to look at dynamics in organisations to find that what is the healing movement to solve an issue and bring back balance to the workplace, the sports club, the charity or whatever organisation we are looking at. 

Where ever you go, you take yourself with you.

I have worked with clients from large organisations to being self employed, from politicians to jail directors and employees, each of them were struggling either with their role in the organisation, wanted clarity about a certain project or thought about re-structuring the whole or parts of their organisation. Some have been very unhappy in their workplace but felt stuck and not able to change, others wanted their organisation to be more efficient or to find out what is causing an imbalance and who is not in their right place in the organisation.

So how can we apply Bert Hellinger’s family constellation and the ‘Orders of Love’ to an organisation? ‘Where every you go, you take yourself with you’ goes the saying. Words of wisdom handed down to us from ancient buddhist teachings. And now we can add : Where ever you go, you take yourself AND YOUR FAMILY SYSTEM with you! That is exactly why we can use family constellation to find out the imbalance in an organisation: because it is just a mirror of the own family system.

We are creating the world we are living in exactly in the way we’re entangled in our family system, until we find the way to look at the dynamics that are hidden in plain sight and heal the family wound. Like unravelling a ball of yarn the cat has played with, we only need to find 1 of the 2 ends of the yarn and start pulling and threading, following the loose end in its tracks, until the whole mess has been put back into order and the yarn is nicely rolled up to a ball again, ready to be knitted into a beautiful garment. One end is here in this picture the family constellation, the other end is the organisation constellation. The point is: it doesn’t matter which end you start to pull on, it will inevitably lead to untie the knots all the way to the other end. You can tackle an issue with a family constellation OR an organisation constellation, the result will be the same: more happiness and freedom for yourself and your family.

For example, often when I constellate an organisation I observe that the customers or the founder are overlooked by the client, either they are not  represented on the board and only the departments, the colleagues and the boss are chosen, or they are placed looking away from the organisation, the customers or the product. Or the founder of the organisation is not mentioned neither represented and therefore cannot be honours as the one who came first which leads to an imbalance due to a breach of the first order of Love as taught  by Bert Hellinger. The family system of the client will show the same imbalance: the customers could have be representing an unacknowledged family member, the founder a dismissed ancestor, the boss the father etc.

In episode 4 of the family constellation ViRTUAL podcast I’m reporting about a case from my practice where I demonstrate how to facilitate an organisation constellation and how closely this is tied in with the family system. Here we see how the organisation the client is working for is tight up with his mother.

You can listen to our podcast on spotify and also on our website here.

Until next time, stay happy and free! Maia

In family constellations we often use the term ‘healing the family wound’, but if we look closer it might not be obvious what the ‘family wound’ is. In this blog post we’re enquiring what it means and how to heal the family wound in a family constellation. We will then connect the dots by referring to Bert Hellinger’s ‘Orders of Love’ and look at a family constellation which demonstrates how the healing process of the family wound takes place.

A wound is by definition an injury to the physical body where the skin is damaged. But here is another meaning of the word wound:  an injury or hurt to a person’s feelings or reputation.

Deep emotional turmoil often leaves a wound in our emotional body, also referred to as the Soul.

We even talk about ‘scars are left on the heart’ after the ‘heart is broken’. The expression ‘scarred for life’ is often used to describe an emotional wound or a trauma that doesn’t fully heal.

The family system one is part of by birth or through certain actions has a soul, the seat of emotions, which can be injured through physical impact or emotional trauma. Severe pain is causing a wound and leaves a scar on the family soul when it’s not fully healed. The wound we are talking about here is caused by a member of the family system which has been hurt or traumatised that in turn compromises the integrity of the family system and leaves an injury or ‘scar’ on the family soul. For example an act of violence that led to their death or a severe disadvantage to their life, or an action that results in casting out a family member, causing the individual to suffer on a deep emotional level for the rest of their life until they die.

Due to Bert Hellinger’s ‘Orders of Love’ (from German: Ordnungen der Liebe), any disruption of the natural flow of love in one’s family system is causing such a wound to the family soul. This is mostly the deliberate or accidental untimely death of a family member, caused by someone else, or creating a severe disadvantage to someone else by taking the house, land and money away without any renumeration (i.e. during ww2 in Germany), or dismissing and outcasting a family member due to their values, religion or disabilities which didn’t fit the picture of the family.

Here is an example from a family constellation (name changed):
Sam struggled his whole life with success in his professional career and with romantic relationships. In his family constellation representatives for several family members have been chosen. After a few minutes it was clear that this family members were disconnected and couldn’t relate to each other. The representative of Sam was restless and looked for someone who wasn’t represented. By adding an additional representative for the missing person the family members became agitated and relieved at the same time. Sam’s representative was very much drawn to the added person and felt very sad and sorry for him. He wanted to apologise to him, but nothing in his life has ever happened that would’ve needed an apology. The representative of his maternal great grandfather started to look at the newcomer from the side, feeling ‘awfully guilty’. The new representative was focused on him. It became clear that the great grandfather took advantage of the other person which lead to a lifelong struggle for survival. Sam suddenly remembered his grandmother mentioning a long time ago that the prosperous farm they are living from once was on tribal land and the indigenous people have been banned from the area. This was what we were looking at right here in the family constellation! I suggested to Sam’s representative to say to his great grandfather: ‘I see his pain and agony, I love him, he belongs to us’ – powerful words of truth taught by Bert Hellinger to move the souls. As a result, the representative of the great grandfather was able to connect with the missing person and take over responsibility for his actions. That was all that was needed to heal the family wound. Sam felt like a huge weight has lifted off his shoulders. Months later he got in touch and said he has a fulfilling job now and is enjoying life like never before.

By healing a family wound all family members are relieved from the burden that has caused it and can experience more freedom and happiness in their lives. Another scar on the family soul has been mended and is vanished for good. This is the power of Inter-generational Healing within the Morphogenetic Field through family constellations in the method of Bert Hellinger.

Hari Om
Maia

I’ve been often ask by my trainees if clients who are suffering of a severe mental disease which causes a psychosis or who are schizophrenic, can be helped with family constellations . There is no short answer to this. In this blog post we try to explore the dynamic that causes mental diseases in the family system with the tools given by Bert Hellinger. This is off course not a discussion from the view-point of the mental health care and is not meant to replace an ongoing therapy.

Firstly, family constellation is a healing modality that looks not only at the individual, but at the whole family system. Bert Hellinger said, the cause for schizophrenia is always systemic and not individual.

That being said, it doesn’t mean that a mental illness can be healed by healing the family system, so that it is completely gone, he only said that it makes no sense to only work with the person who is experiencing psychosis when the cause of it lays in the family system.

This is the different to classical psychology, where only the patient who is diagnosed with a mental illness is treated. And here it is also taken as a fact that Schizophrenia cannot be healed, only managed with medication. But does that not seems to be true for most diseases from the perceptive of the professional medicine practitioners, i.e. for heart disease, diabetic etc?

The cause for schizophrenia is always systemic and not individual.

Family constellation is a modality that heals on a soul level: every disease (dis-ease) is the result of the soul not being ‘at ease’, which allows an energy blockage to manifest in the physical body that will lead eventually to what we call an illness or disease. When looking at a disease in a family constellation one can find the event that has caused this blockage (mostly a severe trauma) back 7 generations and lift it by finding the Order of Love for this family system and allow the souls to move towards it.

Is this also true in a case of schizophrenia? In one of the earlier videos (watch it on youtube here) you can see Bert Hellinger working with the parents of a schizophrenic child. Both parents are entangled in their own family system. The child is twist and torn and entangled with both, mother and father. This situation is like a cat biting its tail to go round and round without end. We can see this behaviour when a participant, representing a family member, is going in circles. There is no way out. This is how schizophrenia looks in a family constellation. What is the healing movement here when one family member is entangled with 2 different family members with opposing dynamics?

I have yet not seen a solution to this. Often a family constellation has to be broken up when it comes to this point, as everything is going in circles and no healing movement is taking place. But that being said, there is always a first time for everything. And who knows, maybe some day in a family constellation an unexpected movement will bring the relief from this dynamic, and a new field has opened: the healing field of psychosis. And through the connection with the morphogenetic field of family constellation facilitators this information will be available for all helpers.

And the good news is, there are no side effects of a family constellation that doesn’t have an impact on the family system. It just keeps on going with what has always been. Until one time..

Love, Maia