Family constellations: this is how they reveal invisible patterns and bring the flow back into your life

A family constellation is an effective method to gain insight into the force field of your family system and how you function within it. During a family constellation you start to feel invisible family patterns on a deeper level. At the same time, an inner cleansing takes place at a level that your ratio cannot reach. Cumbersome patterns that you experience in your daily life may come forth from family patterns. The patterns that occur in the family system continue to repeat themselves, so also the burdensome patterns.

Family constellations: this is how they reveal invisible patterns and bring the flow back into your life

Through destiny, you are inextricably entangled with your (biological) family system of origin. A family constellation is an effective method to gain insight into the force field of your family system and how you function within it. But what exactly happens during a family constellation workshop? And what does it do in the long term? How the energetic field works exactly remains mysterious. But "do you want to be happy or get it?" I often ask my clients. If you try to fully understand the systemic way of working, you go to your head and the family constellation has less effect on your entire body. Just let the healing happen in your body ...

During a family constellation you start to feel invisible family patterns on a deeper level. At the same time, an inner cleansing takes place at a level that your ratio cannot reach. Cumbersome patterns that you experience in your daily life may come forth from family patterns. The patterns that occur in the family system continue to repeat themselves, so also the burdensome patterns. If you are well in your specific place in the family system, you seem to find your way in your daily life with much more ease. During a family constellation workshop invisible patterns are made visible and therefore more manageable in your daily life. With family constellations you will experience what it is like to stand in your own and unique place in your family system, and what the effect is if that is not the case. You not only become aware of the dynamics you are dealing with through your ratio, but you also feel it in your body.  Often you will also feel the potential that is available in you.

HOW DOES A FAMILY CONSTELLATION WORK?

The client comes with a question that serves as the entry point for the family constellation. The question may be "why am I unable to maintain relationships and how can I change that?" Or "it seems as if I have pressed the accelerator and the brake pedal simultaneously in my life; how can I break the patterns that are not serving me right? "Or" I can't stand authority, so I'm always in a struggle, which costs so much energy. " Or "I bear all kinds of responsibilities for others, but I always exceed my own limits; how can I learn to let go? "The constellation facilitator will keep asking further questions to connect through an inner attitude with this client and the family system of origin. The first question doesn't really matter. What is essential is that something wants to be "seen". So there must be power behind the question. I do not react to questions that arise from curiosity or at levels that do not concern the client. For example, you do not have the right to know what is going on with your parents; just the family dynamics that influence you. The constellation work starts by inviting participants to serve as a representative for someone from the family system. For example, they represent the person who brought in the question, the father, the mother, the aborted child, the grandmother, a child of the person who brought in the question, etc. They position themselves in a certain way in the room. Representatives appear to be able to feel very pure what happens in the people they represent, which gives you valuable information. 

It becomes clear how the person asking the question is related to the others. Blind spots become visible. After this diagnosis, we look at which interventions are possible, so that the questioner and the family system are given more power. Solution directions arise through the family constellation. You get a different view of the situation, which will have an effect on your life. It becomes clear how you can act. During a family constellation I often "subtitle" what happens, so that the client not only feels what is going on but also "understands" it on a cognitive level, as far as we can understand a family constellation at all. I often subtitle the family constellation based on the metaphor of the fountain. I use this metaphor to make clear what everyone's unique and own place is (see my book "The fountain, find your place"). In my book I describe the dynamics that can occur in a family system. During the family constellation you start to feel this at a deep level and at the same time an inner cleansing takes place, often at a level that your ratio cannot reach .

WHY IS A FAMILY CONSTELLATION SO POWERFUL AS A SYSTEMIC VIEW?

You are inextricably linked to your system of origin. In a system there are invisible laws that can work for or against you. There is no escaping that. Your family system is very nfluential on your life. As a person you can step out of an organization, a club of friends or association or a city or village, but not from your biological family system. This bond will always remain. You can break contact with your family in daily life (whether or not internally), but right then the systemic laws and traits will come foreward. The harder you deny where you come from, the harder the family system will attract you and you will remember that you have something to look at. Your repeating patterns will often manifest themselves stronger. When you try to break with your family system (which is never possible in the depths), the systemic principles play an extra role and precisely in the encumbering form instead of in a supportive and nourishing form.

CAN MIRACLES OCCUR DURING A FAMILY CONSTELLATION?

Unfortunately, miracles are not going to happen during a family constellation. What will be made visible is what is going on in the depth of yourself. You remain responsible at all times, how you deal with life and which actions you link to it. With every choice comes a consequence and an adult accepts it without complaining. The miracle often lies in the fact that something very different is playing in the depth than you have rationally thought of. To get a grip on situations, you often make a throbbing story of something to make it so explainable. This is a survival mechanism. A family constellation often shows something else. I regularly get clients who say they can't get along with their mother. Often in a constellation it appears that they take care of their father and reject their mother from that deep love because the father would become jealous if the child would love the mother as much as the father. This always arises because in cases where the father has had deficits in his family system. To accept the mother inwardly, you must then become "unfaithful" to your father. That price is sometimes too high. You'd rather not do well than to let go of the responsibility for your father. In reality, these people find their mother not as annoying as they think they do. A family constellation then often shows the deep love, sadness and pain towards deceased siblings, miscarriages and aborted children that have not been grieved in daily life. Non-mourning often pulls you away from life. A family constellation exposes this very purely.

WHY IS A FAMILY CONSTELLATION HEALING FOR A REPRESENTATIVE WHILE HE/SHE IS NOT HAVING IT’S OWN FAMILY CONSTELLATION?

On the one hand you are unique as a person and on the other hand not at all. We all resonate with the human themes of others. Even though you are in the circle around the family constellation and you do not participate as a contributor or representative, you will be touched by the issues of others because they resemble your own themes. You recognize the loyalty conflict of the children in the divorce of the parents or you recognize yourself in the other who is so angry with the father, and you actually feel how much you missed him. When you get back to your feeling that you have missed your father (even though he cannot be there for you), you are connected to him again. Or you feel the pull in the family constellation of someone else where you recognize so that your mother always claims you because she is so needy. Family constellations will open up and visualize (old) wounds visible and also heal them at the same time.

HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A WORKSHOP  IN FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS?

You cannot really prepare, because you never know in advance where a family constellation is going. I follow the movement of the family constellation very faithfully. I assume that what is visible must be addressed before coming to pre-mentioned issue. Participants in a family constellation often find it very exciting in advance. Experience shows that almost everyone always feels enriched and strengthened afterwards. Space has also been created that was previously not felt.

HOW DO GET FAMILY CONSTELLATIONS TO HAVE A LONG LASTING EFFECT?

Family constellations are like seeds. They can end up in something very beautiful or peter out. Pulling seeds very hard makes no sense. They develop at the pace that fits that seed. At the end of a family constellation, it will automatically become clear what your follow-up actions and steps are. Meanwhile, you can keep repeating and remembering the nourishing images of the family constellation and the final image. Family constellations do not have to be a fairytale to work properly. In any case, I assume that reality is the most healing. My experience is that people can handle the tough reality but that false hope is destructive. It is also useful to keep scanning your body for primary emotions. You always process something on two levels; On the one hand on a cognitive level and in practical action and on the other on an emotional level that you feel in your body. In your body you have to "sense" the primary emotions in order to become cleaned and healed emotionally.

HOW "SPIRITUAL" IS A FAMILY CONSTELLATION? 

I find ‘spiritual’ a complicated word. During a family constellation a force field and laws reveal themselves that generally apply to family systems. However, these are yet unknown and not scientifically proven. Is that spirituality, physics or an uncharted territory? We cannot currently explain how systemic laws work, but I take advantage of it to live by those principles. Sometimes I say to my clients: "Do you want to be happy or understand it?" If you want to fully understand the systemic way of working, go to your head and the set-up has less effect on your entire body. Often a family constellations shows that the body of the client knows exactly where it wants to go (for example to the mother), but the head stops that movement, because it remembers the pain, the suffering and the heaviness. The magic of family constellations lie in the movements that arise "naturally" with the representatives. Representatives also know "things/events" that they cannot know. How did they get this movement and information? We sincerely don't know. As a representative you do not play a role, but you have access to deep and unconscious layers of the family system of another person in which you are positioned. It is very special and unforgettable to experience it yourself and to observe this in the circle of participants, and at the same time to resonate if it touches on your themes.

ARE THERE NAY RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH PARTICIPATION IN A FAMILY CONSTELLATION?

Coach and constellation facilitator are not protected professions. So always check references. A thorough education is necessary because although it is said that as constellation facilitator it’s impossible to make  mistakes, I don’ believe it. A parent who walks to his child in a family constellation is really not OK. That parent is needy. A child will go to the parents, not the other way around. From the force field a lot seems to happen during a family constellation. Sometimes it is accompanied by intense emotions, mystery and all kinds of (in my eyes) unnecessary rituals. I don't believe in that way of practicing family constellations. It only distracts from the essence. The question is whether such a family constellation  has any effect in daily life and whether the cumbersome pattern is broken. All too often family constellations are used as a therapeutic soothing agent and not systemically, whereby something painful must become visible. The art is to stand in your place in the fountain and to allow everyone and everything that also belongs to the system their place; without bearing judgment and responsibility for what is not yours. Another note about risks; consult your doctor if it is advisable to do a family constellation if you suffer from mental illness and are taking heavy anti-depressants. 

I am grateful that I can do this work. My clients tell me about the positive effects when truly looking at painful realities and reasons for cumbersome patterns. Wear what is yours and let go of what is not yours. in my terms: I hope you are firmly in your place in the fountain and wish you a flowing fountain.