Family Constellations
What are Family Constellations?
With our culture’s focus on individuality, we tend to think that challenges in our lives are simply our own problem. In fact, dynamics in the systems we belong to can impact our relationships, our career, our “luck,” and even our health. Family Constellations (also called Systemic Constellations) are a way of exposing and changing the hidden dynamics that are getting in the way of our best life.
The term “constellations” in this case does not refer to stars, but rather to a grouping of people, such as a family, business, or community. This approach also can be used to work with aspects of ourselves or our relationship to a goal.
In some cases, our situation needs to be seen in a larger context in order to be understood as well as enable resolution to finally happen. Once inherited family trauma and hidden dynamics are acknowledged, it opens the way for our innate self-healing capacity to move forward and for respect and love to flow between people.
With the science of epigenetics, we are beginning to understand more about how the traumas of past generations can impact younger generations. Our fate can become linked to the fate of someone else in the system. Through Family Constellations, it is possible to unravel the unhealthy connections within our family or organization so that we have more freedom in our lives.
Family Constellations use “representatives” to map a system. These representatives could be objects, paper placeholders on the floor, or even other people in a group workshop. Often, simply seeing the system laid out will begin to spark insights.
How can Family Constellations help?
Family Constellations can be helpful with:
- Creating a shift in challenging relationships
- Getting out of your own way
- Uncovering how hidden dynamics are related to symptoms—especially chronic conditions or symptoms that haven’t resolved with typical treatments
- Restoring your energy and enthusiasm for life
- Providing new perspectives that make forgiveness, including self-forgiveness, easier
- Changing repeating life patterns—in your own life or across generations
- Accessing resources that you didn’t know were available to you
- Finding a sense of belonging
- Recovering lost parts of yourself
Why explore a Family Constellation Private Session or Workshop?
Symptoms, accidents, or counter-productive habits often are thought of as a personal phenomenon—something we experience independent of the system to which we belong.
In fact, invisible dynamics in a system often have a profound influence in our life. These inherited family traumas can show up as health issues, bad luck, being unable to move forward, or patterns in relationships that seem to keep repeating, such as betrayals, losses, or difficulty connecting with other people.
Family Constellations can help to shift the dynamics of relationships—our relationships with other people, ourselves, or our goals—to open up new possibilities for health and happiness. This work can help you to tap into new resources and to find your place in the world.
You can find more about family constellation workshops here and more about a private family constellation session here.
Our Approach
Many times, system-based reasons explain the difficulties in our lives. As Family Constellation facilitators, we offer private sessions to clients or work with groups to discover how hidden system dynamics are influencing them—and to change those dynamics.
When our good efforts in other ways don’t create the changes we want, looking more closely at systemic factors can be a powerful tool. This is part of our holistic approach in working with clients—taking mental, emotional, energetic, spiritual, and systemic factors into consideration.