Systemic Family Constellations is a method that allows us to look at the systems we are part of from a soul perspective – dropping down below the cognitive and into the somatic (body-centered), intuitive and more-than-human realms that are just beyond the veil of our day worlds. Many say it needs to be experienced to fully understand this process.

Systemic Family Constellation allows us to look at the family systems in a way that may reveal dynamics or dis-harmonies that in general, remain hidden. Through this process there is potential for a new perspective on these dynamics to allow for healing.

This process takes place within a group of participants who, for the time of the process, are in support of the “focus client’s” particular issue or challenge they are working with in their life.

Aspects of the family or members of the family are placed within the circle and the “representatives” of each part engage in non-verbal communication that represents the true nature of the part they are representing. The representatives will be asked by the facilitator to express their emotional or sensational experience in a non-theatrical way.

To understand the circle in which this work takes place, it is helpful to have a little insight into British biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s hypothesis of morphic resonance: “Morphic resonance is a process whereby self-organising systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems. In its most general formulation, morphic resonance means that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits… Thus each individual inherits a collective memory from past members of the species, and also contributes to the collective memory, affecting other members of the species in the future.”

Relating this back to family constellations we look at the potential of individuals carrying on possible traumatic memories of past ancestors. In addition to the memories, there are possible behaviors based on those memories that no longer serve the system as well as they once did.

Hellinger refers to the potential that we get “entangled”‘ with these possible memories and behaviors out of some obligation we feel towards our lineage or a particular ancestor. There are certain events that have deep impact on a family and members may take on emotions or behaviors of another as their own. There are many situations where we can see this as more apparent:

• a mother dies during childbirth and the child survives
• holocaust survival guilt
• descendants of slaves
• descendants of native-americans or other ethnic groups that were subject to traumatic history
• tragic accidents in which a family member has died
• adoption
• surviving twin

In this method, light is shed on the dynamics within the family system – some healthy and some potentially dysfunctional or out of harmony. In a remarkable and sometimes surprising way, family dynamics are accurately depicted and frequently, with a more removed perspective, focus clients see them for the first time.

For a client to see what is or is not their own can be powerfully healing in itself. Participants often leave with a life-changing understanding about themselves and their lineage and the dynamics that can have impact on our relationships.