The Family Constellations Mysterium

“It’s spiritual and a bit of a mystery,” that is all my son’s art therapist would tell me. For fun I had been taking a few sessions with her as well and when I mentioned that I was looking for a personal development modality that wasn’t strategy or massively talk based, she mentioned that he husband did Family Constellations.

Obviously that one sentence about some sort of spiritual mystery didn’t satisfy me and when I got the chance, I asked the man himself what we were going to do in the session. He gave me a dirty look and told me to be quiet. “Give me a single question about your life,” he said. This was very bizarre. I thought about a feeling I had been carrying around with me for a while and said, “I want to know why I always feel >this way<.” I took a breath to explain, but was cut off by the instruction to be quiet.

In the end my first experience was very odd, but now I am seeing that most facilitators approach clients in the same way.

If you’ve seen the Netflix series “Another Self”, you know how in the first episode they just read a little blurb online and then find themselves sitting quietly in the circle just watching, listening and feeling what comes up.

I get the question a lot – “What is it?” The quick answer is that it is an energetic healing modality that is supported by a few core beliefs about life as a spiritual person. It was developed by a German named Bert Hellinger who found that each person carries within their energetic field, the memories & traumas of their whole family system. What this means is that our lives can end up entangled with the fate and feelings of other family members without us being consciously aware.

What makes this modality different than others that work with a similar concept, is the visual and embodied experience of the soul field. Instead of you talking about your family members and being asked to analyse or explain your feelings or events, you choose representatives from the people who are present to stand in for your family members. These representative feel into your family system, into the family soul and the person they are representing. You as the client, need only sit back and watch these energies unfold. The goal of the session is for there to be a movement towards healing.

The most awkward question I get is “but how does it work? How do they feel your field?…” There is no answer to this. People feel because they are human. Why and how Family Constellations work is a bit of a mystery, a bit of magic that you cannot pick apart with a critical analytical brain – and if that is what you are looking for, there are many lovely talk and analysis based coaching modalities….

Another aspect to keep in mind is the belief that the people who are present, are the people you need. If you feel called to attend, it is the right time.

And as I think about ending this post, the main point is that if I were to define Family Constellations to you, I would be setting limits and boundaries, expectations and hopes – that is not my job. I hold the space for you to have whatever experience is right for you, based on your felt experience of the constellation.

It’s been over four years now that I have been studying this modality, and I have found it brings me peace and a feeling of expansiveness. I would like to offer that to you too.

In the beginning, yes, it is a spiritual mystery with odd unanswered questions. You decide to go on the journey, or not. That’s all.

Resources:

🇳🇱 Marijke de Vries – Kunstzinnige Therapie – the wonderful art therapist in Haarlem, Netherlands

A Free Introductory Course from one of my teachers Bertold Ulsamer:
🇬🇧 Family Constellation – A Significant Method for Your Growth
🇩🇪 Methode Familienaufstellung Kennenlernen

The only other Family Constellation Facilitators I know of in Singapore:
🇸🇬 Redefine Wellness