How does Family Constellations work?

How does Family Constellations work? It works by calling in information from the field of the family soul. You do this by the client asking a question such as “I just can’t seem to make a relationship work, I want to know why”. The field will then provide information relevant to that topic. After a short discussion the facilitator will suggest to the client that they look at a specific topic – a selection of people who are most relevant.

For the question above they may look at the client and his current relationship to see what information is reveealed. In this case they would set up representatives for the two people involved and allow the field to show the dynamics including any blocks. Another option would be to set up representatives for the client and each of his major relationships to see the pattern and gather information and insightes from throughout his life. A third option would be to setup representatives for the client’s family of origin – Mum, Dad, and siblings to see what gets revealed that way.  There are many options.

Once setup the field will reveal insights and clues as to why the client is having difficulty. It could show a blockage between the parents that is affecting the client or an identification, an entanglement with a past ancestor who never married or who was heartbroken by a partner and never trusted another. The client could have a hidden loyalty with this ancestor and it would impact the client’s ability to have a successful relationship.

These loyalties, entanglements and identifications occur at the soul level, the subconscious level. The client may never have heard of the ancestor or what they experienced, but energetically they are intertwined. The field will reveal this, enabling it to be acknowledged, respected and let go of. The entanglement can be resolved, any unfelt pain or trauma felt and released. This benefits all involved.

The family soul is looking for harmony and peace, to have the pain released, for love to flow. It recruits current family members to do this on behalf of the ancestors. Once it is completed all are free from the burden. The Family Constellation process enables this to occur.

Trust your intuition and inner guidance, it will tell you whether this is a process you wish to undertake to free yourself and those you love. It is well worth doing so love can flow freely between you all. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne M Smith (26 March 2017).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

What is Family Constellations?

Family Constellations is a method for clearing our blocks to love within families. When the blockages are cleared, all members of the family feel stronger, more supported, more connected to who they are, where they come from and they know they belong, that they are okay, good enough and a necessary part of the whole.

Much of the pain that people feel comes from a sense of not belonging, of having been rejected or not accepted in some way. Many people feel not good enough in some way. This comes mostly from their childhood experiences, but it can also come from further back the ancestral line.

Unhealed wounds within the family soul will affect how the current generation feel. It will affect how much of their energy is available now to use as they please and how much of it will be entangled with their past experiences or their ancestors’ past experiences.

Family Constellations helps to clear these entanglements so that more of your energy is available for you now. This helps you to feel stronger, clearer and to be able to focus on achieving your goals, living your life and raising your kids.

By clearing out the wounds, traumas and entanglements within the family soul it stops the transmission to the next generation. It frees them of the burden to complete it on behalf of the ancestors. You are being of great service to all of your family when you do this work to free them all from the chains of past trauma – rejections, exclusions, unspoken of tragedies, losses and early deaths.

Pain does not disappear. If trauma is buried, life does not just go on as before, it is tainted, limited, the life force choked and diminished. Freeing it back up, feeling and completing the trauma, lets the life force flow more fully again.

Family Constellations is a technique for identifying blockages within the family soul and clearing them. It helps individuals to break free of the entanglements that have impacted them and enables them to move forward with greater peace and harmony. It is a powerful process, sacred in nature, with its respect for the bigger movements of life, destiny and evolution.

It is a process worth doing, not just to benefit yourself, but your whole family. They may not consciously notice the effects, but energetically they will and you may notice changes in their behaviour, their thinking, their sense of self. For their energy will be freed up enabling them to move forward in whatever is the best way for them, for their highest good.

Family Constellations enables love to flow throughout the family which benefits all. I recommend it and have experienced powerful shifts myself through its use. No longer do I judge my parents or my family. No longer do I resent their choices or their lack of love shown to me. I have seen their pain, their entanglements and accepted they couldn’t do any better with the burdens they were carrying. They did the best they could with the situation they were in. Each had pain and felt unable to move, to be present, to give to me what I needed. The pain I felt was theirs and others in our family lines – it passed on through them to me. This continues to occur until it is healed. In doing Family Constellations I have resolved much of this, so my children will be less burdened than I was or my parents were. This is the gift of Family Constellations, to free yourself and your loved ones, so all can feel more love, more acceptance, more peace. Blessed BE, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne M Smith (26 March 2017).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

Intergenerational trauma

In this video, Mark Wolynn, author of the book ‘It didn’t start with you: how inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle’ explains intergenerational trauma, how and why it happens and how to stop the trauma being passed on to future generations. I loved this book and got many useful insights from it for myself, for the courses I teach and the clients I serve.

The Imprint – Excerpt from IN UTERO documentary

The science of multigenerational trauma, showing how stress is passed on in utero, imprinting the foetus with the trauma and stress the Mother experiences during pregnancy and that which has not been dealt with from the previous generations.  (2:50 mins)

Here is the link to read the whole Huffington Post article by Kathleen Man Gyllenhaal and Stephen Gyllenhaal titled ‘In sickness and in health, it all begins in the womb‘.

Further videos and articles explaining intergenerational trauma and how to heal it, are provided on the Intergenerational Trauma page of this website.

What is the family soul?

reflective-treeThe family soul is the collective energy that surrounds a lineage of people from the same family. It contains all the memories and experiences of everyone in the family.

When there is trauma or exclusion a wound occurs to the family soul, a distortion of the energy, so instead of love flowing through the family line, pain now flows from the ancestors to the current and future generations. This also occurs when the orders of love are reversed, for instance if a parent is absent and a child does not receive the nurturing and connection it needs. The absence may be due to war, abandonment, physically if a child is given up for adoption or if a parent themselves is sick, unavailable emotionally or physically. When a parent is ill or emotionally unavailable, often the child will try to ‘give’ to the parent to help them cope or feel better. The child takes on responsibilities that are not theirs to carry – it may be helping out a lot around the house or caring for the other children or even caring for the parent. The orders of love are reversed in this instance as the flow of energy is child to parent, instead of it being the parent giving and the child receiving.

It also occurs when someone is excluded from the family, because everyone does belong to the family system, no matter what they have done. Excluding someone is like throwing a block, a big boulder into the flow of the family soul, the river of lifeforce energy flowing to all people. The block diminishes the amount of energy available to all people. Worse it creates a tear in the fabric of the family soul that will only be healed when that excluded person is bought back into your heart. If this does not occur, someone in future generations will subconsciously choose to relate to the excluded person and will end up feeling like they are not accepted or don’t belong, they will repeat the fate of the excluded individual as the family system attempts to heal the wound.

It is just like our personal journeys where life presents us with a repeating situation until we learn the lesson. This is the same thing, but at the family level. Discovering this enables those who are suffering to resolve it by welcoming the excluded person back into their heart, energetically welcoming them back to the family system and restoring them to their rightful place. This allows the lifeforce energy to then flow freely again to all members. This occurs at the soul level, energetic level, it does not have to be physically and often it is an ancestor long dead who was excluded and in need of reconnection to their rightful place in the family.

If there has been trauma in the family system, be it war, violence in the home, tragedy from loss of children, divorce, early death of parents, etc then this trauma can also pass through the family system to the current and future generations. It is as if the unresolved pain seeps through the blood of all involved instead of love, strength and support. This too can be healed so that those affected are freed from their over reactions to situations, the inappropriate feelings or thoughts they may have that don’t seem to be appropriate or consistent with their life experiences. For instance persistent suicidal thoughts or depression or anxiety could actually be resulting from entanglements with past family members, you are feeling their feelings, they are not actually your thoughts. These cease once the wound in the family soul is healed by acknowledging the tragedy, the loss and giving it it’s rightful place, allowing all to feel and move through the situation, instead of being stuck and controlled by it.

The family soul is a container of energy around all members of the same lineage, when all is well in a family you can feel the flow of love, flowing from the ancestors to yourself and the other current family members. This energy strengthens you, supports you and encourages you to live your life as you wish to do so, for you are the leading edge of consciousness, the person now evolving while here on Earth and expanding the consciousness within the family. The ancestors want you to succeed and do well, they want you to thrive and advance the family line. This is life as it was meant to be. This support is available once you heal any blockages to its flow. It is worth doing and quite easy when you know how.

There are many methods that can help. Family constellations is one of these, where the field supplies the information about what is missing and blocked and needs to be resolved within the family system. The challenge then is to feel what needs to be felt, forgive all involved and welcome them back into your heart. It is a similar task to our personal issues, just with some larger influences. It is a part of our evolution, our connectedness and oneness with the fabric of life. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (15 September 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

Why do we inherit family trauma?

Trauma that cannot be processed by one family member, because it is overwhelming, they do not have the skills or knowledge of how to process it, or do not have the will to feel it and release it, will be passed on genetically to the next generation. It also of course affects the rest of the current generation due to the unavailability of the traumatised person who will be isolated within themselves, possibly numb emotionally and distant in their ineracting with others, be they their children or siblings.

Trauma stays within the body and freezes part of the person’s energy, it is literally stuck, frozen in time within them, locked into when the trauma occurred. It stays in the body until it is processed and if it is not processed then it remains locked in place, creating internal tension and dis-ease.

No individual wants this to occur or be passed on to their existing children or grand children. It is not an intentional thing, it is an automatic thing. If Dad has died in the war then Mum is going to be mourning, she is not going to be able to be present fully for the children or meet their emotional needs. The children will sense Mum’s pain and feel their own loss and mourning, so they will try to get Mum to feel better, so they can get the attention they need. If it doesn’t work they eventually give up trying and switch off, shut down emotionally, feeling empty, unloved, unsatisfied with life.

The pattern then repeats when they marry and try to get the attention they missed out on from their husband or wife. No matter how loving the partner is, they cannot make up for the emotional pain or love deficit from their partner’s childhood, so it will feel unloving or not enough. They may try hard to give enough, to do extra, be extra affectionate and giving, they may try to fill that hole in their partner. Eventually they realise no matter what they do it is not enough, it doesn’t work and they are exhausted from trying, so they switch off, shut down, isolate and become emotionally numb as well, so the pattern continues. No malice, no cruelty, just life when there is trauma within one or both partners in a relationship.

So how do you resolve it? By becoming aware of the trauma within, by creating a safe enough space that you can feel it, acknowledge it and let it dissolve. By seeing your defense mechanism and games you have used to protect yourself from it.

  • Have you kept yourself so busy that you can’t feel?
  • Have you been saving the world, feeling righteous putting all your energy into others or a cause, but neglecting yourself, avoiding yourself and your inner world?
  • Have you been pleasing others, doing for others, hoping that they will love and accept you and you will feel that you are okay, lovable and worthwhile?
  • Have you been isolating yourself from others, keeping a low profile, so as not to be seen or to avoid any possible further trauma? By being preoccupied with avoiding it, you stay stuck in it and will have difficulty exeriencing any joy in life.

There are many defensive mechanisms that people use to try and keep safe or to avoid their feelings. Looking good so to avoid rejection, fearing you won’t be accepted as you are, so you try to be, look, do everything perfectly. This is exhausting. It is no wonder people end up depressed or ill, their life force is being frittered away with fear and their over reactions to it.

To clear the trauma and stop passing it onto our kids we need to become emotionally aware and savvy in processing how we feel. Learn to go within and sit inside yourself, breathe, let the emotion surface and breathe through it, let it be released, felt into completion. It can’t be avoided. It has to be acknowledged and felt. Thank the defense mechanism for keeping you safe, but choose to be present for yourself and your inner child now.

happiness inside jobIt is this inner child part of you that needs your reassurance, your love, your acceptance. It needs you to become the good parent to yourself, to know that you will look after him/her and protect her, you wil be the Adult guardian she felt was absent in earlier years. As she feels safer and you feel and release the pain, you will find you are not triggered by life any more, you can live more in the now and be there for those you love. Your children, if you have any, will notice this shift, they will feel your presence and they will absorb your love, your attention, and you can meet their emotional needs, fill up their inner cup with love so it is overflowing, then they can acept themselves and enjoy their lives.

If their cup does  not get filled and they feel empty, forlorn, they will at a soul level choose to take some of your pain, some of your trauma so you feel better and then you might be able to love them more. They abandon themselves to care for you. This is a reversal of the orders of love and is damaging for all involved. Parents are meant to give and children receive. However, it is often reversed in many families when the parents are hurt, injured or unavailable, whether that be due to illness, addiction or absence.

Children try to make the parent happier, they may try to be neater or tidier, they may help out with the housework or try to cheer the parent up with jokes, they may try to steal the attention through getting into trouble to distract you from your pain or they may even sacrifice their own health, choosing to get ill so you will focus on them and not feel your own pain. Children are so loving, but this is not healthy behaviour.

In doing this chldren miss out on being kids, they grow up way too fast and this stunts their natural growth and emotional development. It locks trauma, pain and loss within them and so the cycle repeats. When they have their own children they will sense the parent’s pain and do the same thing, hence it passes through the generations. No malice, not deliberate, done out of love, of wanting to help and of not knowing how to heal the underlying issue of emotional pain and trauma.

Thankfully in today’s world we do have the knowledge of how to heal trauma, how to bring love back into the family system and to correct any reversals of flow, so that the younger generations can receive the love and support they need and deserve from the ancestors behind them.

Family Constellations and other methods can help individuals to heal their family systems, enabling hope and love to exist for all family members. There is much more that can be said about this in future blogs, for now this is enough, to understand that trauma passes through families until love is restored.

Each family member can find peace and happiness when the blocks to love are removed. It can be done, support is available and you can learn the skills to feel your emotions and release that which is locked away inside you. It is possible, it is worth doing and your children thank you, because then they don’t need to do it for you, the burden they carry for you is transformed, freeing them to enjoy their lives more. Such love, such loyalty, such strength and commitment to each other, that is what families are about and it is beautiful. Blessed BE, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (10 September 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

Common reasons for restriction to our lifeforce

In this video Mark Wolynn explains four common themes or reasons why we may experience a restriction in our lifeforce and difficulty in our life. He explains these themes from a systemic family constellations perspective. The themes are: 1) we have rejected a parent, 2) we have unconsciously absorbed an emotion or experience of our parent and are playing that out in our life, 3) we have had a break in the early bond with our Mother, and 4) we have identified with a relative who isn’t spoken about and has been judged and rejected. These unconscious patternings affect the way we see the world and what we attract into our life experience. Through systemic family constellations you can unhook from these patterns and regain your lifeforce, thereby improving your experience of life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZZbDzeEGZ0

The impact of a lack of nurturing and stress on the brain

This (4:15 mins) video by Madhumita Murga explains how a lack of nurturing when we are young can limit our ability to cope with stress and creates changes to the way our DNA is expressed. These changes are passed on to future generations resulting in them having a sensitivity to stress.

Chronic stress damages the brain in several ways, which are explained in the video. The good news is that the damage can be reversed by releasing the stress and healing the trauma that caused it. Many stress reduction techniques can help including exercise and meditation, while therapies like Psych-K and Family Constellations can assist in healing any trauma and emotional pain underneath it.

Epigenetics – explaining how we can inherit trauma and tendencies for anxiety and depression from earlier generations in our family.

Here is a great article explaining how our ancestor’s negative experiences affect their DNA expression, which can be inherited by future generations. For instance, if Grandma was raised in an abusive, alcoholic home or suffered some other trauma, some of that trauma and reactions to it can be passed onto future generations, predisposing them to becoming anxious or depressed.

epigenetics article