What is Family Constellations, & How It Can Help shift stuck family patterns?
Family constellations are based on the idea that “our well-being is tied to the well-being of our family system, or “family soul,” including the living, the dead, and generations prior. A post-modern approach to an ancient practice of honoring your ancestors. A family system entanglement can cause a variety of disturbances later in life. These are evident in the following statements.
- Troubled relationships, difficulties with parent-child relationships, financial hardships, or professional challenges, as well as addictions or self-sabotage
- Feeling unfulfilled, restricted, or unable to reach your life goals
- Repetitive negative behaviours
- Weighted down by persistent anger, fear, anxiety, depression, sadness, or guilt
- Grief, overwhelm, or bereavement
- Suffering from unexplained illnesses, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or PTSD
This therapeutic approach supports the hidden or unconscious dynamics of the family system. It helps resolve deep patterns, trauma, and entangled dynamics.
Science now backs up this way of working, which is why this work is so powerful. Neuroscience and epigenetics have begun to show that trauma and patterns are passed on from generation to generation. Hence, we must address this work in a way that supports healing in the unconscious part of the brain.
Once you start to peel back the layers you will discover how generations of patterns, behaviours, and emotions within your family have unconsciously influenced and impacted you and your family members. This provides a new perspective and insight into the dynamics that influence your decision-making and what keeps you stuck. Once this is revealed the chain is then broken which then initiates transformation and healing for you, your children, and future generations.
Orders of Love
Orders of Love explain how a family system comes into homeostasis. What puts a system out of balance, and the ways in which members of the system unconsciously try to restore balance. The Orders of Love are:
Belonging. All members of the family system have a right to belong.
Order. All who belong must be given their place. Every member of the family system has a place.
Balance. Relationships require a balance of giving and receiving.
Belonging
Every family member has a right to belong. Whether consciously or unconsciously, family members are easily forgotten. Cantankerous relatives, black sheep, or outlaws. First loves, first marriages, and babies who enter the world briefly are also common. It is common for people to put these losses out of their minds when they are too difficult to bear. Despite family members’ attempts to erase memories, all of these people belong to a family system. Family consciousness knows when someone is missing. Family systems will attempt to acknowledge a missing family member if they are cast out, actively excluded, or passively ignored. To restore the flow of love and belonging, we need to remember, see, and acknowledge the missing, excluded member of the family.
order
Throughout a family system, there is an order based on time. Parents come before children; the first child comes before the second, etc. In cases of multiple spouses or significant relationships, the first spouse comes first. When members of the system are not given their place, chaos ensues. Subconsciously, they become confused about their place, who is who, and they fight whoever is taking it away from them. For example, if the first child dies prematurely, and another child comes later, the first child still must be acknowledged as the firstborn. Acknowledging the first child who died early – or any family member whose order is unclear – can resolve many issues.
Balance
Whenever someone gives to you, we are compelled to give back – maybe even a little more than they gave. When someone takes more than they should, or takes something they are not entitled to, the system attempts to make up for it. In its most basic form, parents pass life energy down to their children. As a result, children feel compelled to do anything for their parents in order to give back. Out of love, they may share in their parents’ struggles. Attempting to repay them, they hold a stance of “I’ll carry your burden.” As a consequence, family systems become imbalanced.
Some of the Benefits of Family Constellations
- Releasing the blockages that are restricting your growth
- Eliminating generational burdens for you, your children, and their children
- Clearing the impact of transgenerational trauma in your life
- Redefining your relationship with money, finances, and abundance
- Creating positive changes in your relationships (parents, partners, children, colleagues, friends, etc.).
- Making peace with your past and accepting who you are today
- Improving empathy, love, and compassion in yourself and others
- Finding clarity about your life goals and who you are as a person
- Bringing yourself into alignment on all levels
It is impossible to describe what a typical Systemic Family Constellations session looks like, because this form of therapy is not a top-down attempt to ‘fix’ you, but a bottom-up process of drawing out what lies underneath. Systemic Family Constellations is as unique as you are.
Are you ready to make that change? Allow me to hold you as you unravel the ancestral roots that are out of alignment, so that you step fully into your truth