Constellating (Family) Systems Sunday

Yes. Experiences of “too soon, never, too much, not enough, etc., have shaped how we mend an event, like a car accident, or a fall. This may be straight forward, depending on present day and developmental resources. How, and what, we learned about being human, the early experiences of nurture, protection and guidance –and their absence!!– shaped a completely unique nervous system. It all established resourcefulness, precedes day-to-day vulnerabilities, and connects to managing life’s joys, wounding, and loss.

Family and cultural contexts (systems) shaped us with an amalgamation of values, care, examples, demands, neglects, historical, and place details. What was passed on to us can still become influentioal in times of struggle. This spells, that trauma can no longer be deemed an individual(’s) ‘thing’ to take care of and get over. Parents, earlier generations, economic, cultural, and social circumstances, proclivities around raising the young, and historical embeddednes of our and their lives, all is implicated.

When we take this seriously and add –well researched– generational transmission of trauma to any biography, well, complicated does not cover it. Many issues are reaching far back into history (wars, famine, tragic deaths, and more) and far ‘out’ (unrelenting symptoms, a work team, school problems that including other kids, and more.)

Constellating Systems Gives Us a Leg Up  

If our presence to life’s joys is dimmed, our nimbleness to life’s challenges frozen, and we get stuck ion the face of needed/wanted choices, constellating is a magnificent tool. It makes stuck places visible, tangible, and is a space –and the process– for change to emerge. Adding useful meaning, making space for presence, feeling supported, rather than hindered by legacies, well, Constellating Systems does much of this by creatively and attentively mending broken connections in a system’s fabric.

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Describing constellations, as the method of choice, is notoriously difficult. Facilitators and participants, both, may throw up their hands, 🤷🏼. Moreover, what we see and experience, has no explanation in a Newtonian world view. So, let me try:

Constellating Systems (families, organizations, your Inner World System) is done by visibly representing parts of a given system, relevant to the issue presented. This allows us, as in a living, relational snapshot, to see relational patterns of disconnect and entanglement, mostly, not accessible in a spoken narrative. Representation illuminates (often) outdated loyalties to the family of origin, an organisation, a workplace, and, no less, across tribal generations. By standing “in an other’s shoes”, as a representative of a part, we receive access to an issues ‘relational architecture’ within the system, and can, via the spatial positioning, clearly see life-giving and life-limiting patterns. Constellating Systems Werkstatt Sundays in Boulder are in-person gatherings. We constellate via embodied representation, and relational interaction. This leans into our supportive willingness to embody a part of another person’s troubles.

As change seeker (‘client’) you choose representatives, set them up inside our circle, according to your inner experience of their spacial relationship. Within moments, the somatic awareness of a representative’s  experiences shifts (as, in sensations, emotions, ways of holding the body, needing to move, and more). The information given by your representatives guides the facilitation of processing relational grievances, nourishing possibilities, finding peace, and more.

I call this trauma mending through the use of language, placing, movement, emotional expression, play, and reconnecting. It adresses issues with a co-worker, your father, a sibling, your headache, exploring a generational legacy and, again, more. We attend to frayed places in your ancestral (or present day) fabric, notice entanglements, revisit outdated sacrifices, seek what restores belonging (or, makes live giving space!) and invite & discover new resources. In short, we imagine and try out possibility. Every Sunday Group, it bears mentioning, is a unique heterotopia (other-space) that co-creates and inhabits a distinct co-awareness. The take-away is a relational tapestry, co-woven during numerous constellations by each of us for each of us.We will have honoured painful and complex issues. We will have shared and generated grace. We will take away our gratitude for each other. And, above all, we will savor embodied connection to Self, Others, and the World at Large.

We look forward to seeing you, soon!    Karin & Marla