Dan,
Thanks for sharing this piece with us. I have to say that in the six
years that I've been practicing Constellation Work, I've only come
across a couple of scenarios that resonate with what you describe and
both of these seemed to be more a matter of the Father seeing his
role as protecting the family from an outside threat, while the
Mother say her role as focusing on the heart of the family in the home.
As Margreet suggested, I think we are prone to seeing those dynamics
that most resonate with our own. I also think that it can be a very
good thing to check this out with others - as you are doing here - to
see if what we perceive as a fundamental dynamic is in fact shared by
others.
namaste,
Kenn Day
www.soulsolutionshome.com
On Jan 21, 2007, at 11:03 AM, Dan Booth Cohen wrote:
A colleague asked me to write a short essay for an on-line newsletter. I
have pasted a draft below. I'd be grateful for editorial feedback,
comments, critiques, etc. Thanks in advance, Dan
The Family Constellation approach originated in Europe in the 1990s and is
gradually gaining recognition and acceptance in the U.S. In a Family
Constellation circle, one person presents an urgent personal issue, such as
"I can't control my anger," or "My marriage is falling apart."
With the help of a facilitator and the group, the "seeker" sets up
representatives, similar to a psychodrama. Unlike psychodrama, once the
representatives are placed, they do not pose, act or roleplay. Instead,
they stand silent and still. The representatives tune in to feelings and
physical sensations that mirror the consonance and dissonance in the family
as it relates to the issue.
By observing this simple "constellation" of figures, the seeker perceives a
hidden pattern that runs through the family. In many cases, it is an echo
of trans-generational trauma that influences the seeker to unconsciously
repeat or atone for events from the past. Once this pattern emerges, the
representatives are repositioned in a new configuration that relieves the
representatives, the family system, and thus, the issue as well.
The observations that follow come from my participation as a facilitator and
representative in hundreds of Constellations. They do not represent a new
theory or a proposed universal principal. They are simply a report of the
patterns I have seen repeated many times. The next time, something entirely
different may emerge that will expand the knowledge base without diminishing
what has been observed before.
For many of us who had unhappy childhoods, being the daughter or son of our
mother and father carries a heavy measure of pain. Not that this is not the
whole story; our feelings for our parents are multi-layered and complex. In
my experience, two predominate patterns emerge over and over: mothers always
do their best and fathers often disappear to the horizon.
Neither of these patterns is always visible. In troubled families, the
surface is like turbulent white water on a surging river. At this level, we
are in contact with our mother's behavior, which can appear like anything
other than "their best." Similarly, our fathers may be abusive in countless
ways that make us wish he would "disappear to the horizon" and thus finally
leave us free of his bad behavior and moods.
In a Family Constellation, we become still and silent while maintaining a
sharp level of awareness. This enables us to sink below the raging
disturbances of the surface to make contact with the currents below. This
is where these patterns emerge.
In Constellations, we often perceive how our mother's resources and capacity
were diminished, often even crushed, by the legacy of her being her parent's
child. The stories have nearly infinite variety, but contain common themes
of traumatic events, tragic deaths, and incomplete movements towards
healing. When we see our mothers in the broader tableau of her family
history, we recognize that the surface chaos is above a deeper systemic
current that moves steadily, irresistibly in one direction. In this
context, we can appreciate that despite everything that came before, and all
the obstacles and challenges in the moment, that mothers always do their
best for their children. Her "best" may be woefully insufficient and
terribly destructive, but in the larger context of her being, it was all she
could do.
With difficult fathers, there is also a dynamic of inexplicable chaotic
behavior above a relentless hidden undercurrent. The pattern is fathers
turning away from their partners and children to pursue something in the far
distance. In our lives, they may be present or absent, dangerously close or
long gone and forgotten, but underneath, first their attention and then
their physical beings are drawn far away. These fathers yearn to recover or
reconnect with someone who has been lost. Like knights in search of the
elusive Grail, they leave behind what is truly theirs to pursue what cannot
be reached. The consequences are devastating: once started this pattern
often repeats for many generations.
Constellations can uncover a healing movement for the worst problems. What
sooths all this discord is to hear the steady bass line that plays below our
particular version of the Blues. For better and worse, we vibrate with the
frequency of our mother and father as long as we breathe. There is no
choice and no escape, for our breath itself has its source in them.
Incapable parents hit many false notes, but this needn't be the dominant
melody we play over and over in our minds. In a Constellation we can
perceive and accept that mother always did her best - even if it didn't
sound like much at the time - and that father danced to a tune not of his
making, which remains embedded in our tune as well.
When we accept our life exactly as it was given to us, without accusation or
blaming, we can also take in the love and vitality that is our birthright.
Deep down, it does not matter how our parents behaved then or now. What is
more important is that we connect to them in a way that allows the love that
flows from far away to reach us.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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