What a gift, Patricia! I am thankful for your sharing! I will keep it as a
reference. Thanks, Liz, for asking the question.
With a Sunny Heart!
Alison Fornes
On Saturday, September 27, 2014, Patricia Robertson pkrobertson22@xxxxxxxxx
[ConstellationTalk] <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Liz,
I would like to share my experience of working with a pregnant women and
some very beautiful systemic family healing that occurred. It involves a
complex system of entanglements for the client with more energetic work to
be done in time. I will share the background information, which is long,
however it will lay the foundation for understanding the client’s fears and
behaviours.
*Background Info*
The 34 year old woman works as an acupuncturist at a holistic fertility
clinic. Interesting choice of career and you will understand why later.
My first work with this client was introducing Systemic Constellations to
ten holistic fertility practitioners. I had just completed my facilitator
training with Francesca Mason Boring and I felt okay about sharing what I
had learned. I shared the systemic transgenerational impact of unresolved
emotional family trauma on fertility with the group and set up a small
constellation to explain what a Systemic Constellation was and the
process. This woman volunteered to have her family of origin set up. This
constellation must have brought forward some emotional issues for this
woman because 7 months later she came to me for a private session. At the
break of this short introductory workshop, the client and the owner of the
facility, seemingly off topic for my introduction to the group, asked me if
I could set up a constellation to address a negative entity they felt was
impacting their clients during treatments. Some of the clients were
feeling nauseated and unwell during sessions. They had recently opened the
clinic and the issue had been going on for a few weeks in one room of the
clinic. The result was a constellation that assisted an ashamed,
women-hating, not living male entity to transition to be with his
ancestors. I presented a long line of loving ancestors to this entity and
said they were waiting for him with open arms on the other side. There
would be no judgment or blame. After a time, the representative for the
entity suddenly said, “It’s done.” The negative impact on the clients
stopped after that.
*First Appointment*
Seven months later, this woman called for a private session, the first of
two about 7 months apart. At the time of the first appointment the client
was not married and was not pregnant. She wanted to look at her extreme
pain, bleeding, and hot flashes with her menstrual cycle that she had
experienced since age 15, when she started her menses. She had been
working on this issue wholistically for a long time without resolve. She
wanted to explore how her ancestral family system might be impacting her
life today. She carried fears, grief, and anxiety that seemed to have no
basis in her current life. She was afraid of marriage and afraid to have
children. The client was very emotional when she mentioned that she was not
married and had no children. (Inner pressure to be the one to marry and
have children). The client had a wedding planned for the 10th
anniversary with her partner, which was 2 months later, however she carried
anxiety about the getting married. She felt forced by family and society
to get married. She insisted that she didn’t need to have an official piece
of paper. She also felt creatively blocked. We set up a genosociogram of
the client’s generation and the two previous generations showing the
unresolved family emotional trauma and patterning:
*Client’s Family of Origin:*
Client is the youngest of 5 children.
1st child is a sister. She married later at age 37 but has no children.
She rejected both parents when she was young. She may or may not adopt a
child but will not give birth to her own child.
2nd child, a girl, died at 18 months. Client was born 5 years after this
sister died. She has a vision of herself standing over the coffin of her
sister holding a blanket. She believes she is another incarnation of that
sister. She feels she is holding her mother’s grief. (Having a child
brings sorrow and grief for this family system.) In an exercise to
determine her greatest fear: *I am dead. I don’t exist in this life.*
This fear seems attached to this older sister that died. She may be drawn
to the dead and unable to take in life fully.
3rd child is a sister. She has not married or had children. “She is a
teacher and her students are her children.”
4th child is a boy who is miscarried.
5th child is the client. She is born 2 years after this miscarriage.
Mother and father name her after paternal grandfather. There were no
living sons in this generation. She feels she was born to look after her
mother who mourns two deceased children. She feels like the big one and
mother is the small one. Client has to translate for her mother all the
time and her symptoms get worse at these times. Client does not feel heard
by anyone in her family system. ("Mother I will share your emotional trauma
with you." She carries a heavy burden as the child. This likely creates
fear around marriage and having children. “If I have children they will
die.") At age 4, the client is away from her mother for 2 months. For the
first time in her life she remembers feeling free.
*Father’s Family System:*
o Both families are large Roman Catholic Italian families.
However, in father’s family there is only one in each generation marrying
or having children.
o Client is emotional speaking about her paternal grandmother who
just died a couple years ago. See the next point for the story.
o Client is emotional speaking about her paternal grandfather who
was in WWI and WWII. He was dragged at age 15 or 16 into World War I in
Italy. Client is named after this paternal grandfather. He was a talented
musician forced to be in the war to play his instrument. He felt punished
for being musically talented. He witnessed much pain and bleeding at a
young age. (PGF age corresponds to her age of menses when she feels pain,
bleeding, and hot flashes, but I feel that an issue with menstruation will
more likely flow from a women’s line so I continue with the genosociogram.
This did however tie into the client’s creative block at the same age. “I
will suffer if I am creative.”) Client’s father is born in 1937. His
early years are impacted by WWII in Italy. Paternal grandfather fought in
WWII in Italy creating a disconnection with father. In 1947 Grandfather
immigrated to Canada and spent 13 years living there before he brought over
his wife and children in 1960. This included the client’s father who was
23 years old at the time of immigration. There is a big disconnection from
father for all the children in their developmental years, father doesn’t
connect with his father’s circle of energy by his teens, and heavy fate for
his marital partner, paternal grandmother, mentioned above. Father would
be angry with his father for leaving them behind. He would merge with his
mother to support her as the oldest son and enter adulthood still in his
mother’s circle of energy. He got too much of mother. He is angry and
abusive. (Does this account for the client’s fear of marriage? Is she
entangled with paternal grandmother fearing that her partner will leave her
behind?) Grandmother experiences 13 years of emotional trauma raising her
children without their father. She was pregnant with her last child when
he left. The youngest of father’s siblings was a female who met her father
at age 13. She had excessive menstrual pain and bleeding. (Client may
have energetic entanglement with this aunt.)
o Client has had a feeling for a long time that paternal grandfather
may have had another relationship and possibly had children in the 13 year
absence from his family. (Is client entangled with this former intimate
partner – adamant that she doesn’t need a piece of paper to legitimize her
relationship?)
o Father is the oldest child in his family but there are large gaps
in ages. (Client didn’t know if there were children missing in the family
system.) Father is jovial to cover his anger. He and his brother are both
physically abusive. Father is the only one of this generation to marry or
have children. Client witnessed her father physically abusing her mother
on numerous occasions. (Perhaps a source of fear around getting married.
Witness to pain and bleeding – “Mother, I will share your pain and bleeding
with you.”) When she was 8 years old she witnessed her father physically
abuse her oldest sister who was 16 at the time. She witnessed more pain
and bleeding.
*Mother’s Family System:*
o Mother is the youngest of her family and born in Italy in 1944.
Her early years are impacted by WWII in Italy. At age 20, mother left her
parents and siblings behind and moved alone to Canada. She marries a man
with the same given name as both her mother and father. (Both families have
someone who immigrates alone to Canada.)
o It was pointed out that maternal grandmother has a half brother
who has an out-of-wedlock child. (Similar situation to father’s family)
o Client described herself as having a very boyish under-developed
body until the last few years when it became more feminine (about age 30).
At age 30, mother miscarries her only son. (May indicate another
entanglement.)
o At age 15, the time her menstrual cycle began, she was on a trip
to Italy with her mother. There were three generations of women talking
together, which she says had a very tribal, comforting feel to it. Mother
was going through menopause at the same time the client started her
menstrual cycle. Mother spoke of her discomfort with menopause on that
trip. From that time forward, the client has extreme pain, bleeding, and
hot flashes with her menses from the age of 15 to the present. (Perhaps
the young client said again to her mother, “I will share your pain,
bleeding, and hot flashes. It may have been a systemic energetic
initiative rite of passage to womanhood.)
* Systemic Constellations*
With the family of origin and grandparent generation set up in a
constellation, a candle lighting ritual and ceremony was held to
acknowledge what was in the family system. The client participated in
sentences with each of the women who had suffered pain and bleeding. She
stood across from her mother creating a healthy strong boundary and
released herself of the burdens she shared with mother. She also had a
constellation with father to take him into her heart just as he was with
compassion for his journey. She acknowledged grandfather’s potential
out-of-wedlock partner and the potential children who would be missing from
the family system. The fates of her dead siblings were acknowledged.
We did some initial work, however, the client needed to energetically
separate entanglements with paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother,
mother, father, her paternal aunt, her deceased siblings, and the possible
out-of-wedlock partner and children of paternal grandfather. As the
sensitive one in the family system, she had to release herself from
carrying each of these burdens that she took on out of love and loyalty for
the family system. She had shoulder and upper back pain a lot and she
needed to release herself of this heavy energy and these burdens. She
planned to do some of this work in ritual after the session. A while
after the session I received a beautiful testimonial from the client to the
energy shifts that had occurred.
*Second Appointment*
The client did follow through with her marriage and felt good about it.
She presented 4 months pregnant and filled with anxieties and fears about
her pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a child. As I mentioned at the
beginning of this email this women works in a holistic fertility clinic
helping other women to get pregnant. We frequently choose our partners and
occupations to find healing for ourselves and for our family systems. She
wished to clear any unresolved emotional family entanglements that might
affect her child. She didn’t want her unborn child to pick up any
remaining emotional burdens. The client wants to be there energetically
for her child and not be drawn anywhere else emotionally by the family
system. Her partner was present for the session.
§ We set up the client’s Family of Origin in a constellation and
the order of her siblings had changed from the first appointment. She
became a bit confused when I mentioned this. We realized she was still
energetically in her mother’s boundary and entangled with her siblings that
were not living. We had a candle lighting ritual to sever these
entanglements, acknowledge their fates again, and pass back their burdens.
I facilitated boundary exercises for the client with her mother and then
had her work with her partner to establish healthy boundaries for their
relationship. How to stay out of agency with her partner? How to stay out
of agency with her family members? I explained self-love,
self-nurturance, the use of self-soothing techniques when stressors occur,
and self-parenting. What is it I can do in this moment to help myself feel
centred and feel self-love when I am triggered emotionally? The adult
child thrives when they have a strong boundary and a strong sense of self
at the deep inner core. When we can’t connect or sense that deep inner
core inside we have fears. Our wellbeing depends on our ability to find
connection within for self-nurturing and self-love. We don’t find inner
wellbeing from the outside world.
§ In constellation, she acknowledged her mother’s fate. It was
mother’s fate to be abused by her partner. It was mother’s fate to mourn
two lost children. It was mother’s fate to be emotionally distant and not
emotionally there for her as a baby. It was mother who felt pressured to
deliver a son. As she acknowledges mother’s fate and maintains a strong
healthy boundary, she can begin to separate herself from it. She can pass
the burden she shares with mother back to her. She has to firmly belief
mom is strong enough to carry her own burdens as she returns them back to
her. The child who carries or shares a burden for the big one, stands in a
superior position and she will energetically suffer. This is a key area of
work for the client.
*Partner’s Family System*
I worked with her partner’s family system mostly to look at what needed
to be acknowledged. *His greatest fear: I am not prepared.* He
initially was emotionally distant and said that things were okay with his
family situation until I asked specific questions. When I asked if he got
along well with Mom and Dad, the key emotional traumas came out.
His father was born in 1930 in the Ukraine to Russian parents. He grew up
during the Soviet genocide of the Ukraine where millions died. I talked to
him about victim/perpetrator energy. What did your family have to do to
survive? Were they sometimes the victim and sometimes the perpetrator?
Did any family members starve or die? What happened when someone wasn’t
prepared? (He planned to do a little homework.)
When dad is 9 years old his family had to escape to safety at the
beginning of WWII. They had to run for safety. (I asked, “Who was not
prepared?” Perhaps the source of his deepest fear.)
Dad immigrated to Canada in the 1950s in his 20s.
Dad married once before marrying his mother. The first marriage partner
was an immigrant from Italy who moved to Canada. They have 2 sons. Her
parents didn’t think his father was good enough for her and they pressured
her to leave him. They were divorced. (Dad felt like the victim and he
suffered.) There is a big age gap for the children of the two families.
Client’s partner’s two older brothers were 27 and 25 when he was born.
Dad marries mother who is an immigrant from Dominica. They have 2 sons.
The client’s partner is the older of these two. Father didn’t want mother
to remain with him and she leaves when the client’s partner is just 5 years
old and the younger brother is 2. (Father was rejected in his first
marriage and he turns around and rejects his next marriage partner). His
mother never returned. He searched for her when he was 18 years old and
found her. (Both sides of the family have children without a parent for 13
years) At that time, he moved to the province where his mother lived but it
didn’t work out well. (He resolved to find out more about mother. Why did
mother leave Dominica? What unresolved emotional family and ancestral
trauma travelled with her and perhaps transmitted to him?) (This man comes
from a family system where marriage partners and children get rejected or
left behind and he chooses as a partner a woman who fears getting married
and fears having children. Family systems marry family systems for a
reason. There is much healing to be done once it is acknowledged.)
Client’s partner says, “Dad had good intentions but he wasn’t a good role
model.” (This description is a rejection of father. In rejecting father he
merges with him.)
Dad was already 49 years old when client’s partner was born in the second
marriage. Dad died when the client’s partner was 28 years old (4 years
earlier). The next year his 23-year old younger brother committed
suicide.
He has some relationship with the youngest of his 2 older brothers but no
relationship with his oldest brother.
There is much unresolved emotional trauma in the family system to be
addressed. Acknowledging it was a first step. It is up to the couple to
work through the trauma one layer at a time.
The client delivered a healthy daughter 5 months later – although it
wasn’t a straight forward birth. It was a Frank breech with her eyes wide
awake, delivered by C-Section - just as the client had been born – Frank
breech with her eyes wide awake. The patterning is amazing sometimes.
*Other Discussion Ideas with a Pregnant Woman and her Partner:*
1. Take the time to learn about good bonding with your child and good
mirroring for your baby and child. In raising the child – be present
energetically by doing your own healing work, bond with your child, mirror
appropriately when they want your attention or want to share something with
you, and your child will know they are loved and that they are important.
2. Let your partner honour you by supporting you in your pregnancy.
This is how he engages with his child. If mom is supported the child feels
safe. The child can only get to the father through the mother.
3. Enjoy this beautiful phase of womanhood – enjoy the changes that
occur in your body – don’t fear the change. Embrace the change with love
and acceptance.
4. Feel the support of all your ancestors and your partner’s back to
the beginning of time. You both come from a strong line of ancestors or
you wouldn’t be here today. Allow yourself to feel that support. Allow
yourself to receive their blessing for the wellbeing of your child. Allow
yourself to receive their blessing for you to go forward with love, joy,
peace, and abundance. Let them help you release all your burdens.
5. Do a ceremony to ensure the child knows you are both strong
individuals and the child doesn’t have to carry any burden for you. As you
do your own healing work the child will rejoice and let go of anything he
or she might already have unconsciously attempted to carry for you.
6. For both the client and her partner, I suggested they take the time
to look at all the historical information impacting the families. The
separation from mother is a microcosm of the separation from motherland.
7. Each parent does the best they can with the emotional resources,
energy, time, and skills they have. A parent can’t be expected to be
another way if they didn’t experience it themselves. (I gave the example
of a country where democracy is being imposed for the first time.
Democracy is a mindset that you grow up in and you are immersed in the
structure. It took many nations centuries to develop democracy. When
people haven’t experienced democracy it is rare that it can be successfully
imposed upon them.) As an adult, you cannot fully accept yourself until
you acknowledge and accept both mother and father fully. You are 50% Mom
and 50% Dad. If you are separated/merged with one and disconnected/reject
the other then you are missing a large piece of yourself. You find the
missing piece by fully taking in Mom and Dad as they are, acknowledging
that they are the way they are from the family system they grew up in and
the energetic emotional entanglements they carry.
8. Living in the present is key – dwelling on the past or worrying
about the future make us unwell. Ask yourself in stressful moments, “What
can I do for myself for my highest good in this moment?” Take a bath, read
a book, spend time with my partner, call a friend, watch a movie, go for a
long walk outdoors, whatever is in your best interest. Look back long
enough to learn from the past and use what you learn from the past to
impact the present and influence the future.
9. Understand agency and how to stop living in agency with the living
and the dead.
10. Understand character styles of abandonment and inundation and
how they impact relationships.
11. Understand Good Parenting Messages (Integrated Body
Psychotherapy – Rosenberg) and learn to give them to yourself and to your
child. If we don’t feel you got all these messages growing up then you
begin to say them to yourself as an adult. You parent yourself
(self-parenting). You no longer look to your parents for parenting. If
you are generally functioning in the world then you received “enough” of
these messages. However, it never hurts to re-enforce them as an adult –
especially the ones you may react to as you read them:
I love you.
I want you.
You are special to me.
I see you and I hear you.
It is not what you do but who you are that I love.
I love you, and I give you permission to be different than me.
I’ll take care of you.
I’ll be there for you; I will be there even when you die.
You don’t have to be alone anymore.
You can trust me.
You can trust your inner voice.
Sometimes I will tell you “no”, and that’s because I love you.
You don’t have to be afraid anymore.
My love will make you well.
I welcome and cherish your love.
I can set limits, and I am willing to enforce them.
If you fall down I will pick you up.
I am proud of you.
I have confidence in you, I am sure you will succeed.
I give you permission to be the same as I, to be more or less.
You are beautiful (handsome).
I give you permission to love and enjoy your erotic sexuality with a
partner of your choice and not lose me.
12. When naming the child – be cautious about naming the child
after anyone with a heavy fate or tragic fate. This may serve to place a
heavy fate on the child and energetically entangle them with their
namesake.
13. The relationship of the couple has priority over the
relationship between the parent and child. Without the parent relationship
the child does not exist. Keep your intimate relationship strong.
14. Giving flows from parent to child and not the other way
around. The child is to receive from the parents.
15. The child learns how to be in relationship with others through
his or her relationship with mother.
16. Living life from a place of LOVE is key – let go of fear. They
can’t both exist in the same space. Place all your fears and worries into
a decorative box – create a box or buy one and write each worry or fear on
a piece of paper and put it into the box – asking the Universe to take this
worry or this fear off your shoulders and to release you of its burden. OR
you can burn, bury, or freeze the pieces of paper to stop the energy of the
worry or fear. (Don’t do anything to harm the environment.)
17. Instead of giving your energy to worries and fears – give your
energy to love and gratitude. Start a gratitude box and every morning and
evening place a piece of paper with all the things you are grateful for or
things that brought love into your life or times when you gave love to
others. This is the energy you want to surround your own cells with and
those of your developing baby.
18. The child feels the emotions of mother from the time of
conception. The child also receives their transgenerational epigenetic
emotional inheritance if any unresolved emotional trauma is not
addressed. If mother is turned away energetically and emotionally, the
child feels that from the time of conception.
19. The child was impacted by any emotional trauma during maternal
grandmother’s pregnancy with mother. Mother had all her lifetime supply of
eggs by the time she was just 5 months *in utero. *This is the
3-generation emotional impact.
20. It is never too late to do emotional healing work. The child
will pick up energetically any easing up of emotional stress and respond
accordingly.
21. We don’t come to planet Earth to have a perfect life. We come
to experience obstacles, challenges, and lessons. It is a learning
opportunity for spiritual growth. The child has their own fate and
predetermined birth contract separate from mother and will live out the
life they are meant to experience. We can lift the burdens that don’t
belong to them and do our own healing work.
The emotional healing work can begin while she is pregnant. It won’t
likely be complete. Sorry this is so long. Hope it is helpful.
*Patricia Robertson*
*Peaceful Possibilities Consulting*
*Calgary Alberta Canada*
*patricia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','patricia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx');>*
*403-474-0452*
*Catch my Systemic Healing blog posts at www.peacefulpossibilities.ca
<http://www.peacefulpossibilities.ca>*
