Great conversation! Harrison, I am curious about what you’re noticing about
types of thinking. I do think we all have strengths (I have begun to think
about Systemic Intelligence, along the lines of Goleman’s Emotional
Intelligence). And, I sometimes see that if we engage the correct system, most
people are thinking systemically, at least some of the time. So, I tend to have
a pocket-full of analogies for people to start getting it. Here are some I use
regularly:
“Imagine you have a knee pain, and you go to your doctor, and the doctor tries
all kinds of things, but nothing helps. Then you go to a cranial sacral
therapist (usually works in the Bay Area!) and she says, of course, the problem
isn’t in your knee, but in your neck. She adjusts your neck, and your knee
feels better. So, similarly, what if your depression is like your knee - it
feels local to you, but you aren’t where it’s being held or where it needs to
have an intervention?”
“Have you ever worked somewhere that was so toxic, that despite all your best
intentions to show up as your best self, you found yourself day after day
failing, becoming someone you don’t like very much? Systems win. Pretty much
always.” (Usually accompanied to much nodding of heads.)
“If you are cold in your house, you can think yourself out of your feeling of
coldness (actually, probably not), or, you can turn up the heat. In systems
work, we’re asking questions about the environment, even in situations where
the environmental factors may not be so obvious.”
After I’ve delivered these or other analogies, I go on the describe how we live
in larger, invisible systems that are affecting us all the time. I talk about
the Day of the Dead and Shinto Ancestor Worship, and how for most of the
lifespan of the human race, it’s been taken for granted that the dead are in
some way alive to us, and we can learn from these traditions. I can even refer
to the Catholic Communion of Saints. And for engineers and other science-y
types I can talk about the Whole being Greater than the Sum of the Parts, how
Ant Colonies work, etc.
Anyway, along the way, I find that pretty much everyone has some kind of
systemic thinking going on - it just depends on which systems they have
attention already pre-existing, and how to connect with and expand that
personal experience. We just need to find the systemic map they are already
working with (enough) so they can begin to imagine it as applied to their own
family systems.
Maybe I have an advantage in the Bay Area, but I rarely find this a problem.
Indeed, for most people, this expansion of their understanding usually elicits
enormous relief as they see how it’s not all about them, and the reality of
systemic dynamics influences everything. And for more linear thinkers, it is
usually so interesting I can bring them along, too!
Peace, L
The Rev. Leslie Nipps
Convivium Constellations - Founder, Practitioner & Trainer
www.conviviumconstellations.com
Ask me about the West Coast Constellations Intensive, May 30-June 3, 2018,
www.westcoastconstellations.com
"Hasten to that which supports." - The I Ching
On Mar 26, 2018, at 8:03 AM, Chuck Cogliandro chuck@xxxxxxxxxxx
[ConstellationTalk] <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
With respect and kindness Oscar, perhaps part of the process is to consider how
even the people who do not ‘get’ constellations have a place in the workshop.
It would be like following the teaching to give everyone a good place in the
family and accept them just as they are, not wishing they were any different.
As facilitator of course it is your place to decide what is best for the
client’s healing, and choose to have the people who don’t get it stand as
representatives, or just observe. Perhaps holding this consciousness and space
for them would contribute to everyone’s healing and sense of inclusion.
The practice of constellations has esoteric elements, and I have come to accept
that it’s not for everyone, and I’ve become much more comfortable with that.
peace,
Chuck Cogliandro
constellationjourneys.com
Decatur, GA USA
