As a male facilitator, a recurring challenge is how to lead when the
Constellation becomes centered on a woman client and her mother. There
seems to come a point where my male intellect becomes useless, even
counter-productive to whatever is actually going on.
Here are stories of two recent Constellations where the question of Woman
Follows Man, Man Serves Woman came to the fore.
At my last visit to prison one of the woman volunteers asked for a
Constellation to look at the obstacles that interfere with her getting her
work done. The Constellation began small and then expanded. At one point,
a couple of the inmates spontaneously stood up and entered the field, as is
common in this group. As the Constellation gathered energy, the
representatives for the client, her mother, and grandmother became highly
charged, while the others gradually dissipated and sat down. At a certain
point, we were left with all the men sitting in the circle observing and the
3 women volunteers standing in the center of the space caught in deep
feelings and a few whispered words.
What was unique was that 3 women would invoke such a sacred space of healing
in the confines of a men's prison. The men held the space beautifully,
simply sitting in their chairs and observing with respect and concentration.
Neither I nor any of the men really comprehended what was going on, only
that we were witnessing something profound.
The other story took place recently in a group setting. A woman set up a
Constellation about her present life situation which seemed broken and
stressed at every turn. Again, we gradually built up the Constellation to
where it had numerous representatives. Again, the key energetic touchstone
came to the client and her mother. After crying into many tissues the
client said she needed to break to go into the bathroom and clean her face.
A Constellation colleague who had come with her followed her in. The rest
of us held our places in the Constellation.
After about 5 minutes one of the women went in to the bathroom to check on
these two. A few minutes later, another woman went in. I said all the men
can sit and all the women can go into the bathroom. Within another 5
minutes or so that is what happened. The men sat in the chairs talking
quietly about this and that. There were no sounds coming from the bathroom.
About 15 minutes after all the women were in there, we heard laughter and
chatter. Slowly, one by one, the women returned to the circle. The client
was the last one back.
The only thing I asked her was, "Can we move on the next Constellation?"
She agreed and that's what we did.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Barbara Morgan
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 6:28 PM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ConstellationTalk] Woman follows man, man serves woman
Interesting theme. I find I can work much better as a facilitator when I
have a significant number of men in the group. Somehow they are able to hold
the male energy and this frees me to be more in my place as a woman. I also
recall a very moving constellation where a woman was connecting to her
female line and all the women in the group were lying back with their heads
on each other's wombs. As I looked up I saw that the men were spaced equally
round the holding circle and were all sitting in the same 'warrior' position
with their backs straight, their feet squarely on the ground and their hands
resting in their laps. The image I had was of them 'guarding' the 'womb' and
the women were emerging from the 'cervix'. It was really beautiful.
Best wishes from a beautiful Autumnal England
Barbraa
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 1:56 AM, <david@innersuccess.
<mailto:david%40innersuccess.net.au> net.au> wrote:
Hi,
This is one of Bert Hellinger's statements that has always interested
me. As he would say it's an observation from Constellations.
Hunter Beaumont has written about it too, and others. I have been
holding a short series of workshops in China, which I find a privelege
for a 'westerner'to be able to work with such a different culture to
my own. Of coursethere are cultural similarities as well, and many an
hour can be spent
discussing these.
Recently I had so many cases in workshop and private settings of women
struggling to be at peace with their womanhood. Very touching cases
where women had lost something along the way due to some Systemic
entanglement. The Constellation space was such a powerful gift to help
them regain a sense of fuller femininity.
I do many little exercises in my workshops, recently I almost went a full
day
without doing a case, it was quite surprising. So I have started to
use a little exercise to explore Masculine and Feminine energy. I go
round the circle and give people a letter, A then B then A and B and
so on. The A's are the feminine energy. The B's the masculine,
irrespective of the gender of the participant.
I tell the group that I give the feminine the A because we are all
born of a woman. Then I let the group move with their body. The first
time I did this in Beijing, the exercise was so chaotic in the room,
it seemed there were no patterns. But we started to ask if anyone
wanted to share anything.
Then the patterns revealed themselves. The male energy often looked up
and sometimes out. The female energy often looked to the floor. We
digested this, and then a bit more came out. Six people said there
were following someone else, and five of them were feminine energy.
And a little bit more. There was one male energy that followed a
feminine. The feminine was spinning on the spot. The participant, a
woman in fact, said she followed the feminine energy until it stopped
spinning, and then she stopped following the feminine.
We were quite amazed at this, and for the participants we started to
make sense of this in terms of Hellinger and other male and female
ideas. Maleness as the protector, looking for danger or animals, the
female energy tending for the children and looking down. Some of the
participants offered similar ideas. It seemed to fit. It also helps
me understand why male energy stands in first place in the family
constellation, on the edge of the family, easier to look out etc.
Then, later we held some organisational workshops on this trip, and
still also Constellations is such a good space to explore these
dynamics and leadership. The Constellation space helps people
understand the positions and attitudes of leadership, in their own
contexts, but there are always shared themes as well. Now we add these
gendered ideas. Often in Constellations re couples working together,
it ends with the man being the leader, or the person with the
strongest male energy being the leader, which seems to be more
accurate, for example, in the case of two women working together.
Then we tried an exercise, the male energy looks out, the female more
looks in, if they go with their bodies the male energy looks out of
the window sometimes and the female energy sits on the floor. Now we
ask the basic question we use in Organisational and Management
workshops to explore leadership issues: "Follow me". The female energy
sitting on the floor responds to the male energy by the window
positively and her body is drawn away from the floor towards the
maleness. But if we reverse this and ask the female energy to say this
the male energy is perplexed, "to where?". If the 'where" is into the
home where the female energy seems to be, it seems to lack a sense of
direction.
So these ideas and exercises are useful for disseminating the various
roles and tasks in organisations as well. I think it adds a useful
dimension to help us explore.
I think the exitement of exercises in the Constellation space is that
you never know the outcome, and if you can quell your expectantions
and intentions, something rich may emerge.
Any way, these are not rules, just noticings! Of course.
Alll the best.....David Mathes, Guangzhou and Sydney
