Systemic Constellations explained

Hi. This is Joe and I am going to offer a brief introduction to systemic constellations and how Catherine facilitates this amazing healing process. My goal is to offer how this process works in ways that may be more understandable.
First, I will say that most of us experience emotional and or physical trauma at one time or another in our life. It is even possible to experience trauma passed down from previous generations. I shared a report in a previous blog post on our web site at gatekeeperconstellations.com that showed how it is possible to experience trauma from as far back as 14 generations. The science in quite amazing.

I look at trauma as if it were a brick placed in front of us either by ourselves or some event or other person. It could be an experience from our childhood or as an adult. It might be a seemingly unfounded fear of something, post-traumatic stress, sexual abuse, health issues, adult relationship issues, parent-child relationship issues or any number of other types of trauma.

We then spend our days and years building this trauma brick into wall. Once this wall is complete, we become paralyzed at the immensity of the trauma we built ourselves from this single brick. Sometimes, the wall was constructed from past generations and we simply feel the trauma passed down to us from our ancestors. This wall seems so solid and so tall that there appears to be no way around, over or through it.

Systemic constellation work is like a sledge hammer handed to us so we can break a hole into our trauma wall. The more we swing our hammer, the bigger hole we create within our wall where we can look through and notice a healing place that lies just on the other side of our trauma wall. Soon we make an opening large enough to install a gate with a lock and a key.

We hold the key to unlock our gate but because we have lived with our trauma for so long, it’s difficult to trust that real healing can be achieved so we continue to stand on the trauma side of our wall.

On the other side of this gate lies our healing path of support and love. A path we created ourselves but were unaware of due to the brick wall of trauma we spent so long constructing.

Catherine role, as a facilitator, is to hand us our hammer and encourages us to create our opening in our trauma wall. This happens when a constellation circle is formed with other people who are called in to do this work either by the client or in an organic setting where others may not know each other. Either way, a sacred circle is formed with up to 12 participants who will become representatives.

Catherine interviews a client who steps forward, ready to face his or her trauma wall and listens to their story in a separate setting from the circle of other participants. She makes notes and the two rejoin the group. The client is asked to choose individual participants from the group to represent parts of the clients’ personality, family members, possibly the trauma itself, along with a participant to represent the client. None of the participants know who or what they will be representing. This is sometimes called blind constellation but Catherine prefers to name this style “Illuminated constellation.”

The client chooses the representatives and places each one within, what is called, the ‘knowing field’ within the circle. We all navigate within the ‘knowing field’ every moment of every day of our entire life. The ‘knowing field’, within the context of a constellation, represents the greater ‘knowing field’ of the universe. Once the placements are complete, the client takes a seat and witnesses the interaction of the participants as they begin to relate to one another.

This is deep somatic or cellular work which is soul and heart based and not mind based. Since the representatives do not know who or what they are representing for the client, they are more likely to ‘feel’ their place as opposed to ‘realize’ their place. The ‘knowing field’ functions as a healing center for the clients’ trauma. As the constellation progresses, the client begins to see the healing path on the other side of their wall. Catherine will ask the representatives to move to a place they are guided toward from within their heart or soul without engaging the mind. When this happens, the hole in the trauma wall is widened and the gate is installed. The client will begin to see and feel how their trauma materialized within their life.

There comes a moment in every constellation when the client feels a shift. They witness the individual whom they chose to represent themselves and how that representative interacts with others and how other representative interact with each other. This is when the client realizes they have the key to unlock their gate in their trauma wall and step into their healing place.

All of this takes place in the span of 45 minutes to an hour. I have compared this work to conventional talk therapy which has its place and I want to stress that this is not psychotherapy or psychodrama. This is deep soul work where the body feels the healing as opposed to processing with the mind. When the mind is de-activated, the heart can take over and feel true self-healing.

“This work is about love and compassion giving us our greatest gift which is the gift of life.” (Catherine)

I will repost a blog entry after this one so you can see them in order and begin to unpack the mystery of this work.