Family Constellations
My first exposure to family constellations was sometime in 2022 when I happened upon a Netflix TV series called *Another Self*. It is a romance where three friends set off from their city lives to go live in a coastal city, attempt to find themselves, and have fun. As I’m looking it up now to make sure I get the information right, I see there’s a second season I need to watch! Anyway, it was one of those shows where, even though I was reading subtitles, once I started, I-could-not-stop. It was the perpetual binge—"I must watch another episode!"—until it was over. PS good news! Now you don’t have to read subtitles.
However, within the Turkish series, the three close friends find themselves in situations where they are working on family constellations. So, what is a family constellation?
A family constellation is a sacred space for healing where you can release family and ancestral blocks that may be keeping you from fully stepping into your purpose, joy, and freedom. Maybe you feel stuck in a pattern or notice a repeating cycle in your life or in your family—these challenges may have roots in your ancestral family line. Family constellations originated with a German psychologist named Bert Hellinger in 1978.
Typically, family constellations take place in a group setting, where members of the group represent different family members of the person whose constellation is being explored. Questions are asked about how they feel in relation to other members in the space, shedding light on emotions or relational aspects. While I’ve never experienced family constellations in a group setting, I have found someone who facilitates them one-on-one, and it’s really cool.
By the time I found my facilitator, I was already involved in a lot of energetic work, so to me, doing family constellations isn’t any different from hypnosis, akashic record reading or Reiki. It’s all energy work—it just happens in different ways and patterns. And it’s really cool because it doesn’t even have to be a family-specific pattern. Sometimes, it can be a societal pattern. For example, body image issues that many young women experience due to societal standards—while I’m not a practitioner, I feel like that could be cleared in a family constellation session and more than likely there are probably some family-specific patterns with that particular subject also.
The way I have experienced it as a client is fascinating. We do the sessions over Zoom, which is also super cool because she can work with anyone, anywhere in the world. (This is why I have a Zoom component to my business—I want to be able to help anyone, anywhere, who wants or needs it!). There is this board looks like a Lazy Susan. She has a box of little figures representing men and women—basically, small toys. We energetically set an intention, and I choose one to represent me. I place it on the board based on how I feel it should be positioned. I always put mine right in the center—not front and center, but the very middle of the circle. (ahahahah everything revolves around ME ME ME ). Depending on what we’re working on, we pick figures to represent other family members or societal beliefs.
As the session progresses you move people amongst the board as energy/emotions/patterns are acknowledged. People can be added, moved, taken away.
It’s such a powerful experience, and I’ve gained so much insight from it. My last session focused on the topic of fear. The clarity I received was incredible. Family constellations continue to be a transformative tool for me, helping me understand patterns, heal past wounds, and move forward with greater awareness. I remember one session where it felt like the family pattern cleared really did go back 7 generations. It wasn’t until several months later, when I was around a large group of family members, I was hearing stories of relatives 4-5 generations back that collaborated the experience, it blew my mind.
The irony is that for me, after I have a constellation, I don’t think it about. Whatever happened happened and it’s this amnesia in my mind of what the session was about. I typically don’t go back and re-hash anything from a family constellation because the healing is already done. I vaguely remember this last one only because I took screen shots as we did it because the intention was for me to write a blog on it. I write the blog on it because it’s one of those cool things I have tried and loved to use on my journey. If only I had time to learn how to do everything I have ever tried and loved…….This would be on that list, but alas it’s one to many things for me to learn at the moment.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re carrying something that isn’t yours, like you’re stuck in a cycle you can’t break, or like there’s a deeper root to your struggles, family constellations could be a tool to add to your tool belt. It’s one of the many things I have in my tool belt. It might be something worth exploring! To have space held for you where you can say out loud things to family members living or deceased that you may never be able to say to them in person.
