The family can be such a mysterious forest.  We navigate its many trails often unable to see the “trees” for the forest that is all around us.  We do not see when we take on and carry a burden of guilt or sadness from a parent or grandparent—or even a sibling.  We do not see the invisible links of love and loyalty that exist and that can keep us from moving forward in life.  

For the past twenty some years I’ve been working in this forest, helping others to see their way out. The work is called Family Constellation Work. It is a group process that uses representatives to stand in for past or existing family members. By moving representatives physically into the circle, we are able to see deeply into the family system and make visible what has been invisible.  The constellation is profound, often moving, and sometimes uncanny in its ability to show us how to release old, non-useful patterns.

The first constellation I stood in as a representative was for a woman who said that she and her two sons could not hold on to their money.  They made money—they just didn’t seem to keep it. This was my first experience of a constellation. The facilitator was a German named Heinz Stark who later became my teacher.  

But let me tell you what the woman learned from setting up her own constellation. It turned out that her grandfather was a rancher during the depression era.  He was a smart guy who managed to keep his ranch when all around him others were failing.  He began to buy up his neighbors’ ranches for a dirt cheap price.  His ranch grew and prospered. The more his neighbors failed—the more he succeeded. In fact, he built his enormous ranch based on the losses of others. Now, two generations later, his grandsons cannot hang onto their money. As we watched the constellation unfold, we learned that the grandsons do not have the right to “atone” for the actions of their grandfather.  A series of movements were made within the constellation that released the grandsons from this past action.

In a more recent workshop that I was facilitating, I worked with a beautiful 17-year-old girl who had been given almost more than she could handle from life. The first young love of her life was murdered. After he died she discovered that she was pregnant, but the baby was a tubular pregnancy--she lost the child. In the many years of doing this work, I’ve never seen such a young soul quite that frozen in grief. It raises the hair on my arms just to recall it. In my early interview with her—every constellation begins with a fact finding mission—she said that she was cold throughout her body, that  she could never seem to get warm.  She also said that she has absolutely no sympathy or compassion for anybody. 

This constellation was very difficult—and she was so brave to decide to do it. She (her representative) faced her lost love and the lost child within the safe field of the constellation.  An enormous amount of anger rushed out, and then tears, and then love, and then release.  It was amazing to watch.  I think that the coldness of her body was coming from her trying to follow her love and lost child into death.   

How many of our young suicides are actually a person following a loved one into death?  I can’t answer that question, but my experience with constellation work tells me it is probably more than we can imagine.

Those of you who have not yet seen the depth and authenticity of this way of working with the generational wounds of a family may want to find a workshop near you or set up a tabletop constellation with me using The Circle Tool. We know from experience that any explanation of how this work unfolds and its potential to heal ancient (and current) wounds is just too difficult to explain. The work itself best demonstrates the work. There is also no way to explain the authenticity of emotion that comes when the release happens and love again is flowing in the core of the family.  

Essentially, Family Constellation Work is the best of family systems science coming together with the deeper soul of the family itself.  The goal is the freedom to move forward with the best of what we got from our families . . . and to leave the rest with those who came before. 

The Genealogy of the Soul, A Guide to Family Constellation Work by Patricia Jamie Lee