My first Family Constellation with Dan Cohen and Emily Blefeld
Last Saturday, I had my constellation mapped out. We started our day with a very interesting prayer or spirit invocation where Sara, a faculty member invited us to greet each cardinal direction from East to South to West then to North, describing what each of direction symbolizes, stating that we are present now with our hearts open to receive their blessings and messages. Thanking them for all that they do. Then we’d bow and acknowledge them. After that, we acknowledged the sky and the earth, and all beings in those directions, thanking them and honoring them. Then we acknowledge those to our left and right, our peers, coworkers, colleagues, siblings and cousins for our shared journey and presence. We acknowledged our ancestors behind us for all that they have given us and all that they’ve done. We then acknowledged those before us, the future generations and the young for their trust in us and all that they do.
Dan and Emily held a brief interview for me to tell my family story and intention for the day. My intention for the constellation was to heal my father’s isolation and hoarding relationship with money so that I can invite more abundance in receiving and giving love and money. I told everyone my family story and the field was constellated. A middle-aged Irish American man represented my father. Everyone in the room felt cold after I described how my father has suffered from anxiety and isolation his entire life, like he was trapped in a cold dungeon. My paternal grandmother was then represented and she turned away from her son to look at someone. Their relationship was cold and distant. A representative was placed to represent what she was looking at.
Dan instructed me to take the place between my father and grandma to relinquish my incorrect attempt at healing my father from that mother’s position. Essentially calling me out for playing his mother. Emily, the other facilitator disagreed with his approach and after a little debate between them, we further constellated my father’s trauma so I can find healing in mine.
We then assigned a middle-aged man represented the lineage of a wise healer in traditional Chinese medicine. And another young woman represented the expanding power of ambition or success. My father rejected my attempts to marry healing with ambition and called me to listen to my heart and questioned my journey into healing as driven by ambition, not love. He said that I had no right to think of him as weak and needing healing. I reflected on how I’ve always had trust issues with the masculine because I witnessed his suffering and trauma all my life. My father’s representation wanted to leave the room and I had to plead with him for him to stay and let the constellation unfold.
As my grandfather and his second wife (his favorite wife back when polygamy was allowed in the 60s) were then constellated, we saw how my half-grandma was really comfortable with ambition and healing. She embodied a snake-like energy (symbolizing femininity, sexuality, healing, wisdom) and crawled around the family. My paternal grandfather expressed remorse for what he has done to the family and women, for holding them back and hurting them. He said that he was proud of who I’ve become Things came to a standstill and I wasn’t sure what to do to move things forward.
A woman in class started embodying deep imbalance and indecisiveness. She felt all sorts of emotions overwhelming her and she had to vocalize to me and my representation that I needed to focus and find balance or I’d spin out of control. When I acknowledged her message, she became more grounded and represented alchemy, the transformation of pawned metal smelted into new jewelry or the metal needles I’d work with.
Then the facilitators constellated the yin yang of wealth and poverty, force of change/invasion and love. The force of change described feeling like water and she pushed everyone around and my father tried to protect all of us by holding down the force of change and the yin yang of wealth and poverty curled up beneath change. At that point, love said that love is everywhere and nowhere. Invasion and change all happened out of love. Then the tradition of healing figure said that he governs everything, including sexual relations. He said that there has to be an order and context to all things. Dan quoted the creator of Family constellation therapy, Bert Hellinger that “love overpowering order is the beginning and end to all tragedies.”
To rectify this entanglement, Dan instructed my father to hand my grandmother over to her husband for him to care for her so that my father can be liberated to love my mother. My mother was relieved and started crying. She finally was feeling seen and loved as a woman again. My grandfather expressed deep remorse toward his wife and son. My parents also looked at my half-grandma who was lying down on the floor like a giant snake and made peace with her.
Dan then asked me to speak to my half-grandma and grandfather that I want a relationship with their side of the family, I told my half-grandma that I take back my feminine sexuality and my body. I will no longer vilify the female sexuality as a source of pain and suffering because of this entanglement.
Dan then pointed out how my attempts to heal my father is projecting his trauma to all my future clients as it is out of order and context. I basically couldn’t form healthy intimacy because I had my father’s pain as my husband. Any man I date would have felt like a second husband to me. I had to tell my father that I will no longer carry the burden of his healing. It is his own work and I leave his pain behind to live my life and move forward. I acknowledge that it was not my place to diagnose his pain and attempt to heal it because as a father figure, he is my protector. Not the other way around.
When I sought blessings from my lineage to connect to the ancient wisdom of healing, the wisdom figure said that I cannot access him without my father’s blessings. My father said that for it to happen, we had to open his heart. At that point, Love tried to open my father’s heart. My grandfather went to hug him to ask for his forgiveness. There was a lot of cathartic crying and shaking from my father. I went to hug him and ask for his heart to open but my father’s representative reported that he needed a huge release that couldn’t happen at the moment despite everyone’s encouragement. We ended the constellation there as there was no more movement that could take place.
I really hope this will initiate a new wave of change in my father’s life and thus influence the whole family. I interpret this as my father’s resistance to accept that it will be me, a woman who is inheriting and passing on the family’s legacy in healing and alchemy. One participant shared that maybe the idea of passing down a legacy through a woman is very radical and humanity don’t have the understanding to process it yet.
At that point, I was standing closer to the future line with Ambition and love, supporting me and asking me to look at them. I looked back at the symbol of ancient healing wisdom and he told me that he is available to me even though he is not sure how the forces of change will keep him alive and relevant. I feel a strong intention in me to honor him and keep him alive and relevant. I feel very confident that I can achieve abundance of ambition and wealth with a lot of great love and generosity. I will always have the support of my own lineage in accessing the ancient wisdom of healing because it has always been in my family, the alchemy of transforming what is old into what is new, what is in scarcity to what is nourishing and abundant. I will use the metal and earth element in my paternal lineage to heal the world and create positive change.
The entire weekend was filled with more constellations that really blew my mind and heart. I am inspired to go deeper into this modality of healing and honor my ancestral consciousness that like Dan described, made up the strands of my being, my life and intentions by living from the heart and soul, not just in my head and mind.
If you have a chance, please definitely consider attending a family constellation workshop to experience this life-changing healing and transformation. https://seeingwithyourheart.com/
