2. Tracking the Pain You Carry to its Origin

When you see me for your first session, I will ask you questions about your family and your upbringing. This sounds similar to conventional psychotherapy, yes? What do we do differently which will lead to different results and a more complete resolution of longstanding challenges you may have talked out before?

Here is a little sneak peek at the different lens that my training in Family Constellations work brings to your healing journey.

If I sense the origin of the block you want to resolve is in your family system, we will dive into your full 3 Generation Genogram.

What is a genogram, and how is it helpful?

Your genogram is a lot like a family tree, but we are specifically looking for unresolved trauma charges in your family system that may be flowing down the line and being held in your body or energy field, masquerading as your personal challenges.

To build your genogram, I ask you factual questions about your people. This is how we begin the detective work to get to the root cause of what lives in you.

Did anyone carry a particularly heavy fate?

Who died early?
Who left?
Who was abandoned, isolated, or excluded from the family?
Who was adopted or who chose adoption for their child?
Who died in childbirth?
Who had a stillbirth, miscarriage, or abortion?
Who died by suicide?

We track down any unresolved victim/perpetrator dynamics.

Who committed a serious crime?
Who experienced a significant trauma or suffered a catastrophic event?
Who lost their home or possessions and had difficulty recovering?
Who suffered in war?
Who died in or participated in the Holocaust or some other genocide?
Who was enslaved or owned slaves?
Who was murdered?
Who murdered someone or felt responsible for someone’s death or misfortune?
Who hurt, cheated, or took advantage of someone?
Who profited from another’s loss?
Who was wrongly accused?
Who was jailed or institutionalized?

We look for emotional traumas or impacts that may be repeating in you:

Who had a physical, emotional, or mental disability?
Which parent or grandparent had a significant relationship prior to getting married, and what happened?
Was someone deeply hurt by another?

And most importantly, we look at your primary love bond...your connection with your mom:

Did something traumatic happen while your mother was pregnant with you?
Was she highly anxious, depressed, or stressed?
Were your parents having difficulties in their relationship during the pregnancy? (Unsure they’d stay together? Violence? Arguing? Separating? Drinking? Cheating?)
Did you experience a difficult birth? Were you born premature? Forceps?
Did your mother experience postpartum depression?
Were you separated from your mother after birth?
Were you adopted?
Did you experience a trauma or a separation from your mother during your childhood or infancy?
Did your parents go on a vacation when you were young?
Were you sent away to visit relatives or grandparents?
Were you or your mother ever hospitalized and forced to be apart (maybe you spent time in an incubator, or had your tonsils removed or some other medical procedure or your mother needed to have surgery or experienced a complication from a pregnancy, or you were sent to stay with grandparents or other family members, etc.)?
Did your mother experience trauma or emotional turmoil during your childhood or infancy (death of a parent, grandparent, or sibling, separation or divorce, alcoholic or unfaithful husband, etc.)?
Did your mother give away a child, or lose a child or pregnancy before or after you were born?
Was your mother’s attention pulled to a trauma involving one of your siblings (a late-term miscarriage, a stillbirth, a death, a medical emergency, etc.)?

Holy crap, right! This is really a list of all the unresolved, inherited traumas that might be held as a block in your family system.

I will write the important facts down where each person in your family sits relative to the others in a family tree.

This helps us to track patterns. Blocks don't jump sides from one lineage to another. They are passed down epigenetically and through what we have come to think of as dysfunctional family patterns.

Dysfunction really means hurt being passed down that needs healing and tending. It's hard for one generation to give the next what it never received.

How do we work with the facts in your genogram?

Once we track down the blocks, we are ready to step into the energy field of your family.

This is where the magic of healing family wounds happens. It's quite phenomenal how the whole extended energy field, with all of its dynamics, animates when we step into your constellation.

This is the power of the "Knowing Field" which will reveal all we need to know to resolve painful dynamics that are on replay in our life patterns. And the "Knowing Field" is the topic for next week's blog post.

Gratitude to Bert Hellinger.

Would you like to know more about the amazing healer that developed Family Constellations work? FC was originally called Hellinger Family Constellations.

Here is a beautiful short article that shares Bert's personal history and the evolution of his work. Bert Hellinger died in 2018, in his late 80's. He was still teaching and sharing his work in his 80's and has published about 90 books.

Read the whole series:

Part 1: Family Constellations: Resolve Patterns Once and for All.

Part 2: Family Constellations: Tracking the Pain You Carry to its Origin.

Part 3: The Knowing Field: Revelations on Root Causes

Part 4: Your Inner Image, the Game Changer

Part 5: Epigenetics: The Science of Getting Your Issues Sorted.

Are you ready to make a big shift and transform repeating and defeating patterns?

We can work together on the patterns that you struggle with in 1:1 sessions here.

Or join me in my monthly Family Constellations group healing work here.

the Healing & Purpose Blog