Due to the popularity of this TV series, which of course is set in our native Turkey, we at The Wise would like to give you some more detailed information about the family constellation.
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First of all, I have to stress that the family constellation is a great gift to us from the Creator. Those who know this technique already benefit from it, because it’s a wonderful method that brings incredible healing to life.
It’s also the most magnificent work of theater that you could watch in your life, because the way people who participate in the constellation take on their assigned roles and play their parts is really mind-blowing. Those who are new to it and a little skeptical may think that it’s been rehearsed, but it’s impossible to do that.
You often cannot believe the scenarios you witness and the healing that follows this, especially with a competent constellation practitioner. But once you believe in it, you will never let it go. Of course, what you observe has nothing to do with theater—it’s actually rather about the experiences throughout life. Nobody is an actual actor.
Anyway, what is the family constellation?
My dear friend Halise Baydar, who introduced me to the technique, says this:
“The family constellation is an energetic, psychological method. It transforms the emotional states we inherited from our ancestors and locked in, causing issues like disease, failure, an inability to establish relationships, a lack of faith, and so on. This method removes the energy blocks caused by problems at work or within the family regarding one’s healthy function in private and social environments.
The collective consciousness of our family is the number-one factor in establishing our emotionality, so it is what actually shapes us. As well as our upbringings, we inherited many features from our ancestors that are carried in our genes and our emotional, physical, and intellectual states, and these shape our potentials.
The family is an organic whole that survives with all its members, both past and present. Although it’s not physically alive as such, a family’s collective conscience leads the individuals in this family. The family constellation aims to enable all members of a family to take their place in the family system, so they can experience the fact that they are a part of a whole that is greater than themselves.
Some experiences from past generations can disrupt the family system and thus the feeling of belonging for the individuals involved. The lives of people now are influenced by events that occurred in previous generations, such as taking the role of the perpetrator or victim, migrating, being orphaned at an early age, and being involved in abortion, suicide, conflict, accidents, abuse, rape, or isolation. The energy blockages that result from such events, if they remain unresolved, continue to transfer from one generation to the next. In the family constellation, these blockages are remedied, and the burden experienced by the people actually living today is diminished.”
How does one apply this?
“While there are individual practices and various interpretations, the family constellation work takes place among a crowded group, usually with at least seven people. This work provides the opportunity for both the client and other participants to gain awareness. First of all, with the help of the therapist, the client selects people who best represent the members of his or her family, and they are then gathered in a room. In terms of their placement, the therapist interprets the inner family dynamics following the method’s rules based on knowledge and insight. While the client observes their own family from the outside, it gives them the chance to observe the events from someone else’s perspective. The representatives, through the roles they take on, also get the chance to gain awareness about their own lives and resolve any issues.
Without any acquaintance with the family members, the participants begin to feel the emotions and thoughts of the person they are playing, as well as even take on their physical behaviors. The therapist then asks representatives how they feel about the topic being worked on, and according to their replies, and through the new participants who represent the ancestors, the questions get answers and the blocks begin to resolve. The results of the family constellation work is generally felt not just by the client but also the family members who were not present during the work.”
The Family Constellation and Me
It’s been almost 20 years since I first became acquainted with the family constellation thanks to Halise Baydar. She got her degree in clinical psychology so she could get family constellation training in Germany. Around the same time, Mehmet Zararsızoğlu, another psychologist, was also working on it. As far as I know, together these two, both of who were students of Bert Hellinger himself, introduced Turkey to this technique.
Hellinger lived within a Zulu tribe for some 16 years. He was impressed by how this tribe valued people, communicated with nature, and dealt with their issues. When he returned to Europe, he combined his tribal experiences with psychology and psychotherapy methods to create the family constellation technique, which he introduced to physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists first. As far as I know, this technique is still practiced in Germany and many other European countries. Many psychologists support and practice this model, demonstrating that it’s more than just some mumbo jumbo.
We are each born with genes that we inherited from our ancestors, but our subconscious is also shaped by what we received from our ancestors and our environment. In this sense, we are all like a walking historical library.
Our world, which we call the “real world” or reality, is actually just the way our brain interprets energy waves. So, this “real” world is actually more about how we each perceive it in our own exclusive manner, and the genes, beliefs, and experiences that we inherited from our ancestors influence this process.
The family constellation is a bit like a live theatrical performance that we carry around in our subconscious. Interestingly, such a scene reflects not just on the person who opened the constellation but also the other participants, even those who assume themselves to be mere viewers.
At this point, the competency of the person leading the process is extremely critical, as is this person’s understanding of ethics.
I’d like to underline the importance of ethics, especially because the lead therapist must know the ethical boundaries and be free from any form of ego. To avoid having a negative rather than positive effect, this therapist needs to avoid being selfish, because the family constellation—just like breathing exercises, yoga, Reiki, psychokinesis, EFT, mindfulness, and such like—is a manifestation of God’s healing and guidance. It therefore belongs to God, and the vehicle for it must be aware of that.
Those involved in astrology will know that since January 19, 2022, we have been in the axis of Taurus–Scorpio knots. Although this is really a topic for another article, energy in the south Scorpio knot could be luring us toward occultism, mysticism, esoterism, and magic, because these are the themes of the Scorpio zodiac sign. During this period, with the impact of this energy, the attractiveness of such fields increases. Instead of being drawn to it subconsciously, though, we should open ourselves up to the real nature of Scorpio and improve our spiritual side in a balanced way.
Under the influence of the south Scorpio knot we just mentioned, there may be people who consider the family constellation to be some form of necromancy, but this technique has nothing to do with such things. Nobody has the power to summon ancestors who have passed away.
A competent family constellation therapist
So what does a competent family constellation therapist look like? After receiving such questions from readers about the family constellation, I asked Fatma Meryem Suna about it. This is what she said:
“A competent therapist should have a great ability for deep vision, as well as thorough knowledge of the technique. They should work on themselves, and their inner improvement should have reached a certain level of competency.
Aspects that would inspire trust would be the therapist’s mastery, a solid stance, an impression that this person knows what they’re doing, and this person having the spirit of a companion and being able to combine the technique with its nature.
Only then can you open yourself up to your multi-dimensional truth. By observing what’s happening in your subconscious within an independent space, you can free yourself from the subconscious perpetrator–victim relationship that exists in your mind.
The benefit of this technique and its overreaching goal is to allow the individual to see the perpetrator–victim and the savior within, to come to know oneself better by confronting the victim or perpetrator due to the transference of inherited issues, and to get closer to one’s essential nature.
The goal of a spiritual journey is always to get to know oneself, because this goal never changes.
In that sense, the goal of the family constellation is to bring individuals closer to themselves, to enable them to see that the issues that cause them to alienate themselves are related to themselves and the systems they exist in, and to carry them towards a confrontation through representatives who they cannot deny.
That is the only goal! It’s not magic or anything similar!
This technique, like all other good techniques, is simple, natural, and ordinary for an individual on the path of self-searching.”
So, as you can see, you should not think things like, “Will I get rid of my illness?” Of course, it may offer a great deal by addressing the spiritual reasons underlying an illness or cancer. Likewise, treating it as a form of tourist experience into the past or a means to bag a new partner are not appropriate attitudes, because the experience would be nothing more than a stage play. Indeed, you can only confuse and harm yourself this way. You might upset and exhaust yourself, and instead of repairing your energy, you may consume even more of it.
All this is not just true of the family constellation but also any technique you use to advance your spiritual journey. You must certainly always find competent guides for yourself.
Hail to the spirit of dear Bert Hellinger and the Zulu tribe that influenced him, as well as all the masters who brought this technique to us.
May you have many healthy, healing constellations…
