Ovih dana svjedočimo snazi nacionalnog zanosa dok kao najveće heroje dočekujemo hrvatsku nogometnu reprezentaciju koja je osvojila brončanu medalju na svjetskom prvenstvu u Kataru. Svakodnevne brige, međusobna prepucavanja političara, siromaštvo, nezaposlenost i sve druge nedaće zaboravljene su i stavljene na stranu. Osjećamo se kao pobjednici, na vrhu, među najboljima. Slatki osjećaj pobjede euforično se slavi na ulicama i u svakom domu. Ovo su izvanredne lekcije o savjesti grupe, njenoj ulozi, manifestiranju i funkciji – za one malobrojne koji su sačuvali hladnu glavu i uspjeli se oduprijeti svojim instinktima preživljavanja i opstanka.
Kroz Berta Hellingera dobili smo važne uvide o funkcioniranju sistema, od obitelji do nacije. Svaki sistem, svaka grupa ponaša se po određenim pravilnostima koje djeluju na nivou instinkta. Svaka grupa prije svega ima svoje granice koje je definiraju i razlikuju od drugih grupa. Dakle, uvijek točno znamo tko pripada određenoj grupi, a tko ne.
Nadalje, sve grupe imaju nagon za samoodržanjem koji se brine za očuvanje cjelovitosti grupe i za njen opstanak. Ovaj nagon djeluje kroz nas na taj način da se osjećamo dobro i nedužno kada činimo ono što podržava i osnažuje unutar grupnu pripadnost, a da se osjećamo loše i krivima kada činimo nešto što ugrožava granice i cjelovitost grupe, dakle što ugrožava njen opstanak. Ovaj nagon štiti sve članove koji pripadaju, ali u isto vrijeme podržava isključivanje sviju koji su izvan granica naše grupe i na taj način podržava inter-grupni konflikt i netrpeljivost svega što je drugačije, izvan granica naše obitelji, nacije, vjerovanja, ideoloških opredjeljenja i slično.
Ovaj nagon, koji je Hellinger nazvao „grupna savjest“, čini da se osjećamo tako dobro kad navijamo za naš nacionalni tim i da kroz to jačamo grupnu koheziju i zajedništvo. Istovremeno, ovo ima za posljedicu jačanje granica prema drugim grupama i jačanje netrpeljivost prema njima. Često se osjećamo vrlo dobro kada tako u sportu porazimo protivnika, i kada ga ponizimo i kada ga u navijačkom žaru želimo jednostavno pregaziti. Pobjedu doživljavamo trijumfalno, kao da smo pobijedili u ratu, kao da smo zaista osigurali opstanak naše grupe. Sportaši se vide kao heroji, a sportske pobjede kao izraz domoljublja.
Šta je u ovome loše, pitaju se neki, ako nas to čini da se osjećamo dobro? Problem je u tome što nas svaki nacionalni zanos neminovno vodi u konflikt sa drugim grupama, pa i u rat. Više je nego očigledno (naročito ovih dana u Hrvatskoj) da ovaj zanos ne možemo ograničiti samo na sport, već da se on prelijeva u sve sfere našeg života, naročito u sferu domoljublja. Pa tako nije slučajno da sportaše dočekujemo kao heroje koji se trijumfalno vraćaju iz rata.
Uključivost i zajedništvo koje tako često propagiramo, postižu se samo prevazilaženjem granica i ograničenja naših referentnih grupa kojima pripadamo i uzdizanjem iznad ovog zanosa u kojem se osjećamo tako dobro, pobjednički. Lako je upasti u zanos jer to je dio naše instinktivne prirode. Puno teže mu se svjesno oduprijeti širenjem granica naše pripadnosti manjim grupama i umjesto njima, pripadati sve većim grupama, čovječanstvu na primjer, grupama koje uključuju i „one druge“.
Bojim se da nogomet i nogometna natjecanja nisu najbolji način vježbanja naše uključivosti. Navijanje za vaš nacionalni tim i slatki osjećaj nacionalnog ponosa nisu nužno tako naivni, nedužni i korisni kakvima se čine.
Navijajte za svoj tim, ali vidite ih samo kao one koji igraju određeni sport i koji pobjedom dokazuju da su bolji u tom sportu (mada je i to često upitno na natjecanjima gdje veliki moćnici okreću veliki novac). To što su nekoga pobijedili ne znači da su bolji od njih i u svakom drugom pogledu, a najmanje znači da smo njihovom pobjedom i svi mi postali nadmoćniji i bolji od drugih, iako se možda svi u Hrvatskoj tako trenutno osjećamo. Ne brinite, prolazno je. To je samo vaša grupna savjest neandertalca koja vam daje dozu euforije kako bi ojačala vaš osjećaj pripadnost grupi i tako osigurala njen opstanak.
Česta su pitanja onih koji žele naučiti više o konstelacijskom pristupu i o našem edukacijskom programu. Trajanje, pristup, akreditacija, diploma, kako se postaje voditelj i slično. Ovdje objavljujem odgovor koje sam dala nedavno na jedno takvo pitanje, u nadi da će ovaj ne tako jednostavan proces učenja i podučavanja konstelacijskog pristupa postati malo razumljiviji.
Ne postoji formalna akreditacija ili dozvola za vođenje konstelacija nigdje u svijetu. Ovaj pristup nije i ne može biti reguliran. Propisivanje kada je netko spreman za vođenje ili ne od bilo koje osobe ili autoriteta / institucije nije moguće niti poželjno. Moj je stav da svatko to mora odrediti sam za sebe i preuzeti odgovornost za to. Diploma našeg programa je samo potvrda da su ljudi pohađali toliko dana programa i ništa više (i ništa manje!). Registracija članova pri udruzi “Konstelacija” je također vrlo neformalna, iako su registrirani članovi završili određenu edukaciju i obavezali se slijediti etički kodeks za konstelatore. Dobro je naravno to sve “odraditi”, ali to šta će netko uraditi sa time, kako i kada će to primijeniti – to ovisi o osobnom putu, mogućnostima, životnom putu i prije svega “dozvoli iz Polja”.
Ne postajemo konstelatori kad dobijemo neku diplomu. Konstelatori postajemo kad osjetimo poziv, kada smo prošli određeni spiritualni razvojni put, kada smo stekli određenu zrelost koja nam omogućava da u Polje zakoračimo bez straha i sa određenim autoritetom i kada smo dovoljno snažni da se nosimo sa rizicima izlaganja ovom radu i da preuzmemo odgovornost za naše bivanje u radu i naše djelovanje. I, da, kada smo naučili o sistemskim principima koji rukovode našim odnosima i životima i kada smo naučili određene postupke i proceduru kroz koje se sa njima možemo uskladiti. Također, “konstelatori” nisu samo oni koji vode konstelacije, već svi oni koji nauče o sistemskim zakonitostima života i koji su tim znanjima rukovođeni u svojim životima, oni koji život vide kroz „konstelacijske naočale“.
Razvojni put konstelatora nije jednostavan i na njemu ćemo se suočiti sa mnogim izazovima, koji nikada ne prestaju, bez obzira na godine iskustva. Na svakom novom koraku biti ćemo sami sa sljedećim izazovom koji ćemo morati sami savladati. Iz tog razloga ja također ne vodim supervizijske grupe, niti potičem konsteliranje pod supervizijom. Ja nisam taj autoritet koji može reći “ovo je dobro konsteliranje, ovo nije”. Niti je itko drugi taj autoritet. Polje se otvara onoliko koliko voditelj može u tom trenutku podnijeti. Svaki voditelj biti će suočen samo sa onim pitanjima sa kojim se može nositi. Svatko nađe voditelja koji je dobar za njega u tom trenutku. “Uspjeh konstelacije” tako i tako ne ovisi toliko o voditelju. Kada bi ja radila superviziju studenata konstelacije, onda bi ja tvrdila da ja znam šta je dobra, a šta loša konstelacija i da ja to mogu objektivno procijeniti. I da postoji “pravi način” vođenja konstelacija, koji je jednak za sve u svakom trenutku. I time bi također podržavala iluziju kod onih koji se žele ovime baviti da je potrebno i moguće samo naučiti određene procedure, izvršiti ih na pravi način i onda smo “dobri konstelatori”. Nema toga.
Ja vjerujem u mogućnost svake osobe da bude “dobar konstelator” ako zadovolji određene uvjete i ako je spremna izložiti se konstantnim izazovima sa kojim će se morati suočiti u svakoj novoj konstelaciji. Diploma ili supervizija je tu neće spasiti niti joj puno pomoći. Na njih se ne možemo osloniti kada smo suočeni sa pitanjima od životne važnosti u konstelacijama. Nešto drugo je potrebno. To je ono što ja naglašavam u svom programu podučavanja.
Osobni duhovni razvoj konstelatora je najvažniji. Iz određene duhovne zrelosti onda vođenje konstelacija dođe prirodno za neke, a za druge nikada ne. Svatko je na ovom putu vođen i vođen na drugačiji način. Ne možemo se baviti ovim radom i postati konstelatori kada mi to želimo ili kada netko drugi to odredi kroz ovaj ili onaj kriterij ili kada imamo ovu ili onu diplomu. Usponi i padovi, puzanje prije nego što trčimo, pokušaji i pogreške, poniznost, ne previše intencije ili planiranja, fenomenološko osluškivanje polja je na tom putu ključno, kao što je to slučaj i kod vođenja svake nove konstelacije.
Nismo mi ti koji odlučujemo kada ćemo postati voditelji ili kada je netko drugi sposoban da postane voditelj. Kao i u svakoj konstelaciji i ovdje se pokoravamo djelovanju viših sila. Ne namećemo ništa, dozvoljavamo da budemo vođeni. Uspješan konstelator (onaj koji je od koristi drugim ljudima) je onaj koji se ovom radu uspije otvoriti na ovaj način (uz preuzimanje rizika i osobne odgovornosti za svoje djelovanje). Ovo je pristup koji ja propagiram i demonstriram i podučavam kroz program “Osnove sistemskih konstelacija prema Hellingeru”.
Alemka
Više informacija o Wu Wei pristupu učenju i podučavanju konstelacija (na engleskom) možete naći OVDJE.
Više informacija o edukacijskom programu “Osnove konstelacija prema Hellingeru” možete naći OVDJE.
Some twenty or so brave souls opened themselves to insights into our individual life situations, but also to insights from the Field on universal themes of life and death. We could not ignore the broader social / ecological / epidemiological background on which our lives have taken place in the last two years, because we all feel the effects, one way or another. That is why we also set up one collective constellation, which included various nature aspects represented, such as water, air, earth and others.
And then, through a personal question from one participant, we had the opportunity to look into the context related to the Corona pandemic and insights from the representations of virus, vaccine, manipulators, science, freedom of decision, fear and more. Below is a combined summary of insights from both constellations which concern the collective level, as experienced and seen by the facilitator, without interpretations, but still inevitably subjective.
…
A PANDEMIC. There are countless aspects that are impossible to see and summarize in “one truth” or one final conclusion. Each of these aspects is true and all aspects belong to the bigger picture. There are no ones who are right, nor those who are wrong. The dichotomies and divisions are false, as is the dilemma of getting vaccinated or not.
Yes, the VIRUS is very present and alive. It probably escaped from the laboratory, but that doesn’t matter because it now has an independent life and is not so easy to control. It doesn’t have any intention, apart from securing its existence, wanting to survive. It has a certain fondness for the vaccine, that is, it is very connected with it.
THE VACCINE loves the virus and feels very important because it is the center of global attention. It is as if there is a secret in it, but it is not there to harm: “I am useful and I help those who believe in me. I am here to serve people, those who want it. And I’m based on nature principles too.”
MANIPULATORS and manipulators of manipulators exist and use this situation, each for their own purpose. Above all, they rely on FEAR, on the various fears that people consciously or unconsciously have, including the fear of death, of vaccines, of authority, of restrictions on freedom…
SCIENCE only does what it has always done, it focuses on microscopic facts, in the desire to analyse, understand and control the virus, but also everything that exists, all nature, to everything its relationship is the same. Not out of malicious motives, but out of a desire to help humanity. It wants and thinks that it can and should control everything: the virus and the vaccine and nature. The arrogant aggressiveness of scientific materialism proved to be quite fierce in this representation.
NATURE is just there, watching patiently and wisely. It does not interfere with this momentary madness that has gripped humanity. Some turn to the wisdom of nature, seeking salvation in it, put off by science and its arrogant, controlling, aggressive attitude without a soul. But such a superficial “new age-y” kind of approach is not enough, it does not provide an easy solution.
PEOPLE tormented, going crazy with all this, no longer know what to believe. And, unaware of their fears through which they are manipulated, they fight for the supremacy of their ideas and arguments. Unaware of what actually drives them. Unaware of what matters. The struggle for freedom of decision-making is becoming important to them, but all this does is distract them more and more from what is really important, from their true nature and from Life (from full participation in the energy of life).
The SITUATION we have been in for two years is only the result of the dichotomy and our separation from ourselves, from our true nature, our spiritual being. At the same time, it is the cause and encourages further dichotomy, the focus on the irrelevant, as we move further and further away from the energy of life, we lose more and more contact with it… with unforeseeable consequences for us and the planet.
HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS does not see that it is part of a wider cosmic consciousness that permeates everything.
SOLUTION. One of the first steps towards a possible solution is to stop looking for a solution, as well as giving up hope for a quick and one-dimensional solution. We need to understand that there are many aspects to this situation and that everyone sees only one part and sees it as the “universal truth”. Consequently, we need to stop exhausting ourselves with arguments, conflict, divisions, discussions, trying to prove, expose and the like.
All aspects of this story are true, they are all connected and they all belong to the same story. And they are all more or less unimportant (getting vaccinated or not is an unimportant dilemma). For each of us, the situation is refracted in a different way, depending on the angle of refraction through the prism of our personal situations, fears, beliefs, traumas, family and karmic patterns. As long as we exhaust ourselves with this, we do not pay attention to what is essential: we do not pay attention to our spiritual nature in which we are all one and through which we are connected to our true nature. We do not pay attention to nature. That’s why we don’t see ourselves cutting the branch we’re sitting on, polluting the air we breathe, and destroying the land that feeds us. We know all this in our head, but we do not feel it as cutting of our own arm, the inability to breathe in our own life, or as hunger in our stomachs. We are not aware of the overall connectedness and of the connection of us and EVERYTHING. We do not feel that we are part of a larger whole and deny the equal right to belong to entire communities of non-human living beings. We are arrogant in experiencing ourselves as the only conscious beings not only on the planet, but in the entire universe! This, it seems, gives us the right to decide the fate of the planet, to look at everything only through the lens of usability for our own fabricated needs. Everything else, in our picture of the world, is subordinate to that.
Ah, is there an end to this hubris of humanity?!
Yes, there seems to be.
And it seems that it is already in sight. Not in some miraculous transformation into the “new man” that some hope for or in the sudden “help from space” that others expect. But in the simple fact that the earth can no longer feed us because it is depleted, that the waters can no longer quench our thirst because they stopped flowing through their usual cycles and that the air we need for every breath is stagnant and black.
In the constellation, the representation for water stopped moving, the air representation, all in black, had to sit down because it didn’t feel well, and the representation for the soil was completely exhausted, drained, lying across the table unable to support herself. And although there was a glimmer of hope due to the changing consciousness of the people and the slow understanding of what we did, the soil said it would take a very long time to recover and did not have much hope in such a possibility. The proposed sentence “it’s too late” was confirmed as fitting by the representative.
This was a very difficult, sad, poignant moment in the constellation, from which it was difficult to move on. It felt like there was nothing else to be said or done. So, that was the end (of the constellation too). I personally was overwhelmed by this deep, quiet, all-encompassing sadness, a sadness of a kind I don’t seem to have experienced before.
SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE END. If we didn’t focus on the “Covid Circus”, then we would have to see and feel all this. We would have to cover our faces with our hands and cry. We would have to fall to our knees and hand over our arrogance to forces greater than us. We would have to pray to every lump of soil, every grass, every tree for forgiveness and for our salvation. We would feel the sadness as if we approach the end of the most beloved being in the world, who we cannot save. We would have to come to terms with our own mortality, with our own end, which may have been inscribed from the very beginning. We would have to, with all the fear and uneasiness, surrender to the dark night of the soul to swallow us, us and all our ways of life which brought us to here – abandoning all hope and calculations.
And this may be, just maybe, the last chance before that night descends on our entire planet, on our mother, the mother of us all, the great and only – Mother Earth: to go through our dark night of the soul so we don’t have to watch it literally descend on everything. Even in this proposal, there is hope, a possible way out, a solution – but none of this could be discerned in the deep all-encompassing sorrow of the final experience of the constellation.
……………
Thank you to everyone who participated in this insight-gaining constellation lab.
And to all those who participated in the great experiment of a nature laboratory called Humanity.
This is the moment when the screen dims. The moment of suspended expectation… and then the letters slowly appear on the screen: “Thanks for playing. GAME OVER “.
Or the optimistic version: “NEXT LEVEL”, for those who still believe that there is a chance …
Regardless of the outcome, the perspective that came from the representation of the energy of the Great Spirit in the constellation should be somewhat comforting: “Everything is fine. Everything is exactly as it should be.”
Dvadesetak hrabrih duša otvorilo se za uvide o našim individualnim životnim situacijama, ali i za uvide iz Polja na univerzalne teme života i smrti. Nismo mogli ignorirati širu društvenu / ekološku / epidemiološku pozadinu na kojoj se naši životi odvijaju u posljednje dvije godine, jer svi osjećamo posljedice, na ovaj ili onaj način. Zato smo postavili jednu kolektivnu konstelaciju prirode sa njenim različitim aspektima kao što su voda, zrak, zemlja i drugo. A onda smo kroz osobno pitanje jedne sudionice imali priliku pogledati i u kontekst vezan za Coronu i dobili uvid iz reprezentacija za virus, cjepivo, manipulatore, znanost, slobodu odlučivanja, prirodu, strah i drugo. Dole ispod je kombinirani sažetak uvida iz obje konstelacije, onako kako je doživljen i viđen od strane voditelja, bez interpretacija, ali ipak neminovno subjektivan.
Pandemija
Ima nebrojeno mnogo aspekata koje je nemoguće sagledati i sumirati u „jednu istinu“ ili konačni zaključak. Svaki od ovih aspekata je istinit i svi aspekti pripadaju u širu sliku. Nema onih koji su u pravu , niti onih koji su u krivu. Dihotomije i podjele su lažne, kao i dilema cijepiti se ili ne.
Da, VIRUS je vrlo prisutan i živ. Najvjerojatnije pobjegao iz laboratorija, ali to nije važno jer sada ima svoj nezavisni život i neda se tako lako kontrolirati – „oteo se kontroli“. Nema neke osobite zle namjere, samo osigurava svoju egzistenciju. Gaji određenu naklonost prema cjepivu, odnosno sa njim je vrlo povezan.
CJEPIVO voli virus i osjeća se vrlo važnim jer je u centru pažnje. Kao da se u njemu krije neka tajna, ali nije tu da bi naštetilo: „od koristi sam i pomažem onima koji u mene vjeruju. Tu sam da služim ljudima, onima koji to žele. I ja se zasnivam na prirodnim zakonitostima.”
MANIPULATORI i manipulatori manipulatora postoje i koriste ovu situaciju svatko za svoje ciljeve. Prije svega oslanjaju se na STRAH , na razno razne strahove koje ljudi svjesno ili nesvjesno imaju, uključujući onaj od smrti, od cjepiva, od autoriteta, od ograničavanja slobode…
ZNANOST samo radi ono što je uvijek radila, usredotočuje se na mikroskopske činjenice, u želji da raščlani, razumije i kontrolira…virus, ali i sve što postoji, svu prirodu, prema svemu njen je odnos isti. Ne iz malicioznih pobuda, već iz želje da pomogne čovječanstvu. Želi i misli da može i treba sve kontrolirati: i virus i cjepivo i prirodu. Arogantna agresivnost znanstvenog materijalizma pokazala se s priličnom žestinom u ovoj reprezentaciji.
PRIRODA je samo tu, promatra strpljivo i mudro. Ne miješa se u ovo trenutno ludilo koje je zahvatilo čovječanstvo. Neki se okreću mudrosti prirode , tražeći u njoj spas, odvraćeni od nauke njenim nadmenim, kontrolirajućim, agresivnim stavom bez duše. No, takav površan “new agey” pristup nije dovoljan, ne pruža univerzalno rješenje.
LJUDI izmučeni, izluđeni svime ovime ne znaju više u šta da vjeruju. I nesvjesni svojih strahova kroz koje ih se manipulira, bore se za prevlast svojih ideja i argumenata. Nesvjesni onoga što ih zapravo pokreće. Nesvjesni onog što je bitno. Postaje im važna borba za slobodu odlučivanja, ali sve ovo ih odvlači sve više od onoga što je zaista bitno, od njihove prave prirode i od Života (od pune participacije u energiji života).
SITUACIJA u kojoj se nalazimo već dvije godine samo je rezultat podvojenosti i naše odvojenosti od nas samih, od naše prave prirode, našeg duhovnog bića. Istovremeno je i uzrok i potiče daljnju podvojenost, fokus na nebitno, dok se sve više udaljavamo od energije života, sve više gubimo kontakt sa njom…uz nesagledive posljedice za nas i planetu.
LJUDSKA SVIJEST ne vidi da je dio jedne šire kozmičke svijesti kojom je sve prožeto.
SOLUCIJA. Jedan od prvih koraka ka eventualnom rješenju je prestanak traženja rješenja, kao i napuštanje nade u brzo i jednodimenzionalno rješenje. Trebamo razumjeti da je puno aspekata ove situacije i da svatko vidi samo jedan dio i to vidi kao „univerzalnu istinu“. Shodno tome, trebamo se prestati iscrpljivati argumentima, prepucavanjem, dokazivanjem, „razotkrivanjem“ i sličnim.
Svi aspekti ove priče su istiniti, svi su povezani i svi pripadaju istoj priči. I svi su manje-više nevažni (cijepiti se ili ne je nevažna dilema). Za svakoga od nas situacija se prelama na drugačiji način, u zavisnosti od kuta prelamanja kroz prizmu naših osobnih situacija, strahova, uvjerenja, trauma, obiteljskih i karmičkih obrazaca.
Dokle god se iscrpljujemo u ovome, ne obraćamo pažnju na ono što je esencijalno: ne obraćamo pažnju na našu duhovnu prirodu u kojoj smo svi jedno i kroz koju smo povezani sa svom prirodom. Ne obraćamo pažnju na prirodu.
Zato i ne vidimo da siječemo granu na kojoj sjedimo, zagađujemo zrak koji udišemo i uništavamo zemlju koja nas hrani. Sve mi to znamo u našoj glavi, ali ne osjećamo to kao sječu vlastite ruke, nemogućnost udaha vlastitog života ili kao glad u našem trbuhu. Nismo svjesni svekolike povezanosti i spregnutosti nas i SVEGA. Ne osjećamo da smo dio neke veće cjeline i poričemo jednako pravo pripadnosti cijelim zajednicama živih bića koja nisu ljudi. Nadmeni smo u doživljaju sebe kao jedinih svjesnih bića ne samo na planeti, već i u cijelom svemiru! To nam, izgleda, daje za pravo da odlučujemo o sudbini planete, da sve gledamo samo kroz leću iskoristivosti za vlastite isfabricirane potrebe. Sve drugo je, u našoj slici svijeta, podređeno tome.
O, oholosti čovječanstva, ima li ti kraja?!
Da, izgleda da ima. Čini se da se već i nazire.
Ne u nekoj čudesnoj transformaciji u „novog čovjeka“ kojoj se neki nadaju ili u iznenadnoj „pomoći iz svemira“ koju drugi očekuju. Već u jednostavnoj činjenici da nas zemlja više ne može nahraniti jer je iscrpljena, da nas vode više ne mogu napojiti jer prestaju teći svojim uobičajenim tokovima i ciklusima i da je zrak koji trebamo za svaki udah – ustajali, umoran i crn. U konstelaciji se reprezentacija za vodu prestala gibati, reprezentacija za zrak je, sva u crnom, morala sjesti jer se nije osjećala dobro, a reprezentacija zemlje (hranjivog površinskog pokrivača planete) je potpuno iscrpljena, izmoždena, zalegla na stol). I iako se tračak nade ukazao uslijed promjene svijesti ljudi i polakog shvaćanja što smo učinili, zemlja je rekla da bi bilo potrebno jako mnogo da se ona oporavi i nije imala puno nade, a predložena rečenica „prekasno je“ odgovarala je energiji stanja ove reprezentacije, potvrdila je predstavnica. Ovo je bio vrlo težak, tužan, osviješćujući momenat konstelacije, iz kojeg je bilo teško krenuti dalje. To je bio i kraj (konstelacije). Mene je osobno preplavila tuga, duboka, tiha, sveobuhvatna, tuga kakvu nikada ranije nisam osjetila.
Kada se ne bi fokusirali na „Covid Cirkus“, onda bi morali uvidjeti i osjetiti sve ovo. Morali bi pokriti lice rukama i zaplakati. Morali bi pasti na koljena i predati svoju oholost u ruke silama većih od nas. Morali bi moliti svaku grudu zemlje, svaku travku, svako drvo za oprost i vlastiti spas. Morali bi osjetiti tugu kao kada se približava kraj najvoljenijeg bića na svijetu, a mi ga ne možemo spasiti. Morali bi se pomiriti sa vlastitom smrtnošću, sa vlastitim krajem, koji je možda bio upisan od samog početka. Morali bi se, uz sav strah i nelagodu, predati mračnoj noći duše da nas proguta, nas i sve naše stranputice, sve naše načine života i postupke koji su doveli do ovog stanja. Bez nade i nadanja, bez pogađanja i manipuliranja. I to je možda, samo možda, posljednja šansa prije nego li se ta noć spusti na našu cijelu planetu, na našu majku, majku sviju nas, jedinu i veliku – majku Zemlju: proći kroz našu mračnu noć duše da je nebi morali gledati kako se spušta na sve, na svu našu prirodu. Iako, i u ovom prijedlogu se krije nada, mogući izlaz, rješenje – ali ništa od ovoga nije se dalo nazrijeti u dubokoj sveobuhvatnoj tuzi završnog doživljaja konstelacije.
……………
Hvala svima koji su sudjelovali u ovom konstelacijskom laboratoriju dobivanja uvida.
Kao i svima onima koji su sudjelovali u velikom eksperimentu prirodne laboratorije zvanom Čovječanstvo.
….
Ovo je trenutak u kojem se ekran zatamnjuje. Moment suspendiranog očekivanja…a na ekranu se pojavljuje „Thanks for playing. GAME OVER“.
Ili optimistično „NEXT LEVEL“, za one koji još uvijek vjeruju da postoji šansa…
…
Bez obzira na ishod, utješna je perspektiva koja je došla iz reprezentacije energije Velikog Duha u konstelaciji: „Sve je u redu. Sve je upravo onako kako treba biti.“
Constellations have spread all over the world since the 80-ies when developed by Bert Hellinger. There are so many facilitators offering constellations nowadays, sometimes under a different name and often with little connection to the original approach. Even though Constellation Work was in the past inextricably linked to Bert Hellinger, most of what is currently being practised as Family or Systemic Constellations does not have much to do with his original approach. So much so that if you are staying true to that approach, one needs to specify that it is about “constellations according to Hellinger”.
What does it mean to stay true to “Hellinger’s approach”? Does it mean imitating, or following a guru, or being stuck in the past, frozen without allowing for further development?
I don’t think so.
It doesn’t mean wanting to stay with what he was doing and trying to emulate. It doesn’t even mean we have to use the same method, whether so called “classical” or the so called “new constellations”, as more of us are finding different methods to highlight what is essential.
For me, part of the essence of Hellinger’s approach is exactly that of constant change. It means openness, constant movement, new insights, changing according to these new insights, constantly breaking our ties that bind us to our limiting and limited groups of belonging, outgrowing the boundaries of our “lesser consciences”. If we continue in this way, it means we will not necessarily be doing exactly what Bert was doing or even using the same method. And if we apply Hellinger’s approach, we will not be able or willing to do so.
We go further, like the river always keeps flowing, always further, always responding to what is and always being drawn by the ocean, by the future destination. Always following the guidance of the Spirit. That is how we apply Hellinger’s approach. We don’t follow Hellinger or walk his path – we walk our path, following this guidance, just like he did.
His path of insight was opened only to him. So, if we want to stay true to the phenomenology of Hellinger’s approach, we each have to find our own path. And we have to let it continually develop as it unfolds before us – for each one of us in a slightly different way.
If we allow ourselves to be guided by the Spirit-Mind, as Hellinger himself did, we can all be originals, on our own path, no better or worse than anyone else, including Hellinger. All equally big among peers and all equally small in the face of something greater than us. That is the essence of the phenomenological path that Bert so beautifully described for us, in words and in action.
Can we improve on this attitude, improve on this way of proceeding? No. And we don’t have to. Each one of us will be guided on our path in this way as Hellinger was, if we surrender to it and also do what it takes, what it requires of us. If we choose to take this path, we won’t be following anyone, making anyone a guru, try to copy or to become a guru ourselves. And we certainly will not be stuck frozen in time, as some are fearful about.
It is not necessary to take Bert Hellinger’s insights face value, to adhere to them as to a dogma – Bert was never dogmatic himself. But we can rely on his approach of gaining these insights, using the same phenomenological method he did: we can open ourselves to receiving these insights in our own souls through the in-forming field. Hellinger not only conveyed his insights to us, but he gave us the method and the map, so that each one of us can undertake this journey for ourselves.
Bert Hellinger is not God. Constellations are not a religion. We must not be “followers” either of the method or the developer of the method. It is through this method that Hellinger was pointing to something greater for us to focus on. He never wanted to be a focus. Neither he ever demanded that constellation method becomes the religion we follow. Who ever approaches it this way, has not grasped the essence of Hellinger’s teachings.
Nowadays constellators celebrate the constellation method and many interesting ways in which they “developed it further”. In a sense it is as if we made the method our God. My feeling is that some of that is not a real development or a development in the forward moving direction. It is as if these many varieties come from our intellect, our mind, our previous knowledge and experience, our rational thinking and our intention, often guided by our belonging to our professional reference groups, rather than through opening ourselves phenomenologically to the guidance of the Spirit. But it is these “developments” which take the spotlight of the constellating world at present. I believe that by staying with the phenomenological way of the Hellinger’s approach we get much further, but maybe in a slower, not so obvious and ego-affirming way.
Many are critical of Hellinger and the whole new schools of constellations, as well as constellators’ associations, have been developed as a result of that criticism and in opposition to Hellinger, publicly distancing themselves from Hellinger, his teachings and his way of working. It is my impression that very few though have the courage it takes to truly surrender to the phenomenological path of insight the way Bert did. So, we have great diversity, at the expense of depth possibly. Our intellect, our will, our reason, learnt skills and our intentions can only take us that far. A few dare to venture beyond these boundaries and into the land of the Hellinger soul-scape.
But, by choosing the phenomenological path, we can trust it, we can relax into it, not work so hard and not take the responsibility which is not ours to take. As a river, we flow effortlessly by sticking closely to the ground, not worrying about what is our source and what our destination.
So, this is the position I also take in regard to this issue of developments in the field of constellations. Nothing to worry about. Everything has its place and everything develops as the Spirit-Mind wills it. Our job is only to agree with everything the way it is.
Our opinions and our differences matter little, because in the end, as Bert said, everything will be shared with everyone else.
Alemka Dauskardt, 2021
….
If you are interested in Hellinger’s approach, you can join a Facebook group
Kod potomaka počinitelja, najvažniji korak do razrješenja je gledanje u žrtve, bukvalno ne-zatvaranje očiju pred ovim strašnim događajima i pred činjenicom da su oni počinjeni od strane naših predaka, kao i ostavljanje krivice kod onih koji su direktno za njih odgovorni i ne preuzimanje potrebu za ispaštanjem na sebe.
Kod potomaka žrtava, također, solucija leži u gledanju, u viđenju, u ne-zatvaranju očiju pred strašnom sudbinom koja je stigla naše pretke, ali i u ostavljanju njihove sudbine sa njima, ne preuzimajući težak teret te sudbine na sebe i odbacujući poriv da se ograničavanjem vlastitog života solidariziramo sa njima.
Još jedna važna lekcija iz konstelacijskog rada za potomke žrtava je često opaženi fenomen da što više ogorčenja potomci žrtava nose u sebi prema počiniteljima zločina – to će više oni ili njihova djeca nalikovati počiniteljima.
Za potomke i sa jedne i sa druge strane čini se krucijalno da ostave događaje u prošlosti, i sa onima koji su bili njihovi sudionici. To naravno mogu napraviti tek kad u svojoj duši prihvate sve što se desilo upravo onako kako se desilo, bez želje ili iluzije da je išta moglo biti drugačije. U spiritualnim konstelacijama, gdje se otkrivaju neki od ovih pokreta duše na najdubljem nivou jasno je vidljivo da su počinitelji i žrtve povezani dubokom, neraskidivom vezom u kojoj nema mjesta osudi, i da se proces pomirenja događa na toj razini, i to samo onda kada nije ometan sa strane. Kada ne dozvolimo da naše ograničeno rasuđivanje postavi granice tamo gdje one zapravo ne postoje.
Ono što je Hellinger ustanovio kroz konstelacije je da su počinitelji i žrtve povezani neraskidivom vezom koja je jača od onih obiteljskih. Tako je obično prikladno da počinitelj napusti svoju obitelj, i njegova obitelj mu mora dopustiti da ode. To je solucija za žive. Jedina moguća rekoncilijacija između počinitelja i žrtve je ona s one strane života, u smrti. Ali ni tamo, ona nije automatska.
Ono što je potrebno je pokajanje, odnosno, suočavanje počinitelja sa vlastitom krivicom, kao i žaljenje. A to je moguće samo kada žrtva osjeti prema njemu suosjećanje. Sve dok se nitko ne sažali nad počiniteljem – on ostaje krut i nije mu moguće prihvatiti svoju krivnju. U ovim procesima iza granice života i smrti, i iza naših pojmova o dobru i zlu, krivici i nedužnosti, vidljivo je da su i počinitelji i žrtve nošeni silom većom od njih. Jedino moguće pomirenje leži u prihvaćanju djelovanja te sile sa svim posljedicama za sve jednako, upravo onakve kakve jesu.
“Uvijek nanovo vidimo u konstelacijama da je krivnja koju osjećaju počinitelji teža od bola koju osjećaju žrtve. U Mexicu sam jednom radio konstelaciju sa djecom žrtava rata. Oni su osjećali strašnu ljutnju prema počiniteljima, koji su u konstelaciji izjavili: „Ako ostanete i dalje ljuti na nas, mi samo bivamo sve jači i jači i ništa se ne mijenja.“ Kada su djeca pokazala suosjećanje prema počiniteljima, oni su omekšali. Okrenuli su se žrtvama i sjedinili se sa njima, postali jedno s njima. Dobro i zlo, počinitelj i žrtva nisu više postojali.
Samo kada svi imaju svoje mjesto se mi osjećamo cijelima. Samo kada možeš sve prigrliti u svom srcu si slobodan od njih. Ne ranije. Inače te neće pustiti na miru i stalno će ti biti na putu. U ovom kontekstu veliki duhovni koncept „cjelovitosti“ poprima sasvim obično značenje. Ja sam cjelovit, potpun kada sam svakome dao mjesto. Kada smo u stanju dozvoliti drugima mjesto u našem srcu. To je prava duhovnost – tada se osjećamo jednaki sa njima. Ne viši od njih ili bolji, ne niži ili manji. Potpuna jednakost. Ovo nadilazi osobnu i kolektivnu savjest. Židovi, kršćani, muslimani…tada to više nije važno. Svi različiti, svi jednaki. To je pomirenje i samo tada može biti mir.”
Bert Hellinger
“Žrtve ne mogu oprostiti počinitelju. To bi podrazumijevalo moralnu superiornost i ne pomaže niti počinitelju niti žrtvi. Obje strane trebaju nositi posljedice strašnog čina, tako da vremenom njihovo djelovanje može skončati. Počinitelji ne smiju biti izloženi osveti i konačni obračun mora biti ostavljen smrti, toj većoj sili koja tretira sve jednako.
Kain je morao napustiti svoju obitelj kada je ubio svog brata Abela, ali je bio obilježen znakom na čelu kao znak da je ubojica i pod Božjom zaštitom. Nitko mu nije smio učiniti ništa nažao.
Pomirenje je moguće kada postoji saznanje da je počinitelj djelovao u skladu sa onim što mu je bilo omogućeno, kao i kada postoji saznanje da žrtve nisu mogle učiniti ništa da spriječe štetan čin. Sudbina dovodi počinitelja i žrtvu na isti put i spaja ih na takav način koji je iznad osobne odgovornosti bilo kojeg pojedinačnog počinitelja i žrtve. Krivnja i nedužnost su često određene samo okolnostima u kojima se nalazimo. Nedužnost je više dar negoli osobno postignuće i, shodno tome, pomirenje nadilazi okvire napora ili namjere bilo koje individue. Ono podrazumijeva povijanje pred većim silama koje naposljetku ( a najkasnije u smrti) dovodi žrtvu i počinitelja u istu ravan, možda isto i sa jednakom toplinom. To je jedino moguće ako zamislimo svemir kao jedan, ispunjen ljubavlju za sve jednako, za sve ljude i sve što postoji. Čak i najzloglasniji počinitelji su ljudska bića i u mnogim religijama imaju pravo na posljednju pomast i molitve.
Izmirenje između potomaka žrtava i počinitelja je možda najtrajnije kada im je dozvoljeno da ožale mrtve zajedno, mrtve na svim stranama i kada ih se sviju mogu sjećati sa poštovanjem. U procesima na nivou duše, mrtve žrtve kao i počinitelji trebaju ljubav živih godinama nakon nemilih događaja. Ukoliko ti događaji uključuju mnogo mrtvih, kao u slučaju rata, žrtve i počinitelji se mogu ožaliti s ljubavlju samo zajedno, samo kroz prihvaćanje sprege koja ih povezuje. I kada se radi o masivnim zločinima, rezolucija je moguća samo kroz ljubav mnogih, na kolektivnom nivou. Predodžbu o tome možemo dobiti kroz neke Hellingerove konstelacije koje uključuju mnoge i koje ostavljaju efekt na stotine ljudi koji sudjeluju u procesu.”
Jacob Schneider
„U Njemačkoj, mi smo prezreli nacističke počinitelje. Uzdigli smo se iznad njih kao da smo mi bolji od njih. Čineći to, mi se ponašamo isto kao oni tada. Počinitelji su učinili strašne stvari jer su se osjećali superiornima. Sa tim osjećajem „bolji od“, postali su počinitelji. I sada oni koji se uzdižu iznad njih postaju isti. Osjećajući se superiornim, oni pretvaraju počinitelje u svoje žrtve. I u cijelom ovom procesu, stvarne žrtve, oni koji su ubijeni, su zaboravljeni.
Mi u Njemačkoj nismo zaista jadikovali nad mrtvim vojnicima ili nad mrtvim civilima. Sve smo ih premazali istom farbom, farbom počinitelja. Htjeli smo se odvojiti od njih i mislili smo da to možemo učiniti tako što ćemo se uzdići iznad njih.
Ali rješenje bi bilo da svi zajedno žalujemo, da potomci žrtava i počinitelja gledaju u mrtve sa obje strane, mrtve žrtve, i mrtve počinitelje, tako da im možemo pomoći da nađu svoj put jedni do drugih u carstvu mrtvih. Šta to znači vidio sam nedavno u jednoj konstelaciji u Buenos Airesu. U obiteljima žrtvi, na primjer u mnogim židovskim obiteljima gdje su počinitelji prezreni, član obitelji reprezentira počinitelje. Tada taj član obitelji osjeća ubilačku energiju zato što su počinitelji zanemareni, zato što se u njih ne gleda.
Znači, ne možemo se riješiti počinitelja tako što ćemo ih prezirati ili se boriti protiv njih. Rješenje je jedino moguće kada mi, potomci počinitelja i potomci žrtava žalimo zajedno. U tom zajedničkom žalovanju klanjamo se nečem većem što stoji iza ovoga. Počinitelji nisu bili slobodni. Oni su bili dio nečeg većeg. Moramo se pokloniti tome što stoji iza, toj sili, kao pred udaljenim svjetlom, bez spoznaje šta je to. Tada smo svi na istom nivou.“
Bert Hellinger
MEDITACIJA: ŠTOVANJE POGINULIH U RATU
Zatvorite oči. Dišite svjesno neko vrijeme i saberite se u svom centru. Spustite se u kraljevstvo mrtvih.
I evo, tu su svi mrtvi iz II-og svjetskog rata: domobrani, ustaše, četnici, partizani, Nijemci, saveznici, vojnici i civili, Hrvati, Srbi i Muslimani. Dajte si vremena da ih sve vidite: goleme armije mrtvih, svi isti, već dugo bez uniformi i obilježja po kojima bi ih mogli razlikovati.
Tu su i svi mrtvi iz posljednjeg rata: Hrvati, Srbi, Muslimani, vojnici i civili. Svi su ovdje zajedno. Počinitelji i žrtve na svim stranama. Sada im svima odajemo počast. Poklanjamo se njihovim sudbinama, bez obzira na kojoj strani i u kojoj ulozi. I kažemo im u sebi: „vašu sudbinu ostavljam vama, s poštovanjem, neću se miješati.“
Možda su tu su i ljudi iz vaše obitelji. Možda neki od njih još uvijek imaju otvorene oči i gledaju u vas sa molbom. Možda možete reći nekima od njih: „Vidim te. Poštujem te. Vidim što ti se desilo.“ ili „Vidim što si učinio drugima. Dajem ti čast koja pripada mrtvima – čast da se bude isti kao drugi – čast da imaš mir, isto kao drugi – čast da pripadaš, ja sam kao i ti.“
Onda pogledate u udaljeno svjetlo, jako jako daleko na horizontu iza sviju njih – i poklonite mu se duboko, bez riječi, ponizno, i polako se povučete unazad, vrlo sporo, kao netko tko je ušao u zabranjeni teritorij, dok ne dođete do kraja i ne osjetite da ste natrag, u zemlji živućih. Tada se saberete u svome središtu, okrenete se, osjetite drugo svjetlo, otvorite oči – i pogledate u njega.
“What counts in the end? The love that stays. Which love stays? The love that does not apply any measure, the love before which everything may be as it is.” (1)
Bert Hellinger
What I learnt from Bert Hellinger is that the biggest force in the world is love – love which makes no distinctions between good and bad, just or unjust, guilty or innocent. How to find and nurture that position within myself from which I could feel equal love for all has been the greatest lesson. To at least sometimes be able to arrive at and hold that position, required years of practice in letting go, as I travelled the path of, ultimately, spiritual growth. To learn Family Constellations and to be able to at least partly comprehend Hellinger, I had to embark on a journey of leaving most of my pre-conceived ideas and knowledge acquired to date behind. More than twenty years down the track, and I am still travelling, learning, trying to comprehend. Such was the challenge of encountering constellations and such inspiring and motivating force for growth, which even with all the difficulties and frustrations along the way, I would not swap for anything else. Such is also its beauty, satisfaction and enlivening thrust for ever MORE.
I was born into a Christian tradition, in which I could not find the sacredness I sensed in the world, and by profession I was a Psychologist, struggling to understand people and assist them within a scientific discipline, which, with its essential separateness from spiritual and natural forces is able to perpetuate only that: separateness and duality. It took some years for me to be able to deal with my different consciences of belonging to these groups and to move on, to move forward and, through Family Constellations to continue moving into an ever more encompassing and inclusive conscience. I am grateful to Bert Hellinger for being a shining example in this respect with his own life: continuously leaving behind groups, professions, communities and theories when outgrowing their boundaries, always swapping a lesser conscience for a bigger, more inclusive one – that which unites rather than separates.
His own account of his move to leave the Catholic order is revealing in this respect. He recalled that at some point he was faced with the question: what is more important to me – people or principles? After a sleepless night, he knew his answer. This was the choice he kept making for the rest of his life, always moving on, always choosing people and ‘what is’, rather than following any ideology, principle or theory or particular way of working – even if it was his own invention! He never stopped expanding, growing, changing on his path of including ever more, embracing even more, dropping off even more when necessary, unrelenting in his quest for truth and service to life.
He became widely known as a developer of Family Constellations, and just as they spread all over the world and started gaining recognition, drawing more and more people who learned to facilitate, with many books written and published, associations established, he proclaimed: “Traditional Family Constellations are finished!” And he moved on, much to the dismay of the rest of the constellating world. Those who wanted to hold on to a lesser mystery (and lesser mastery!) proclaimed him wrong and many refused to follow. They kept hanging on to their conscience of belonging to a group of traditional Family Constellation facilitators, who had learnt from an earlier Bert, while he, once again, left the order he himself had established and – moved on.
Bert Hellinger was not the one resting on his laurels or hanging on to fame. He was a life-long seeker, always in pursuit of new knowledge, venturing into new territories, opening himself up to new insights, staying true to himself, and that which guided him. Continually there was a price to be paid, and courage was needed to stay unwavering on that path. Clearly, he was guided, as otherwise he could not have endured all the attacks he was exposed to. Thank you, Bert, for teaching me courage and also the wisdom to know the destructive power of conscience, in whose name even the worst deeds are possible, done in good conscience and without guilt. The far-reaching insights can only be reached and revealed quietly and humbly, keeping close to the ground.
Hellinger’s insights and teachings
The scope of Hellinger’s teachings, his life’s work, is so immense that it is not easy to grasp, with no objective overview possible. There are a few major aspects, though, which forever change the way we perceive ourselves, our relationships and the world around us and I want to highlight the ones which impacted me the most personally.
One of his greatest achievements was showing us that there are systemic forces operating in our families and other human systems, which determine our direction in life, our health and success, and that there are things we can do if we want love to flourish in our relationships and things we must not do. He turned our blind love into the love that sees, telling us about these forces and teaching us how to align ourselves with them so that we can thrive. From being at sea and not knowing what determines the direction our lives take, not understanding what makes us ill and unsuccessful and why our relationships fail, he provided a map for living, charted the uncharted territory and made us understand so much more about our relationships and the way we are in the world.
Finally there was a connection we could make between what we perceived as unrelated, random life events and actions, for example, between cancer and a relationship to our mother, between anorexia and a relationship to our father, between depression and anger towards our parents, between serious illness and our grandfather’s involvement in the war, between children’s behaviour problems and aborted siblings, between lack of business success and the lost twin, between suicide and adoption, between psychosis and a murder in a family system…and the list of examples can go on and on! Hellinger taught us that there are systemic orders, ordering our relationships on every level, running our lives in a certain direction, while we are completely unaware of this!
Slowly, over the years, through exposing himself to phenomenological insight, he has found out exactly what those orders are, what their function is and what the consequences are of not living in accordance with them: in our most intimate dealings with a partner, between us and our children, in our ancestral system, in our work organisations and in the larger, collective systems we belong to. And he taught us exactly how we can align ourselves with these forces for a healthy and successful life. What an achievement!
But it doesn’t end with this, of course. Hellinger also discovered that not only every individual, but every family has a soul which connects every member of that family across generations and connects everything that happened in that family, all the dead family members with the living ones, and that this soul does not tolerate exclusions and other transgressions of systemic justice. The consequence of this insight has been that he always perceived an individual as part of their family and ancestral systems, and adjusted the work accordingly. Through Hellinger’s constellations, we have started to realise how deeply we are connected, even beyond family blood ties, even beyond time and space and even beyond the boundary of death.
Particularly insightful was his realisation about the connection between victim and perpetrator, a connection, he discovered, which was stronger than a blood tie. This has far-reaching consequences, not only in releasing our entanglement with large scale killings of the past, but also with pointing the way into the future in which, hopefully, we won’t need to take up either of these two positions and can stop the vicious dance between the two.
Another unique achievement was the discovery of a deep, blind love, which binds a child to its parents and through which that child sacrifices itself in an attempt to magically save the parents. He brought to light the deeply unconscious and damaging dynamics: ‘I follow you’ and ‘I go instead of you’ and, through constellations, they lost their destructive power over many. Hellinger has stopped the Pied Piper’s song and has brought many a child safely home, to their parents and to life.
Further to that, Bert Hellinger showed us the real effects of abortion, helped us to work out the best place for everyone in adoption systems, taught us how to recognise if we are living someone else’s life instead of our own and how to resolve the identification with the excluded. He discovered that any kind of exclusion has a devastating effect on the family and other systems and he described the mechanism of family conscience through which this happens and who is the one ‘in charge’. He found out that our lives are determined by these unconscious processes and the forces which guide them and dispelled our illusion about free will and us being in control of our lives.
He made us realise the importance of leaving the burdens to those to whom they belong, without interfering, without trying to help. He showed how essential it is to entrust someone’s destiny to them.
He shone the light on what makes us sick and what healthy, uncovering systemic dynamics behind serious illness, depression, psychosis. He understood what is behind our professional success and our relationship with money and also the conditions under which our business endeavours and our organisations can thrive, as well as what obstructs their success.
He helped us understand the systemic conditions behind suicide and also the collective dynamics which drive wars.
Bert Hellinger addressed the most mysterious and difficult aspects of being human, bringing clarity to guilt and innocence, freedom, responsibility, wisdom and love. He wrote about forgiveness, betrayal, envy, power, jealousy, competition, creativity, pride, humility, greatness – always with incredible clarity, going straight to what was essential. His words on most aspects and conditions in which we manifest our humanness often left us moved and a little more enlightened. There is hardly an aspect of our experience of being human, which he hasn’t reflected on and ‘en-lightened’ for us. Eating disorders, autism, addictions, problems at school, criminal activities, organ donation, artificial insemination – for each and every life situation he has, not defined a cause and effect connection, of course, but had an insight, a word, which often pointed towards a healing solution.
In the practical application of his insights, he was a master at facilitating a reaching-out movement, which restores our early broken attachments. He was also a trauma specialist, working with all sorts of trauma on every level, from individual to collective, often spanning these different levels in one piece of work. Sometimes, he would just hold the person and walk her in her mind’s eye up and down the trauma memory lane, the whole process of addressing life traumas taking minutes, not hours or years.
But further to that, out of the arena of our family relationships, Hellinger has understood the true nature of conscience, for the first time in human history, something that eluded most philosophers (“even Kant!”, says Hellinger, and certainly most thinkers in modern times. We have been, not unlike the children following the Pied Piper’s song, deeply enthralled and entranced by our conscience into believing this story of conscience being the universal voice, the voice of god, Jiminy cricket in our ear which tells us what is right and wrong and which should determine our actions accordingly. Possibly Hellinger’s greatest insight of all was that conscience is a mere instrument, which tells us when belonging to our particular group is secure or endangered. To confuse this with universal categories of good and bad, with morality, is one of the biggest flaws of humanity, taking us into wars, making us conscientiously kill each other in the name of our good and just god: our conscience. How? With good conscience, of course.
“The crucial insight about conscience was that is has to do with our right of belonging, the right of belonging to the group on which our survival depends. With that came the insight that each group demands something different from the ones who belong to it in order for them to remain in it, both in their behaviour and in their thoughts and feelings. It thus also determines what we may and must know and believe. Each progress in our thoughts and actions is hindered by our conscience, unless we grow beyond it, guided by a different consciousness that leads us beyond the belonging to this group of origin into a different vastness, into a universal consciousness beyond our common differentiations between Good and Bad, Right and Wrong.” (2)
Phenomenological Path
This brings us to another, phenomenal indeed, achievement of Hellinger’s: opening for us a phenomenological path to knowledge through the constellation method. This path, which is different from the scientific path to knowledge, is based on keeping our attention wide and open, letting ourselves perceive not the details, but the phenomenon in its totality and thus also perceiving what is essential, a perspective we lose when focusing on separate, individual parts. Constellations as a method are based on phenomenological perception, and it is in this way that Hellinger, and all of us with him, came to know about human systems and about the forces, which operate in them.
“The spiritual way that has led me to these insights is called in philosophy the phenomenological path. These insights are neither gained nor achieved through a personal effort. This insight is given as a present, yet in a way that demands the ultimate void from us.” (3)
Learning constellations in this way takes us all on a path of knowledge, one that each one of us has to follow, finding our own way and facing our own personal challenges.
“The phenomenological path is a path that each one has to follow individually. To only hear of it does not give one the strength to follow it. What has come from this for me? Only hearing and trying to apply these insights does not live up to the magnitude of these insights and the possibility to apply and convey them. This means learning them the way others learn something else is denied to me. My insight was that only he who proceeds on the phenomenological path by himself and who receives these insights from somewhere that goes far beyond all common forms of learning, together with all the consequences that follow for him personally, can then grasp these phenomena and pass them on.” (4)
The Knowing Field & Natural Mysticism
Through the constellation method as developed by Hellinger, mostly through the phenomenon of representative perception, we came to understand that there must be a Field in which all information is stored, through which we are all connected, beyond space and time, and beyond our material manifestation. The existence of such a Field is being confirmed through the latest scientific discoveries and forms the basis of many new theories about the nature of consciousness and the universe. It is also consistent with many old spiritual systems, like Taoist philosophy, Jewish mysticism, Hindu mythology and the teachings of the Buddha, as well as the wisdom of ancient tribal knowledge of indigenous peoples.
Hellinger’s constellations reveal something about the workings and the nature of that Field, and about the force, which drives it and guides everything within it. This is the force on which we rely to move representatives in a constellation, the one which also moves the facilitator and everyone present at the same time. Constellations have brought us closer to sensing the workings of that one big force, the primal mover, which moves it all, the nature of which remains elusive.
Invariably, his insights about the Field and this force led him to the spiritual dimension and his teachings became philosophical lessons in natural mysticism, in particular in his later years:
“This spiritual power goes far beyond what we have tried to grasp in our views of God, far beyond it. It is the essential, the primary, creative power. For this power, there is no good and no bad, no right and no wrong, no perpetrator no victim, there is nothing according to which we can classify our world.
When we come into alignment with this movement, when we come into accord with this movement, all our distinctions fall away, they’re completely gone. Coming into this movement is a natural thing, a process of insight in which this insight is taken seriously in every respect.
What comes to an end when we take this seriously? Any religion, any morals – they all come to an end. Do you understand the extent of natural mysticism now, how it turns everything upside down?” (5)
Helpingin harmony
Many who turned to Bert were not concerned about the philosophy behind his interventions, but turned to him for help with an often deeply serious and painful personal issue. From Bert Hellinger we learned the conditions under which we are in a position to help someone at all, limiting our childish illusions of being able to help our parents, but instead meeting the Other as an adult, with equal love for everyone in their system, respecting their destiny, taking them only as far as we are permitted and guided by life forces. In other words, always in harmony with their parents, their ancestors, with their destiny and the Greater Soul.
“First it means, I am in harmony with my soul and with whatever my soul connects me to. That means, I am in harmony with my origins, with my father, with my mother and with everyone else who belongs to my family: my siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts and with the dead ones of my family.
To be in harmony with them means I honour them the way they are or were, I give them a place in my heart and in my soul the way they are or were; I feel at one with and connected to them the way they are or were, including their fate, their pain and their death.
To be in such harmony with them means my soul becomes wide and open, permeable for the flow from them to me, the flow through me to others. In that state my soul is not only my own possession.
In my soul I am in harmony with something greater and older and wider to which I belong, by which I am carried and guided, which however challenges me way beyond my own planning and wishing.” (6)
Over the years Hellinger has understood and specified the Orders of Helping which are followed in constellation facilitation: helping only when there is a need, when asked and able to, only going as far as circumstances permit, not treating adults like children, always seeing them as part of a system and uniting what has been separated, without judgement.
Thank you, Bert, for teaching me how to be able to help myself and others in need.
This kind of helping differs from how helping is viewed in other helping professions and therapeutic modalities and is an essential aspect which differentiates Family Constellations from other approaches. Hellinger probably had this aspect uppermost in his mind when he said he was not a psychotherapist in an interview with Martin Buchholz. When asked: “Then how would you describe yourself?” he responded: “Someone who is in the service of life.” (7)
In the service of Life
For me there is no doubt that Bert was always in the service of life and that he devoted his life to the service of others. I never doubted that and did not need any convincing. However, the confirmation came unexpectedly, through witnessing a representation of Bert Hellinger, in his own presence, in a constellation he set up himself. The man who represented Hellinger in a constellation bowed deeply, deeply, in front of the representatives for clients, those in need who seek help, without much interest for whatever else was going on around him. Another occasion of the essence of Bert coming through a representation in a constellation was conveyed to me by a colleague. He wasn’t chosen for Bert, but during a constellation his representation turned into the representation of Bert. At some point, the facilitator asked other representatives to bow to Bert, at which point his representative objected and reported: “I do not want any adulation. I just wish they realised the importance/significance of the work and respected that more.”
His was a life of humble service, regardless of our projected wishes and need for adulation.
Was Bert Hellinger a guru?
In Love’s Hidden Symmetry there is an account of him being asked:“Did you know that some people think you’re trying to be a guru?” He answered: “Yes, I’ve been told that before, but I don’t worry about it since I finally have found out what a guru is. During a workshop, the group climbed a mountain to celebrate at a restaurant there. When they got ready to walk home, it was pitch black outside and they couldn’t find the path down. One of them who couldn’t see either, took another’s hand; they made a chain and when they got down safely, they thought he was a guru.”(8)
Was Bert Hellinger great?
Yes, if we consider greatness in the way he describes it in the piece entitled: ‘Greatness’.
“Great is only he, who feels equal to others, because the greatest that we have is that which we have in common with all people. He who feels and acknowledges this greatness in himself, knows he is great and at the same time feels connected with all other people.
If he acknowledges this for himself, at the same time he acknowledges it in all other people and he knows he is equal to all. Therefore he can reveal his greatness without fear, for it does not place him above others, but it makes him equal. In this he confirms the greatness of the other person and the other person confirms his greatness. He loves the other in his greatness and is loved for his own greatness by the other. Thereby this greatness connects all people with love and humility.” (9)
This was and remains Bert’s greatness.
Passing it on
This way of approaching our own life and the lives of those around us, especially those who are in need, allows me also to stay with this work, and with my life, devoted to passing on what I learnt from Hellinger. When teaching I often tell these two stories about Family Constellations I heard, related to Hellinger. At one workshop, a woman fascinated by the method approached him and asked: “How can I learn to do this work?” Apparently, he answered: “You cannot learn it.” And that is so true, as ‘the work’ requires much more than just a learnt set of skills. In the other story, again, a woman asked the same question of Hellinger, wondering if she would ever be able to learn something so complex. His answer reportedly was: “Just take your mother and your father into your heart and go and do the work.”
The more gratitude I feel, the more I take. The more I take, the more I have to give. This flow of knowledge is so similar to the flow of life. I feel joyful and fulfilled passing on what I have learnt. I have no other option but to do so, as many who are on a similar path have noticed, I believe. Thank you, my teacher, with gratitude I pass it on.
“What would I be without my teachers? How generously have they given to me from their treasure box of knowledge and skills that served my life and my competence so that I could grow into what I am now?
Often I forget what I owe them. It all became so naturally a part of my life and of myself, of which I was proud, as if it came from me. In forgetting my teachers sometimes, much that I owe them escapes me. Then it becomes less for me and loses strength.
It is different when I have them in my heart, when I remember them with gratitude. Then I feel richly given to. They are with me in what I do and in what I pass on to others, when, as they did to me, I give to others what serves their life and achievement.
Do I feel small in comparison to them? On the contrary. I may stand next to them, in the service of life, like them, humble and small before life, and thus all the more completely at one with life and its movements.
When I honour and share what I owe my teachers, others take from me more openly what I give to them for their life. Their gaze goes beyond me to all those who were by my side, who shared my life with me, as I share it with others.
Then we all look beyond our teachers, to the creative Spirit who is equally at work in all life. As we did before this spirit, we bow to our teachers, and they, together with us, bow before this Spirit. Before this Spirit we remain low, on the ground, all of us, all grateful, all equally alive, and equally in Spirit’s service.” (10)
Controversy & Criticism
Hellinger had an amazing life journey, which took him from youth groups opposing the rise of national socialism in pre-war Germany, to the trenches of the German army and a prisoner of war camp, through priesthood and missionary years spent in Africa to a profession of psychotherapy, within which he was trained in an exceptional number of modalities: psychoanalysis, primal therapy, transactional analysis, Gestalt therapy, family therapy, to name just a few. Through integration of his knowledge from various approaches, he developed this new modality – Family Constellations, which spread to all the different corners of the world and became immensely popular, and also controversial, as they presented a challenge to most established worldviews and were not able to fit within the dominant materialistic paradigm our Western civilisation rests upon. Most of all it did not fit with our distinction of good and bad, to which we are so firmly attached.
The outcry from the mainstream, and even more pronounced criticism from the psychotherapy profession were loud and vicious. So, the only way was forward, out of the bounds of therapy, into ever new, uncharted territories. The attacks, which ranged from accusations of supporting the philosophy of national socialism, to being a misogynist, anti-Semite and others, have been an incredible display of ‘conscience in action’, demonstrating Hellinger’s major insight: if we go against the accepted values and norms of a particular group, we will be punished by expulsion or even executed by members of that group, with clear conscience, of course.
Bert was the biggest victim of smaller consciences. One of his biggest insights, according to his own words, was that there is no good and bad. Many of us, raised within the conscience of our national, religious, professional groups and ideologies refuse to accept that. Many cannot comprehend the far-reaching consequences of such insight, and, according to Bert, most constellators do not, as their conscience prevents them:
“Even though I have said, written and shown a lot and extensively about my insights about the effects of the consciences, they remain basically ineffective for those who followed me on the path of Family Constellation and wanted to take others along on this path. Their consciences held them back.” (11)
Sometimes the insights, which came to us through Bert were not easy to take and often required from us the utmost dedication, pushed us to the boundary of our growth, which we were not always ready to cross. The insights we receive through work we don’t always like, or which we don’t experience as beneficial, or against which our rational mind rebels, sometimes go against common sense or fly in the face of accepted norms. Then we get angry with the facilitator or reject the work as such. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage on the part of the facilitator to stay with the insight and not buckle under the pressure of the client, the group, societal norms or the accepted, prevailing worldview.
Bert Hellinger was the most courageous person I know in that regard. He had to withstand enormous pressure to conform, but he always stayed true to what he observed, to what is, to the phenomenological truth – even when it didn’t make sense, even when it felt weird, even if it went against scientific or philosophical understanding built up over centuries in our western civilisation. He stayed true to his insights, even when most of the psychotherapy profession distanced themselves from him, including his closest German collaborators. He displayed the most courage to trust and stand by his observations, when he was attacked by those individuals and groups who had been victimised, either in their own lives, or more commonly, were outraged on behalf of those who had suffered in previous generations. By refusing to exclude perpetrators of all kind from his heart, he attracted the anger of victims and was accused of siding with a perpetrator.
Victims, or those fighting on their behalf, cannot and do not want to take a systemic, phenomenological position of neutrality. It is too painful. It goes against their victim conscience; it seems to undermine their suffering and innocence. Those who suffered a lot want the perpetrators to be considered bad and they want them to be punished. They want revenge and they want condemnation. They also want everyone else to agree and sympathise with them. They insist on the distinction between good and bad, especially those who suffered from the actions of Germans; they wanted this from Bert. But he refused, as he knew this is futile and systemically not useful to anyone, not least the victims, and that only a position of systemic neutrality and radical inclusion is the way out of the repeating cycles of a victim-perpetrator dynamic. And so, he was attacked and criticised the most for some of his most profound insights, which are an incredible offer and opportunity for humanity to get out of this vicious cycle of violence and wars, if understood, internalised and acted upon.
Similarly, Bert was not favoured by all those who claim they were badly treated by their parents and wanted to hold on to their ‘righteous anger’ and childish accusations towards them. Here too, the victim conscience prevails, and stubbornly holds on to accusations. Some constellators who proclaimed that constellations can be used without ‘Hellinger philosophy/ideology’ and who promised these adult children they can heal without taking their mother in, continuing to hold on to their complaints against her, gained great popularity and developed parallel constellation methods under different names.
Many have resisted Bert’s invitation to follow him into the New Family Constellations or as he also called them, Spiritual Constellations:
“There is resistance to this new and different movement, it’s obvious. Sometimes this resistance takes on strange forms. I sometimes hear about things on the Internet about my work and me that seem strange to me, for instance, in Russia. At the same time I know what goes on inside these people. Shall I tell you?
All those who continue with family constellations as before are richly given to by me. I am the mother of family constellations. All those who use it received from me. The question is have these people taken everything from their mother? Or do they, after having taken everything from their mother, complain to their mother that she should have been different? Well then, this applies to me, too. In accord with the mothers whom I deeply revere, I agree wholeheartedly. My love remains.” (11a)
So, not everyone found their peace with Hellinger or his constellations, and the struggle will, most likely, continue. But the constellator’s path was never meant to be easy. It is true that through it we encounter powerful forces and what we see sometimes ‘blows our mind’. So, of course, it requires a lot from us, being in touch with this work, and it is challenging for each of us individually and for the collective constellating field. What position each of us finds towards Hellinger’s insights and towards his legacy does determine the direction we take, though. And it is not possible to have any meaningful contact with this work without positioning ourselves in relation to this legacy. Whatever position we adopt, one thing is difficult to dispute: the legacy of Bert Hellinger is enormous and holds great significance not only for constellators or the helping profession, but for humankind.
“In the meantime we let go of our yardsticks, one after the other, those yardsticks that sow discord between us, and especially inside ourselves. By whom are they guided, those who want to hang on to their yardsticks? They too are led by a love. They are led by a love that goes on making distinctions, that only loves some and excludes others, a love that only wants to have the company of few. In the end everything will be shared with everything else.” (12)
Bert, I am sure, learnt to live with attacks and misunderstandings. His relationship with his wife Sophie clearly provided a refuge, in addition to providing a partnership on every level. This relationship obviously enabled him to stay on his path, to gain many more precious insights, to continue working well into his nineties, and to explore ever-new ways of working. I recall him saying that he thought his life’s work was over when he met Sophie, and instead he continued with possibly the most productive years of his life. I also recall his loving comment when teaching: “What is a man without a woman? You can see it with me; what would I be without Sophie?” Together they held seminars all over the world in front of huge audiences, affecting the lives of many.
Always, but maybe especially in his later years, Bert has been a prolific writer. As the time went on, his writings became more and more like poetry and ‘the philosophy of being’ rather than anything else, his pen driven by another force. According to him, he was made to write words, which he often did not understand himself and which came from elsewhere. These writings remain a treasure still largely undiscovered, holding a wealth of knowledge and accumulated insight about the Field and the forces, which shape it. Coming ever closer to the end, he was also closer to the Source, which cognises everything into being, and welcomes us home in the end, this closeness being reflected through his writing.
“In the end everything will be shared with everything else. How do we prepare ourselves for this ultimate state? By including every opposition in our love, every opposition within ourselves and in our relationships. Can we achieve this of our own accord? Where do we get the strength for this ultimate love? Through bidding farewell, step by step, to our distinctions.
First, we bid farewell to the distinctions that reside inside by taking everything in ourselves into our heart with love, as something belonging to us and belonging to the world as it is, on and on, until it becomes one with us.
Then we move on to the oppositions between different people and their different fates, and we take them into our heart in the same way. We take them into our heart with love, without distinction. How can we succeed in this? With a view to the creative power that called all human beings into existence as they are, that called them into existence with love, kindly turned to all, and taking all of them into its service. Where is every life heading to in the end? It is directed to the power that makes no distinctions in this sense, because it wills everything exactly as it is.
How do we become one with this power in our love? Guided by it alone, beyond all distinctions, with a love that wills what it wills, that loves what it loves, that remains where it remains, that lets be what it lets be, one with it in the end. Guided by it alone, only with this power, and together with it also, with everything else that has its being through this power, together with us, equally with us, without any distinction, because here only one thing remains that counts: its love, its eternal love, its deep and warm love for everything equally, and together with it, also our love, the same as this power’s love.” (13)
In place of Conclusion
Bert Hellinger was loved and admired by many. Thousands and thousands over the years sat on that chair next to him and felt the power of his presence. It was not uncommon that people felt healed from life long difficulties simply by sitting in his presence or repeating a single word given by him. His ability to connect with the entire field of the person, and his ability to allow himself to be moved by the forces which were operating in the field in a way which was beneficial for the person having a question, also to everyone else present, was unsurpassed. Those being lucky enough to experience this in person can attest to his incredible intuition, composure, empathy and neutrality with which he turned to every member of the system with equal love.
Many continue to benefit from Bert Hellinger’s insights and methods and many now offer constellations, not always with proper acknowledgement. Some claim they have improved on Hellinger and continue to offer constellations under a different name. Or some offer constellations, but in a way which leaves out some essential aspect: mystery, spirit, controversy… whatever it is that needs to be left out so that it can be offered within some established professional discipline or a reference group, with a clear conscience.
It is also something we are left to grapple with as a professional community of constellators – finding a way to position ourselves in relation to other modalities and professional fields and finding ways in which Family Constellations can be brought into the mainstream (or not). Finding the right path continues to be our responsibility, individually and collectively, now more than ever.
”When I look at how family constellations developed, beginning with the first book Gunthard Weber published, and how it spread, that can take our breath at times. Then I feel, that behind this movement a great force is at work, something good that took me and you into its service.
For this reason, that which we do is not dependent on what we think. This movement takes us along with it, irresistibly. No one can halt it. The smaller ones who think from their reasoning, that they have to direct something, have a hard time with this force. But they also stand in the service of this movement – such is my insight.
And if we observe things as they are, it becomes quite clear: The Divine, the primal power, the power, which moves the world, wills the conflict.
Only we think about eternal peace, where individuals stuff themselves with food and remain lying on the ground in fool’s paradise. No, the creative power is in movement against opposition. Only against opposition do the living gain their full power.
When I heard what workshops are offered here by many well tested colleagues, I think: ‘Wonderful, how it all developed!’. And each one contributes something special to the whole. Only because it has this fullness, because so many different ones have taken this work on with their personal experience, and with their personal entanglement, their possibilities and their limitations, for this reason family constellations develop in such manifold ways. By now I think: ‘I am one amongst many, who does this as well.” (14)
Family Constellations have the potential to take us way beyond our conscious, customary understandings about life gained so far in the history of humankind. Constellations and the insights gained through them can open the door to a major shift in consciousness and be at the forefront of a new paradigm, which is already knocking at the door of many different disciplines. Yes, Bert was great in holding the torch, shining his light on the uncharted territory, leading the way, being equal among equals, yet being a visionary whose legacy still cannot be grasped fully, maybe only to be appropriately judged by generations to come. Till then, what remains for those of us left behind?
Hellinger Sciencia, as a body of knowledge about human relationships and what guides them, ‘a universal science of love’ (15), as well as an organisation with the same name, set up by Bert Hellinger and his wife Sophie Hellinger, who is also a facilitator and a teacher in her own right; Hellinger Publications, a publishing company with plenty of writings, books published and translated in many languages and recordings of his work, also many books by other publishers, transcripts of workshops, personal notes, online offerings. What also remains is much experiential knowledge about systemic forces, many around the world whose lives were affected directly or indirectly through his work, and many associates and students of constellations who are coming to terms with the demands of the method, finding their own way with its power and challenges, establishing their own schools, taking it into the future.
What remains are, most of all, Hellinger’s insights as an incredible gift to humanity, like a beacon light which helps us to find the way out of our entangled, mechanistic, dualistic existence, divorced from nature and spirit and mystery, the light which offers a promise of a better world, guided by and in tune with a spiritual life force. In today’s world, when we realise more and more that we have lost our way, destroying the very planet we live on and on which profit, disconnection and competition seem to be winning over co-operation, inclusion and connection – we need new ways. And we need them soon.
Bert Hellinger and his Family Constellations offer us a possibility for mapping our way out of the labyrinth. In order to accommodate his insights, we need to change our understanding of the world and the current paradigm we operate within. In order to give Bert Hellinger the place he deserves, we need, no less than to change the world! How? One constellation at a time, in full alignment and agreement with the force which guides it all – the legacy of his teachings, at the same time, making us obliged and enabling us to do so.
Alemka Dauskardt
REFERENCES
Bert Hellinger: “In the end”, Help for the soul in everyday living, 2014-15, published on hellinger.com, no longer available there
Bert Hellinger: “Guided”, Sunday Contemplations, 2014-Introduction, published on hellinger.com, no longer available there
Bert Hellinger: “Guided”, Sunday Contemplations, 2014-Introduction, published on hellinger.com, no longer available there
Bert Hellinger: “Guided”, Sunday Contemplations, 2014-Introduction, published on hellinger.com, no longer available there
Bert Hellinger: Natural Mysticism, Help for the Soul in Everyday Living, February 2011, published on hellinger.com, no longer available online
Bert Hellinger: “Helping in Harmony”, the original: ‘Helfen im Einklang’ was published online on Hellinger’s web page, no longer available, translation by Max Dauskardt
Bert Hellinger, in an interview by Martin Buchholz, published online
Bert Hellinger: “The Guru”, Love’s Hidden Symmetry, page 241
Bert Hellinger: “Greatness”, from “Entlassen werden wir vollendet”, page 13., translated by Margreet Mossel, private notes
Bert Hellinger: “My Teachers”, Monthly Letters, August 2011, published on www.hellinger.com, no longer available online
Bert Hellinger: “Guided”
11.a Bert Hellinger: “Spiritual Family Constellations”, Monthly letters, September 2011, published on www.hellinger.com, no longer available online
Bert Hellinger: “In the end”, Sunday Contemplations 2014-15, published online
Bert Hellinger: “In the end”, Sunday Contemplations 2014-15, published online
“The river of my village doesn’t make you think about anything.
When you’re at its bank you’re only at its bank.”1
Alberto Caeiro
To belong is not only a great feeling, but our deepest need. Everyone wants to belong, but to truly belong, as ourselves, without having to give up aspects of our true selves – that is an experience unmatched by any other. We all want that!
When we carry certain roles for our families and our groups, when we try to rectify something in our families through our lives, when we unconsciously spend our lives trying to bring something into order – then we do not get to truly belong, to belong in a healthy, satisfying way. And then we are also not free.
This is one of the most significant insights of Systemic Constellations, through which it is possible to identify, quite easily in fact, what the boundaries of our belonging to different systems are, where we belong or who belongs to us, as well as what stands in the way of our belonging. According to insights gained through this method, the majority of troubles we experience in life are actually caused by injuries to belonging. And a lot of difficulties we deal with through it could, in fact, be classified as a BELONGING DISORDER.
Often we unconsciously push life and success away in order to belong, or to include someone else who has been excluded from our family, to ensure their belonging. And in doing that, we lose our place in life and cannot fully live to our true potential. The issue of belonging is a crucial one for our health, successful relating and sense of well-being, to such an extent that often finding our right place, agreeing to it and living life from that space IS the whole therapy.
We all Belong and we all Belong Equally
It is not possible not to belong. With our most intimate groups and most crucial groups for our survival, happiness and well-being – our families – there is no choice. We are all born into a certain family, with its members the way they are and with everything that happened in that family, its history and everything else that belongs to that family, and then also to us. We are part of it and it is a part of us.
The family group is connected through biological ties, but also through the ties of their shared fate. What constitutes the FATE of a family is everything that has happened in this family across the generations. Well, some of us might be lucky; we are born into a perfectly functioning family, which hasn’t experienced any traumas, which is affluent and all its members are healthy and successful. Maybe there are such families. I haven’t encountered many. What is a much more likely scenario is that we arrive into a family where some past trauma is lingering over its members across the generations, with some traumatic event sending shock waves down the generational line. And this shock wave becomes an intrinsic part of the ocean of our life.
If somewhere in this family’s past a woman died giving birth, there will most likely be the fear of pregnancy instilled into women of this family in subsequent generations. Or if we are born to parents still frozen in grief over the loss of their first child, we will be frozen too. Or if the side our grandfather was fighting on in the war is considered the ‘wrong one’, we will feel shame and rejection as we are growing up in this family, often not knowing why, not connecting it with our grandfather’s experiences, being affected by it without even any conscious knowledge about his war involvement.
As humans we are all similar – we don’t like to experience pain, grief, sadness, shame, guilt. We want to protect ourselves from that. And in particular we want to protect our children from such experiences. We try to push away these feelings and the memory of persons and situations they are connected with. So we never, ever talk about this grandfather we are ashamed of; we judge him and somehow quite naively (and we humans are also all very similar in this) we think if we do this, that we can distance ourselves from him, that we can really deny him the right to belong to us and to our family. We exclude him from our heart.
But, as we know, belonging in our families is regulated by much stronger forces than our rational will. Our families are hard-wired in such a way that belonging is not optional and also doesn’t depend on whether someone acted honourably or not, whether someone died young or lived long, whether he or she was born legitimate or not, considered good or bad. We all belong and we all have an equal right to belong.
So what happens, if we try to exclude someone in this way? The grief, the shame, the invisibility, the pain will only shift to some other member of a family, a younger one, usually the one least able to defend themselves – a child. So, a grandson of that grandfather will start behaving and living a life, which resembles the grandfather’s. This dynamic is visible in Germany in the neo-Nazi phenomena. And also in Croatia, where the generation of the WWII grandchildren is holding on to some of the Ustasha2 ideology. The same happens with the totalitarian aspects of communist ideology that we judge as bad and shameful and in that way exclude. It will somehow be included in lives of future generations (as indeed we witness with both of these aspects of the Croatian past continuing to be very much alive on the Croatian contemporary political and social scene).
The rule of belonging is that whatever we exclude through our judgement, pain or shame, will come back through the back door and re-include itself.
The Need to Belong
But what about our own need to belong? Can we exclude ourselves? Do we have to belong to our family? In short, the answer is yes. What is often misunderstood is how strong our need to belong is. The issues of belonging, and the denial of belonging we inflict on ourselves and others have serious consequences. Belonging is not optional, a matter of rational decision: it is a matter of survival and it is on a level of instinct. It is an inbuilt mechanism, which guards our family groups, which determines who belongs and who not and which we cannot change easily. We can change our name, we can migrate to a far away country; we can break all contact with our family; we can adopt different spiritual and social communities in the hope that they will provide ‘better families’ for us, but we will not be able to change anything of importance. We can’t change what happened in our family; we can’t make things different from what they are, we cannot have a different grandfather or not have this ‘out of wedlock’ half-brother, and certainly we cannot have different, better parents (which most people who come to therapy wish for and believe they are entitled to).
The good news is that we do not even have to; we don’t need to change anything that happened in order to live happy and successful lives. Our happiness does not depend so much on what happened in our lives and our families, but on how much we are in tune with it. So, luckily for us, to be happy, we do not need to be born into a perfectly functioning, rich family. All that is needed for us to find happiness is to agree to EVERYTHING the way it is and the way it happened. Accepting everyone’s right to belong and accepting our belonging, makes us belong in a good way.
Then this belonging does not feel like unhealthy dependence or limitation to our freedom, but like a springboard from which we can jump into the river of life, wherever she might be carrying us.
On the other hand, rejection and non-acceptance of our roots and the ties that bind us actually keep us tied firmly to the shore we are trying to escape from. Only with the full acknowledgement of this rope, which ties us to the shore, can we untie it and float away. Not seeing how firmly we are tied and in what way, or refusing to accept our ties, makes us entangled forever in an unhealthy way, with a lot of accompanying frustration and a lot of strife for autonomy. We want to be independent, free, autonomous. It is as if in the process of trying to free ourselves from the ties, which bind us, we keep throwing our arms and legs around and thus become even more entangled.
Agreeing to the conditions of our belonging, with all the limitations this might involve, paradoxically, cuts the knot and sets us free.
Belonging or Autonomy – a False Dilemma
Our wish for autonomy is a wish to be free from entangled, unhealthy, blind belonging. When we belong in a healthy way, we have no desire for autonomy. Behind striving for autonomy there is a desire to run away from entangled belonging. But autonomy is not an answer or the opposite end of entangled belonging. Healthy belonging is. It is not as if autonomy and belonging are on opposite sides of the continuum. Healthy autonomy arises from healthy belonging.
So the question is not so much ‘to belong or not to belong’. We do not have this choice anyway. The question is HOW TO BELONG IN A HEALTHY WAY. And this is a question the method of Systemic Constellations can give an answer to in a lived, experiential, effective and profound way.
The answer is somewhere along the lines of understanding and accepting our place in the world, exactly as it has been given to us, together with our families and everything that happened, without any desire to change anything, being in complete agreement with our destiny, our path. And also seeing our path not as separate, but embedded in a much bigger picture of which we are only a small part, indistinguishable from others.
The price of belonging only feels too heavy if we are in disagreement with the conditions our belonging sets for us. Paradoxically, what gives us some freedom is only the full acknowledgement of the ties that bind us and our full agreement with them. Once we are prepared to pay the full price, we realise that it is doable and not impossible after all. Whatever was given to us, we have the capacity to carry. And the capacity to agree to!
There is no Autonomy
There is yet another aspect to this false dilemma of ‘belonging versus autonomy’. Whatever we mean by this concept of autonomy, we can hardly find it anywhere in nature, in the world around us or in our social systems. This is simply because it is not how the world is structured. We are all connected. We all move in systems within systems within larger systems, in which we are all under the influence of systemic forces, which ‘run the show’. Through their observation of: flocks of birds, schools of fish and herd animals, biologists have discovered that individuality is a questionable concept in our living world. We are also asked to dispose of this concept in every new constellation, as we see how each, so-called individual life, is intrinsically connected with and influenced by systemic forces of the family and other groups we belong to. Similar forces that organise flocks of birds are also responsible for the organisation of human social systems.
Our concept of autonomous individuality has also been challenged through the cutting edge findings of quantum science and new consciousness research, as well as through many ancient philosophical and spiritual teachings of different schools and traditions:
“Where exactly do ‘you’ end and the rest of the universe begin? If you internalise and change with every interaction you have with the universe – every bit of food you eat, every person you meet, every place you have visited – what exactly does it mean to be you? How can you be considered autonomous? What we regard as Self is only a physical manifestation of our experience, the summation of our Bond with the universe. Our interaction with our world is a conversation, not a monologue; just as the observer changes what he observes, that which is observed changes the observer. And as we now realise, these influences are not limited to those of our immediate environment or even to the earth itself but extend to the farthest reaches of the cosmos.”3
We are all connected. We all belong. And we are all part of something bigger. Often the solution to most troubling problems lies in finding exactly where and how we belong, as well as finding out who belongs to us, and then also in transcending this belonging or expanding the framework of ‘our family’ or ‘our nation’ or ‘our religion’ to include everyone and everything. Or in other words, in the language of constellations: outgrowing lesser conscience and embracing bigger, universal, spiritual conscience.
There is a certain kind of autonomy, which might come to us, usually later in life, as we climb the mountain of spiritual insight higher and higher, until we find ourselves alone at the peak. Hellinger has stated that personal development means letting groups go and finding new groups until you find yourself alone. It is the experience of someone who doesn’t belong anymore and is free to connect in the moment and let go again. This freedom from belonging to any particular family, national, religious or any other group is attained as we experience our connection to that which guides us all and which is behind all our earthly efforts. Such ultimate autonomy is invariably spiritual in nature and is expressed in our surrender, belonging and merging with the Divine.
This is something the Constellation method can assist us with. It is also the inevitable outcome of our exposure to this work, through which we learn to surrender to the forces bigger than us, which we encounter through it.
The way HOME – where we all Belong
To stay with the metaphor of a boat, we can see that often in our wish to disentangle ourselves from anything difficult that belongs to us, we row like mad towards some imagined autonomy, not realising the boat is firmly tied to the shore. If we allowed ourselves to rest for a while in the boat which is gently swaying, maybe lie on our back with the view of the expansive, limitless sky and allowed ourselves to feel at one with the sky, with the river whose waves sway us gently, at one with the boat, the shore and even the rope, if we allow ourselves this experience of ONENESS, then we will know we belong right here and everywhere else at the same time.
We might also realise that there is nowhere else to get to and that we can’t be separate from that boat any more than the waves are separate from the water, which sways us gently. We might even fall asleep lying like this in the boat, giving up our struggle for freedom, surrendering thus our independence and autonomy ever more. So we might not even notice when the rope loosened and our boat, carried by the river’s current, started its effortless journey downstream. We are free to be at one with the river, carrying us and with us all those who belong to us and to whom we belong, to maybe meet other boats on the river, as we all eventually find our way floating to the ocean, our HOME to which we all belong.
So, to paraphrase Hesse, whoever has learned how to listen to a river no longer wishes to be a river. He wants to be nothing except what he is. This is home. This is happiness.4
Alemka Dauskardt
Notes:
The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement, commonly known as Ustaše, was a Croatian fascist, ultranationalist and terrorist organisation, active, as one organisation, between 1929 and 1945. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma as well as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during World War II. They were known for their particularly brutal and sadistic methods of execution, which often included torture and dismemberment.
It was exactly a year to the day. I was lying on a boat anchored in a little cove, swaying gently on the pristine crystal clear water, reminiscing on the experience I had at the conference of constellators I co-organized a year ago. On that particular day, the welcome break from the organizer’s stress was a participation in a workshop of a constellator colleague, Melissa Roussopoulos, in which she offered an exercise to demonstrate the ability of getting in touch with different elements, aspects and expressions of nature. Each one of us would set up a mini-constellation, choosing a representative for ourselves and another person to represent a plant, an animal or some element of nature, without telling them who represents what, and then just observe. After tuning into their roles for a while, the representatives would give a report on their experiences in those roles.
As I have always been a lover of the sea, and as I was for days gazing longingly through the glass walls of the conference hall at the sea, so close by but with no time for swimming, looking forward to immersing myself once my duties are over, there was not much dilemma for me which nature element to choose for this exercise.
Even as a short exercise it was a profound experience for me, the representatives’ experience confirming beyond doubt (for those who are familiar with “representative perception” in a constellation know what I am talking about) what I sensed all along: the beauty, the majesty and the mystery of all encompassing consciousness reaches me through the Sea. It was a deeply moving experience which told me, no more no less, that the sea posses consciousness which delights in me taking delight in Thee!
Now, a year later, enjoying much more relaxing time, I was reminded of that experience as I jumped into the sea and dived for as long as I could hold my breath. Enjoying the immersion, I was silently communicating my love and appreciation to the sea and all life in it as I took that conscious “consciousness dive”. I was loving it with my whole being. While underwater, I made an effort to consciously express my love to the sea and all its creatures.
Within half an hour, on our way home, our boat was surrounded by dolphins, these most special sea creatures of all, who kept swimming with us for quite some time with an amazing playful display of affection, clearly enjoying the contact as much as we did. Through the unusually calm and clear waters that day, I could see them so clearly, it felt like there was no difference between the mediums we inhabited, no barriers to communication, no end to our delight in the opportunity for this connection. It was a pure delight, nothing but joy and love. The experience left me moved to tears and speechless for a long time.
Nature’s intelligence and universal consciousness are not abstract concepts for me any longer, but a lived, experienced phenomena, exploration and nurturing of which I would be happy to devote the rest of my life to. Such experiences make us feel the unity, the oneness of our world, as we also feel ourselves to be co-creative partners in the participatory universe. It is such precious experiences which move us towards seeing ourselves not as separate from our “environment”, but a part of the same larger Being we belong to.
As our planet struggles, it is becoming more and more clear that unless we make this connection with the sacredness of our world, and make this experience present in our daily lives and actions – we can not thrive, probably not even survive. I am convinced: it is this personal connection each of us makes with the sacred, which saves the world, and us, and everyone else at the same time.
Konstelacijepostaju sve popularnije i, zaista, radi se o vrlo korisnoj i moćnoj metodi, sistemu znanja o ljudskim odnosima i pogledu na svijet koji nas sve vidi kao dio Velike Duše. Mnogi nas kontaktiraju jer su čuli ponešto od nekoga, pa žele vidjeti o čemu se tu radi. Mnogi koji dolaze iz znatiželje zapravo nisu spremni na ozbiljnost i snagu koja je potrebna za ovaj rad.
Mnogi od konstelacija očekuju čuda, ili u najboljem slučaju emocionalnu katarzu. Često novi polaznici zapravo očekuju samo potvrdu njihovih uvjerenja o životu i odnosima i nisu spremni predati se imperativima života koji su zadani sistemskim zakonitostima koji djeluju u duši. Neki zapravo od konstelacija samo traže potvrdu da su oni u pravu (a partner u krivu) ili da su oni žrtve (najčešće roditelja ili partnera). Kada voditelj odbije igrati tu igru ( a svaki iskusan voditelj je mora odbiti) onda se osoba naljuti na voditelja.
Moć konstelacija leži upravo u tome da se voditelj ne svrstava ni na ničiju stranu, ne optužuje nikoga i suosjeća ne nužno samo sa klijentom, već jednako sa svima u klijentovom obiteljskom sistemu (pa se konstelacije ili voditelj od takvih osoba doživljavaju kao „bezosjećajni“). Nadalje, moć konstelacija leži i u oslanjanju i usklađivanju sa sistemskim zakonitostima života koji djeluju u svim našim odnosima. Budući da su ove zakonitosti po svojoj prirodi neumoljive, arhaične, instinktivne, nesvjesne i autoritativne (sa njima nema pregovaranja) , neki doživljavaju konstelacijsku metodu ili voditelje kao autoritativne i konzervativne.
Neki polaznici, sasvim ljudski, žele svoja osobna i svjetonazorska uvjerenja pretpostaviti ovim sistemskim zakonitostima. Kada bi voditelj pristao na to, onda bi konstelacije bile skoro pa beskorisne. Konstelacijski pristup nas upravo uči koliko smo mali u odnosu na veće sile koje djeluju kroz nas u našim životima, koje rukovode nama. I da u životu možemo biti uspješni, zdravi i sretni jedino ako se pokorimo ovim silama i živimo u harmoniji sa njima. Nekima se to ne sviđa i ne žele to prihvatiti, pa im se ni konstelacije ne sviđaju i ne mogu im biti od koristi. Oni koji pod svaku cijenu žele biti u pravu, oni koji se žele držati svog statusa žrtve, kao i oni koji se nisu spremni odreći svojih uvjerenja (koji uvijek dolaze iz ega), za te ljude konstelacije ne mogu biti od pomoći.
Konstelacijske grupe, nadalje, nisu zamjenska obitelj, već su tu da nas povežu u srcu sa našim obiteljima i dovedu u sklad i pomirenost sa našim obiteljskim sudbinama. Povezanost koju svi sudionici radionica osjete u trajanju radionice nije osobne prirode i ne dolazi zbog naročito bliskih odnosa između članova grupe. Sudionici grupe su često strani jedni drugima, možda se vide samo jednom u životu i druženje sa drugim sudionicima radionice nakon radionice (ako se nismo prije poznavali) zapravo je vrlo rijetko. Osjećaj povezanosti dolazi od prirode konstelacijskog rada kroz koji se svi povezujemo na jednoj dubljoj, univerzalnoj, duhovnoj razini. Na kraju radionice, obično se svi osjećamo vrlo blisko povezani kroz našu temeljnu ljudskost, dijeleći sudbinu zajednice čovječanstva. A onda svatko ode svojoj kući, u svoj život, u svoju obiteljsku sudbinu, osjećajući se tu dobro ukorijenjen i povezan, i obično zaboravi sve pojedinosti iz radova drugih, ostajući samo sa onim uvidima koji su bitni za nas. Iz tog razloga su bespredmetne i brige o privatnosti, izlaganju i povjerljivosti novopečenih sudionika. Ono što je važno za nas zapamtimo, ono što nije naš posao, što nas se ne tiče, kao pojedinosti individualne priče drugih – brzo zaboravimo.
Pri ozbiljnom konstelacijskom pristupu, koji se prakticira u našoj udruzi, vodi se puno računa o higijeni konstelacijskih grupa. Što to znači? To znači da je u konstelacijskim grupa svatko odgovoran za svoje sudjelovanje i svoj proces i SAMO za svoj proces. Zato komentiranje radova drugih, razgovor i analiza radova drugih, izražavanje mišljenja kao i dijeljenje naših osjećaja sa drugima u grupi nije dozvoljeno. Svatko može zaroniti prilično duboko u dubine svoje duše i dubine svoje obiteljske duše da bi dobio potrebne uvide samo ako se nitko, pa ni voditelj, ne miješa u taj proces. Voditeljev je zadatak da osigura ne miješanje. Svako ispitivanje od strane drugih, znatiželja, komentari, analiziranje, tješenje, suosjećanje ometa taj proces dolaženja u dodir sa onim što se nalazi u našoj duši i pretvara konstelacije u dječju igru, teatar ili gatanje.
Konstelacije također nisu psihoterapija i od njih, niti od voditelja se ne može očekivati odnos kakav imamo sa terapeutom. Voditelj konstelacija nema dužnost brinuti se za osobu sa kojom radi, zapravo, zbog zajedničkog predavanja većim silama koje vode ovaj rad, ne smije se brinuti za osobu sa kojom radi, jer se tako stavlja iznad klijentove sudbine. Također, suosjećajnost koju očekujemo od terapeuta ne može se nužno očekivati od konstelatora, jer ja zadatak konstelatora da se otvori jednako prema svima koji pripadaju obiteljskom sistemu osobe koja radi i da suosjeća jednako sa svima, uključujući i roditelje zlostavljače, nasilne partnere i ubojice. Ukoliko voditelj suosjeća sa osobom koja radi, gubi sposobnost za „suosjećajnost višeg reda“ koja ne prosuđuje, ne osuđuje i koja je okrenuta prema svima jednako. Upravo ovakva suosjećajnost višeg reda, ili tzv. radikalna uključivost važan je aspekt konstelacija koji ih čini tako moćnim.
Za razliku od psihoterapije, kod konstelacija se podrazumijeva da voditelj nije taj koji vodi proces ili dovodi do pozitivne promjene ili ozdravljenja. Voditelj samo osigurava uvjete pod kojima se osoba dovodi u harmoniju sa silama života i usklađuje sa sistemskim zakonitostima, što onda često dovodi do pozitivne promjene. Voditelj je tu samo „antena“ , oruđe ili kist u nečijim tuđim rukama. Zato voditelj konstelacija ima puno manju odgovornost za ishod procesa i nije pretjerano u njega investiran. Također, ne smatra se toliko važnim za klijenta, niti se smatra odgovornim za uspjeh ili neuspjeh klijentovog osobnog procesa. Iskusan voditelj razumije da on samo na kratko postaje dijelom klijentovog sistema, i da u tom sistemu zauzima posljednje mjesto. Poniznost je stoga odlika dobrog voditelja konstelacija, obično ne tako svojstvena terapeutima koji misle da zauzimanju puno važniju poziciju u životima svojih klijenata. Osobni, privatni, bliski odnos voditelja konstelacija i osobe koja radi nije poželjan i zapravo je kontra-indikativan, jer je prepreka sistemskoj neutralnosti koja je potrebna za vođenje.
Ove aspekte konstelacija nije uvijek lako razumjeti, i potrebno je nekad duže druženje sa njima da bi se shvatila bit ovog pristupa i na koji način im se treba pristupiti da bi od njih imali koristi.
Na žalost, u Hrvatskoj, ali i drugdje, konstelacije se nude „na kile“ od strane ljudi koji nisu prošli dugotrajnu obuku, niti se žele podvrgnuti rigoroznoj disciplini učenja i prakticiranja konstelacija. Tako konstelacije možete dobiti jeftino, besplatno kao „promatrač“, iako u konstelacijskim grupama nema promatrača već svi rade u svim radovima, možete dogovoriti „svoju“ konstelaciju unaprijed, možete sami odrediti temu konstelacije…drugim riječima, možete podčiniti konstelacijski proces svojoj volji i kontroli. I možete onda odraditi svoju konstelaciju, malo se isplakati, i osjećati se dobro, zadržavajući sve svoje zablude, slijepe točke i ego uvjerenja. Možete se povezati sa drugima iz grupe i osjećati se dobro, kao u „svojoj obitelji“, bez potrebe da pogledate u svoje obiteljske i druge sisteme kojima pripadate i u ono što je potrebno i nužno učiniti u njima ili za njih. Korisnost takvog pristupa konstelacijama je vrlo upitna i nudi lažnu sliku. Oni koji sa takvih radionica dolaze k nama, budu razočarani konstelacijskim pristupom koji mi prakticiramo. To su oni kojima je puno platiti par stotina kuna za iskustvo koje im može promijeniti dugogodišnje negativne sklopove, ili koji ne mogu odvojiti cijeli vikend za tako nešto. To su oni koji bi samo došli, postavili svoju konstelaciju i otišli, bez osjećaja za kolektivan aspekt ovog rada gdje smo tu jedni za druge i jedni drugima pomažemo u radu na našim osobnim pitanjima. To su oni koji se žele riješiti svojih problema, ali samo ako oni mogu zadržati kontrolu nad cijelim procesom i voditeljem i ako mogu zadržati sva svoja uvjerenja. To su oni koji unaprijed žele isplanirati da li će raditi na radionici ili ne i ako da na kojem pitanju. Oni već obično onda znaju i ishod! Tu konstelacije ne mogu biti od koristi, niti pružiti nove uvide. Tako se konstelacije nikad nisu radile niti podučavale od strane Berta Hellingera, začetnika ove metode.
Ukoliko se prijavljujete za naše radionice, potrebno je prisustvovati cijeloj radionici. Svi plaćaju jednu cijenu, jer je radionica cjelovito iskustvo od kojeg svi imaju koristi i tijekom koje svi rade. Nikome se konstelacija ne može obećati, niti se ona može zahtijevati. Sa kime se radi, da li je pravo vrijeme, pravi stav – to se sve odlučuje na samoj radionici. Možete doći sa određenim životnim pitanjem, problemom ili situacijom, ali tema konstelacije mora se sama iskristalizirati kroz fenomenološki pristup otvaranja prema polju danog sistema. U konstelaciju se možemo upustiti samo kada su i voditelj i osoba koja radi otpustili svaku želju i namjeru za kontrolom, planiranjem, očekivanjem određenog ishoda, kada smo otpustili sva naša prethodna uvjerenja i kada smo se ponizno otvorili uvidima iz polja, koji su puno snažniji i korisniji od onih koji dolaze iz našeg racionalnog uma.
„Ostavite svaku nadu pred vratima“, o, vi, koji se prijavljujete na konstelacijske radionice. Samo tako možete biti iznenađeni snagom ovog pristupa i višestruko nagrađeni. Ako ih možete dobiti jeftino za vas u bilo kojem smislu i bez ovakvog stava – onda to nisu konstelacije.
Zapisi na duši 