Healing with Family Constellations Work
Family Constellation’s workshops were originally developed by the Zulu tribes of Africa. When someone in the village had a health issue or a conflict, the members of the village would create a circle and the person with the issue would be asked to choose people from the group to stand as representatives for aspects of the issue they were dealing with. The Zulu taught this method of analysis and discovery to a young German missionary man named Bert Hellinger when he came to live among them for several years just after World War II. He participated in these group healing events and later brought this highly dynamic method of self-discovery back to his native country. Hellinger went on to teach it to thousands of people all over Europe for over four decades. Burt Hellinger’s Family Constellations Workshops created a profound healing movement all across the Western world which has not stopped yet, and is only growing stronger.
The worldview you will find in Constellations Workshops holds love and inclusion to be the primary guiding principles for the healing process. Family Constellation’s work is a way to study the science of inclusion. There are no substances used in a traditional Constellations workshop that could be rendered potentially harmful and there is no athletic component that might lead to injury. All social interaction occurs through careful and calm conversation with a trained facilitator who guides the event with compassion as the primary objective. While there may be expressions of anger or sorrow conveyed in a Constellation workshop, all intense feelings are navigated with great care by the facilitator and by the group.
Participating in a Constellations workshop deepens one’s ability to hold compassionate and patient space for ourselves and others. The worst result a Constellations workshop could possibly have for someone is that it fails to reveal insight about a situation in one’s life. In which case, there are many other healing resources and methods that might be a better fit for the issue needing to be addressed.
Family Constellations workshops are an innovative and creative way to discover a new perspective on a long-standing struggle in your life. They are a fun, social resource for self-improvement.
A Constellations Workshop does not have anything to do with astronomy! The name Family Systems Constellations is a metaphor that likens this process of discovery to the relationships between stars in the sky. In every family, we have members. Those members hold positions like stars hold positions in the shapes of constellations. We were born into a very specific arrangement of people and that arrangement, when we understand it, can help us understand why we feel certain ways and how to best navigate a challenge. Where a family member is in relation to where we stand in our family dynamics is very helpful to be aware of. Like a map of dynamics, the name Constellations refers to the shape and structure of our belief systems as taught to us by our childhood influences. During a Constellation, the people standing in representations of our family members move around and react. This shifting is called the Healing Movement and is poetically compared to the movements the stars make as they travel across the sky.
Constellations workshops are held in almost every major city. Urban Healers of LA is currently building a library of listings to help people locate workshops near them. If you live in the Los Angeles area, join one of our monthly Constellations gatherings.
