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Constellations as an Intuitive Process
Melody Allen, M.A., PMA, LPC-S This workshop explores the intuitive realm of Systemic Constellations. In application, constellations draw from the sciences of morphic resonance, epigenetics, remote viewing, divination, the human energy field and other psychic arts. Intuition is a key element in family constellation work because skillful facilitation requires data extraction from multiple sources -- the client, the representatives and the field. This data is used to assess meaning, in an effort to assist clients with their presenting complaints. The intuitive ability of the analysand is crucial to creating healing movements, for the client, that will facilitate further understanding and resolution. For the purpose of this workshop, we will concentrate on building intuition and awareness in present and aspiring facilitators as well as representatives. |
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Heart Expansion is Global Business
Susan Altschwager Wisdom keepers’ song: “It is time. Evolution is calling you.” Mother Earth has held the space for all countries’ communities and cultures through out the journey of human history. The wisdom keepers’ song expresses to humanity that it is time for change. This is not a personal choice; this comes to you from a deep place of evolution: “There is more to our story,” New information is emerging in us in a new way for individuals, families, social, and global communities, creating a new story for humanity. Ancient memory codes of DNA are activating. A larger force is opening to us to share the ancient connection of love. The picture is bigger and we have reached a time in history to take back this bigger picture. In this workshop, Susan will:
We will walk the journey of our family system the place in history it played, honouring our ancestors, respecting the past, standing strong in this transition time, and accepting what is emerging in the future: A bigger picture for all of us to live in. The Mother Earth says, “Take my hand and I will take you home.” |
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After the Training: Staying Connected with Local Peer Facilitator Circle and Co-Facilitation
Wendy Arness, LMFT, and Tanya Shapiro, LMHT After a family constellation training, many facilitator trainees often ask: “How does one offer workshops to the public?” how do you keep facilitation current and make the lessons learned accessible? Continuing with year-long trainings is a fine option but for some the financial obligations and time commitments present an obstacle. In this workshop, Wendy and Tanya share their personal experiences and the benefits of peer facilitation groups and co-facilitation, discussing what roads we traversed to build confidence as new facilitators at public workshops and how we bring skills we learned from trainings into our work as facilitators. In a community peer circle format, participants will explore obstacles and resources as facilitators in an experiential space as a group and in breakout mini-constellations. We will share examples of other peer circles in other locations and explore the issues facilitators face. Discussing and sharing the diverse resources that could help keep people connect, engage and build skills. Our vision is to create a supportive, post-training environment that bolsters individual competencies through sharing and collaborating. We will discuss peer facilitation groups and co-facilitation of workshops to help facilitators. This idea of co-facilitation is helpful in at least three ways by offering::
Co-facilitation encourages humility and learning from each other thereby meeting the needs of participants and the continued growth of the facilitator. |
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Keys to Discover Music as Medicine: How to use Soundwork within the Field to Access Deeper Community Wisdom
Eily Aurora On the very basic level we are composed of energy and sound. Sound, and therefore music, is thus another powerful energy field, like the family system. It can help build a safe container, act as representation, offer non-verbal expression of sensations and insights, and become a powerful tool to support healing movements. The insight sound can offer within the field can be compared to phenomenon of Cymatics. When sound is brought into the field at specific times of unknown, it can activate it as if representatives are being moved like sand on a metal plate. Sound can offer insights and activations that aren't normally available. The field re-organizes itself around the sound offered, presenting a new possibility — often beyond what the mind can conceptualize. Eily will share from her rich 10 years of experience as a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and Soundworker. She will also offer her Celtic Harp music to the session. Some percussion and ambient instruments will be available, but please bring your own—especially your voices! No musical experience is necessary. You will learn:
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Emotional Well Being, Creativity and Learning: A Workshop Using the Systemic Lens in Schools
Linda Baker ECL (Emotional wellbeing, Creativity and Learning) is a pioneering initiative dedicated to enhancing children's learning, creativity and happiness at home and in school. It takes a systemic approach to nurturing wellbeing, which involves seeing a person within a system of relationships, rather than simply as an isolated individual Its systemic approach draws on insights from the field of family systems theories, which shows how patterns of loyalty and belonging are a key part of a child's experience as he or she interacts with different groups. ECL focuses on developing the whole child so that he or she becomes capable of knowing the world not only by thinking, but also through feeling, sensing and intuiting. This experiential workshop will include discussion about how the systemic lens has been used to support staff and students in an inner-city school in New Haven, Conn., particularly with the “Teacher’s Circle,” a monthly hour-long circle before school that has been ongoing for the past three years. It includes a stilling exercise and a systemic exercise focusing on belonging. The connection between this Teacher’s Circle and how it can be adapted into classroom learning will be shared in a presentation format. The Teacher’s Circle can facilitate the releasing of the creativity of the teachers. They then use this lens and their newfound knowing of the systemic orders in their work in classroom communities. Examples will be shared of some of the teachers’ work. Finally, the format for the Teacher’s Circle and the resources available through ECL will be shared. |
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Psychopomps and Overshadowing Souls: Witnessing and Assisting the Release of the Deceased from the Individual and Family Fields with the Aid of Psychopomp Beings.
Betsy Bergstrom Illness caused by the presence of the deceased is a well-recognized source of illness in many indigenous cultures. This lecture, discussion and constellation offers tools to identify, approach and safely work with the deceased who may be overshadowing individuals or family systems with the help of psychopomp beings. The presence of a deceased soul may be made known in the course of a family constellation. Learn to recognize the presence of the deceased and to work with psychopomp beings who are natural resources available to help the lost or stuck souls to become clear of entanglements with the living and to safely make their transition back to Source. Psychopomp beings are the merciful conductors of souls and can be ancestors, angels, animal powers and luminous guides with long familial connections. In this session, Betsy will share some of the modalities and cosmology of psychopomp work and compassionate depossession to aid in the identifying and compassionately working with this not uncommon issue. There will be time for question and discussion. The session concludes with a constellation with three rotating rounds allowing participants to experience being a representative of the deceased entangled in a family system, a representative of the grace and natural healing power of the psychopomps and as a representative witnesses and facilitator allowing deeper understanding. |
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Ultimate Leadership and Entrepreneurship: Fully Embracing Authenticity, Presence, Essence, Consciousness, Entrainment, Energy and Intuition
Michael Bradford The best leaders and entrepreneurs are present, conscious, grounded, connected and passionate about constantly upgrading and fine-tuning their interpersonal and management skills. To achieve this, a coach/mentor has to be able to quickly pinpoint the specific core issue needing attention, and to communicate this in a way the leader can hear and accept this. The other challenge is to easily and quickly upgrade this pattern. By intuitively energetically scanning a leader’s energy field, it is easy to identify their limiting thought patterns and energy blockages. This approach can offer almost instantaneous insights and solutions to quickly facilitate positive changes. View Michael's interview about her conference session |
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Community Constellations: Shifting the Meta-Pattern of the Environment in Which You Live, Love, Create and Manifest Your Life Force Energy
Yvonne Bryght Family Constellations reveal and resolve the subtle patterns and influences upon our lives that are often rooted outside our personal life experience. Family and Business Constellations highlight the significant point of origin and engage the movement that is ready to shift and release previously held limits on the flow of love, money, success and joy in a client’s life and family. The inexplicable patterns that bring dis-ease, despair, and deferment of success are particularly baffling because they operate outside our conscious awareness. The foundation of our most painful patterns are often grounded in not-personally-experienced history. The collective unconscious that drives many of our impulses, habits, "moral" choices, and emotional responses to life events can be related to legacies from family, gender, or ethnic events. When we’ve sought and experienced dozens of Family history Constellations and still can’t find the success we are looking for, it makes sense to look even farther outside our personal experience to the environment in which we are living, moving and having our being. Our cities, counties, communities, and the land upon which we work, build homes and raise children hold a history all their own. Community Constellations have shifted literal curses upon land, opened the artistic flow of a community, increased commerce, and unified the rift between a city and her working port. I love to set powerful personal constellations for my clients, but I am most thrilled by the results of the community, city, county, and land constellations that have affected even those who are unaware of the beautiful work that is supporting their prosperity, easing their minds, unifying the spirits of the people they pass and freeing up their businesses and families for ever-increasing abundance. |
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Unleashing the Aquarian Warrior Within: Supporting Courage in Today’s World
Joan Calvert, Ed.D., LMFT This group experiential workshop is a response to the misuses and abuses of power that have gained momentum and become increasingly more evident in the brokenness of these tumultuous and uncertain times. For many, it is time to stand up, feel one’s own effectiveness, fearlessly step out into the world, and move forward in one’s truth. The purpose of this workshop is to facilitate individuals’ processes in identifying and releasing any obstacles and entanglements that might cloud awareness and stand in the way of the ability to act on their own behalf as well as on the behalf of others. In order to support this movement, this experience will integrate Constellations, Cedar Barstow’s Right Use of Power model, and the healing vibrations of the sound current. Participants will have an opportunity to participate in a group experience that focuses on following the movements of Soul as structured by the Right Use of Power (www.RightUseofPower.com) model for ethical decision-making. The Right Use of Power method engages compassion, and teaches us to stay related through conflict and to repair relationships. We will address the question: what might the Orders of Love applied on a global scale as well as in one’s personal life look like in today’s world? Might today’s world invite us to identify additional orders? How might we both individually and collectively work to carry out these orders? With these in mind, the constellation will spiral around to each of the RUP model’s four dimensions envisioned as the four directions. In each direction we will engage one aspect of the RUP model: being informed (East), being compassionate (South), saying connected (West), and being skillful (North) with the use of power. Through this process, individuals will move toward identifying and liberating their inner spiritual warrior, acquiring the courage and strength that comes from acknowledging and owning their place in the global as well as personal family field. |
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Introducing Family and Systemic Constellations to Your Corner of the Universe
Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP How do you explain the taste of a raspberry? The sound of a gong? The smell of a flower? Trying to describe a heart-shifting experience is often a challenge – so it becomes a demanding task to define, demonstrate and communicate the facts of Family and Systemic Constellations in ways that are engaging, safe and easy to understand. In this experiential workshop, Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP, offers a variety of activities – including warm ups, sculpture, psychodramatic techniques and sociometric play – based on her knowledge as a psychodrama master trainer and facilitator and trainer of constellations. All are welcome, whatever your level of expertise; the only requirement is your desire to expand your ability to introduce the complicated concepts of the constellations process to newcomers -- the general public or prospective trainees -- in your particular setting. In addition, participants will; be invited to share their ways of introducing this method. |
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Body Oppression
Kimberly Cartwright The history of the United States is one in which idigenous peoples and African bodies were destroyed, objectified and enslaved for wealth and power creation. In this session, we explore the ways in which our bodies are continue to serve wealth and power creation, both as oppressers and oppressed. |
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Exploring Ethnocentric Belonging
John Cheney This session will focus on investigating ethnocentric forms of belonging. The term "ethnocentrism" was coined by William Graham Sumner in reference to the view that one’s own group is the center of everything, with others judged in terms of the familiar standards of that group. Of course we have seen this in Family constellations that families can be affected by past traumas that effectively create their world view. Through a constellation we will explore belonging to a culture, Family, traditions, language, information, race, and thought process, which then influences our worldview. The value and intention of this would be to broaden our awareness of these conditions so that we may have choices that are free from polarity, and entanglement. The Constellation will use Dr. Milton Bennett’s cross-cultural consciousness model in the form of 6 matts. Starting with denial, then defense, minimization, acceptance, adaptation and integration. Which represent different levels of consciousness. These will be listening post (in the Constellation) that participants can stand and observe their feelings in relationship with Strict Father and Nurturing Mother archetypes (Dr. George Lakoff’s model*). Dr. Lakoff’s research revealed a tendency that conservatives tend to have disciplinarian father figures, and liberals nurturing mother figures. We will honor the reason why one might identify with Father and Mother belonging. We will take a step beyond Family (if the phenomenology permits)and investigate other identifying indicators like xenophobia, ethnicity, cultural, liberal and conservative and religious factors that help us identify with a group. If time permits, there will be a group balancing through a Five Elements Constellation. |
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Tending the Seeds: Constellation Practice and Theory with Children and Teens in Individual Sessions
Kimberly Clementi-Eadon, LMHC Constellations show us the power of our ancestry while also impressing upon us great responsibility. As we look to the generations behind us to heal and support, we also look towards the future generations as possibility, one in which we have great impact. It is the children who pick up what is “in the system.” Therefore, offering the knowledge and tools to work with “what is felt” from an early age provides rich opportunity to begin collective change early. Giving children and teenagers a solid understanding and experience of Family Constellation theory and practice when they are young, not only benefits the individual throughout their life, but in turn their entire family system, and ultimately, the collective as a whole. In the young, working through current issues by way of constellations offers tools, perspective, and the ability to act pro-actively. Many of us grow with feelings we do not understand, and it takes many years in adulthood to reconcile what we felt with what we know. Providing skills to children in a responsible and thoughtful way can widen the scope of their abilities and how they navigate their world. Learning how to trust one’s senses in the body and emotions enables self-awareness and the ability to trust one’s own perceptions, and children who can experience their “place” and how they fit in their family can feel more connected. A teenager that understands that she cannot “be done,” with her family, can help avoid issues of lack of root or connection as an adult. Children who learn that “they are the little ones, and the parents are the big ones” often have an easier time as they grow developmentally more rebellious. Teaching these concepts early, the individual gains unique tools, thus in turn, tending seeds of possibility and change. |
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How Polyrhythmic Drumming Supports a Facilitator’s Multi-Dimensional Awareness
Chuck Cogliandro Multi-dimensional awareness is an essential skill every Constellations facilitator cultivates. During a constellation, many simultaneous, overlapping fields of energy-consciousness are evoked, including that of the client, the family of origin and its related meta-energies, the larger family lineages, the group of participants gathered for the workshop, and the soul field of humanity as the supporting foundation for it all. With practice a facilitator learns to hold and track the numerous elements in constellations. These include the client’s specific longing for reconnection as a guide to a good outcome; elements of family history and entanglement; the flow of energies as they arise and spiral through the representatives and the multiple levels of a constellation; and monitoring of the client for his or her ability to take in the process without rewounding or freezing. Holding this much information requires an expanded and relaxed consciousness. The African polyrhythmic drumming in which I have been immersed for 25 years is the simultaneous expression of many different and related rhythms played by numerous musicians. To remain centered, grounded and connected in the high-energy flow also requires a softened, open awareness that permits one to hear not just the part one is playing, but all the layers of rhythm, how one’s part fits in the whole, and the beauty of the collective conversation. The expression of multiple simultaneous rhythms can open a doorway to the transcendence of focused frontal-lobe consciousness to include awareness of the emotional, ego and soul levels, and can aid in developing facilitation skills. I propose to illuminate connections between polyrhythm and facilitation through lecture, experiential group rhythm exercises, and a teaching constellation. |
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Constellation Strategies For Healing Trauma at a Soul Level
Kenn Day We will open with an explanation of the shamanic perspective on soul-level trauma – how it occurs, what it affects and how it can be addressed. Four strategies will be offered::
Constellations will be set up, based on the needs of the volunteer clients, to demonstrate the four strategies. This will offer opportunities to demonstrate some of the tactics that seem to naturally arise for this work. The demonstrations will be offered in the mode of teaching exercises, so the choices, intentions, perceptions and movements will be transparently explained to those attending. The primary focus will be on client’s needs, but secondary focus will be on the constellation as a learning apparatus. After the demonstrations, there will be an opportunity for discussion and direct practice as time allows. My style is intuitive and pragmatic, lead by the opportunity for the client’s healing, as it arises in the constellation session. |
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Social Presencing Theater (SPT): Bringing Experiential Awareness Work into Organizations
Elmar Dornberger, LPC, MFA, MPsych This presentation is loosely based on Arawana Hayashi’s work with TheoryU at MIT. I perceive Social Presencing Theater as a “form of constellation work” and as a great process for bringing experiential awareness into organizations. To me, it is not as confrontational and revealing as traditional constellation work. Its focus is on the “now” and the “emerging future,” not on the past. SPT also embraces mental processing, feedback and questions. I have been trained in organizational constellation work and have been using it for more than ten years and still find it arduous to get people in a work environment into their bodies. I have to watch boundaries of hierarchies, appropriate levels of interaction and subject matter, create holding spaces for inappropriately personal issues, etc. There are quite a few elements to be aware of and to watch for. Many of these aspects seem much lighter using SPT. The work can be done with intact teams, (which is not easy with constellation work) and using strangers. My personal expectations are more relaxed and tempered. This is another reasons I am drawn to SPT personally. It is still a new journey for me and I am excited about its possibilities. This method can be used on its own, or as a great segue to move into constellations or combinations of both. View Elmar's interview about his conference session. |
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The “Matryoshka Principle”: Integration of the Fragmented Self
Karin Dremel Traumatized individuals not only have broken connections in their system but also are often are at the mercy of fragmented parts within themselves. Like generational fragmentation, internal ones are often hidden behind outdated loyalties, covert pain and symptoms. Therefore, they may be more comfortably constellated in the privacy and simplicity of an individual session. Constellating with paper cups and three-dimensional space invites fragments (i.e., "Little People”), to show up and be invited into a trauma-informed process of gentle integration. In this workshop, you will learn to:
About Karin Dremel |
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Ancestral Storytelling: Voice for the Voiceless, Image for the Unseen
Rani George The session would begin with sharing of this poem by Guyanese poet Grace Nichols: "I have crossed an ocean, I have lost my tongue, From the root of the old one, A new one has sprung." Then a short discussion of the power of story telling, the indigenous use of it as a way of passing on our histories to the generations, and how we will access the Knowing Field to see what family stories might be ready to be spoken. Some guidance on being open to receiving a story, perhaps meeting a story teller in your lineage, hearing what language it arises in, listening for its cadence, learning what it shows of the resilience of our lineage. An invitation to focus on a time when your family left the homeland, whether for immigration by choice, forced by natural disasters, national events or war, slavery, forced migration, or individual personal reasons. Anita Harrell will then share a story from her family descended from Native American, African and other lineages. Chuck Cogliandro will share a family story using the drum to explore rhythm and the telling if story. I will lead a group constellation process using meditation and visualization to access the Field and find what is ready to be shared. We will then proceed to share our stories within the context of specific guidelines. Each sharer will have sacred space held by the group in silence, with no suggestions, advice or sharing of similar stories -- just as we would hold the witnessing of a constellation and its aftermath. If someone is interested, they could use the drum or any other resource for the telling. The story could be sung. It could be told in any language. It could be mimed in silence. The size of the group would dictate if everyone would have the possibility to speak their stories to the whole group, If necessary, we could break into small groups to do the storytelling to allow everyone a chance. |
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Practical Resources for Increasing Resilience in Daily Life
Richard Griffin and Reva Hamilton Richard Griffin is a former scientist, engineer, and entrepreneur with a long and successful career in the defense industry. He left that world several years ago to find a way to share insights and wisdom gained from his own healing journey. In 2016, Richard decided to focus on finding ways to bring the power of Systemic Constellations to his clients and others. He has created a unique synthesis of coaching, Systemic Constellations, and working with horses as an exciting doorway for people into the world of systemic constellations. He partners with Reva Hamilton to offer to the public constellation workshops that focus on supporting individuals in discovering and strengthening their resilience skills. Reva Hamilton was intrigued to the clarity of information and sweet communication with the Family Soul after taking a workshop on Systemic Family Constellations: Movement of the Spirit Mind with Bert Hellinger in 2006. Being a teacher and a student most of her life, Reva focused her training and passions on Shamanic studies, Polarity Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, educational kinesiology, Brain Gym, Energy Medicine, spiritual belly dance, poetry, photography, yoga, meditation and Systemic and Family Constellations. Reva weaves threads from each of her studies and experiences creating a tapestry of life. She has a private practice of effloresce, soul retrievals, energy clearings and Systemic and Family Constellations workshops. Reva is focusing her energy on the importance of the role of resilience in our lives. The workshop addresses the key to appreciating chaos that can surround us. |
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From Differences to Oneness
George E. James and Susan Ulfelder George E. James is a world-renowned meditation teacher and healer in a private holistic counseling and healing practice in Oakton, Va. He is currently finishing the Hellinger Institute of DC’s Family Constellation Facilitator Training. He earned a master’s degree in Special Education and Speech Pathology and worked as a special education teacher working with troubled youth and their families from 1976 to 1979. For the next nine years he worked in the corporate world, which he left in 1988. George was one of three certified teachers of The Perceptive Awareness Technique©, a revolutionary process for gaining mastery of intuition and is a certified teacher of Soma Pi, a hands-on healing technique that strengthens and aligns the body-mind-spirit connection. In addition, he has taught Politics of the Heart Flames Meditation Technique, a technique that uses activated colors for self-improvement and healing, and taught stress management workshops to law enforcement personnel and professional dispute resolution personnel, and he taught spiritual Anatomy, Physiology, and Psychology 101 to physicians and medical students. Susan Ulfelder is the director of the Hellinger Institute of DC, where she facilitates workshops, individual constellations and leads a facilitator training program. She completed the first training of the Bert Hellinger Institute, USA, taught by Harald Hohnen and Hunter Beaumont and co-trained with Harald Hohnen the next year in the Washington, D.C., area and has been training ever since. Susan has attended international intensives at ZIST in Germany and Santa Barbara, Calif., and many advanced trainings with Bert and Sophie Hellinger, Jakob and Sieglinde Schneider, Heinz Stark and Jane Peterson.. Most recently she attended Hellinger Sciencia International Training with Bert and Sophie Hellinger in Cancun, Mexico, in February 2017. She presented at the first International Congress of Family Constellations for the Americas in Oaxaca, Mexico, at the first U.S. Conference in Portland, Ore., in 2005, was on a panel at the second U.S. Conference in Asheville, N.C., in 2007, and presented at the 2011 and 2015 conferences. She was one of the U.S. trainers at the second and third North American Constellations Intensives in Santa Barbara in 2006 and 2008 and at Omega Institute in 2014 |
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Hidden in Plain Sight: Mastering the Actualizing Art of Inclusion for Personal and Collective Solutions
Krista Jarrard Krista Jarrard has been a dynamic force as facilitator, trainer and pioneer in the evolution of the Systemic Constellations for more than 14 years. She has brought this multi-dimensional healing to clients around the world, and to international communities for awakening including CoreLight, and The School of Knowing in Tokyo, Japan. She is the founder of the Center for Systemic Healing, and creator of Healing at The Heart of the Matter Immersion Learning Program. Her upcoming book “The Radical Act of Inclusion” reveals the secrets to her work with Inclusion leading to the creation of her specialized practice model the Origin Sourcing System®. She offers her work through workshops, tele-classes private sessions, telephone sessions and learning programs. Krista has shared her extensive experience, and intuitive approach to Constellation Work at many conferences and symposiums including the 2015 and 2007 North American Conference for Systemic Constellation Work, Constellating Creativity 2012, and the annual NMASERVIC Conference "The Art and Science of Spirituality" in Santa Fe, N.M., in 2007. She is a member of International Systemic Constellations Association and The Open University for Complementary Medicine. Krista served as Dr. Bert Hellinger’s personal assistant at The World Congress for Complementary Medicine in 2007. |
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Working with Interrupted Reaching Out Movements
Barry Krost, M.A., BCTMB One of the key dynamics in Family Constellations is the "Interrupted Reaching Out Movement" between children and their parents. When a child’s connection to their parent, particularly with their mother, is disrupted by a physical or emotional separation, strong feelings of hurt, rejection, despair, hate, resignation and grief can occur. When the parent re-approaches, the child may turn away feeling rejected and hurt, which may persist throughout their childhood. When the child attempts to reach out to another person later in life into adulthood, their deep memories of hurt emerge unconsciously and interrupt their movement, and they react with the same feelings as before. According to Bert Hellinger, "The expression of emotions that cover and protect the more painful earlier ones doesn’t bring resolution. Resolution comes only when the movement reaches its goal and is completed.” Family Constellations provide an opportunity to bring that earlier child back to their deeply needed connection with their parent, and restore their capacity to reach out and move freely in their relationships. View Barry's interview about his conference session. |
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The Art of Organizational Constellations: Transforming Individuals and the Collective
Lisa Marie Main, M.A., ABS The individual and collective soul perpetually moves towards its most healthy state. Healing trauma is part of the process and as socially co-constructing beings, we unknowingly, attempt to work out family of origin and generational wounds with family members, friends and co-workers. Organizations become fertile ground for individual issues and even collective pains to play out, which can lead to organizational dysfunction untouched by the very best of trainings and consulting interventions. Organizational Systemic Constellation Work (OSCW) is a powerful tool to reveal patterns and key leverage points that support individual and collective transformation and ultimately high performance for the organization. OSCW builds on Family Constellations principles and practices yet is distinctly different. We will explore how confusion between biologically made systems (families) and socially constructed systems (organizations) creates havoc in the workplace and especially in family owned businesses. To deepen this exploration, we will guide participants through learning activities that enhance their understanding of the orders of love in family constellations and the orders of relationship in organizations and how those show up as part of our client’s issues in their constellation work. Case studies will be shared exemplifying the impact of FOO factors on organizations as well as structural problems impacting performance, both of which can be impacted via constellation work. Together we will practice the various forms, models and applications of OSCW that go beyond the traditional constellation workshop and bridge the divide between family and organizational constellation work. OSCW matters to all constellation facilitators because many practitioners are self-employed and can apply OSCW towards their own business; and organizational issues often present themselves in family constellations and vise-versa. We will conduct one organizational constellation brought forth by a participant relating to his or her business or client.. |
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Healing the Trans-Generational Traumas and Violence of U.S. Slavery
Tanya Mena, LMT, and Salome Raheim, Ph.D., ACSW During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and “shipped” in horrendous conditions to the New World. Among them, 10.7 million survived the Middle Passage to North America, the Caribbean and South America. The traumas of human chattel slavery in the United States. remain unhealed. These traumas continue to affect the descendants of enslaved Africans and those who actively engaged in or witnessed their violent abduction, sale, ownership, abuse, rape, torture, and, in some cases, murder. |
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The Medicine Wheel Constellation
Samvedam Randles, LMHC, and Comma Williams, M.Ed. The Medicine Wheel, also known as the Sacred Hoop, has been used by various Native American tribes for generations, for health, healing and spiritual alignment. It is a sacred living object and teaching tool. The Wheel itself represents the forces of the Universe and symbolizes the interconnection of all life, the various cycles of nature, dimensions of health and cycles of life. It is a perfect tool for Constellation work! Drawing on the ancient knowledge of the medicine wheel, we invite you to bring an issue into the wheel and stand in the intensity of the field created. One of the responsibilities of a constellation facilitator is to create a container for the circle – a sacred space for the work to happen safely and effectively. The depth of our work seems to be in correlation with the group’s ability to drop into a deeper level of consciousness and so it is helpful to spend time at the beginning of each group to facilitate such a deepening. It is doubly important to do this when working with a sacred tool like the Medicine Wheel, in which we engage Spirit directly for guidance. Our workshop begins with a brief teaching about the Medicine Wheel; we will open sacred space and explore what question in the room might be suitable to be explored with this type of constellation. Then we will set up and work with the Medicine Wheel. Finally, we close the circle and sacred space by bringing all participants back to a grounded and clear place. Although traditional constellations offer movements as resolutions, Medicine Wheel constellations offer images and perspectives. They can be intense and -- .well, to be honest -- blunt. Once you enter the center of your medicine wheel and voice your need, the wheel begins to work for you. |
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Using Constellations To Improve Your Love Life: How Adult Attachment Styles Affect The Flow Of Love
Rev. Katherine Revoir Intimacy – everybody wants it, everybody needs it, and not everybody is good at it, especially when it comes to romance. The way in which we relate to intimacy is called our attachment style. According to attachment researchers, there are three main attachment styles that are both genetic and learned from our parents. The attachment styles are secure, avoidant and anxious.
Our family systems give us an unspoken rulebook for belonging. This rulebook encourages us to make unconscious agreements in order to get the love we need, honor our parents, or protect them or us. One way we do this is by taking on our parents’ belief systems and their patterns of relating to themselves and the world. Attachment researchers have shown that adults have patterns of attachment to their romantic partners that are similar to the attachment patterns they had as children to their parents. For example, as early as four months of age, a baby will drop emotional expressions that the mother cannot tolerate as part of the need to reach out for love and acceptance. As infants, the interruptions in our reaching out for love directly effect how we reach out for love as adults. Romantic love can intensify these patterns. Take this workshop if:
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Meet The Pachamama: Mother of Us All
Jeffrey Rich Meet The Pachamama: Mother of Us All Jeffrey Rich, LMT The Andean Cosmology has been taught as an unbroken lineage of healing and way of living for thousands of years. A hallmark of this cosmology is reverence for and deep relationship with the the earth deity known as the Pachamama. Pachamama is the central earth deity of a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the Pachamama at the center of all life. “Pacha” is a Quechua word meaning, “Place and Time”. The larger meaning of ‘pacha’ is “Universe,” and so the really big meaning of “Pachamama” is “The Universe of the Mother”. I believe that as more people begin to know the paradigm of this Great Mother source, Pachamama can be more widely used as a mother resource in Family Constellations, and once we know about her, we can also learn more from her in our Nature Constellations. The embodied understanding of our connection to our Great Mother is perhaps well-known to our ancestors who farmed the land. We in the 21st century may have forgotten some of their easy wisdom about this. The knowledge that we have a mother who built our bodies and who sustains us daily, continually giving us life, can be a great comfort for some who have a more fractured, difficult relationship with bio-mom. Pachamama cradles and sustains, remaining mother, in balance, despite our actions. We are hers, and we always will be. This is perhaps a new paradigm for some, yet it is an ancient paradigm for many. My Andean teachers tell me that a pacha continues to expand and deepen the more we connect with it. Having worked with Pachamama intensely for more than seven years, I have an embodied sense of what a powerful resource she can be. |
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Creating and Holding Sacred and Safe Trauma-Informed Space
Michaelene Ruhl, Psy.D., and Carrie Landrum A fundamental part of facilitating family and systemic constellations is creating a safe and sacred foundation for people to engage in deep and emotional work. Being in a constellation requires enormous vulnerability and courage. The ability to enter a constellation -- let alone engage in deep, transformative work -- is entirely dependent on a skilled facilitator being able to set up and hold safe and sacred space. Additionally, the facilitator needs assurance that the space is safe in order to do their work well. Those participating in a constellation often experience strong, painful, distressing emotions, which could surface trauma. Participants need to know that they are safe and won’t experience re-traumatization when they enter a constellation. This session explores ways to set up and maintain safe and sacred trauma-informed space. |
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Listening to the Ancient Ones: Re-Membering Our Earth Community
Susan Schlosser It is time for us to do what we can to experience a stronger flow of love for and from Mother Earth and all that lives upon and within her. I have heard and experienced the wisdom and intelligence available from representatives of a redwood tree, a bear, or an Ancient One of the two billion0-year-old rock in the Grand Canyon. My desire is to give participants an opportunity to move through our belief in separation from each other and the natural world, to experience the wisdom and felt sense of interconnectedness available to us in these tumultuous times if we open to listen and receive. I offer a Nature Constellation that would address our relationship with the Earth, and members of the Earth Community, to address environmental concerns and elicit the intelligence and wisdom available to us through the Knowing Field. Through this constellation we have an opportunity to gain a deeper sense of belonging as we step into the field to bridge and heal the personal soul and align ourselves as part of the collective soul by taking our right place as members in the Earth Community. We are the little ones in relationship to the Ancient Ones-- the Ones that were here long before us. The principles that apply to Family Constellations apply to our relationship with our Mother, the earth. There is much that nature can teach us, so much for us to learn, and so much at stake. All of nature has a voice if we open ourselves to listen. All of nature belongs, even if it scares us. It is for us, as humans, to open our hearts to the planet and find our true nature and place through our interconnectedness with the web of life. |
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Harnessing The Power of Rituals in Constellations
Jim Shine Rituals have always been a great source of power and healing. Constellation work is rife with the use of rituals: healing statements, putting barriers up against the past. Some may argue that a constellation is just one big ritual or ceremony. In this session, there will be a brief presentation on rituals in both society and constellations, and demonstration of the use of selected rituals in the constellation workshop environment. We will break into groups and each group will then adapt or develop their own rituals in constellations and present to the whole circle. We will open and close with some favorite constellation rituals. |
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Accelerated Leadership: Working Systemically with Individuals and Teams
Harrison Snow, MBA As the business world becomes increasing complex, the demands placed on leaders become more challenging and nuanced. Traditional leadership training offers provides skills, models and some degree of self awareness. While useful and necessary, too many leaders cannot keep up with the challenges they face. Their blind spots and hidden limitations keep them from seeing all the aspects of the system they are trying to lead. Teams and organizations can also operate sub-optimally because of cultural taboos, blinds spots and silos to name a few possible dysfunctions. In this session, we will review the basics of organizational constellations work and explore how systemic concepts can be applied in coaching, strategic planning and change management. Leaders don't have time to listen to long theories; they are interested in results. We will also explore how to position our work in the marketplace as a leading-edge tool that has its own niche within the conscious and mindful leadership movement View Harrison's interview about his conference session. |
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The Body Talks: Tracking Non-Verbal Information and Using the Body to Aid a Deeply Felt Resolution
Brigitte Sztab The human body is a facilitator’s most useful ally in the constellation process. Every second of our lives our bodies record all of our experiences, whether harmonious or traumatic. They absorb whatever nervous tension, emotional overwhelm or mental stress we cannot deal with on a daily basis while trying to maintain a state of vitality and balance. In constellations every tense muscle, every posture, every involuntary movement tells the story of the inner child, which can be quite different from the words a representative speaks. Words still carry the filters of the representative’s mind, which may be based on his or her own experiences or cultural biases and judgments about the issue. The body speaks a more authentic language that bypasses our rational control. In this experiential workshop I first summarize the objective of this workshop. Then we proceed to set one or more constellations (time permitting) during which I point out and translate the language of the body so participants can learn to recognize and track it themselves, and I show how to use body movements and postures as aids to move the constellation towards a genuinely healing resolution that is felt and remembered by every cell of the body. |
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A Female Facilitator Sees Male Stories
Elena Veselago In this presentation, the presenter will share and show the way how gender-related stereotypes and female loyalties influence a female facilitator’s perception of male stories. On the examples of different cultures, we will also touch “contemporary” and “traditional” perspectives on the nature of male and female. Participants will be invited to take a look at how neutral and free we are in our points of view in reality, as well as at what still influences us -- including the “long forgotten” stories of our great-grandmothers. |
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Sacred Scaffolding for Collective Healing Constellations
Judy Wallace How might we create the scaffolding that supports and activates the vibrational field, attracting subtle energies, and amplifying constellation’s collective healing potential? You are invited to explore how we can create supportive scaffolding that holds and catalyzes intention. We will erect this platform around a theme of looking at today’s polarizing political landscape as one example of how collective historical traumas continue to haunt and come alive in real life today in ever repeating patterns. There are some essential support beams for this structure. You will receive tips on the creation of these elements including:
The workshop will be adapted depending on number of participants; the intention being that each experience levels that hold resonant meaning through experiencing the key elements. Meaning is itself as complex and diverse as each human in the room and informed and enhanced by the collective field present. View Judy's interview about her conference session |
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Copyright © 2017 - North American Systemic Constellations (NASC) • Last update 6/29/17 The purpose of North American Systemic Constellations (NASC) is to organize educational conferences and other learning experiences that support the growth and development of Systemic Constellations as a healing modality so that the far-reaching benefits of Systemic Constellations can be shared with the public. |