During the Second National Camp in Pichl, Austria, 27.06.2010

As you have perhaps heard, a while ago I was very ill. After the course in Kiev, which left strong impressions, I got very ill. I could not do what I had planned. This went on for nearly three months. I had to readjust and change something. I realized that family constellations work in its old form was over for me. I had noticed that in their old form constellations went in the direction of psychotherapy. Above all, this was so in regard to the expectations of the participants who expected healing from me, and a solution to problems in the sense that they personally felt better. In a certain way I felt as if I was being sucked dry by many, so that in the end all became weak. I did, and so did they.  

As a consequence, I cancelled all my courses for the year. Slowly something began to develop in me, insights into the future of family constellations. I am pleased with the results. Family constellations move now to another level and into another dimension.

I thought about what is happening to family constellations today. What about family constellation work as it was, and what about the future of family constellations?

Here in this course we would like to take you along into this dimension, and I mean in a way that is much clearer than it has been. All of you, perhaps with the exception of those who are quite new, are aware that the representatives in a constellation are not very much themselves. They are taken into possession by another power, and recruited into service. This happens in the service of this power, not for us, not primarily for those expecting help from us, but for this power. As soon as the representatives are placed they feel like the people they represent. Another power takes them along into a movement that far transcends our usual concepts of good and bad, of right and wrong. As a consequence it becomes necessary for the constellation leader, in this case, myself, not to have any intention of helping anyone, and not attempting to meet the expectations of clients, so they get what they would like. Instead, I am like a medium, taken into possession by a higher power. The same is so of the representatives.

This shows us that family constellations have been taken to a completely different level, to a higher level that demands something from everyone involved, different from what they had imagined. This means, me, the client, the representatives in the constellation, and all those spectators who are taken in, open themselves to this other movement. Then they are independent from me in every regard. They are independent from their expectations and they are led to a higher level. 

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.

Orders and disorders of love

I would like to say something about spiritual family constellations. 

Those who become involved in being taken along by movements of the spirit can bid farewell to the inner images of what is good or bad. Handing themselves over to this spiritual movement, they are introduced to insights that are inaccessible to our usual deliberations. These insights lead far beyond the common family constellations. The common family constellations remain within certain boundaries of orders of love. These are at work on the surface.

It is not that as if they are not important. But those who hand over to the movements of the spirit gain new insights. I subsume them in the orders of love. There are two orders we are not conscious of, and thus, we constantly transgress these orders. 

The first one is: Everyone who belongs to a family has the same right to belong. This means no one can be excluded from a family. No one who was in this family or who still is can be excluded without far-reaching consequences. No aborted child can be excluded. No child who was given away or kept secret can be excluded. No one who went against the family rules and was pronounced guilty can be excluded.

Many who are in our way, as it were, are excluded from our images of freedom for instance, and of independence and personal development. This creates a disorder of love.

Consequences 

What are the consequences? Later on, another member of this family must represent an excluded person, without being aware of it. We know this as an entanglement in family constellations. Someone really feels like the excluded person and takes on that excluded person’s fate, with the result that this person is also excluded.

In this connection there is a very important insight, an insight about a basic disorder of love that we do not perceive as such, because when we transgress in this sense, we feel big in this love.

Where someone in a family became guilty of excluding a member, then this guilty person is drawn to the excluded person. If the excluded person died or was even murdered, like in an abortion, then the guilty person feels drawn to this dead family member. Then a child steps in and says to the mother, for instance, “I in your place.”

This is a great love, so it seems. But it transgresses a basic order of life. This comes to light in family constellations. 

The spiritual family constellations overcome this superficial love and let everyone complete their life as it is decreed, without burdening someone or taking on another’s burden. 

The other helping

I would like to say something about helping. Most of us here see ourselves as helpers in many fields, including psychotherapy or social work.

What does a helper say to the person seeking help? I exaggerate a bit, of course. But in psychotherapy a helper says quite often: “Become like me.”

What is the result? Again, maybe I exaggerate slightly. So the helper becomes like the one he wants to help. He gets sick, for instance. No wonder for he has put himself in the place of a higher power.

In spiritual family constellations the helping in the usual sense comes to an end, for helping lies in the hands of the creative spirit with whom we come into accord. Therefore, when a constellation does not move any further, when we break it off, the movement of the spirit, the healing movement continues. In such a situation we might want to take things into our hands, against the movement of the spirit, because we are determined to produce a good resolution, the way we and other participants want it. This can be dangerous for us. Here, everything takes a different course than what we are familiar with. 

So the constellation leaders remain fully in accord with this movement, without wishes of their own, only in the service of a greater movement.

After a while we get used to the experience that the movements of the spirit are different from what we imagined them to be. There can be nothing wrong for these movements. Whichever way someone behaves, whether we agree to it or not, the spirit agrees to their movements. Even if a person sometimes has to go deep down before rising to heights. After some time we know ourselves fully in accord with everything as it is. This is what the movement of the spirit shows us. It is in accord with everything as it is ‒ because it comes from it.

Meditation: Our mother

I would like to say something about our mother. Close your eyes for now. 

Look at the images you have of your mother. How many images are there? Are there more than five, after she has cared for you for 20 years? Being there for you day and night? Unable to sleep properly because she was so tuned into you, waking up any moment you stirred in your sleep to make sure you were all right? And how many images of her have you got now? Five? Most of them were perhaps bad images, arrogant images, obliterating images? Perhaps you even wished for her to die? What remained of your mother? How much strength? Now we will change these images.

Sometimes there was a rift in our childhood. Perhaps our mother was not there, whatever the reasons were. Perhaps you were in the hospital or you had to stay elsewhere for some time. 

Then you made a decision never again to return to her. Everything that was before, the deep and beautiful images, are as good as erased.

Now we go back to the time before this rift, to the happy memories, to the happy images, and we give them room inside us. We allow ourselves to experience this early happiness again: the security, the cozy feeling, the closeness, and the tenderness.

With these happy images we find the courage to take a step towards our mother. In spite of the anger, in spite of the disappointment, we disregard our early decision never to go to her again. We dare take the first step, a small step, and we look into her eyes the whole time.  Then we gather all our strength and take the next little step.  And then another step again, very slowly, our eyes on her all the time.  We take heart for the next step... until we fall into her open arms … finally at home again. Dear mama.

Possessions

I would like to come back to the constellation from last night. The last constellation went step by step, very slowly. We were not sure in the beginning how far we could go. We went back to it later. Then Sophie had an important insight. She saw that the client was possessed by another person. Only then could we bring this other person into the constellation. It does happen sometimes that a person is possessed by someone else, an excluded person who needs to be taken in again. In the end we could see how everything, this whole constellation, was guided by another power that finally brought all those together who were separated before. This is a movement of the spirit. It is not always easy to realize where we are taken.

This is another aspect we need to consider, that we do not work with an individual alone, but with all those who make themselves felt and heard and seen, all who want to be acknowledged so that in the end all the people involved can be connected.

Deranged

There was another aspect that was clear then. Sophie asked him if he was mad. He was. He was mad in a certain way. 

This is another important insight that came from family constellations. Being crazy means that a member of a family was responsible for the death of another person, and that this person and also the victim were excluded. Then someone must represent this person and the victim at the same time. This makes the person crazy in a way. But when the people of this family reconcile and come back into the family, the crazy person becomes free from this craziness. 

This is an insight that I gained many years ago. This insight puts into question the kind of psychiatry that is largely practiced nowadays. Here new possibilities are offered by the spiritual family constellations to help those whom we usually consider psychotic. So-called psychosis is not an illness, it is a systemic entanglement that can be untangled and restored to order through family constellations.

However, in the field of Western psychiatry there is much resistance from many sides. It will take time until these insights will be able to take root in this area.

Some think perhaps that it should happen faster. For the spirit nothing needs to go faster. We do not need to preempt the movement. The spirit dictates the movement that matters. And we, that means me, for instance, submit to this, without trying to take an extra initiative in order to get something going. Other powers are at work here, and we can trust them.

So here we can see that helping means something different than what we commonly understand it to mean.

Spiritual helping

In our culture, a helping profession or professional is expected to take the initiative with regard to a so-called client. The client expects the helper to take the initiative.

The helpers fall for it, and I join the ranks, because I also have fallen for it many times. So I was also of the opinion that I had to help people.

In reality, only the spirit, a creative power, can help. Nobody is lost to this spirit, to this power, so that they would then be in need of my help or yours. People come into contact with the real power when they are completely reliant on themselves, without anyone intervening.

When I look back on my life I see that there were no wrong paths, even though at times I felt I had made a mistake. Trying to help someone on my own, which is not really possible in this sense, could be considered a mistake. But before this power there is neither guilt nor innocence, neither justice nor injustice. In the larger context everything is at its helping place. This is our way of proceeding now, trusting in another power. 

 And yet this power takes us into service at times, without our wanting it to, without our being able or permitted to object to it. Everything is in other hands, and before this other power we are all equally good and equally human, all of us down below before it, with this power taking the initiative. 

This is the path we are taking here: in accord with this power we do our best, but without getting in the way.

Have I made this clear? Good. In this sense we continue with the work. How? Together.

Demonstration: Helping with one sentence 

Hellinger chooses a client and has her sit next to him. Without asking about her issue, he says:

hellinger: Just close your eyes.

After a while: Say to someone inside: Now it is time.

As she opens her eyes again: That’s it.

To the client: How is that for you?

client: Now my heart is calmer. It was beating too strongly.

hellinger to the group: I’ve just demonstrated spiritual family constellations in one sentence. You observed that I did not even look at her. Then this sentence was given to me. I said it, and that is enough. Were I to add something to it, I would take something away.

This is the utmost concentration of spiritual family constellations. You have noticed this sentence was not only for her. All the sentences that come out of accord with this movement are at the same time for everyone.

To the client: All the best to you. 

To the group: Close your eyes. Let this sentence resonate in you so that it keeps on working in you: Now it is time.

After a long time: Okay