The Living Arts Foundation sponsors workshops and training programs in Systemic Constellation Work in the tradition of Bert Hellinger.

Constellation work deals with the very roots of our lives. Our parents, grandparents and ancestors are at the foundation of our having life. From this simple giving and taking emerges an intricate web of relationships and bonds that make us part of our family, and part of all the good and bad things that ever happened within it.

When unhappiness becomes a constant companion; when accidents seem to happen often, or our health is in danger; when we tend to repeatedly sabotage our work's success, and find ourselves unable to live in fulfilled and harmonious relationships; when we just never seem to find the right place anywhere, be it family, job or relationship (no matter how much we try, and how many hours of therapy or personal coaching we have behind us) — chances are that we do not indeed live our own life but someone else's. It is very possible that we are "reproducing" the life of one of our family members.

What Bert Hellinger rediscovered, through thousands of family systems with which he worked, are age-old "orders of love" that govern the family systems and their members.

When someone in the system (family clan) has been lost, given away, forgotten or cast out, someone of the following generations unconsciously and invariably steps in and brings the lost member's destiny back through living it out in this lifetime. It happens out of a deep but hidden loyalty, out of the secret law that refuses to deny any member of the clan the right to belong. It is a love so deep, so ancient, that the family member will choose to die rather than to "betray" the family bond.

Family constellation work is a highly efficient tool for understanding if we are entangled in the fate of some member of our family clan. It reveals hidden loyalties to those who suffered a dramatic fate.

When we rediscover the ancient orders of love, and understand how deeply affected by previous generations our lives can be, we can start to see our individual suffering in a new light. Love's flow can then be redirected and transformed, bringing the forgotten and dishonored back into the family; acknowledging their fate without interfering, recognizing them as part of the family; and rediscovering that we are part of the family, too. When we find that we belong to, and find our right place in, the family, we find our right place outside the family as well: in our community, culture and race, not only as human beings, but ultimately together with all living beings, as one of the children of the earth and of this beautiful universe.

The Mechanics of Constellations

The participant then chooses representatives for the needed family members and places them in relationship to each other according to his or her own inner picture. And an amazing and often mind-boggling thing happens: the representatives start feeling sensations and emotions related so intimately to the true family members that people are often shocked — and at the same time, relieved — about the accuracy with which the family drama unfolds, revealing hidden links that are the cause of so much tragedy and pain.

With the information gained, the facilitator can then find the words the soul would want and need to speak, to free the entangled from misdirected love, identities, and fates, falsely taken on. And step by step, in finding the true and original order, the order of love, the facilitator guides the family members (representatives) to the places where they belong. This cannot be done before every person's right to being has been acknowledged, the parents' gift of life has been received with gratitude, and personal guilt has been recognized and accepted. Only then can we walk the path which is our own, with our parents' strength in our back, and our ancestors' blessings in our hearts.

Who Should Attend

Health professionals will find vast opportunities to enrich their practice with highly efficient tools and new learnings about the effect of the family system on behavior, health, and the soul.

Bert Hellinger