So this is a deeper piece.
About family.
Belonging and the things we sometimes carry.
For the people we come from.
It goes gently.
But it may stir things for you.
And you can pause at any point.
Listen in parts.
Or come back to it another day.
You can listen sitting,
Lying down.
Or however is comfortable.
If your body wants to move,
Let it.
Now,
I'd like to begin with something I've seen many times.
And to be honest with you,
I still don't fully understand it.
In a family consideration group.
A person is asked to choose strangers from the room.
To stand in for members of their family.
Just stand there in a particular arrangement.
There's no script.
There's no information.
And a man who has never met his family,
This family,
Who has been told nothing except,
You are standing in for the grandfather.
Will sometimes go quiet.
And his shoulders will drop.
And he'll say I feel like I've done something I can't put right.
And the person whose grandfather it is will go white.
Because nobody in the room was told about that.
So I don't exactly know how that works.
And I'm very wary of anybody who says they do.
But I've seen it too often to dismiss it.
And it points at something that this talk is about.
Families carry things.
Families carry things.
And the things they carry get passed along,
Quietly.
To whoever loves them enough to take them.
So let's start somewhere much simpler.
Every one of us was born into a family.
And it was not a family we chose.
Was not the one we applied for.
We just arrived and there they were.
Parents,
Grandparents,
Aunts and uncles,
And behind them,
A long line of people whose names we may never know.
And from the very first moment.
Something in us needed one thing more than anything else.
To belong to them.
To belong to them.
For most of human history.
Belonging wasn't just a nice extra thing to have.
It was survival.
A baby can't live alone.
And early humans couldn't live and all either.
To be pushed out of the group very often was to die.
So the body learnt deep down that being left out is dangerous.
And that's why not belonging hurts so much.
Not just as an idea,
But in the body also.
Some studies have even found that being left out activate some of the same areas of the brain as physical pain.
So when people say rejection hurts,
I believe them.
They're being quite literal.
And because belonging matters so much.
A child will do almost anything to keep it.
Children will be good,
They'll be quiet.
They'll be funny or helpful.
Or invisible.
Or whatever the family seems to need.
And sometimes without anyone ever asking they'll do something much bigger.
They'll take on some of the family's suffering.
So in family constellation work.
Which is the work I do with families.
We see this again and again.
A child senses without any words.
That someone in the family is carrying something heavy.
Mom's sadness.
Dad's anger.
A grandmother's grief that nobody talks about.
And the child out of pure loves.
Makes a quiet inner promise.
I'll carry some of it for you.
If you can't be happy,
I won't be happy either.
Then you won't be alone in it.
Better me than you.
And that's a beautiful plan if you're five years old.
But it's a bit less helpful when you're 45.
And still carrying it.
These promises are made so early and so deeply.
That we usually forget we ever made them.
But they keep running quietly in the background.
Like an app that you didn't know was open,
But it's draining your battery.
So you might see them in patterns that don't quite make sense.
The person who can never let themselves be happier than their mother was.
The one who always seems to stop just short of success.
The same way their father did,
Or their grandfather.
Or the one who keeps choosing relationships that end in the same kind of heartbreak as the aunts or the grandmothers.
So the one who can't settle anywhere.
Just like a great uncle who left home and nobody heard from them again.
So the one who feels heaviness they can't explain.
As if they are grieving somebody they never met.
So,
None of this is blame.
Not of you and not of them.
Nobody sat down and planned it.
It's simply what love does when it's very young.
And doesn't know any better.
It tries to belong by sharing the pen.
So in constellation work,
This has a name.
And it's called blind love.
Now blind not because it's not real love,
It's completely real.
But it can't see that the suffering it carries doesn't actually help anybody.
So you being sad doesn't make your mother less sad.
Your struggling doesn't lift your grandfather's failure.
It simply means now there are two people carrying it instead of one.
There is another part of this.
And it's one of the most important things family constellation work has to offer.
Every family has unwritten rules.
And they are often enforced far more strictly than any law.
We don't talk about Uncle Tom.
We don't mention the first marriage.
We don't say the name of the baby who died.
We don't speak of the one who went to prison.
Or went to England and never came back.
So families leave people out for all sorts of reasons.
Shame,
Grief,
Fear,
Anger.
Sometimes it's just too painful to remember them.
And families are remarkably good at it.
We can keep a secret for 100 years and still fall out over who gets the good chair.
So here's what we see in this work.
Every member of a family,
Has an equal right to belong.
And when someone is pushed out or forgotten?
The family doesn't forget them.
Something in the family keeps their place open.
And often without knowing it.
Someone in a later generation ends up living like them,
Feeling like them,
Suffering like them.
And they are quietly holding the place of the one who was left out.
Imagine a young man who has always felt like the black sheep.
And he never fits in at family gatherings.
He drinks a bit too much.
And he feels more than anything.
That he's the one who doesn't belong.
And then one day.
He discovers that his grandfather had a brother.
A brother nobody mentioned.
Who also drank.
Who were sent away.
And was never spoken of again.
He's been carrying his great uncle's place without ever knowing his name.
And I really want to be careful here.
Because this is not fortune telling and not every struggle comes from the family.
And I see this in my work all the time.
That someone went for a constellation.
And someone told them.
That oh this is happening to you because you're carrying this pain for your grandmother.
And they worked on it but nothing really changed And now they are back and they think just by doing more,
This thing will go away.
Now that's not necessarily honoring anybody's pain.
That's not necessarily giving the struggle or the pain back to somebody with respect.
That's just somebody doing a fancy technique,
Thinking nothing else has worked.
Now this will finally make it go away.
And this is often why these things don't work.
Because we step into them with unrealistic expectations.
So,
Family constellation work is not fortune telling.
And it's not about finding the stories.
It's not about pinpointing where you got your pain from.
Many things shape a life.
But I've seen it often enough.
So have many people who do this work.
That it's worth taking seriously.
And it fits in with what researchers have found too.
Studies of the children and grandchildren of the holocaust survivors and of families who lived through famine and war.
They've found that the effects of what one generation went through can show up in the next.
In how their stress systems work,
In their health,
In patterns of feeling and behaving they never live through themselves.
And scientists are still working out exactly how that happens.
And how much is biology and how much is the way a family lives and talks and goes silent.
But the finding itself keeps turning up.
What one generation can't process.
Doesn't always stay with that generation.
So what's the alternative then to blind love?
Now in constellation work.
We call it seeing love.
Grown-up love.
And seeing love says.
I see what you went through.
I honor it.
It was yours.
And because I love you.
I'll leave it with you.
And live my own life as fully as I can.
And this can feel really strange at first.
Even disloyal that who am I to be happy when they weren't happy?
Think of it from their side.
If you had suffered a great deal.
Would you want your grandchildren to suffer too?
So you would have company.
Or would you want them to have the life you couldn't?
Most parents and grandparents,
If you could really ask them.
The deepest part of them would say,
Please don't carry this for me.
Live and live well.
That's the best thing you could ever do for me.
And here is the quiet truth at the center of all this.
You don't have to suffer to belong.
You don't have to suffer to belong.
You belong to your family because you were born into it.
That's it.
It's not something you earn by carrying their pain.
And it's not something you lose by setting it down.
It was yours from the very first breath.
Let's go somewhere together.
Not in a literal sense.
If you'd like to close your eyes,
You can.
Or maybe just let your gaze rest softly somewhere low.
And start just by taking a few breaths.
At whatever pace your body chooses.
And here is a word before we begin.
In what follows.
I might invite you to sense members of your family.
And you never have to bring in anyone who has hurt you.
And you can stop at any time.
Or you can just listen to this part and believe something is still listening and shifting things for you.
If someone appears who doesn't feel safe.
Simply let them stay at a distance.
Or let the picture go.
And remember visualizations don't have to be perfect.
They're just to create intention.
Now imagine for me a long table.
A big old family table And it might be a kitchen table you remember.
It might be one you've never seen.
A long table which is enough for many generations.
And then around it.
There are people beginning to gather.
This long old family table.
As people begin to gather,
Sense your parents,
Their parents.
Others for the back.
Faces you don't recognize.
But somehow you know them.
You don't need to see anything clearly.
You may only sense a warmth,
A weight,
Or maybe a crowd of presences on the table.
Let the feeling,
The vision come to you.
Now notice for me.
Where you are sitting.
Are you at your own place?
Or have you somehow ended up somewhere else?
Are you sitting too close to one parent?
Are you standing behind someone?
Are you sitting in a chair that feels it belongs to someone else?
And just notice here,
There's no wrong answer.
Just notice.
Am I at my own place?
Now look around the table.
And see whether there is a gap.
A chair missing.
A place not set or someone who should be here but isn't.
It might be someone you know about.
A Child Who Died a relative who left.
Someone who was talked about in whispers.
Or not talked about at all.
Or it might simply be a sense of someone missing.
With no name and no face.
For some of you,
It might be a feeling in your body that's coming up.
Now if it feels right Imagine bringing a chair to the table for them.
Setting a place.
And inviting them to sit.
And you might say this quietly inside.
You belong to There is a place for you here I see you now.
You belong to There is a place for you here.
I see you now.
Now notice what happens around the table.
When that person is given back their place.
Sometimes the whole family seems to settle.
Sometimes there is grief.
And sometimes there is a quiet sense of something put right.
Now come back to yourself.
And notice whether there's anything heavy in your own body right now.
A weight in the chest A heaviness in the shoulders.
A tiredness in the throat.
A tiredness that feels older than you.
You don't need to name it exactly.
Just notice it.
Is there any sensation,
Feeling,
Tightness present in my body right now?
And very gently ask this.
Who am I carrying this for?
Who am I carrying this for?
Who am I cutting this for?
Let your attention drift around the table Perhaps your eyes are drawn to someone.
A parent,
A grandparent.
The person whose chair you just set.
For some of you,
You might have a knowing of someone now.
Tone search Let whoever comes,
Come up.
And when you sense them.
Really look at them today.
Just see what they live through.
And see the weight that they carried.
Now for this part you can repeat this after me or you can say it silently.
Or just receive my words.
I carried this with you out of love.
It was yours and it was heavy.
Now I leave it with you,
Also out of love.
I carried this with you out of love.
It was yours and it was heavy.
Now I leave it with you.
Also.
Out of love.
You are the big one.
I am only the child.
You can carry your own life.
I trust you with it.
You are the big one.
I am only the child.
You can carry your own life.
I trust you with it.
For the next few seconds,
Just notice any shift,
Any softening,
Any change in vision that you might be sensing.
Maybe a little lighter.
Maybe some sadness.
Because sometimes even something heavy can feel like company.
So it's all right to miss it a little.
Whatever is moving,
Shifting,
Softening or not,
Just let that happen.
And trust this is exactly what you had to sense your experience today on the table.
Now if you're in some sort of a process You might choose to pause this recording here and be here as long as you like.
Find your own way now.
Back to your own place.
Back to your own chair.
Not in front of anyone,
Not behind anyone.
Choose where you belong.
And sit down in it now.
You are a member of this family.
Because you were born into it.
I belong here.
I don't have to suffer to belong.
I belong here.
And I don't have to suffer to belong.
And feel that grounding now in your feet,
In your hips,
On the chair,
Or just in your vision,
A lengthening in your spine.
And now if it feels right Every single person around the table is looking at you,
Kindly.
All of them.
And they all say.
.
.
Go on.
And live fully.
Go on.
And live fully.
Go on.
And live fully.
Sit with these birds for a few seconds.
Very gently,
Very slowly.
Come back to yourself.
The chair disappears,
The table disappears,
Breath,
Hands,
Feet,
Room,
And you're back.
If your eyes were closed,
You can open them.
So this was just a taste of this work.
And what happens in a journey like this is a beginning,
Not an end.
So old loyalties,
They don't dissolve in one go.
They'll loosen.
Little at a time,
Each time you notice them.
You might start noticing in ordinary life.
Moments when the old promise kicks in.
When something good happens,
And you can't let yourself enjoy it.
When you feel a sadness that doesn't seem to belong to you.
In those moments you can ask yourself a simple question.
Who am I caring this for?
And then quietly say this,
I see you.
It's yours.
I'm living my life now.
One more thing you can do someone in your family if they were left out.
You can give them back their place in small ways.
And you don't have to.
.
.
Have any type of relationship with them.
Maybe you can say their name someone you know that suffered,
Someone you know that was cast out,
Someone you know that had a tough life.
Just light a candle for them.
And you can tell their story to the next generation.
Because sometimes simply remembering someone is the most healing thing a family can do.
Another word of care.
Work like this can stir up feelings,
Sometimes a day or two later.
Grief,
Sadness and unexplained unexpected memories and emotions can sometimes come.
So just be gentle with yourself knowing that this is just something moving,
Shifting and you ask for it so you can be free.
So for the last moments here,
Just rest.
Feel your own place.
Your own share.
Your own life.
You belong.
You always have.
And you don't have to suffer to prove it I'm leaving you with these words.
I carried it out of love.
I leave it with you out of love.
Thank you very much for joining me.
And Namaste.
