Live: Creating Your Genogram

Discover how to create a meaningful genogram through the gentle, insightful lens of Family Constellations work inspired by Bert Hellinger. In this session, you’ll explore patterns, hidden dynamics, and the deeper stories within your family system while reconnecting with a sense of belonging and clarity. Through guided reflection, you’ll learn key questions to ask, recognize who may have been excluded, and begin identifying burdens that don’t belong to you. This practice invites you to continue your exploration after the session, opening space for healing, understanding, and compassionate connection with your lineage.

Transcript

Hello everyone,

My name is Yvette,

And we are going to talk about family constellations today with a focus on the genogram,

Or in other words,

A family tree.

And it's been a while,

I'm live recording this.

I will pause when someone is sharing in the chat,

So for those listening in later,

You cannot enter the chat,

But feel free to message me on the inside timer.

And I'm doing a study in family constellations,

And I wanted to focus on the family tree that genogrammed today,

Because I am making one myself.

And family constellations is a study inspired mainly by Bert Hellinger,

And I like to explore this more here on the inside timer.

And we are going to do a couple of reflective questions for you today.

So if you're able,

You can write notes in your phone,

Write down on a piece of paper of course,

And feel free to take a minute to do that.

I'm also going to give you a couple of insights that hopefully you will take on even after this audio.

I will give you some homework,

But feel free to of course do this or not,

But I am working on it,

And I hope I can inspire you to do as well.

Because we're going to focus on something powerful,

Simple,

But incredibly revealing,

Creating your genogram,

Your family tree.

Now I would like to do sort of a centering intention setting,

And if you can join me,

Let's arrive by sitting still with a straight spine.

You can close your eyes or have a soft gaze in front of you.

We're going to take a long breath in,

And then release it through the mouth.

So a long breath in through the nose,

We're going to hold it,

And breathe out through pursed lips.

Let's do one more,

But slow it down.

Take a deep breath in,

Pause,

And release.

Now as you breathe,

I want you to allow an awareness.

Imagine a line of ancestors standing behind you,

Whether you know their stories or not,

Whether you felt close to them or not,

They are part of you.

Now I want you to breathe in and out through the mouth as we did,

But really imagine our ancestors standing behind us.

If you have troubles with this,

That's fine,

It takes practice.

Another deep breath in,

Pause,

And slowly release.

And set this intention with me.

I allow clarity to come.

I welcome understanding.

I open myself to seeing my family system with compassion.

And take a few more breaths.

Now I want to introduce the Genogram,

And this is a structured map of your family.

It's similar to a family tree,

But much deeper.

It will not only show you names,

Relationships,

But also the events,

The patterns,

The emotional dynamics perhaps.

Because in family constellations what we do,

Excuse me,

Is we ask ourselves,

What is this system trying to tell me?

And the system can be your family,

Can be your community,

Your work,

Can be anything,

But now we're focusing on your ancestors.

So what is this system of ancestors trying to tell me?

Who or what wants recognition?

What has been excluded?

And what needs to be honored?

So as you listen today,

Feel free to take notes,

Sketch or simply reflect in your mind,

And you will be invited to continue after this session as well.

We're not going to do homework in this session where I'm going to ask you to dot your entire Genogram,

No.

I want to set the basis.

I want to plant a seed,

With your permission,

And give you a little bit of food for thought.

And I encourage you,

Because I'm doing this with you,

To ask questions to your family if you have any.

Ask gently respectful questions with curiosity.

So who belongs?

There is always a rule in family constellations,

Whether it be working with pawns,

With real people,

Or with what we're doing today,

A Genogram,

Your family tree.

Is that who belongs to your family system?

Everyone has the right to belong.

When someone is being excluded,

Ignored,

Forgotten,

The system is trying to correct this in later generations.

And in your Genogram,

What's important is to know who is part of your system and who is not spoken about.

So what is an example?

In my Genogram,

And probably in yours as well,

There were some miscarriages or stillborn children.

Yeah,

I'm sorry,

I'm going to immediately dive into difficult subjects.

But those are often the things they don't spoke about.

So for example,

At my father's lineage,

My grandmother,

She had two miscarriages.

This was like in the 50s.

They didn't even know the gender because they just,

You know,

Didn't spoke about it.

Nope,

Never happened.

We have to move on,

Right?

But did you know that that can have a later ripple effect on later generations?

It doesn't necessarily have to,

But it could.

Other questions could be,

Did people leave your family early?

Was there an early death?

Was there a separation,

An adoption,

A distance?

Did people go to war?

There's so many questions.

Did anyone die young or tragically?

Was anyone rejected or disapproved of?

So I'm going to ask these questions again,

But now I want you to sit still when I ask them,

With your eyes closed or a soft gaze in front of you.

I'm going to ask them again,

And if something pops up,

Either make a mental note out of it or write it down,

And acknowledge them.

And you can work with this later,

You can write this out later,

But for now I'm going to ask,

With your permissions,

A couple of questions.

You are more than welcome to share them with me or keep it private.

I'm going to ask you.

But before that,

We're going to take a deep breath in,

And release.

Just a little bit of a safety,

Energetically session here.

You are always welcome to stop,

You are always welcome to not participate.

If you don't feel in the right headspace,

If it doesn't work for you,

I cannot see you,

I cannot hear you,

So I hope you can really take care of yourself.

We're not going to dive into real traumatic experiences today,

But I want to again plant a seed that you bring home with you if you want to work on,

And these are the questions.

Who is part of your family system,

And who is rarely spoken about?

Were there miscarriages or stillborn children?

Did anyone leave the family early?

Anyone who was rejected or disapproved of?

If you don't know,

You don't know,

But if people came up,

Just gently acknowledge them,

And in your notes or in your mind you can say,

You belong.

Now,

You might already feel a lot when I pose these questions,

And there are more reflective questions,

We can dive really into it,

But they are also really personal,

And another part of this Genogram is then to work further and go into for example,

What life events happened,

Who is still carrying this load,

And I'm not going to do this with you today,

And I'm going to be honest,

And that's because this can be a very heavy subject,

You need to have a professional sitting in front of you who can see you,

Hear you,

And work with you.

But I want you to know that if you want to work on this,

It's very important that you find a Family Constellation coach who you trust,

Who has experience with bigger groups or one-on-one work,

And know that you can always say to yourself,

And let's say it out loud with me right now,

I see this,

And I leave this where it belongs,

Because what it's all about is that we acknowledge and we let go.

We're not going to blame,

We're going to acknowledge.

Because family have secrets,

Family have shadows,

Families have silence.

And if you're interested in more questions,

In deep,

Effective questions,

You can let me know,

You can share.

But I want you to know that if you go on this journey,

It's important that you are fully aware that it can be really heavy work.

And you are here,

I assume,

Because you have a tingling,

You want to learn more.

And I'm going to share now my experience,

If that's helpful,

Because we're going back to the questions of,

For example,

Who is rarely spoken about?

Was there a separation,

Adoption or distance?

And I want to share with you from my mother's side a pattern,

Because patterns repeat.

And my grandparents,

They migrated to Canada.

And it's interesting,

I moved to Canada.

Wow,

Why,

Why should,

Why?

It's apparently a family dynamic,

Right?

And I looked into my family tree,

And there was a lot of moving there,

To different countries.

It's in our blood,

We move.

And I moved,

For example,

To the UK,

I moved to Sweden and Canada,

Right?

Interestingly,

My sister did a DNA test,

Guess what?

We're mainly Scandinavian,

UK-based people,

But we're Dutch,

Right?

So,

Obviously.

And I was like,

That gave me so much comfort to know why I had this urge to move to Sweden,

To move to the UK,

And do my PhD there.

So this is already a simple example of what learning about patterns in your family can do.

And that's what you can learn with the Genogram.

I'm circling around the issue,

Trying to get the point across here.

And it isn't that you need to fix anything,

You just again need to gently acknowledge them.

I want to give you another example,

That it doesn't necessarily have to always have an effect on your family.

So,

On my father's side,

The women,

They all had two miscarriages.

Again,

Back to that example that wasn't talked about,

Right?

Now,

Does that immediately mean that I had two miscarriages?

No.

Thankfully,

I didn't.

But the system always shows something needs to be acknowledged once we're working on it.

And when I was working on my Genogram,

That wasn't the first thing that came up,

The miscarriages,

Right?

What really came up was the moving.

And that's why I found it so important to find out about my past and why I had the urge to move to different countries,

Because it was in my Genogram.

So,

If you are going to work and things pop up,

It's always an invitation for you to work on.

But you really,

It can take time.

And sometimes we also don't know things.

For example,

On my grandfather's part,

I've asked my family members,

They don't know,

Things have become lost.

And then we go into the next phase,

Where the Genogram isn't useful.

You really have to do a,

Quote-unquote,

Family constellation,

Where you either work with pawns or with real people.

Then you have a facilitator,

What I'm trying to become,

And you have the client.

And people are going to be represent of your family members,

Even people who have passed,

Who you do not know.

And perhaps then information comes above.

But that's only then.

Or you are going to,

For example,

Go to some ancestry websites,

Where you perhaps can find more or do DNA testing.

And this is all based on the Bert Hellinger.

So,

If you are someone who's like,

You know,

The past is the past,

I'm going to move on.

That's okay.

Then this isn't for you.

And the tricky part is with these secrets.

If you don't know them,

They can also arise during a family constellation.

Because when you ask and represent an actor,

They suddenly know what to say.

So I'm going to give you an explanation,

If that's okay with you.

And then I'm going to answer if there are any questions.

I also helped someone as a represent,

So I was acting as their father for this lady.

And I didn't know her father,

I didn't know her,

And she had questions regarding her childhood.

We were reenacting a dinner scene,

And you had a facilitator asking her questions,

And she asked me to play her father.

So I was acting,

I was standing in that position,

And suddenly I had this urge to say things.

I don't know why.

And I spoke them out loud to her,

In a certain tone,

At a certain speed.

And she was like,

Wow,

You really sound like my dad,

He used to say that.

And this is the quote-unquote magic of the family constellation,

There's an energy,

We take on this energy.

So if there are,

For example,

Secrets in your family,

Perhaps,

Perhaps,

If it's important for you to know,

They will arise.

Or for example,

If there's apparently a miscarriage,

What no one spoke about,

That can also come up.

So these are all things that come up and will become something we have to learn.

Now you have a little bit of homework.

If you're interested,

If you want to work on this.

But I want to close off with a reflection and a guidance for after the session.

So let's take everything we've heard today and settle gently in our body.

We're going to close our eyes for a final time.

Take a deep breath in.

And pull up your shoulders,

Hold it,

Hold it,

Hold it.

And release through the mouth.

Because this is the start of something wonderful.

Creating a genogram is not a one-time task.

It's a growing,

Evolving process of unding yourself through the lens of your lineage.

And I encourage you to work on this.

By reaching out to your family.

Ask questions with warmth and curiosity.

Look for patterns,

Repetitions and untold stories.

Patterns,

They often speak to you.

Again,

To the example of the miscarriages,

They didn't speak to me.

But the moving countries spoke to me.

Because I was moving so much,

Right?

And then let the genogram become a living map of your roots.

One that brings clarity,

Compassion and connection.

Now,

If you still have unanswered questions.

Then it's time to do a family constellation.

And in a family constellation,

You can work on healing trauma.

A quick example of how that could heal.

I'm going back to the example of when I was helping that lady acting as being a represent for her father.

The facilitator then asked that lady to say healing statements at me.

So it's sort of like acting.

But it's really about yourself.

And it isn't acting,

You really want to say these healing statements.

So she said healing statements to her father like.

You are my father.

I am your daughter.

You belong.

And I belong.

I respect you.

I acknowledge you.

You've heard me in this and this and this manner.

And I acknowledge you.

I will give more examples of healing statements later.

And if you feel cold,

You can find more of my sessions and guidance on Insight Timer.

Your donations will truly help me to remain active on this platform.

And continue sharing my work with a wider audience.

That's always my main goal.

My intention is to bring these teachings to as many people as I can.

And I want you to feel gratitude for your willingness to explore.

For your ancestors,

Known and unknown.

For yourself.

And I know sometimes,

At least in my experience,

I can always be like.

Why did my family give me so much trauma?

You know,

The anger.

But let's focus on the positive right now.

They also gave us good things.

And I want to close off with healing statements.

That you can say to you in the mirror.

Because we have these laws in family constellations.

And I talked about belonging today.

And a healing statement could be.

You belong.

If someone wasn't acknowledged.

Everyone has a place.

No one is excluded.

In my heart,

I make space for you.

Now if we want to honor our system.

We can say.

I acknowledge what happened.

I see your fate.

And I respect it.

I'm not going to re-enact on your fate.

But I respect it.

I bow to what came before me.

And I thank you for giving me life.

And to parents it could be something like.

Hey you are my mother.

You are my father.

I am your child.

Doesn't mean you are accepting all the bad things.

For example if they did.

To you.

But you are acknowledging it.

I bow to your faith and your path.

These healing statements might not resonate with you right now.

But they take practice.

And they especially have a very special energy.

If you practice them in family constellations.

So my invitation to you is.

Start a Genogram.

That could be a start of your family constellation.

Where you are going to work.

For example with a family constellation facilitator.

As a client.

And people are going to re-enact as your family members.

And that is very scary.

But it helps immensely.

It has helped me.

It has helped me with my trauma.

With my addictions.

It wasn't like a quick fix.

I am not going to say that.

I did more things to help with my trauma and addictions.

But it definitely gave me insights.

And I hope I can share this information with you.

And this is hopefully a great start for you.

Namaste.

Thank you for listening.