“Healing your roots” is an intense and deep deconditioning process, taking the individual to contact, recognize and transform limiting cellular memories tracing back to childhood and to the relationship with mother and father.
The Bioenergetic Family Constellations are an exclusive method, developed out after years of practice and research into healing the inner child, in order to achieve a new and harmonious integration within the adult.
“Healing your roots” means going to the roots, where the real origin of problematic issues can be uncovered and dissolved. Difficulties concerning the various fields of life like relationships, work, health, money, emotions are ultimately linked to that imprint received as children, that conditions adult life.
1. Infancy and conditioning
Most problems of our day to day living are the consequence of what has been experienced during infancy. As we are born, completely open and vulnerable, we are immediately exposed to influences of the external world.
We depend for everything on our parents, that do their best to take care of us; but since they themselves missed a competent and sensitive care taking, they are in turn not able to satisfy our way, absolutely unique, to receive love and attention. Therefore, since tender age, we are conditioned into a way of life which is not our own, which doesn’t coincide with our inclinations and needs. The subjective and conditioned view our parents see us with, is in turn handed over to us, laying the ground for the formation of our inner self image, that it is not who we really are. This is how we progressively lose contact with ourselves, with our true nature, therefore living a life that is not ours.
From generation to generation a chain of conditioning and suffering is handed down. Isn’t it time to break it?
2. Consequences in adult life
As adults we are, despite ourselves, the outcome of what has been inserted long ago in our cellular memories…. we are identified with our personal history, often yielding the temptation to unconsciously hide behind it, not taking the responsibility of being adults with the option to change.
This course of things continuously generates dissatisfaction and pain therefore negatively affecting our relationships…. without noticing it, we are inclined to project on our partners the figure of one of our parents, thus spoiling our intimate relationships, unconsciously demanding what our mother and father could not give us.
We suffer because we are emotionally blackmailed, or in other words, we are completely identified with the wounded inner child, which does not find fulfillment: we don’t recognize what we need, but we expect that our partner knows and satisfies it.
Behind many of the conflicts between adults, behind bad moods, blame, guilt, stands a screaming inner child. The way to heal our relationships passes therefore through the process of healing the roots: that is the way to grow into becoming adults fully, that is, not only according to the registry records, but also emotionally: which means becoming conscious of our inner child, not allowing anymore to be unconsciously manipulated by expectations and projections. And it especially means learning not to base our relationships on demands, but on what we can realistically share.
Self-esteem, self realization in the professional and economical field, the expression of talents, the freedom to create one’s own life, to feel on the right track and to take the rightful place in the world: these are all aspects of the harmonically matured adult individual. But they will appear as a mirage, as long as the unconscious cellular memories of childhood sabotate the achievement of our purposes.
3. Free the cellular memories
It becomes therefore indispensable, for those who are on a personal growth process, to give themselves the opportunity to reconnect with that wounded, moody, reluctant child within, always in need to be listened to.
That part of us has its own story to tell; it has suffered a lot and it’s waiting for the right opportunity and for a welcoming environment to utter its own truth in its unique way.
The process “Healing your roots” is so structured to bring out cellular memories that condition and pilot our adult life. We are at last free to express and let go of fears, anger, jealousy, shame, guilt, frustration and the whole emotional pain since long repressed and relegated to the unconscious.
The “Bioenergetic Family Constellation” aims at spontaneously bring to the surface childhood events, even for those who lost memory of that far time.
4. Reborn to a new life
What happens as a consequence of penetrating those inner spaces revealed by childhood memories? Every blocked emotion (trauma or wound), when re-experienced with awareness, expressed and crossed completely, naturally transforms itself into Vital energy, that is needed to…. live!
Our inner child is reborn into a new life, animated by renewed trust and confidence, again open and available to live, experience, love.
It can grow in the way that it always wanted: this time, we ourselves as adults are able to support, guide and channel in the right direction its fresh, spontaneous, creative energies.
Our inner adult and our inner child can now finally talk to each other, collaborating toward a shared purpose in life: this integration brings a new and positive self perception, based on the realization of one’s own true nature.
The energy released by the process “Healing your roots” will make us finally ready to live our lives, to choose the right things for us, to be in relationship with serenity, and to find harmony and peace with our parents.
5. The Bioenergetic Family Constellation: a brief history
Bert Hellinger is widely known to be the one who gave birth to the method “Family Constellation”, applying it successfully in a myriad of cases and in different contexts: family constellations allow you to experience, through a guided representation, disharmonies that block the flow of love and life in relationships, and to arrive at a solution through a conscious movement.
The method of the family constellation in the years grew: the effectiveness of it, the evidence of the contents represented, the impact on participants, the breadth of the issues that can find explanation or solution, made of family constellations a very popular and loved teaching system among those who want to improve themselves and their relationships.
So, first by the same Hellinger, and then by other facilitators, various strands of constellations were born: out of the “first manner” constellation, new branches developed, resulting out of the practice of the constellation themselves: it soon revealed that the constellations are a method in the making, an open and ductile one, continuosly growing.
Some of those strands have resulted from the extraordinary sensitivity and intelligence of Hellinger, as the spiritual constellations. Others are born from the creativity of facilitators and practitioners that successfully tested the interaction between the constellations and other methodologies for self growth.
To the classical heading “family constellation”, adjectives were gradually added to denote the specific strand of that methodology: harmonic family constellations, constellations on business, shamanic c., structural c., imaginal c., etc….
The Bioenergetic constellation Family came to light on October 2011, after a preparation period in which Renata and Asimo were looking for a way to allow people a powerful and deep processing of past family experiences.
This process include some elements of Bert Hellinger’s family and spiritual constellation, bioenergetics, gestalt, enquiry, and numerous other release techniques, meditation, visualizations, integration, in an absolutely effective and original synthesis.
6. Enmeshment and trauma
The bioenergetic family constellations resulted from the observation of numerous cases in which the sole use of the classical family constellation did not produce significant improvements in the quality of life and relationships of the person. Why? If the family constellations has proved such a useful method, how is it possible that in some cases does not lead to the desired result?
This happens because of the trauma. If the person is traumatized, in his unconscious there are emotional charges, which are related to a distorted relationship with parents; therefore he won’t allow himself to access his own energy to successfully benefit from a family constellation. In this condition the method itself is not helpful in that moment.
Those are the cases in which, during the performance of the family constellation, the person does not accept or does not incorporate the solution highlighted by the facilitator, he/she does not welcome it within himself, failing to see it.
Bert Hellinger’s Family constellations were not designed to heal the trauma, nor to “forgive the parents,” as many erroneously think. Hellinger has made that point clear several times.
Family constellations have emerged to solve the enmeshment, or to dissolve the sufferings arising from the exclusion of a member from the family system. What is the enmeshment? It is the identification of a family member with the fate of another. Not always the trauma or the set of major traumas of a person has to do with the enmeshment. Often searching the result through the family constellation for these cases does not bear fruits: it is then possible to leave the scene open, awaiting further developments, and / or turn to another processing tool.
7. What is the trauma then?
Trauma is the interruption of the flow of vital energy in the body, as a result of a fact experienced as painful, that the person is not able to digest, to accept, to let go, and that has set deep in the unconscious, where it has acquired the power to sabotage the attempts of that person to live fully, to love and to be loved. These painful facts pertain mostly to childhood, age at which the child does not have the tools to elaborate consciously his lived experiences, especially when these concern the relationship with the parents, that the child sees as absolute point of reference, and in name of whom sacrifices his essential identity, not allowing himself to feel anger and hatred towards them, but feeling guilty and thus fueling the fear.
8. The inner child
Who is traumatized? At some level, we all are: in every adult there is an inner child that is usually largely unconscious. Commonly, we become adults according to public records and we leave childhood behind in the sense that we mature a character, a personality: this is the conscious part, generally identified with the intellect.
After adolescence, we look forward, we believe we have passed the child age, and in a sense we did, but in reality we are simply disconnected from the inner child: in our society, it is the price to pay to enter the adult world.
The inner child survives in the unconscious: as adults we are aware at the level of ideas, we have desires, we design our lives, we nourish feelings of which we are more or less convinced, but we are not aware of ourselves, of our true needs, of the origin of certain behaviors, of the reason why we attract certain things rather than others. This happens because, not being anymore in touch with the inner child, we are no longer in contact with our energy.
Why do we disconnect from the inner child? Why this duality?
We dis-connect from the inner child because its energy is imprinted by traumas, wounds, cellular memories of when we were not welcomed, understood and loved in the right way for us. In distancing inwardly from the inner child, we no longer feel those sufferings, we live in the illusion that they aren’t there, but then it happens that we attract them, because, even if we aren’t aware, we vibrate that energy.
Bioenergetic Family Constellations reconnect us to the inner child. The traumas emerge and we can process them: mobilizing the energy blocked by painful experiences, returning to revive the relationship with the parents for what has been, we’re going to unlock and express the emotions, letting them go.
The inner child can finally break free from fear, anger, hatred, guilt, shame, despair. It can be again the innocent happy and joyous child: as adults, we no longer need to create inner barriers to keep it confined in the depths of the unconscious not to feel it.
With the Bioenergetic Family Constellations we inaugurate a new relationship between the adult and the inner child, based on understanding, tenderness, love, play. We can listen to the inner child, find out which is the source of vitality, enthusiasm, spontaneity, qualities that support us in a new adult life, integrated and aware.
9. The five wounds and how to heal them
What kind of traumas the inner child brings with it? How can we contact them?
With the term “trauma” we do not intend to refer to pathological cases of severe, evident discomfort, which require very different treatment, administered by experts in the medical field.
We refer instead to the wounds that each of us carries within, by the mere fact of being born into the world in a certain family, and having dealt with the process of growing up with parents who have being chosen by us and which, along with the incredible gift of life and support in becoming adults, also inevitably shared with us modes, energies and patterns that have formed a load of suffering, from which those who really want to grow, be must free of.
Bioenergetic Family Constellations allow to release the energy trapped in the traumas that are at the root of the five wounds, so well described by Lise Bourbeau in the book “The five wounds and how to heal them.”
The author shows the connection between each type of wound that affects the inner child, and the type of adult personality that derives from it, that is, the mask that we wear in an attempt to protect from being vulnerable. Without judgment or blame toward oneself or toward parents, we are led to recognize the origin of some of the most common behaviors in adult relationships:
- – Rejection
- – Abandonment
- – Humiliation
- – Betrayal
- – Injustice
Each wound brings with it the personal lie, namely that complex of ideas that one has built, with no relation to the true reality, ideas that we carry as a barrier to not see and to not feel the pain.
With bioenergetic family constellations, through the body and the emotional unblocking, the person releases the tensions from the memory of the wound, allowing the vital energy to flow again, experiencing a new sense of self in relation to the parents, and consequently exposing the thickness of the masks and the constraints that form the poles of personality.
10. The love of the Spirit
It’s just that new and cleaner feeling that leads the participant to bow to the parents, to thank them for the gift of life, not with a forced gesture, but fully conscious and rich of that unconditional love that he always wanted. He/she recognizes and is recognized, feeling in his place.
Is it perhaps forgiveness? Is to forgive the parents the purpose of the Bioenergetic Family constellations?
Forgiveness is just a concept, still based on the feeling of separation. The letting go of resentment, and opening to the love that has always been there, is rather an experience, it is a genuine movement of the spirit.
Once you have made the experience of letting go, forgiving does not make sense. The parents were already forgiven from the start.
Bioenergetic Family Constellations allows you to let go of what is not love, to transform negative energy charges in vitality, joy and confidence.
Once the space of the relationship between the inner child and the parents is cleaned up, unconditional love is revealed, allowing us to welcome the power of life and to entrust to it, and to the movements of Spirit.
Bioenergetic Family Constellations essentially merge family constellations and bioenergetics, within a rigorous process of descent into oneself, into the hell represented by the wounds, rising with new resources, new knowledge that will animate the adult life, transforming it.
11. Possible obstacles
- “Untouchables Parents”
Parents are considered by many, untouchbles, a “taboo” especially by “mommy’s”: late many let go of the maternal skirt or the paternal home, and many are left emotionally dependent for life. Dependency also can be seen in those who want to live their own life by escaping from their parents, separating earlier from them.
The process “Healing your roots” breaks these habits, to usher in a more healthy, simple and direct relationship with their parents, whether they are alive or dead.
Dare to question the education that has been imparted on us, ideas, behavior patterns, is therefore healthy. Rebelliousness is necessary if we want to really grow. It is not an insult or a betrayal of the parents: to reject the conditionings that have been given to us by them, it is a movement to regain our freedom and love for ourselves, it is not a lack of respect for them, but it means placing them at last in the right light, seeing them for what they are: human beings who have done their best, according to the resources they had, and that they definitely want our happiness, that we find our way.
At a stage of “breaking”, will happen a phase of reconciliation and reunion: we will then be free to recover, on a new plan, certain models dating back to childhood, when helpful for our evolution. But then it will be our choice, not an imposition anymore.
- Belittle or ignore the problem
Each of us, in greater or lesser extent, have had a traumatic and conditioned childhood, but we tend to evade the issue, perhaps thinking that, after all, we had a “normal” childhood, nothing really serious happened, etc….
This is because it is not pleasant for anyone to relive certain experiences, to let feelings, since long dormant, resurface. No one wants to come back to those places and feel again those inner feelings.
But to return there consciously, is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves; putting “the finger on the wound”, we open ourselves to the possibility to break the vicious circle of limiting cellular memories, and then to re-create our lives.
- Apparent lack of memories
Another common place is the rather widespread belief of having “forgotten everything”, as not having memories. But this is, again, a defense, an automatic mechanism, which is triggered in us to prevent from opening our eyes to how things went and how much suffering is concealed within us.
The Bioenergetic Family Constellations bring to light what we are prepared to deal with, what we need to transform in our life at this time. We will remain surprised by how many memories emerge, and how interrelated they are.
Deepening: “Healing your roots: aim, Intent and Spirit of the work”
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QUOTES
“What is spiritual is wide and easy. Even the movements of the spirit are easy, if we are in harmony with them.
They free us of what drags us down, especially of what attracts us to the past. The movements of the spirit bring with them any past. They are in harmony with each past, as it was …. In them every past is right as it was, full, as it continues to be on the move …. Towards harmony with the love of the spirit for everyone as they are, with their past, as they have been, and their fulfillment, however it will be.”
– Bert Hellinger –
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“Where and how is this child now?
It has been abandoned, or feels miraculously accepted? It feels tied to its origins. In every fiber of his body, it is one with its ancestors and with their life force.
It feels one with the spiritual force that has taken them into its service, as they were and as they are. No one, in the service of this force, is better or worse, richer or poorer.
All were loved and were taken to the service of life in the same way.”
– “Bert Hellinger –
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