Acknowledgement

It’s been a while since I ‘properly’ blogged. Honestly it was because so many things had picked up pace that I was deeply buried in processing them. Almost as a ripening of a 3 year old journey I attended Dr. Newton’s 6 day family constellation workshop. Just like his other workshops it was intense, to say the least!

Family constellation is a practice that Bert Hellinger came up with. It’s a way of looking at yourself in a systemic way rather than a symptomatic way. What that means is you’re the sum total of your ancestors and how they lived and the difficulties and gifts they possessed. A typical family constellation session in a group setting starts with invoking the field of oneness. The constellator then calls upon one of the participants based on his / her intuition. The selected participant defines a clear issue. He /she tunes into the energy field of oneness. And based on that he / she starts picking out people from the remaining participants to represent himself / herself and the family members involved in the situation. The participant then places these representatives in a way that describes their current stance in life. This is very energetic and not in accordance to what people may pretend outwardly. As soon as they are set they tune in into the field. They move spontaneously or start experiencing and expressing various emotions verbally and through their body. They essentially become channels for the ancestral energies to come through. Through intuition and the strong messages from the field people keep moving with little intervention from the facilitator who guides them and their words sometimes towards resolution. Resolution is when the energy of the family goes to a high state of balance and love.

One of the most powerful aspects of this work is acknowledgment.
This seemingly trivial aspect creates such horrendous gaps in our lives that it looks unbelievable until you catch yourself actually experiencing it.

One of my pain points was that I didn’t feel acknowledged at work as well as in my healing work. I tried my inner child techniques, breakthrough techniques for the last 2-3 years and the angst of not being acknowledged just wouldn’t ease. During the workshop I ended up acknowledging several people in my family ancestral tree. I also acknowledged aspects that existed in my family in 7 generations – especially the victim – perpetrator equation. Rage was acknowledged. So was guilt and shame. Hiding was acknowledged. Sexuality was acknowledged. Incest was acknowledged. A strong grandmother lineage was acknowledged.

Today at work there was a situation where an idea I had contributed was not acknowledged and I noticed it, but there was no emotional charge in me to seek acknowledgement and so I just brushed it off. And then I found a beautiful birthday message written by a dear colleague full of acknowledgement! I smiled.

It is well understood that what we seek most must first be given. But what’s emerging is that it needs the right channel to be shared in.