THE CONSTELLATION APPROACH. Jamy Faust

in the deep unknown

      My fate awaits me There beneath the water’s stillness Where I know I must go.

      —Jamy

       A Constellation Journeyer

      Lyn — One Woman’s Loyalty

      Lyn was bright, attractive, and self-sufficient. She moved away from the town where she was raised and overcame the addictive behavior that was prevalent in her Family Lineage. She yearned for a love that seemed to have eluded her through life. Like her father who had been married three times, Lyn was on her third marriage. She was not able to fully let her current husband in emotionally to experience the love she longed for. She felt there was something blocking her from fully expressing her love, accepting in her husband’s love, and having the type of fulfilling relationship she knew was possible.

      When Lyn set up her Constellation, she included Representatives for herself, her mother, father, her mother’s parents, and her current husband. The Family Energy Field revealed that she was still caught between the energies of her mother and father who had divorced when she was three years old. Like two powerful magnets creating an overlapping field effect, Lyn was not able to break free of her lifelong loyalty to her mother, or move freely to embrace her father. She was stuck between their opposing energies that had not been fully resolved forty years after their divorce.

      As Lyn faced her mother, the loyalty she felt towards her estrangement and pain began to shift. She was able to turn towards her father and let herself connect with him in a way that, as a child, she had never felt she had her mother’s permission to do. The pattern of never being able to be happy in relationship (or happier than her mother) began to lift. She understood that her pattern of continually seeking better partners arose from her longing for a relationship with her father.

      After a period of deep emotional catharsis Lyn began to brighten, feel lighter, and stand up taller. She moved slowly and deliberately to face the Representative of her current husband. She took one final look at her mother and father and walked slowly to her husband. With trepidation and tenderness, she allowed herself to be held in his arms. Lyn had been acting as a loyal child to the family history of her parents and grandparents: Her mother, who had been separated from her father at a young age, had struggled with maintaining loving relationships with men throughout her adult life. Lyn’s grandmother had never fully recovered from the loss of her own marriage. Three generations of women—grandmother, mother, and daughter—had all been struggling to balance the scales of love and loss with the men in their lives.

      Through the Constellation process, Lyn experienced viscerally the energy field that had held her in place. By acknowledging what had happened to the women in her maternal lineage, she recognized how her own life had been similar. By accepting that the ancestral pattern of loving and losing men had been passed on to her, she was free to let go of the pattern and make a different choice. But mental understanding alone was not enough for Lyn. She needed to realign in her energy body at the cellular level of her being. Her block was able to be removed by re-immersing into the Family Energy Field that created her unconscious loyalty to her mother and grandmother.

      Since her Constellation, Lyn has reported that the tension she felt with both parents has lessened. She also described a new awakening of love and acceptance in her relationship with her husband—more than she imagined possible.

      4Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper Collins, 1944)

      5Bruce Lipton and Steve Braerman, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here (New York: Hay House, 2009)

       Chapter 3

      How We are Connected

      Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb we are bound to others, Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness We birth our future.

      —David Mitchell, novelist

      The purpose of these opening chapters is designed to help you appreciate how multi-layered and multi-dimensional “you” are. The more willing you are to explore your multi-stranded nature; the more open you will be to the experiential components of The Constellation Approach. What differentiates our approach from other Family Constellation practices is our emphasis on an awareness of subtle energy bodies and the larger energetic fields of influence on an individual, and our focus on Soul Consciousness. In our view, the self is more than biological matter and psychological biography. We perceive the self as an energetic vehicle of consciousness seeking wholeness and balance. Consciousness surrounds us in layered fields of energy that are affected by nonphysical interaction as well as touch. TCA recognizes these four fields of energy during a Constellation:

      Individual

      Family

      Participant

      Ancestral

      Each layer nests within the other from the smallest (individual) to the largest (ancestral). During a Constellation, awareness of these fields establishes the landscape for the journey. If each of us is to move towards peace with our respective family lineages, we must recognize our self in these different fields of energy.

      Constellation Energy Fields

      The first is our Individual Energy Field, comprised of the auric field and the chakra system. The auric field surrounds us, extending approximately the arm’s length of our body in 360 degrees. Within our auric field are seven chakras that function like invisible vortices gathering and transmitting knowledge and energy concerning our life’s experience and surroundings. Their purpose is to keep the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health of our body in balance.

Located in the regions of the pelvis, solar plexus, heart, throat, and head, the seven chakras correspond to underlying organs and expand to create the auric field that surrounds the body in the front, rear, above, and below. Chakras are said “to reflect how the unified consciousness of humanity (the immortal human being or the Soul), is divided to manage different aspects of earthly life (body, instinct, vital energy, deeper emotions, communication, an overview of life or contact to God).”⁶

      During a Constellation, the Client’s Individual Energy Field becomes more engaged as he/she sets up, moves through, resolves, and reconciles with his/her family. Each family is its own unique Constellation of beings. Just like stars, no two are alike and every family has its own gravitational force in which ancestors orbit.

      Imagine concentric circles that begin with the individual, then parents and siblings. The grandparents and their siblings come next, then great grandparents, each generation extending further outward and into the Spirit realms. We call this the Family Energy Field. (Bert Hellinger describes it similarly as the Family Soul).

      The Family Energy Field serves as the basis for exploring our relationships and finding solutions to unresolved issues. The Field is the body of consciousness that is created when setting up a Constellation. It is specific to the Client and offers a unique representation of the family. No two are exactly alike.

      May all mothers and sons be reconciled.

      May all mothers and daughters be reconciled.

      May all fathers and sons be reconciled.

      May all fathers and daughters be reconciled.

      May all sisters and brothers be reconciled.

      May all husbands and wives be reconciled.

      May