The effect of a family constellation

A family constellation may have a liberating effect that you feel immediately, like a burden drops away from you. A client suffering from lung emphysema and always carrying an oxygen bottle with him, told me half a year after his constellation:

“From the day I had set up my family constellation I immediately felt more breathing space and more energy. Surely, the damage that the disease has done to my lungs is irreversible, however, the difference this makes for what I can do in my life now is enormous.”

So, sometimes the immediate effect of a constellation is permanent, but often the effect fades away after a few weeks and then it may feel like nothing much has changed. And sometimes you don't feel anything at all after a constellation. A client, 40 years of age, told me the following more than a year after her constellation:

“After I had set up my family constellation, initially I did not feel a change at all. Everything felt as it always did and seemed unchanged. However, when last month I looked back at the previous year, I suddenly realized that throughout the entire year I have not had a depression. That is unusual for me, as I can't remember a year since my early teens, in which I wasn't at least four months depressed.”

The lasting effect of a constellation is more subtle than the immediate feeling of liberation. In fact, this deeper effect is not something you feel; instead after some time you begin to notice changes in your life. Sometimes it is only after several months that you begin to notice it. A fear attack that used to come and go has not bothered you for months now and suddenly you realise that. A recurrent familiar feeling of powerlessness, blockage or sudden loss of energy has not come back any more.

Entanglements in the family system lay hidden in a deep layer of our consciousness that developed very early, even before we had words and concepts. That's why this layer is unconscious; inaccessible to our thinking. A family constellation brings a change in that deep layer and so that change usually is also inaccessible to our thinking. That's why I often hear from people who did a constellation: I don't really understand what actually happened in the constellation, but I do feel relieved.

The only thing you need to do after a constellation is to stay alert for such changes and trust that they are real and lasting.

In a single constellation at most one entanglement can be resolved. (An entanglement is a too narrow, unconscious connection or identification with the fate or role of an earlier born family member). It is quite common that we carry the burden of more than one family event. Therefore it is not unusual to do another constellation after four to six months to bring another entanglement to light. Thus a process may take place over a few years that may support deep transformation.