Bert Hellinger on Balance and Forgiveness

What Hellinger calls the “hidden symmetry of love” concerns the balance of give and take that colors every relationship, especially in couples. The exchange of giving and receiving needs to be balanced, not from a mathematical, but from a soul perspective; the wider the exchange, the deeper the resulting growth and joy. The partner who receives too much will end up feeling oppressed, and therefore unable to give. The same is true in case of a partner causing harm to another. Too quick or superficial forgiveness deprives the need that the offending party has for offering compensation. A magnanimous forgiveness—often a superficial one—deprives the needed outlet for guilt.

http://www.humanspiritcircles.com/images/09updates/Excerpt%20Family%20Constellations.pdf

Successful Relief for Back and Hip Pain

The biggest factor in back and hip pain is the Psoas muscle. Over the years I have become very successful in treating conditions caused by the psoas. Some of the conditions involving the psoas include: low back pain, sacroiliac pain, sciatica, disc problems, spondylolysis, scoliosis and hip degeneration. I have been a Bodywork Therapist and Energy Healer for 26 years.

The psoas (pronounced "so - az") primarily flexes the hip and the spinal column. At about 16 inches long on the average, it is one of the largest and thickest muscles of the body (in animals it's known as the tenderloin). This powerful muscle runs down the lower mid spine beginning at the 12th thoracic vertebrae connecting to all the vertebral bodies, discs and transverse processes of all the lumbar vertebrae down across the pelvis to attach on the inside of the top of the leg.

I've had the most success by using Ortho-Bionomy techniques. To release the psoas we move the legs and hips into the most comfortable position possible. The most comfortable position resets sensors in the muscles and joints known collectively as proprioceptors. Creating the right twist and pressure in the muscles can reset the sensors very quickly.

The psoas can change its tension levels and learn to operate in better balance over time. It often takes 1-3 session to help the psoas retain a new way of functioning. More serious psoas injuries can take longer, particularly if very painful techniques have been used previously. Painful methods can traumatize the psoas.

I like to give clients homework that is designed to keep the Psoas balanced. Clients who do these exercises tend to get better faster and stay pain free over time.

Go to BarryKrost.com for more information and/or appointment in San Antonio, Texas

To Be a Great Poem

~ a reflection by Walt Whitman

(from preface to Leaves of Grass)
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul--and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

Family Constellations: The Orders of Love Between Parents, Children and Excluded Members

Family Constellations reveal deeply hidden dynamics within family systems. As we saw in our previous discussion, in Family Constellation theory, psychological states, feelings, and illness are often seen as disturbances in the individual's family system. During the process volunteers are asked to "represent" individuals from a family system. Representatives do not know whom they are representing in the family, yet they manifest them often in great detail and help to reveal what is really happening.

"Bert Hellinger", the founder of this therapy, saw consistent patterns that led to specific disturbances. He eventually called one set of patterns "the Orders of Love." He believes that love requires particular kinds of arrangements and movements to be completely given and received "for a healthy and satisfying life." (1) The following is very brief and condensed overview of some of these patterns.

In the first Order of Love a healthy dynamic occurs when children accept their parents and the gift of life as they are without reservations, with all that goes with it. Our parents and the life they gave us is a fact, it is not negotiable and cannot be altered. When we fight against this notion we don't really accept the whole of life and we can never be complete. Setting up a constellation where clients can choose to accept their parents can be a very important movement.

"Our parents are the only possible ones for us. Imagining anything else to be possible is an illusion." (1)

In the second Order of Love, children need to take what their parents gave, (in addition to life), as being enough. When we believe that we did not get what we needed from our parents, we never really separate from them; we continue to hold-on and cannot stand as unique beings. In accepting what they gave as sufficient we are free to live ours lives without being dependent on them. If not:

"These "children cannot separate from their parents. Their accusations and demands tie them to their parents so that, although they are bound to their parents, the children have no parents. They then feel empty, needy and weak." (1)

In the third Order of Love Hellinger saw that children would often try to carry the guilt of their parents (or parent) out of love. This also creates an unhealthy connection to parents that deprives the child of a full and healthy life. In these cases constellations can be set up that allow the client to give back what belongs to the parent and accept that the parents will take care of their own problems.

The fourth Order of Love is closely related to the third. In this pattern children may feel that are as big as their parents or bigger. They may try to fix something that the parent is unable to address or acknowledge. Only by being smaller than our parents can we receive from them. The flow of love must go forward. In turn we pass along what is given to us.

"Between parents and children, reciprocity in giving and taking is achieved by giving on to others what has been taken. It makes parents very happy when children say, "I take everything you give, and when I'm big, I'll pass it on." (1)

The next Order of Love is about the larger family. Hellinger believes that in this pattern all family members have an equal right to belong. He believes each family has a conscience at a deep level of the system. This conscience does not tolerate a member being excluded, shunned or forgotten. To correct this imbalance younger members of the family system are likely to identify with the missing family member. This is a frequent element in constellations.

"Much serious dysfunction in families-behavioural disturbances in children, but also illnesses, proneness to accidents and suicidal behaviour-occur when children unconsciously represent an excluded person and seek to satisfy that person's need for restitution." (1)

Younger family members can be released from an entanglement with a missing family member by creating a constellation in which the excluded member is recognized and restored to their proper place in the family. At the same time the representative for the younger family member can be encouraged to let go of the identification and the responsibility that is clearly not their own.

My own experience as a constellation representative and future facilitator is that some aspect of these orders are found in most constellations as they unfold. There are variations and some differences based on culture, nationality and the particular fate of each family. Addressing the proper flow of love in family systems is very healing and powerful way of finding our place in the world.

"In our next installment I will continue our discussion of the Orders of Love and additional elements of Family Constellation Therapy.

--Barry Krost, Massage Therapist, Bodyworker, and Energy Healer is training to be a Constellation facilitator.

(1) Bert Hellinger, How Love Works, http://www.hellinger.com/international/english/hellinger_lectures_articles/how_love_works.shtml#order

Quotation

From Tom Waits:

Jim Jarmusch once told me "Fast, Cheap, and Good; pick two. If it's fast and cheap it won’t be good. If it's cheap and good it won't be fast. If it's fast and good it wont be cheap." Fast, cheap and good; pick. (2) words to live by.

Mystery and Awe

Back in my college days at Grinnell, I took courses in philosophy and in Jewish philosophy. One of the authors I studied was Abraham Heschel. He was a Rabbi and scholar who looked at the deeper meaning of our relationship to God (or the mystery).

Following a recent training in Family Constellations I started to remember things from his book God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (1978), particularly at his ideas of having awe in the face of the mystery. So, I have been skimming through and found these considerations so far.

“The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.”

“Awe is a way of being in rapport with the mystery of reality.”

“Awe is a sense of transcendence…”

“Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe.”

“They who sense the wonder share in the wonder.”

“Knowledge is not the same as awareness and expression is not the same as experience. By proceeding from awareness to knowledge we gain in clarity and loose in immediacy. What we gain in distinctiveness by going from experience to expression we lose in genuineness… Concepts, words must not become screens; they must be regarded as windows.”

Now is the time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God?

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child’s training wheels

To be laid aside

When you can finally live

with veracity and love.

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

That this is the time

For you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is Sacred.

--Hafiz

Family Constellations: A Brief Overview

One of the most powerful and amazing forms of therapy I have seen in 25 years of practice is Family Constellations. Developed by German psychologist Bert Hellinger, this therapeutic experience opens up the possibility of deep healing, not only of the self but also of the client's family and even ancestors. I am currently training to become a Family Constellation facilitator through a year-long training in San Diego.

I first had the opportunity to be involved in Family Constellation therapy in 2002 here in San Antonio. I have never experienced any form of therapy or healing more profound or intrinsic than this work. It has changed life in so many ways. It has helped heal my family and my relationships. I have also received many gifts in being of service to others as a representative.

Family Constellations is a used by psychologists, psychiatrists psychotherapists and alternative practitioners throughout the World. It is very big in Europe. While more accepted by mainstream practitioners in Europe, here in the US its found more of a home in the Alternative Healing Community. The objective of Family Constellations is to “release profound tensions within and between people." (1)


A good overview of the process is described in Wikipedia:

"A group of participants (10-30), led by a trained facilitator, sit in a circle. One participant (client or seeker) is selected to work on a personal issue. The others either serve as "representatives" or actively contribute by observing with concentration."

"After a brief interview, the facilitator suggests who will be represented in the Constellation. These are usually a representative for the seeker, one or more family members, and sometimes abstract concepts such as "depression" or a country."

"The facilitator may ask each representative to describe how it feels to be placed in relation to the others. At this point, the facilitator, seeker, and group members may perceive something in the spacial relationships and feelings held by the representatives that is informative regarding an underlying dynamic that relates to the presenting personal issue."

"A healing resolution for the issue generally involves the repositioning the representatives and for the facilitator to suggest one or two sentences to be spoken aloud. If the representatives do not feel better in their new position or sentence, they can move again or try a different sentence. Sometimes the process ends before a full resolution is achieved. (2)

In the next part of this exploration I will look at the role of conscience in the family system and the premise that everyone belongs and has a rightful place.


1. "Family Constellation" in Wikipedia

2. IBID.

Bert Hellinger's Official Website