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Angelika's  Family Constellations Newsletter March 2012  

For introduction and  earlier issues:
  Newsletter archives
Next workshop
at Gayatri-Retreat:
This coming 
Sunday 
 The first Sunday in March as usual. 
At the Sunshine Coast:
 no mid-month group for Doonan this month either

To subscribe to this newsletter 
and to book a constellation
angelika.schenk@gmail.com
Gayatri-Retreat
1033 Cedar Pocket Rd.
Gympie, QLD 4570 Australia 
Location: For details please visit www.friendsofgayatri.org/
map.html
www.coming-together.com
www.family-constellations.org

Our last Sunday was full of magic again. In one constellation we had four symptoms in one person. They meant he was not free to go in either direction, neither forward nor backward, neither to the left nor to the right. There stood his representative, unable to move, and in discomfort. Someone  in the group was guided to come in as a spirit helper, to move the obstacles on the sides just a little further out. So at least breathing became easier. What unfolded? Another war scene. People were trapped with no way out, but still wanting to make a stand how much they loved their homelands. Backwards was no option. There was too much danger. Forward? There was also much danger, but there appeared to be more room to move. 
A dialogue between a son and a father developed. The son preferred do die in action. At first the father wanted to stop his son. So blocking the forward movement was an act of love. The father preferred to stay and die at home, in his house. Finally he let his son do what he needed to do, with love. There were no right and no wrong options left. After a while the son came back from a scene of fighting, and the father awaited him. The son said: Now I don’t know where to go. The father put his arm around his son and told him: “This is our land because we have loved it and cared for it for so long. Nothing can take the love between us and our land away from us.” 
Now they seemed to realize that they were both dead. (We see this often in constellations especially when we are dealing with war, but also with other sudden death.) They found their peace in themselves and together. They sat down as the souls, and their descendent curled up on their arms. They held each other for a long time. Now the living and the dead shared the same peace. The dead were free to go on their big journey, and the descendent was free to move in all four directions. He reported a great increase in physical and emotional freedom to move, and in joy of living.  

How is your love?

In the book I am presently translating for Bert, he uses the expression “Your love”, for instance “This will help your love”.
What do you think of first when you hear “Your love”, or “This will help your love.”?

Yes, I know, but this is not what he means. It feels as if he is talking about love as a being that is with us, ready to serve us and others, when we are on good terms with it and let it take the lead. Well, we grow anyway, but it seems these days  there are some offers of doing it less painfully and slowly.

I thought about that, love as an entity Imagine love is a huge being that has as many children as there are beings who are capable of feeling love, responding with love, acting with love, thinking with love, growing in love, extending in love... Imagine we have “our love” with us as a companion with whom we can communicate. And someone asks us: “And how is your companion?”

Seems  a worthwhile project to explore to me.

A lovely young friend asked me what can she do about the despair in her.

My dear, I will not mention your name here, but you will know it is written for you. But I will also answer in a way that many other people can relate to it. So you see you are not alone in this suffering.  
I speak from many years of walking through my ancestors’ dark forest that was also mine from other lives. It was well worth the journey.
Most of us have some themes of distress that come up again and again.

Our first approach is, we just want to get rid of the discomfort, even agony, like a child. Never mind how. In the extreme, this sense of unbearable-ness drives people into drugs and other substances and also extreme behaviours.

A child wants warm arms around it when it is in pain or fear or some other distress, and we are often still children when we are sufficiently distressed.

Perhaps imagine first of all that you can cuddle up in the arms of someone you really trust. And perhaps you need to cry for a while before you can do the next step. Once the tears flow naturally, you have already found quite some comfort. When you cry, cry with and also for those who also suffered in hard realities. This is a good place from which to arrive at deep compassion. Now that you feel more secure, let us just imagine you could slow these feelings down, and instead of avoiding, you could even look at them and feel them.

So your breath is now beginning to calm down, you breathe out. You begin to realize you are still here, your life is not really threatened, even though it feels like this. You begin to tell apart what goes on inside you and what your outer reality is like. You begin to feel two sides in you: The observed, and the observer. The observer becomes calmer, and looks with warm love at the one in pain, and together, in a dialogue, the two explore the feeling of despair that goes on in one of them. And imagine your ancestors by your side for whom these were not just feelings, but their grim reality

And you look at China, where people have suffered so many tragedies, where there was reason for despair so often, and for so many. And yet, so many were so brave, under most horrendous circumstances.

Something I have observed many times: When our ancestors suffered real losses, (this means, loved ones died tragically, even many of them,) the descendents will experience a resonating pain in an unhappy love. And all the despair of parents, grandparents, or their ancestors further down the line will join in.

It is the children of those who suffered more than what they could ever come to terms with, who will begin to process the level of feeling. They can do so, because they are not caught in a survival situation that needs all their strength for real survival. But the intensity of the feelings is so strong that it can feel to the descendents as if their survival is also at stake.

This is the way it goes. Where you have wars and other large scale tragedies, it takes generations to heal, to really heal, not just survive, scarred and crippled.

Then additionally, we might have been there ourselves in an earlier incarnation, perhaps only very dimly aware of it. This then adds more disorientation to this pain.

Now back to your personal situation. The constellation showed very clearly that your boyfriend loves you. But he also has to carry a load. The pain of Russia met with the pain of China. If the two of you look at this as just a personal problem the two of you have, this would truly be overwhelming. 
Our instinctual response is: “You terrible feeling, go away!” But it does not. Why not? Because it is not just a meaningless thing descending upon us, but something that holds gifts inside, even great gifts.

What is needed here is some loving distance, in the sense of more space so that things can unravel. A distressed soul in a distressed body has very little room to move, everything is tensed up. So whatever helps easing the tightness, without causing other problems, will be of help. I am talking about relaxation and meditation practices. I suggest a method that involves the body, like Yoga Nidra or autogenic training or Vipassana, rather than a mantra or so. The relaxation in themselves will not bring the full cure, but with greater ease they can contribute to new ways of looking at the problem.

What can often help to mellow people? Friendliness, calmness, understanding, communication, seeing and hearing the other. Any symptom, be it in our body, in our soul, or somewhere in our life, they all hold a story that has not been heard, they hold people who died in a state of being lost. Your Tao traditions know this. There is the practice of befriending a troubled organ, talking to it kindly and eventually finding out what this organ needs.  Each organ is needed, for us to be alive and well.

So it makes sense to treat them all kindly, and if they hurt, they need help, or better treatment from us.

Now in the same way you can have despair as your companion who will turn from a threat into a valued friend who provides you with just what you need to heal and to grow.
Because this is the amazing thing: Each problem is there to be healed. And healing is far more than just restoring an earlier state. It is always bringing about a state of greater wholeness. It is the disease that leads to greater ease. So, my dear, if you are by yourself, you imagine someone from your family to be with you, and you imagine the despair, standing in front of you. Then you find the right distance, so you do not feel too distressed. And you have your helper, whomever you want, as close to you as you need it. You lean into your helper if you want. And then you look at the despair, and you breathe deeply. And you ask for whatever helpers you would like to be there, and to help you both. You can see how the despair feels, and you begin to see it is not you… it is something that needs to be seen, to be loved, to be included…

And now I hand it over to you, unless you come here, and we can do it together. I am awaiting your report. Get yourself a diary, because it may become a journey that you like to write about. As soon as despair comes into you, you say: here I am, my friend, what can I do for you? And soon, you will be doing the journey together.

And as for your boyfriend, keep him in your heart, and give him room to do his journey, too. And of course, there is someone else who might be a great help.

With love, Geli                        

angelika.schenk@gmail.com    

www.family-constellations.org/angelika's_constellations_newsletter.htm 

Angelika's  Family Constellation Newsletter December 2011  

The deepest and most powerful movements in constellations are the wordless ones. Here the representatives must follow nothing but their inner guidance, usually in sensitive, slow motion. But sometimes something can erupt out of the blue.

Around the turn of the millennium Bert began to explore issues beyond families. He began to do constellations for groups involved in large scale conflict, looking at perpetrator - victim situations. It became clear that it was essential for the two sides to look at each other. Usually the perpetrators did not want to look at the victims. But once they did, they often softened and cried. Once the victims felt the pain of the perpetrators, they softened and often reached out to them. Where they ended up lying next to each other, both sides were at peace, with their eyes closed, and something was accomplished, leaving the living free for their lives the way they are now.

After a while Bert explored what happened between two warring parties. One of the early constellations was about Pinochet’s coup in 1973 in Chile, which, by the way, happened on September 11^th . So Bert got  representatives on the stage, for those loyal to Allende, the then newly elected leader of the country, and for those who sided with Pinochet and the CIA.

It was a very painful constellation. People from the same country fighting each other tears up the fabric of nation, as is the case when it happens in a family. The amazing thing was: Painful as the constellations was, with intense frustration and even aggression, in the end nearly all had come together again and found peace in death. For them, this utterly painful conflict was over.

This was the beginning of the movements of the soul, as Bert first called this approach. The representatives were only moved by an inner impulse that Bert called the Great Soul. Later he called these constellations movements of the spirit, and reserved the term soul for the field that holds a group of fate together, like a family or religion or country.

So in this constellation there was no talking, no communication other than the one that happened between the representatives. The essential prerequisite for this way of working is that all participants are fully recollected, simply in the service of peace, just there, without wishes or fears. This goes for the constellation practitioner above all, but also for the representatives and the audience. When the whole group is recollected, much deeper movements come to the surface and take over. Bert found out that these movements of the spirit always lead to peace. 

Peace is the base from which we can have a new beginning.

I was one of the practitioners who were awed by this. When Hungarian organizers asked Bert for a country constellation in 2006, I made sure I was there, too. I was so fortunate to be given the role of Hungary. To this day this remains my deepest constellation experience. Rudolph Steiner spoke of the soul of nations, and like any soul, it can be deeply traumatized, and it can also heal, and become open to be transformed.  

Bert on 'No'

We say no to our fate, and to the powers who decide over our fate, and often we do not consider that  what we expect and want may be different from what they want for us. What do these powers of fate say to us? What do they say to our attempt to escape the fate they decreed for us?

To all our attempts to change our fate around, they say no. How? By letting us fail in all our attempts to fend off what they have decided. With their no they assert their yes. They assert it in every regard. How? Powerfully, and yet with love.

What follows for us? When, after  our unsuccessful no to our fate, we change and agree to it, when we say yes to it, then our yes is extended by another yes, a yes that lovingly suspended our no. 
What is the result? A new confidence: even in the darkest night it already sees the coming light.

Gayatri 'Boomerang' 

Our November group at Doonan left us deeply touched. 

We could easily have had another horse constellation. We did not, perhaps it caused us too much pain at the moment. Again, two horses took the survivors of their human family into safety, putting all the strength they had left, to their last drop, into drawing the cart for them.

In human terms, we had one particularly heart- warming constellation. We could call it a modern fairy tale of great love, broken and mended again. An outline for a novel or movie. 

Another constellation revealed the causes of a complex physical and emotional symptom, called 'fear in front of me, guilt behind me'.

Both these constellations extended over more than one life.

Another one was called: "Where is my belonging?" Again and again we see, there is no symptom without a real cause, no matter how bizarre a symptom may appear.

Angelika's  Family Constellation Newsletter September2011 

Another example is, say the mother had a partner before, whom she loved a lot. Now she has a son to her second partner. The son does not know about this first partner, so he does not have a place as a part of the family. But this son will be in a rival position with his father, and try to take his place. So then it is necessary to place the mother's first love as well.  When the son is introduced to his mother's first love, he does not need to take that man's place, and not the one of his father either. Now the son fully realizes that he is only the son, and his father is his only  father. Now the son can take up his place in his sibling's  line according to age. It would be the first son in nearly all cases.

In the next edition I will tell you how Bert's work developed further. 

A poem of Bert's

The players
They introduce themselves 
as opponents.
Then they sit opposite each other and play on the same board, 
with many different pieces,
following complicated rules,
move by move,
the same royal game.
Both sacrifice a range of pieces 
in their game
and keep each other in check
with great suspense,
until all movement ends.
When there is nowhere left 
to move
the game is over.
Then they change sides
and color,
And they begin a new round
Of the same game.
Those who play for a long time,
And often win
And often loose,
They becomes masters
On both sides.

When we look at our partner relationships, are we among the lucky ones who can live love, harmony and creativity and growth with their partner? For the rest of us, what expectations do we have? Often we feel we need our partner to change, before happiness becomes possible. And we often believe that our love for our partner can turn him or her into the person we want them to be. We might even believe that the way we want them to be is a better version of them. We think our love is the powerful motor of achieving happiness. 
And if our partner does not change, we question their love for us.

Well, sometimes, but many times not so. In our attempts to get it right with our partner we might also do whatever s/he wants, even where it is unreasonable and will not benefit our shared life. Eventually, all too often, the frustration that has been kept at bay breaks lose, and considerable hostility is unleashed, 

So what happened? We ignored, often at great pains and for a long time, a factor called fate. Fate is greater than our little human love for each other. For a long time we have done our best to see in our partner what we wanted her/him to be. Eventually our blind hope that ignores reality is crushed.  
In many cases constellations can help to heal the rift and allow partners to come together again in a new way.

But equally, many relationships cannot come good, simply because the power of fate, at least behind one of the partners, is so strong that for the time being, nothing can be done by anyone involved. The freedom to be different is simply not there at that time. The end will come in all the more devastating ways if we close our eyes to what cannot be reconciled - not forever, but in the foreseeable future, which means this present life at least

Here, constellations can bring the needed reality check. The partner who comes can see before their very eyes what is going on. The representatives usually don't know anything about the person the represent. in a constellation we bring in the partners and both their parents. And we just watch what goes on between them. We see what is, not what we want to see. Where reconciling and a good future together are simply not possible, seeing what is gives us the strength to walk through the pain of separation. 

Once the sharpest pain has settled down somewhat, a good way to separate can be to remember the 'being in love' that was, and the love that still exists underneath the turmoil, and seeing the children as the living proof of it. And also to trust that in due time something in ourselves and in our partner will heal. But in the meantime we let the other go with love, knowing it is not in our partner's nor in our own hands to change fate when and as we want it.

To the degree that we can still allow ourselves to love our former partner, from the required distance, a dimension opens up where we see that a "failed" relationship may have given us something that really makes us grow. It remains as something in our life that we can refer to, now that our naivety is no longer there, and we can see the relationship the way it was, as a gift of love, for us to learn and grow up. And on some inner level our former partner may even appear to us, and suddenly we feel a warmth. 

As if, like in Bert's poem in the  column to the right, someone who does love us deep down, was the one destined to provide us with a painful lesson we would not otherwise have agreed to. We get to experience something that only reveals its gifts later.

Angelika's  Family Constellation Newsletter August 2011    

Dear old and new friends,

Springtime is on its way in the Southern Hemisphere. Here in Queensland the trees are trusting there will be enough sunshine to push out their flowers. Most of them skipped a season of flowers and fruit, and instead grew at an unprecedented speed. Now Queensland's nature seems to come back into some balance. The land seems to be smiling with the change, and certainly us land-dwellers do.
So, happy early spring time to you all. May new inspiration blossom in all of us and bear fruit in due time.

We can also focus on springtime and recovered love in a wide range of our relationships.

Improvements in our relationships can usually be achieved when we can move from rejection towards acceptance, from exclusion to inclusion. Often it is easier to understand this as a beneficial principle than to apply it. Then in trying we might end up in a knot with ourselves, in that case, we go one step back. Something that we know it would be good for others, we need to give to ourselves first, or else someone inside might start screaming: What about me, why should I always have to be the martyr?

Doing something against our own important needs is not useful in the long run. So we better sit down with ourselves and ask : 
“ What is it your need here? What is overlooked?“ Give yourself compassion first. Try it out, apply acceptance and inclusion of every aspect of yourself to yourself. Take time to listen to yourself, like you would to a beloved child. You might be very pleasantly surprised about the result. 
For example, you might not want to forgive someone because you feel you have to remember what the person did, so that you do not receive the same treatment again that hurt you so much. So behind your "Not wanting to forgive, let alone forget," could be a need of yours that you had not fully looked at, a fear that you end up rejected even more, if you do not protect yourself. So a big conflict in yourself can be resolved. Now you can find other, more helpful strategies to look after yourself and stick up for yourself where it is important.

If you are on your own with such a feeling, apply acceptance to yourself. At any moment accept yourself as you are, love yourself as you are, be generous with yourself. Avoid inner arguments. Be your best friend. What we cannot give to yourself, we cannot really give to another, at least not without paying the price of feeling bad. And you will find, the more you accept yourself, from a deep appreciation, the more mellow you will become, because you have the most important person on your side, supporting you: Yourself!

Where we can't move further with such an issue, taking it to a constellation can help to shed much more light on it, so we understand the other person in a way where we don't need to feel like the underdog. For the trouble is, we bring our unresolved trauma into all kinds of relationships. Old pain comes up in us and lands where it does not belong. Projections of all kinds can set in.

The workshop in Hong Kong was a rich experience. 
I really like being amongst Chinese people. I find them very friendly and helpful, and I admire how they combine strength and assertion with love and consideration. 

It was a training course for beginners, so Bert raised many important topics. 
Inclusion and accepting what is, and even agreeing to it, are always at the core of the resolution. 

In constellations this often happen so naturally, organically, because belonging and togetherness are our essential needs, even if we often try to cover up, out of a feeling of vulnerability.

But in our family there are often excluded people that we do not know about consciously. Then we may not have a way of knowing  what causes our distress either. 

Constellations can bring these exclusions to light, and people that were estranged from each other can come back together, to everyone's relief.

Community house at Gayatri

Introductory offer to attend
workshops

Bookings are essential. 
Please email me if you 
would like to attend.

angelika.schenk
@gmail.com

Contribution for participation:
$  30  for one person  
$  20  each, for you and
           a friend or relative
$  60  for a family  

Contribution for your
own constellation: 
$  80  including a pre-
          consultation
          on the phone
Please also bring
food to share,and at
____________________
A new offer:
We are now also doing workshops at 123 Beddington Rd,
Sunshine Coast.
Dates set are mid month, 
always Sundays, so far : 
21st Aug,  18thSept,
16^th October, 

Our ties

Which of the movements in our soul is the decisive one when it comes to the development of illnesses? It is the love of attachment that ties us to our family and to its fate.

This fated love is very deeply rooted in us. We are at its mercy. It binds us to our family and to everything that happened in and around it.

It ties us to the bigger picture as it was experienced in our family, to our family’s achievements, and accomplishments. Thus it becomes a motivating strength.

At the same time it also ties us to what was left incomplete and to what weighs heavily on our family, to its burdens and its guilt. We are drawn into taking responsibility for these matters, even where we don’t know anything about it, and had no part in it either. Still, we also have to carry it.

How do these fated ties come about? Which powers are at work behind it?

It is our most elementary need to belong to our family. This bond is our deepest longing. The need to belong is far deeper than even our need and wish to survive. This means, out of our need to belong, we are willing to offer up our life as a sacrifice.

Looking at the far reaching consequences of this need, we understand our willingness to make sacrifices. This need to belong makes us willing to become ill or disabled in the place of others in our family, or even willing to perish under strange circumstances, and ultimately, taking our own life.

Can you still follow? Or do you find, what I am saying here frightening?

I am only saying it here, because there are ways to turn these fates around. With their help, we can find the strength to move to a higher plane, to discover the ties that make us ill, and to free us and our family from their fetters, so that the love in our family can flow for the good of all."

Angelika's  Family Constellation Newsletter July2011    

Next workshop
at Gayatri-Retreat
First Sunday in August

New offer: Workshops at the Sunshine Coast,    next date: 17th July Details in the left column below

To subscribe to this newsletter and to book in
peaceconstellations@gmail.com
(Please enter your name and e-mail  in the 
body of your e-mail and add ‘constellations'.)
Gayatri-Retreat
1033 Cedar Pocket Rd.
Gympie, QLD 4570 Australia 
Location: For details please visit www.friendsofgayatri.org/
map.html
www.coming-together.com
www.family-constellations.org

Dear old and new friends: Do you happen to know people you don't like?
Well perhaps you say, it's behaviours and attitudes of theirs. Do you feel you have good reason for it? Many of us do, in degrees. Some of these dislikes we might perceive as prejudices. Perhaps we learnt them from our parents. We might even feel that way we fit in well with our family, for instance concerning certain beliefs. Then there might be dislikes that affect us to a point we become uncomfortable. We can lose the plot over it, anger starts pouring out. We are perplexed about the intensity. 

Well wherever our dislikes begin to trouble us, there are many helpful techniques available to us, such as meditation.

Family constellations help in a special way because they shed light on the deeper causes. When they are healed, meditation and other techniques work more efficiently because an ongoing source of distress has been cleared. This source might even pour out love now. 

If the dislike is within families, constellations work very well to unravel the causes. Different family members may have taken on different aspects of a big trauma, even perpetrator and victim roles, as if apart from being a family, they also subconsciously reenact an old drama, or even more than one. Because they are not aware of this, the different levels get mixed up, and accusations fly back and forth. So peace is often not stable, understanding cannot be found, and the underlying love cannot get the upper hand.

Gently, step by step the knots of confusion are unravelled, and the beauty is: Love is always there, and it comes to the surface when freed, to take the lead once more.

On 6th July I will be off to Hong Kong for a 6 day workshop with Bert, and I will report on it in the next newsletter. 

The boomerang, also called the wings, guest rooms at Gayatri

Introductory offer to attend
workshops

Bookings are essential. Please email me if you 
would like to attend.

peaceconstellations
@gmail.com

Contribution for participation:
$  30  for one person  
$  20  each, for you and
           a friend or relative
$  60  for a family  

Contribution for your
own constellation: 
$  80  including a pre-
          consultation
          on the phone

Please also bring food to share.
____________________
A new offer:
We are now also doing workshops at 123 Beddington Rd,
Sunshine Coast.

Dates set are mid month, 
always Sundays, so far : 
17^th July,   late Sept, 16^th October, 

Directions: Coming from the Eumundi- Noosa  Rd. the venue is to your right. It has is a narrow, upright, blue + red striped sail-like flag at the entrance. Leave the  owner's home to your right, behind it is the yoga hall.

Are you ready to take a deeper look at abortions?
So many of us have had abortions. Have we dealt with it fully? 
Have we felt the pain, the regret? Did we give these children a permanent place in our heart?

I was once a representative of a child. As this child I could not stand my mother. I did not want her. but I did not know why. Then more children of the mother were added. I nudged close to the sibling next to me, put my arm around her with protective feelings and was more angry with our mother. Then I heard the client who was now pointing at me, say: " I don't know about this child. I wanted this child." Yes, she might have wanted me, but the child next to me she had aborted. And she felt no regret for her action whatsoever and did not look at the three children she had aborted. The two children she gave birth to did not know about her abortions.

So, this would be one good reason to heal the pain around abortions.

What made it easier for women to feel their own repressed feelings, is bringing to our attention the deeper dimensions of abortions that we are not aware of. This does loosen the pain, and helps our hearts to open again, to include all the children that were in our womb as our children.

Here is an example of this deeper dimension.

A woman came without a clear issue. But she knew she wanted to do a constellation. she mentioned this and that, and finally she said, she also had an abortion.

I asked her what had happened in her family that she found painful. She said her sister had died.

The representatives did not know anything about the client's   issue.

I began the constellation with the client, her mother, and the dead sister. I put the dead sister in the middle, then asked the two other representatives to find their place. The mother stood away from her  dead daughter on one side, but looking in her direction. The client stood on the other side, also at a distance. The client and her mother had no contact. Then I brought the aborted child in. The client felt certain it was a boy. I asked the child’s representative to find his place. He stood next to his mother and smiled at her. The mother’s representative said: “It is not that this child is unwanted. It’s just I don’t know what else to do.” Then mother and child smiled at each other und hugged. Then the boy went to his dead aunt and lay down by her side. She smiled and took him into her arms. At that, both the client and her mother looked at each other, went to the dead sister and the child, sat down side by side at the heads of the dead, and took their heads on their laps. They cried and stroked them both.

I asked the client if she remembered the day she had the abortion. She said yes. It was the second anniversary of her sister’s death.

Angelika's  Family Constellation Newsletter May/June 2011   

Dear old and new friends:  How is your relationship with your mother? 

Do you think of her fondly? Do you like each other?  Do you feel comfortable around her?
Or do you perhaps feel not sufficiently loved? Or even rejected? Do you perhaps feel sometimes that you have to be the big one, being there for your mother, not as a daughter, but as her mother?
There are many other ways in which we might feel uncomfortable with our mother,
even though deep down nearly all of us want a close and harmonious relationship with our mother.

Sometimes the reasons for this are fairly clear. In that case, healing can bring a change for the better.
In a constellation this can happen very naturally, without any moral admonitions, like: "You should forgive."
So- called 'forgiveness' happens naturally  and more importantly, deeply enough, without residues, where the heart opens in understanding.

Where we don't know the reasons, or incorrectly assume to know, constellations can reveal the real causes, the deeper reasons, why our relationship with our mother may be complicated and even painful.
Below  is a  reply of mine to feedback after a constellation about a difficult mother- daughter relationship. I have happy permission to publish it.

Introductory offer to attend
workshops

Bookings are essential. Please email me if you 
would like to attend.

peaceconstellations
@gmail.com

Contribution for participation:
$  30  for one person  
$  20  each, for you and
           a friend or relative
$  60  for a family  

Contribution for your
own constellation: 
$  80  including a pre-
          consultation
          on the phone
____________________
A new offer:
We are now also doing workshops at 123 Beddington Rd,  on the Sunshine Coast.

Dear Suzi,
thank you so much for trusting me.
I am glad that you and your mother now reach out to each other. Doing it step by step is good, because you consolidate the path of overcoming the distance and add trust, bit by bit. 

As you could see, your mother also had a disruption in the relationship with her mother.
This spills over to one's children also. Often a mother can overcome her inner rift with her mother more easily with her grandchildren. So, your grandmother might also find it easier to reach out to you.
She can show her love to her daughter via her love for a grandchild.

I  felt your resistance, and yet your call for mother's love was strong and clear, barely below  the surface. I was aware that there was something quite old in your mother's line, aggravated through more trauma, that affects you both.
So in constellations we learn not to take things as they appear, but as what they are really saying underneath.

Bert has found out that generally the relationship to a partner thrives on a loving and trusting relationship to our family of origin, but above all, to our mother.
What does not work (yet) with our mother, does not have the best chances of working (yet) with a partner, because our deepest imprints, for better and for worse, come through our mother.
If we feel we missed out on love, we might (without being aware of that) even leave a partner to spite our mother (can also be our father) as in triumph:
"I don't need you!" ,"I'll show you!"
This can then also be the reason why people are sometimes more successful in a second relationship.
In the first one they leave their mother behind, and with her, their pain, at least so they think.
The second partner can then be seen as the real partner. Often only for a while, though.

Thank God, when Bert sees a problem, he is also given the answer.
The relationship to our mother can always be healed, even if she is not alive any more.
Wherever our mother could not give us full mother love, she could not get it herself.
So the first step is for our mother to get this love.
Sometimes this means going back a few generations.

In a constellation course in China a woman could not go to her mother at all, and her mother made no inviting gestures. We had to go back 18 generations before we  found an unbroken mother-daughter relationship. From there it healed  all the way to the present, and the woman whose constellation it was melted into the arms of her mother.
After that, our chances of melting into our partner's arms are much better.

One more obstacle: Your partner might have a similar  problem. Because in men the mother is also the number one relationship. Biology cannot be changed, it's in our mother where we experienced blissful security in the beginning, and then the anticipation of being born, and our birth.
And then perhaps a separation from our mother after birth. Another trauma that can be healed.
So to help a relationship it is great if both partners look at what is unhealed in their own background.

Comment to the reader: At the next constellation, Suzi's mother came along. 
This is not a rare occurrence, and always a happy one.  We have often ended up with many family members.

Angelika's  Family Constellations Newsletter April/May 2011 

Today's topics: 1. Our ancestors  2. Mental illness

Dear old and new friends:  Who do you think you are? 

Well, a lot of of people have become familiar with this question. But knowing who we are through our ancestral line is not just for celebrities or TV-shows, and it can happen even if we do not know much about them at all. 
Family-constellations are a powerful way to connect us to our ancestors with love and respect, to really bring them to life for us for a while. They present us with what is important for us to know about them. And we are amazed how many of their feelings are already familiar to us.

Our recent session took us deeply into history. Our newcomers just watched for one constellation, then they were ready to be representatives. 

One constellation took us back to 18th century  France, before a daughter and mother could deeply reunite and leave their pain behind.  

Another mother- daughter situation that was experienced as very distressing, could heal via a detour to an ancestor who died a sudden death at young age, leaving his wife and children so distraught that they could not grieve together and withdrew inside. A week  later, there was good feedback. Family members rang with whom the daughter had had no contact  for a long time, one even rang the minute she opened the door of her home after returning from our group. This is not an  uncommon occurrence. So, "just" a soul connection can go a long way and show effects quickly.

What can we gain from reconnecting with our ancestors?

One of the things I love so much about constellations is:
It  always brings healing to the extended family, even over several generations. The healing goes back and forth in all directions. One family member participates, and many breathe a deep sigh of relief.

 “Now I really feel that I am a member of the one earth family,” a participant said.  

 Having a real sense of  belonging to our family sets us free to be ourselves, to live our own potential. Once old painful clashes and separations are reconciled, we have  so many people behind us who enjoy our success in love and life with us and participate in it.  Even the dead seem to grow and move on. You can expect to have dreams where ancestors tell you things you did not know.   

If you have feelings, symptoms, behaviors you can't explain, or have patterns running in your own life that you have seen before in your family and you would like to understand, and see them  healing, Family Constellation work could be for you.

Healing comes about  through reconciliation. All kinds of symptoms can leave us when our sense of belonging is restored, when each one of our ancestors fully belongs again, and  we re-include someone who was perhaps excluded. For through our symptoms - which resonate with their pain - we subconsciously connected to some ancestor (s). Through shared healing, through love restored, we can have their blessings and live the gifts they had, instead of their pain. 
In a way, from hereon they walk beside us with a smile. 

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Angelika's Constellations Newsletter

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