Hello fellow CTers,
This past week my wife and I experienced something that seemed down right
magical, and I want to share some of my not yet fully formed thoughts about
the remarkable Systemic Institute Summer Intensive in Farmington CT,
facilitated by Ed Lynch.
While I have often appreciated Ed's work, and I might run the risk of
gushing on in an embarrassing way here, something occurred in these four days
that feels like a new frontier for me, and something I have not read much
about on C.T. What is still fascinating me is not so much what happened in
the many moving constellations, but rather what happened in the group as a
whole. What seems to be amazing, and confounding, me is how Ed worked
simultaneously with the presenting systemic issues, the self boundary of the
issue holder, and the group process that unfolded throughout the workshop, in
a way that ended up touching us all, even if we didn't particularly like it
while it was happening!
Since it is not in Ed's personality to say much publicly about what he is
doing, I hope those of us who witnessed the quiet alchemist at work might
be able to explore some of the essence of what was occurring. I believe
that some unique techniques and understandings led to the transformation in
our group as a whole, and in the nearly 40 participants in the 4 day
intensive.
To me, it seemed almost as if the present experience of a movement to
openheartedness for one another in the group was facilitated with as much
skill
and focus as each constellation, and sometimes both were being worked with
using the same stem sentences! I don't think this was just the result of
resonance with common human themes. Ed seemed to have one eye on the
presenting issue, and one eye on what the group needed at each moment, and we
often didn't really know where he was looking at any given moment! (I even
heard him mumble something to this effect when he began working with the
final constellation of the workshop. He said something like, "Well let's see
if we can do something here that would serve us in our group process as
well as for this issue.")
At times judgements seemed to fly about what Ed was doing, or not doing,
and sometimes we simply couldn't follow what was going on; however, in the
final round nearly everyone acknowledged the palpable depth of caring and
profound experience of inclusiveness in the group that seemed both
spiritually non-personal and also personally transforming. Interestingly,
neither my
wife nor I asked for a constellation, and neither of us did a lot of
representing, and yet we both walked away feeling like our couple relationship
had grown, and like the experience was individually enriching. All while
we felt like we had a wonderfully enjoyable vacation to boot.
I believe that Ed's presence, his modeling of inclusiveness, his
impeccable timing, and his enormous capacity for acceptance account for a lot
of
what happened. I also believe that some of the "magic" resulted from the
application of specialized knowledge and techniques that we might be able to
learn and begin applying in our own groups, if we can figure it out! While
much has been discussed here about the amazing power and complexity of
constellation work, I'd love to hear more from this group's wisdom about the
healing power, and complexities of constellation groups' processes.
With deep gratitude for all you all,
Donald Opatrny, LMFT
Family Business Consultant
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_www.lovinsgroup.com_ (http://www.lovinsgroup.com/)
203-233-9179
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
