I have great gratitude to my teachers, Peter and Jamy Faust in Boston,
MA, USA. My wife and I are halfway through our third year of training with
them. In the first year we did deep work on all aspects of our own family
lineage and experience, while also being representatives in the constellations
of others in our class. It's in the second year that we began to learn, with
more support and guidance, how to be a good representative. We also learned
how much healing is available to the representatives, through the holographic
experience of the group sharing an intention to do the healing work. It
creates a profound sense of mutual respect and community, and it's made clear
that while you are never required to be a representative, if you want to do
your healing work you are going to rely on others to stand as representatives
for your family; therefore it's to your benefit in many ways to be a
representative for others.
Many times I have been chosen to represent a particular family member
born in a particular set of circumstances, only to find the experience
resonates and illuminates some aspect of my own family that I had never
considered before. As well, often someone is touched deeply in a
representation, breaking their heart open and making them more ready to
surrender the resistance to look at the difficult things in their own
experience, and more willing to set up their constellation and go deeper than
they had before. I have also experienced feeling things I could only imagine
previously- what it was like to be a slave, a slave-owner, an incest victim,
for example- and have learned greatly from these things.
Being a representative is, for me, sacred service and a great honor. I
too was worried at first that I wouldn't 'do it right', and my ego barked at me
to be sure I did a good job, and even threatened the great shame of being seen
as a bad representative by the group if I didn't come up with something to show
I was connected. I came to learn, through maybe 100 or more representations by
now, in training as well as in the groups my wife and I lead, that as I did my
own healing work with my family, and came to heal through deep acceptance
everything that happened in my family, exactly how it happened, I could be more
free and an open vessel to temporarily hold the energies of another's family
member, however strong. It's an aspect of the axiom that we can only walk with
another as deeply as we have walked into our own dark woods. And now in the
third year of training I am learning to open more readily to the level of the
soul, without words or thoughts, or even having to know anything about the
client's story, and trusting the process more deeply all the time.
I believe a constellation can serve a client only as well as the
representatives can be open and keep their own unresolved issues and energies
aside. A good facilitator can see how far a representative can go, and suggest
areas where they still need to work in their own lives. It's a very
wide-reaching radar that a facilitator needs- to hold the energy system of the
client, the client's family system, the energies of the group that's gathered
to work, and the soul field of humanity all at once. I have never worked with
Bert Hellinger but have heard that the representatives seen in most of his
videos are very experienced and advanced students of the work. We do a brief
training at all of our seminars for the participants in how to be a
representative, give guidance as the constellation is first set up, and support
them in disconnecting from the roles.
To speak to the original question: my sense is that someone who has not
gone deeply and with awareness into their own ungrieved pain and unresolved
wounds would very naturally be repelled by the experience of stepping into the
chaotic, hurting, unbalanced energy field of another's family as a
representative. Perhaps the pain of losing three children in pregnancy and at
birth is just too much for him to take in just a few months onward. To accept
with an open heart that we agreed on a soul level to have our lives, with
everything they include, takes great courage and maturity, and there's little
in (I can only speak for) my experience of American society to support that
walk. We have had numerous people come to our seminars, not set up a
constellation, have very deep experiences as a representative, and report that
it was 'very intense' and not return. Others do return and continue to do
their own work as well as support others through representation. I work with
my own expectations, judgments, and even demands on how people in the world
should be showing up to do constellations, and do my best to surrender to the
mystery and holiness of the work, and to a knowing far greater than my own that
is guiding it all.
peace,
Chuck
Chuck Cogliandro
Family Constellations Facilitator
Brennan Healing Science Practitioner
Kumandi Drums & Healing
404-577-6842 voice mail
www.kumandi.com
