You can see the pattern. You’ve thought about where it might come from. You may even know what you’d like to do differently. So why do you keep ending up in the same place?

That’s often the question that brings someone to Family Constellations.

Family Constellations is a way of exploring whether a present-day difficulty has a connection to your family system. It gives us a different perspective on the roles, relationships, beliefs and responsibilities you grew up around and the ones you may still be carrying.

Who is Family Constellations for?

People often come to this work when something keeps repeating, particularly when insight alone hasn’t helped them change it.

You might notice that you:

• Keep doing the emotional work in your relationships.
• Panic when someone pulls away or doesn’t reply.
• Find it hard to set a boundary, even when you know you need one.
• Earn money but struggle to keep it.
• React to your children or partner in ways you promised yourself you never would.
• Feel responsible for keeping everyone in your family happy.
• Carry anger, guilt or a sense of rejection that feels bigger than the current situation.

You don’t need to know why it’s happening before you come. “I keep doing this and I don’t understand why” is a perfectly good place to begin.

What can you constellate?

A constellation begins with an issue in your life now. That could be a repeating relationship pattern, a difficult family dynamic, a block around money or work, or a feeling that you cannot quite find your place.

We then look at the wider context. Who belongs to this story? What happened in the family before you? Were there losses, exclusions, burdens or expectations that shaped the way people related to one another?

Sometimes the shift is in seeing that a reaction you’ve judged in yourself once made sense in your family. Sometimes it’s recognising that you’ve taken responsibility for something that was never yours to carry. You may see a parent, partner or sibling from a new perspective and begin to see where you have a choice now.

A constellation doesn’t promise a neat answer or an instant change. It can, however, reveal something that was difficult to see while you were standing inside the pattern.

Curious about the work?

I’m hosting a free online talk, An Introduction to Family Constellations, where I’ll explain how family patterns may shape our relationships and choices, what happens in a session, and the kinds of issues you can bring.

Thursday 1 October | 7pm South Africa & Central Europe | 6pm UK

Register for the free talk here. If you can’t join live, register anyway and I’ll send you the replay.