Constellations counselling: breaking free from bonds

I start with the taming of wild elephants. Wild calves are sometimes taken at a young age to become working animals, away from their mothers - tethered. The elephant is tied for long periods and cannot break free. It grows into adulthood, powerful and muscular in one way, but its spirit and freedom of expression crushed.

As human beings we can live with metaphorical bonds that tie us to limited lives. Sometimes through life experience we grow up with limited self-expression. Often what compounds the problem is that we can’t even see the bonds, they’ve become a part of the fabric of our lives.

The work I do using Constellations is often about freeing ourselves of those bonds, developing a better understanding to reveal where and how they keep us safe, but stuck. We explore the layers of emotional context, I sometimes refer to it as our emotional geography, for example our family of origin, to understand the roots of these bonds.

In Constellations we physically place the relevant aspects of a situation in front of us using floor markers or other objects as representations to give a feel for relationships and our wider context. There’s often something really empowering and enabling about seeing our story laid out physically in front of us – we can see the wood for the trees.

It can show us how we can become entangled; some ties more obviously linked to specific events; others are just part of a historic backdrop. We learn responses to experiences which enable us to survive. Ultimately though many of our learned behaviours leave us unfulfilled. It’s frustrating, like running old versions of software on your computer.

When we recognise the bonds and understand their impact, we can begin the work of replacing them with updated thinking and behaviours that leads to more life-affirming choices (it’s like installing updated software)!

An imaginary client story

I’m using an imaginary client here to illustrate how bonds can tie us. Imagine someone whose parents couldn’t cope when s/he cried or needed a hug; s/he was given the basics to survive but experienced precious little tenderness and affection. Expression of raw emotion wasn’t ok, instead s/he remembers judgement. Vulnerability was a sign of weakness and neediness.

This client learns to navigate his/her family by suppressing vulnerability and feelings. S/he becomes a functioning adult, holding down a good job, yet feeling like a ghost and finding it hard to maintain close relationships.

Laying out the emotional geography of a client’s issue

Beyond victimhood

Through Constellations my client and I explore different parts of his/her family. And we do so without seeking who’s to blame, since labelling people as victims or perpetrators keeps everyone frozen. I encourage my client to allow everyone their rightful place in their family, we simply try to understand with a compassionate heart why things were that way. This doesn’t mean we white-wash painful events, as acknowledging pain is a vital part of the process, but so too is developing a sense of gratitude for life.

As this client observes patterns of withdrawal from intimacy, s/he begins to shed attachments to stories about blame and victimhood. Part of our work together[i] is to notice when judgment of others arises, and conversely when “I’m not good enough” self-critic prevails. My client’s gradual understanding of her/his context allows their hearts to open to the people around them, and this creates a breathing space for new possibilities.

Unlike the captured elephant, most of us have the chance to untether the bonds that tie us, and to re-write what’s possible. Neuroscience shows us that our brains have an incredible capacity to create new neural pathways, quite literally to re-wire ourselves[ii].

To find out more, please get in touch here.

[i] We agree homework between sessions

[ii] Dr Joe Dispenza’s book: “breaking the habit of being yourself”.

Taming the Wild Elephant

In my earlier blog I touched on the themes of belonging; the ties that link us to people, groups, concepts and belief systems, and I want to share a story about the taming of wild elephants.

Wild elephant calves are taken at a young age from the herd and trained by elephant handlers to become working animals – carrying felled tree trunks through the forest. This blog isn’t about the ethics of this practice, I’m using it because the image has stayed with me for years, and it speaks of how we can become limited in our self-expression as human beings.

From their first days of captivity, in order to prevent them from escaping back into the jungle, the elephant’s back leg is tethered by a rope tied to a stake in the ground. There is no escape. Days flow into weeks, and weeks into months and this tying is a daily ritual. When they’re not working, the elephant is tied to its rope; it learns that it cannot break free. I’m assuming that it tries to break free initially, but it’s only a young elephant and has limited strength.

In time the elephant grows in strength, and eventually it becomes an adult – muscular and powerful. Yet the size of the rope that tethered the elephant calf remains the same into adulthood, in spite of the fact that it has the physical strength to break the rope.

So what has all this got to do with constellations? Constellations can be a helpful tool to shine a light on our relationships to people and systems. They can reveal hitherto unconscious ‘ropes’ that keep us stuck. Sometimes in a constellation, the very act of seeing things for the first time as they truly are, rather than how we’d imagined them to be, is a powerful first step in making a positive life-enhancing change.

Sometimes the insights in a constellation act like an imaginary wisdom whispering in our ear: ‘you can break that rope – it’s your choice…’

In constellations, these ropes are often referred to as ‘entanglements’, and they happen when the healthy flow of giving and receiving in relationships become distorted or when something or someone critical in any given system is excluded. Imagine from a very early age that someone learns that: “mummy doesn’t love me when I cry.” Their mother might well have had very valid reasons for being that way; she might herself have learned that crying was taboo, or she might have had an overwhelming mother that because of her own trauma could not be the parent, but was like a child herself. Whatever the reason, somewhere there was an entanglement that might go back generations. 

One of the most graceful aspects for me in working with constellations is that there is truly no blame when we look with an open heart at the whole system in which everything is interconnected.

So back to “mummy doesn’t love me when I cry.” With that rope bound from childhood, our person might grow into adulthood suppressing tears, vulnerability and hurt feelings. They may unconsciously withdraw from intimacy in relationships that bring those feelings to the surface and feel threatening.

I want to close by saying that for me constellations are a wonderful tool that help us better understand where and how our entanglements plays themselves out in life. And from there, once we’ve spotted the patterns (or the ropes that tame our birthright of a life fully lived), we can start to make different choices. We know enough from neuroscience that our brains have an incredible capacity to forge new neural pathways, they can quite literally re-wire themselves.

Sad as the image of the elephant tethered to its rope might be, there is a more hopeful story.

Want to find out more…?

If you’re interested in coming to a workshop check out the upcoming ‘Landscapes of Change’ - Retreat Series, or if you’re new to constellations, take a look at my previous blog explaining the background to constellations, and how I work with clients in workshops.

If you want to discuss the possibility of organising a workshop with Marcos or if you’d just like to have an informal chat, please feel free to get in touch.