Perhaps you are drawn to constellations, but you do not yet know what your issue would be. Or you feel it is not yet the moment to open your own family story in front of a group. So you wonder whether there is any point in coming at all.
The answer is yes. A systemic constellation workshop does not exist only for those who set up their own work. It exists thanks to everyone who enters the field as a representative, and for many it is precisely this role that is their first, and very precious, encounter with the method.
Without representatives there is no constellation
In constellations, the person working on themselves does not set up objects or drawings, but people. Participants are chosen from the group to stand symbolically for family members or other elements of the issue: a mother, a father, an unborn child, a former partner, but also fear, money, illness or strength.
Through this arrangement the issue takes shape in space, so that the dynamics within the system can be “seen” and felt emotionally. That is why everyone who comes to a workshop, with an issue or without one, is an important part of the whole. Without those who are willing to serve as representatives, the field could not speak.
For a time, Hellinger set up representatives of victims facing representatives of perpetrators. The representatives of the victims spontaneously began to open their hearts, with gestures of reconciliation that no one had directed. Moments like these show how alive the presence of representatives is, and how far what happens in the field goes beyond any plan made in advance.
What it is like to be a representative
When someone chooses you as a representative, you do not need to know anything about their family. You do not have to act or make anything up. It is enough to stand in the place you have been given and to feel attentively what is happening within you.
Representatives intuitively step into the roles of the people they represent, feeling and manifesting their emotions and energy flows. (from the book Soul Codes)
This may be sudden sadness or relief, warmth or cold, a wish to approach someone or to turn away from them. Sometimes bodily reactions appear too, trembling or heaviness. In the later phases of Hellinger's work, representatives were encouraged to “let themselves be guided by their inner feelings”, often with few words and instructions.
The facilitator may ask you how you feel, move you in the space or give you a sentence to say. Your only task is to be honest about what you feel, without interpreting and without wanting to help more than the field shows.
It is not always only people who are represented. In some constellations, representatives are brought in for the universal Soul Codes, such as Healing, Strength, Love and Courage. You may represent someone who was excluded or forgotten in the family, and so feel what it is like when their place in the system is acknowledged again.
What the role of representative can bring you
Even though you are not working on your own issue, you are not merely watching from the side. What happens in the field touches you as well. The reactions of our bodies at workshops arise when images of family relationships surface from the depths, and when the excluded or threatened parts of ourselves are given a voice.
- You get to know the method from the inside, before you decide to set up your own issue.
- You see how belonging, order and the balance of giving and receiving work in real family stories.
- In other people's stories you often recognise parts of your own, because family dynamics are far more alike than we think.
- You develop sensitivity towards yourself and others, an awareness of what is yours and what belongs to someone else.
Every representative in a constellation is part of a wider map of human experience. Through this role it becomes clearer that each of us is not only a participant in our own personal story, but also part of a wider, universal Being. Constellations, moreover, often continue to work on participants long after the session has ended.
How to prepare, and what comes after
It is important that you come to the workshop as unburdened as possible, so that what lies beneath the surface can open up, and not only what is already within reach of conscious intention. A first encounter with constellations sometimes feels like a collision of worlds, and many people wonder at first why they came at all. As time passes, each new meeting brings fresh discoveries and deeper understanding.
If fear, anger or sadness stirs in you after the workshop, that is part of the process. Systemic self-exploration and presence exercises help what has been stirred to settle and be integrated. Systemic work does not replace professional psychological or medical help when it is needed, and it is important that you respect that boundary.
Perhaps after a few workshops you will feel that the moment has come for your own issue. Or perhaps you will keep coming only as a representative for a while longer. Both paths are entirely fine. When your issue becomes clear to you, it will show itself.