There is a lot of love in families where life is nevertheless hard. Parents love their children, children love their parents, and yet quarrels, departures, illnesses or the feeling that something is not in its place keep repeating. In his work Bert Hellinger observed that love is not enough. In order to flow, it needs order.
He called that order the order of love. These are not moral rules that someone prescribes, but patterns that show themselves again and again in constellations, in families of different cultures and histories.
The book Soul Codes starts from the idea that we often live the destinies of our ancestors without realising that we are repeating patterns that existed generations ago. Our unconscious emotional reactions are an echo of old family dynamics. Systemic constellations make these dynamics visible and show the steps by which the free flow of love and life energy is restored.
This text draws on the books Soul Codes and Decoding the Soul and explains the basic principles on which the method of systemic constellations rests.
The right to respect
According to the book Soul Codes, the first principle is: everything that exists deserves to be accepted exactly as it is. Reality carries a truth that strives to come to light, and that truth often reveals the deep layers of the unconscious on which family entanglements rest.
In practice this means that a constellation does not begin with a judgement of who was good and who was bad. It begins with acknowledging what happened. Only when reality is seen without embellishment and without condemnation does space for change open up.
The right to belong
In the soul of every family system there is a striving for wholeness. Every member, regardless of their destiny, keeps their place in the system forever. According to the book Soul Codes, this applies to children, parents, brothers and sisters, but also to those who were forgotten or marginalised.
When someone is excluded, for example a child who died early, a parent’s previous partner or a family member who was rejected, the system does not forget it. As the book states, this can cause an imbalance that shows itself in later generations as psychological or physical symptoms. One of the descendants then unconsciously repeats the destiny of the excluded person, as if reminding the family of their place.
The book The Golden Path, which follows a thousand years of inheritance through the story of one family, shows the same thing: those who were excluded or forgotten continue to affect the family, either through repeated destinies or through latent forms of suffering passed down through generations.
“Every member of the family has an inalienable right to belong to the family system, regardless of their deeds or destiny.” (from the book Soul Codes)
Conscience and balancing
The third principle concerns the balance between giving and receiving. Justice in the family system requires that every unjust act be healed, so that blocked energy can be released and love can flow freely.
The book Decoding the Soul explains that when an injustice, a loss or a guilt for which no one took responsibility occurs in a family, the consequences are passed on to the following generations. There is a deep need to balance gain and loss over time, and descendants sometimes unconsciously take on the task of settling a debt that is not theirs.
Hierarchy and the right of precedence
The fourth principle is order. According to the book Soul Codes, order within the family system creates the framework in which love can flow freely, and respect for hierarchy and the right of precedence is key to harmony. Love flows properly from the older to the younger and from parents to children.
Whoever came first has precedence: parents before children, the older before the younger. The book The Golden Path describes this as the rule of hierarchy according to which the older have precedence over the younger, and adds that not acknowledging this right sometimes leads to unconscious conflicts or the repetition of pathological patterns. When a child takes on the role of a parent, the order is disturbed, and Soul Codes notes that this is precisely when anger most often appears.
How order is restored
In a constellation these principles are not explained in words, but become visible in space. The representatives intuitively feel and respond to the bonds within the system, and so it becomes clear where the order has been disturbed. Through moving the representatives and through healing sentences everyone receives their place, and the constellation, as the book says, ends when everyone is well.
The order of love is not a rule to be learned by heart. It is a way of seeing that helps you understand why some things do not work, despite all the love and effort. When you look at your family through these four principles, you may see for the first time where love gets stuck, and where it needs just a little more order to flow again.