Family Constellations

Sometimes we can understand a pattern, know where it comes from and genuinely want something to be different, yet still find ourselves living it.

Family Constellations widens the lens beyond the individual, exploring how our lives may also be shaped by the relationships, histories, loyalties and patterns within the family systems to which we belong.

Explore London Workshops

I am currently deepening my training and practice in Family Constellations and am not yet offering Family Constellations as a client service.

Alongside this, I organise and host Family Constellations workshops in London with Shavasti, an international facilitator, trainer and author with nearly 30 years of facilitation experience.

What is Family Constellations?

Family Constellations is an embodied, experiential and systemic approach for exploring patterns, relationships and difficulties that may be connected to the wider systems we belong to.

A person brings something that is alive in their life, perhaps a recurring pattern, a relationship difficulty, a sense of being stuck, an area of suffering or a heart’s desire they are struggling to move towards.

Relevant people, relationships or elements within the wider system are represented within the constellation.

Rather than analysing the issue only through the rational mind, the process works with what becomes visible and felt through the relationships, positions and movements that emerge.

This can bring previously unseen dynamics into awareness and create the possibility of a different relationship with what has been carried, greater choice and movement towards one’s own life.

Who might Family Constellations be for?

You may be drawn to this work if you are experiencing:

recurring relationship or family patterns
something that feels stuck despite considerable understanding or self-awareness
difficulty around belonging, boundaries or finding your place
patterns that appear to repeat across generations
responsibility or loyalty that feels difficult to put down
a painful family relationship that continues to shape your life
a heart’s desire that something repeatedly seems to stand in the way of

What can the work offer?

Family Constellations can bring unconscious patterns, loyalties and entanglements into greater awareness.

By widening the picture, the work can help us distinguish what belongs to us from what we may be carrying for others, loosen old roles and patterns, and turn more fully towards our own life.

The aim is not simply to understand more.

It is the possibility that something previously operating outside awareness can become visible, felt and encountered differently, creating space for internal reorganisation, greater awareness and more choice in how we move forward.

“Jade is a wonderful practitioner. She has a holistic and calming approach. I would thoroughly recommend her.”

— Carol Murphy

A constellation begins with something that is alive for you.
This may be a recurring difficulty, a relationship pattern, something causing suffering or disharmony, a situation in which you feel stuck, or a heart’s desire, something you deeply want but feel unable to move towards.
The facilitator identifies the people, relationships or elements that may be relevant within the wider system, and these are represented within the constellation.
In group work, other people may stand as representatives. In one-to-one work, objects, figures, floor markers or pieces of felt may be used instead.
The process develops through the relationships, sensations, positions and movements that emerge.
As an issue holder, you bring something from your own life to explore through your constellation. This may be a recurring problem, relationship pattern, source of suffering or a heart’s desire that something appears to be standing in the way of.
As a representative, you may be invited to stand in for a person or element within somebody else’s constellation. You are not acting or performing. You notice what arises in your body, emotions, movements or impulses from that position.
Representing can be profound work in its own right. The roles we are drawn into can sometimes resonate unexpectedly with our own lives, and shifts can occur through the experience of representing without us consciously setting out to work on that particular issue.
Both are meaningful ways of participating in constellation work.
The Knowing Field is the term commonly used in constellation work for the phenomenon through which representatives may experience sensations, feelings, movements or impulses connected with the system they are representing, despite having little or no prior information about it.
It is one of those aspects of Family Constellations that is difficult to fully understand through explanation alone. Often, it only really begins to make sense once you experience it.
Even then, there remains an element of the unknown.
Part of constellation work is learning to stay with what emerges without needing to fully explain how or why it is happening.
I am continuing to deepen my training and practice in Family Constellations with Marilene Metzler of Journey to the Heart.
For me, learning this work is not simply about completing a course or receiving a certificate. It develops through personal engagement with the work, participation and representing in constellations, supervised practice, continued learning, reflection, supervision and life experience.
I am allowing that development to unfold at the pace it needs to, building the presence, discernment and capacity I want to bring to this work before offering Family Constellations independently.
You do not need to fully understand Family Constellations before experiencing the work.
If you are new and interested in attending one of the London workshops, you are welcome to get in touch. I can talk you through the format and share introductory information so that you have some orientation before attending.
You can contact me using the enquiry form on the Shavasti London Workshops page, linked below.