Get to the root of chronic challenge....
What problems can Systemic or Family Constellation help solve?
- Physical and mental health challenges
- Relationship challenges
- Addiction and sabotage behavioural issues
- Challenges in business and/or teams
- Financial difficulties
- Generational dysfunctional patterns
- Exploring business potentials
- Gaining understanding of societal issues
- Self discovery and receiving resource from higher systems (no “problems” needed)
What is Systemic Work and (Family) Constellation?
In a nutshell
When properly practised, Systemic Constellation works is a powerful and elegant approach to make enquiry into any living system which includes:
- the intelligence within the body’s physiology and psyche
- family systems
- organisational system
and any other living systems
The method reveals hidden dynamics and intervention can be applied to restore natural order and wholeness, leading to optimal functioning of the living system.
Origin
“Systemic constellation” originates from “family constellation” which is a form of family therapy first developed by the German philosopher and psychotherapist Bert Hellinger in the late 1980s, who was greatly inspired by his experience as missionary with the Zulu tribe and his study of Eastern philosophies. The method is best known for resolving issues not resolvable through conventional reductionistic psychotherapy. Since the initial development the method has continued to be further developed by himself (until his passing in 2019) and many others who learnt with him.
What is “Systemic”
“Systemic” refers to the fact that this work is based on systems theory which has originated from modern trans-disciplinary science in response to over reductionism and fragmentation. The systemic approach recognises that the sum of the parts is bigger than the whole and it recognises the inter-connectedness of the parts in the bigger whole. As Einstein famously said, you cannot solve the problem at the level it was created. A Systemic Constellation explores the higher systemic forces behind the “problem” and thus the root causes can be addressed.
“Systems Theory” and Cultural Wisdom
The systems approach is not new to cultures with long history – for example, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Eastern philosophies in general are systemic in nature. Symptoms are not solely addressed at the level they arise. Classical Chinese medicine looks for the blockage in the vital body caused by unprocessed emotions and even consider the person’s birth chart to consider their in born archetypal energies. The concept of “karma” originating from Hindu culture recognises the law of cause of effect that effect an individual’s life span as well as across generations and lifetimes.
Performing a “constellation” is only half of the work (and doing just “half” the work can be potentially harmful). It is the facilitation with “systemic” perspective that allows for the transformative shifts.
Those who have experienced Systemic (Family) Constellation with us often find the experiential process fascinating, profoundly touching, and the insights they gain from the experience surprising and spot on, contributing to life-changing shifts.
What does “Constellation” mean?
The word “constellation” came from German “familienaufstellung” (literally “family constellation”). It means a “set up” or installation, referring to the process of making what is hidden visible in 3-dimensional space.
While “constellation” process was first developed as a form of group therapy using human representatives, the work can also be facilitated with or without human representatives.
How may Systemic Constellation improve your life?
Just as physical symptoms in our body call our attention to seek for the root causes in order to restore balance, challenges in our family/organisation/society system can call our attention to seek for what might be out of balance until balance is restored.
This is why individuals who go through the Systemic (Family) Constellation process can experience profound shifts in many areas in their lives that they may not even have expected. Unexplained blockages dissolve, destructive behaviours such as addiction, suicidal thoughts, etc change; more clarity emerges, as one dissolve the deeper causes for their challenges.
Some concrete examples include:
- meeting the right partner after many relationship setbacks
- long lost family member reaching out to connect “out of nowhere”
- long time stuck situations in business resolved naturally
- improved finances
- serious illness having breakthrough healing
How do you know if "systemic work" is what you need?
If you have an recurring issue and despite doing what you know to solve it nothing or not much has shifted, it is likely that the root cause(s) lie deeper in the systemic level and beyond your conscious awareness.
At iLiving we have been applying a systemic approach to healing and coaching since the beginning of our practice. Making systemic enquiry and the eventual transformation that is needed may or may not involve facilitating systemic/family “constellation”. We already incorporate a “systemic” approach to our consultation and coaching. The “constellation” process is especially powerful for someone ready to see hidden dynamics in their system(s) – family of origin and beyond – and embody a new way of being with our support.
However facilitation style and approach can differ greatly from facilitator to facilitator. While the constellation method is a powerful transformative method that can effect life-changing shifts but can also be trauma triggering and harmful when facilitated inappropriately.
We welcome you to reach out and talk to us to help you decide what intervention would best suit you in your specific situation.
About the Facilitator
Anita S K Cheung
Our founder Anita S K Cheung is a renowned alternative practitioner in full time practice since 2005, with a broad international clientele – from working professionals to parents and homemakers, CEO’s to statesmen.
Anita shares with Bert Hellinger (original developer of the Family Constellation method) the conviction that Systemic Constellation work is more than a healing technique, rather it is “an attitude towards life”.
Anita grew up with East-meets-West upbringing, and being equally intuitive and analytical, she is a life-long learner and has always had a deep curiosity in understanding hidden patterns that connect.
Qualifications
Specific to Systemic Constellation, Anita has been certified by three recognised institutions of Constellation work worldwide, covering the more classical Family Constellation, its many modern applications, as well as Organisational Constellation with the Bert Hellinger Institute Netherlands, best known for the cutting edge work of its founder Jan Jacob Stam, early colleague of Bert Hellinger who further developed Hellinger’s constellation in the business, pedagogical and societal settings.
Anita has travelled to multiple countries keeping herself current with the latest development of constellation work, not only with the Bert Hellinger Institute Germany, but also with masters and renowned constellation work and authors operating in a diverse range of applications of the work, including family constellation in psychotherapy setting (Mark Wolynn), chronic and serious health issue root cause healing (Stephan Hausner), transformative personal growth with the Life Integration Process (Dr Wilfried Nelles), Constellation of Intention (Dr. Franz Ruppert), business constellation (Cecilio Fernandez Regojo) and others.
Style of Facilitation
One unique factor that makes Anita’s systemic constellation work especially powerful but safe is that she brings a trauma-informed approach to it. Anita has deep respect for the constellation method and she understands the power of the method but are also aware of the risk of causing more harm than good when the method is applied inappropriately.
Informed by her broad understanding and training in over 20 healing modalities, especially somatic trauma healing methods, biodynamic breathwork and spiritual and transpersonal counselling, over the years Anita has developed her own integrative trauma-sensitive style of Systemic Constellation work which emphasises both safety and potency, providing proper support of the client before, during and after the transformative constellation experience. Her understanding and application of the use of aromatherapy, energy healing and latest information field technology TimeWaver® PDA provide further needed resourcing for her clients – before, during and after their systemic constellation experience.
Anita’s healing facilitation is often described as grounding, innovative, empowering, inspiring, and representing “the future of medicine”.
Application of the Systemic Constellation Practice
As the method of constellation accesses the information field, its application is endless. Anita is known to apply systemic constellation with not just restoring order of one’s family system but exploring hidden forces in a very broad spectrum of systems – physical health, life purpose alignment, business and commercial potentials, societal issues, negative past life karma and various spiritual applications.
Anita works in English or Cantonese, in person or online.
Anita’s full bio can be found here.
Testimonials
FAQs
The origin of Systemic and Family Constellation is family therapy.
“Family Constellation” was first developed by the German psychotherapist, Bert Hellinger in the late 1980s and has continued to evolve and has been used successfully to resolve deep issues not resolved through conventional reductionistic psychotherapy.
Bert Hellinger called the attitude in practising true Systemic & Family Constellation “an attitude to life” and he believes if everyone in the world did just one Constellation, there would be world peace. In fact he was nominated for Nobel Prize for Peace.
For example, exclusion of family members in the family (e.g.“black sheep” in the family, divorce, given away for adoption, unacknowledged abortion, miscarriages, suicides, etc) may cause an imbalance and a misplaced identification by someone in the family system whether they have met or not, and sometimes generations later. We call the phenomenon entanglement.
Another cause of entanglement* on the intuitive and trans-generational level can be that of victim and perpetrator – on the personal and even national level. The observations from thousands of constellations confirm the laws of “karma” – a physical law of cause and effect.
(We do not use the word “entanglement” in a way that implies there is a “mistake”. It is neutral. Another way to describe it is “hidden patterns” – and they exist to continue the system, holding the parts on it together. The conflicts between the needs of different levels of conscience create these “patterns”.)
Renowned Cambridge educated Biologist Dr Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic field theory that explains the flock behaviours such as that of fish and birds and across animals can explain how family constellation works. This is a short explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JydjryhEl5o
Dr Rupert Sheldrake’s extensive work postulates how information and experience appear to be transferable outside of time and space. In Systemic (Family) Constellation, the shared memory of systems is also referred to as the “Knowing Field”. In this quantum space, layers and layers of information exist and whether we are aware or not, a part of us exists in this space and interacts with it all the time.
German origin Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt M.D., PhD, who is renowned for treating difficult health cases (patients who “have tried everything”) places Family Constellation accounting of 50% the root cause. (The 5 levels of Healing approach he practises underlies Eastern medicine such as Tibetan, Chinese, Ayurvedic medicine and yogic tradition of healing which are all SYSTEMIC.) This explains how he would for example treat autistic children not just addressing heavy metal and EMF stresses but also through Family Constellation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2EB4m9-DCw)
We integrate latest somatic trauma healing work informed by most recent neuroscience with systemic constellation work.
Recognising each individual is the arbitrator of their own life while each individual is also under the influences of higher systemic forces, we often apply systemic constellation to do parts work – working with the split parts of the individual to bring back wholeness.
As fragmentation is a trauma response – on the individual and collective level, we often apply the work to explore how a health symptom or life challenge is entangled with the split part of the individual or their family system.
For entrepreneurs and business owners, it has been clearly shown that their connection to their family of origin and hidden entanglements to the systems they belong to (such as cultural roots and society) can have profound impact on their success and fulfilment in their role as leader in their organisation.
Trauma is an organisation and in a society also contributes to fragmentation and the breakdown of its optimal order.
We are experienced in applying this work in leadership development – and in reality, everyone is a leader in their own life and so everyone also can benefit from “leadership development”.
Systemic (Family) Constellation is an experiential and somatic process.
For group workshop in our space, it takes place in a group with about 8 (or more or less) participants sitting in a circle. The process begins where the client, after presenting their issue, invite the participants to represent members of his/her family or system (and they can accept or decline). The client then places intuitively each chosen person inside the circle. After everyone is placed, the client takes a seat and observes. The representatives begin to feel like the people or elements they are representing and providing information that otherwise is inaccessible. The facilitator may also invite representatives and decide together with the client what elements to be represented.
The facilitator would guide the client to witness what emerges. Specific resolution sentences may be used. Words are sometimes optional. The connection and shift takes place from seeing.
An effective Constellation facilitator is compassionate, intuitive and neutral. Their role is to hold space for what shows up and guides the client to acknowledge what is asking to be acknowledged from the bigger system. Constellation work is positively life-changing when facilitated with neutrality and humility.
For everyone who participates, they exercise their subtle intuitive senses. Being a representative is a somatic and intuitive experience. You learn to go inward, sense and feel what comes through. This is what we do everyday anyway unconsciously, but in the workshop, this is done consciously.
Representatives are chosen intuitively for having similar “resonance” with what they represent and the facilitated processes often touch them on a deeper level as well, giving them relevant and powerful insights.
Systemic (Family) Constellation can also be performed in private one-on-one session, or be incorporated in coaching and healing that we offer.
Our Systemic Constellation one-day or half-day workshops often end with Guided Healing Breathwork – a powerful integrative modality developed by Anita. Read more about it here.
Anyone who has been in a properly facilitated Systemic (Family) Constellation representative will tell you that as they step into their place in the Constellation and just trust “the field”, they start to sense movement and urges that are not their own, while they are fully conscious. Whatever that asks for completion and resolution is information in “the field”.
To be able to tap into the morphogenic field or the Knowing Field is our innate ability, it’s similar to the ability to sense someone is staring at us from our back, or the telepathic experience of thinking about calling someone and they call. Pet owners are often amazed how their pets seem to know they are coming home long before they are physically at the door. Dr Sheldrake’s works explains these phenomena and more.
Through the experiential exercises in the workshop, you will learn fascinating ways in tapping into the “information field” and become more in touch with your “intuition”. You do not need to be a “case-giver”. Everyone will experience constellation inspired exercises where you will sharpen your somatic awareness and subtle senses.
Furthermore, if you become a representative in someone’s case, you will also have first hand experience in developing your perception beyond the five senses.
With practice, you will develop stronger perception and confidence in your subtle senses or “intuition” that you can apply in everyday decision making.
You will also learn to develop your “systemic perception” – it is like acquiring a new lens. You will expand your perception and approach your life differently and very likely you will experience more joy, peace and wisdom.
Our space is designed to be conducive to meditative and healing work. It is open and well-lit, furnished with mostly non-toxic materials and equipped with electro-magnetic radiation harmonisation with Bioresonance Rayonex Duplex IV biofield forming device that amplifies beneficial frequencies that neutralise the negative effects of electro-magnetic fields generated as an inevitable part of office operation and any possible geopathic stresses.
Yes. The consciousness field transcends time and space and we are experienced in working on line. We can work with you with representatives being in our premises, or with representatives online, or both.
You can participate in any of our regular Constellation workshops, and join as an observer/representative. In those workshops there are always processes for all participants. You can get insight and benefit. (Refer to testimonials where past participants share their experiences.)
Being representative or even witnessing is often a powerful experience in itself.
Ready to join a public workshop or book a private session?
