Initial Situation:

The client has been struggling with eczema and skin rashes for decades. She senses very clearly that she is carrying both her family of origin and her chosen family on her back. She wishes to make peace with her family of origin while simultaneously feeling comfortable in her own skin, literally. Being born into her family of origin was not easy. She was only 'noticed' when she performed well, so against her own will, she constantly performs at a high level, even though she would have liked to lay down this role and relax long ago. Only her skin signals that this has become a prison for her.

We could look at her illness in isolation, or at her role within her chosen family, but she chooses to focus on her family of origin mentioned during the interview, as it is toward them that she truly feels anger. This gives us our starting point.

The Constellation:

During the constellation, we look at both parents as well as her sibling—from the client's perspective. It is with the client's birth that the previously calm picture truly changes: it is as if she disrupted the family idyll and the assigned roles, where the father passively withdrew and the mother was the one keeping the family together. At this point, a rivalry begins among the mother, the already-born older brother, and the client. During the constellation, her realization arrives:everyone around her is behaving like a child. The father gives up on carrying life; the older brother takes over the father's role in the mother's life, living in symbiosis with her, as a 'result' of which the brother completely loses his ability to grow up and behave as an adult.

Alongside her love, the client must step into her own adult strength, but as she tries to draw closer to her family of origin and show love, they repeatedly attack her where she feels most vulnerable. We work covertly—meaning the client does not know until the end of the constellation which chosen figurine represents which person in her life story—and as her own representative, she interestingly selects an already armored, rough-skinned turtle whose size far exceeds that of the other family members. Intuition always works.

In this constellation, recognizing and acknowledging the roles provided the primary added value in the first stage. Through further self-awareness work, we can reach a point where the client releases her anger toward her family of origin even at a subconscious level, accepting with peace that 'she made it' and managed to grow up, while she can no longer be responsible for the fate of the others, who must take responsibility for breaking down their own limitations.

Initial Situation:

My client arrived feeling as though there is an invisible glass ceiling preventing her from seizing the countless great opportunities life throws her way. In her story, we quickly arrive at her family of origin, where the father's very premature death, the mother's resulting sealed fate (to give birth to and raise her very young children, providing safety for them), and the now fully grown client-child's retrospective look all seem to raise the question: 'What is our destiny together like this?'

The Constellation:

In the first image set up, we see that the mother is exhausted; she has no heart for any of this, yet she does not wish to die because her child is there, who seems to have disrupted her hitherto linear-looking life plan: she has to notice her and do something with her. As the client's representative unfolds in the constellation image, she naturally wants to receive attention from her mother, as the child possesses so many treasures for which her mother was simply unprepared.

A realization arrives quickly within the client: her mother only remained here on Earth for her sake (and her sibling's sake), so if she were to fully 'embrace' any of the great opportunities flowing toward her as an adult, it would feel like abandoning her mother—and by direct logic, would be equivalent to her mother's death. This is why she does not dare to embrace these opportunities.

This is where the individual self-awareness work begins: my mother's heavy fate does not necessarily have to be my heavy fate; instead, while thanking her for my Life, I too must fulfill myself.