Exploring The Wound and the Gift of Not Belonging

Central to Systemic Constellation Work is an understanding that within our primary family system everyone belongs equally. Belonging is one of the four Systemic Orders that underpin the health and the flow of life in all systems.

Sometimes a family member leaves, is given away, or perhaps excluded for some reason, but no one can be rubbed out – the simple truth of our existence makes this so. Whether we are present or absent, we will always be part of the family story – the one who was there, or the one who was missing. Nothing can change this. We are born into and belong to our family story – however the story turns out.

But feeling our belonging can be very challenging indeed. We may personally carry the cost of exclusion, we may have lived a life of rejection, or perhaps, inexplicably, we just feel that we don’t have a place wherever we are, although we don’t know why.

Belonging is crucial to our wellbeing and flourishing, so when things go wrong the impact of this can travel down many generations. A granddaughter may live a lonely life, in unconscious loyalty to her grandmother who was ‘sent packing’ after extra-marital affair. Or a man may live as if he could atone for the nefarious deeds of his uncle, which cost him his place in the family. Feelings of not-belonging can be ours, or a family entanglement that hasn’t yet been resolved.

The wounds of familial and cultural rejection cut deep and so are often passed on, becoming a trans-generational issue for many generations to come.

In this experiential workshop we will explore belonging – what is ours, and what stories are still running in us that perhaps originate elsewhere in our family history. This is a day of full participation. There will be teaching, exercises, and whole group constellations in which we explore the common themes in our collective and personal experience.

Constellation work in this area can restore our basic trust in life and free us to fully engage with the risk and vulnerability involved in living fully. Feeling our belonging, as an irrefutable truth of our existence, brings strength and the possibilities of new beginnings….