Ancestral Medicine: Family Constellations Healing – EP5

Hello! This is Candice Wu, and this is the Embody Podcast. And in this episode, I talked about intergenerational dynamics and how to end the cycle of inherited trauma. It’s about family constellations 101. What is it? Why is it beneficial for any aspect of life, not just for family, and how it works? I share a personal story in this episode that has impacted me and my family profoundly. And I offer you three guided constellation practices that can bring you deeper healing, awareness, and embodiment. So, let’s begin.

Candice Wu 0:37

Family constellations is about seeing, acknowledging what is, and naturally allowing your true self to emerge in relation to all of your parts, whether that be family or internal parts. It’s not about digging into the past or dwelling, even though sometimes the past emerges. And it’s not about analyzing or thinking about things. Just that the mind it’s a whole body experience that creates healing, transformation, and capacity to feel whole in the present.

Candice Wu 1:10

It is opening to receiving more than what you were given in your life, or that you experienced in your life, and about creating a new image of who you are, and the love and strengths that is innate, and behind you, flowing through you. It’s also about allowing what’s incomplete in the soul of the lineage or in yourself to complete so that you can live freely, gracefully, and in your own gifts and a half now.

Candice Wu 1:39

So, I want to begin by sharing a little bit about a movie I watched recently, Coco, it’s a Disney movie. And if you are going to watch this movie, and don’t want this to be spoiled, I warn you now this is a spoiler alert that I talked about the whole movie briefly. So, if that’s you, you might want to skip to the next chunk of the podcast. And I promise you won’t miss too much. But you can catch up with us in the next section.

Candice Wu 2:13

So Coco, is about a Mexican boy named Miguel whose passion for music was constantly shunned and banned by his family, especially by his mother as it seemed like it meant life or death. She got so angry and almost violent when he brought up music or brought out his guitar. Once he even broke his guitar when he did play it. Despite his family’s seeming and punishment, Miguel felt he could not survive without music, and he took some action that caused him to end up in the land of the dead during the day of the dead celebration.

Candice Wu 2:56

In the land of the dead, he was on a mission to find his great-great-grandfather, so that he could have his blessing to go back to the land of the living and play music. He knew his great-great-grandfather or it seemed at the time that his great great grandfather was a musician, and so he thought that he could find him and get his blessing as his other dead ancestors would not give it to him. Through this whole journey, it turns out that his great great grandfather left his wife for music. And at some point, this man realized that he wanted to go home back to his wife into his daughter, Coco, but his music partner didn’t want him to and ended up poisoning and killing him. He never got to go home, and his wife stayed mad and hurt.

Candice Wu 3:50

So Miguel, this boy, in his undying love for music, allowed this story to be revealed. He witnessed his great-great-grandparents feel their pain, loss, and grief as these all unfolded. And he asked for their blessing to go back to the living with the love of music, in him and free. So, in the constellations lens, the family constellations lens, Miguel repeated some of the journeys of his great great grandfather, he felt torn between his family and music, just as his great great grandfather had.

Candice Wu 4:26

His great-great-grandparents didn’t get the chance to make up or to find each other again, reconnect. And especially for his great-great-grandmother, it was far too much of a hurt to lose her husband. And it seems that she wasn’t able to move through her anger and grief at the time, especially because he had died. This left a mark, a trauma, a loss on the soul of the family, where each woman, especially down the maternal line, had banned everyone from enjoying music, since music brought separation and loss at the time, including a dead husband. For the great great grandmother, music actually did mean death, the death of her husband.

Candice Wu 5:16

And at that time, one of the members of the family said or at the end, one of the members of the family says, “We’re all together and that’s what matters.” They all recovered the truth of what happened and were able to take in music and their great great grandfather, whom was never spoken of and even had his head ripped off of the picture on the family altar, they were able to integrate him and appreciate him now with greater love and wholeness, and enjoy music.

Candice Wu 5:46

So, this is the essence of what happens in the soul of the family. When something is challenging, traumatic, overwhelming or scary, things can be unintegrated and left there to be felt, but with such great love awaiting behind the pain.

Candice Wu 6:07

So, what is family constellations? Family constellations is a healing process developed by Bert Hellinger, and many, many, many practitioners since his work, and while he’s still working now, including myself. Bert Hellinger is a German psychotherapist who practices family therapy, looked at family sculpting by Virginia Satir, studied Zulu culture and a lot of other psychology practices to bring together this embodied approach that supports healing and resolution, and acknowledgment. At the deepest level, it’s about acknowledging what is not making things change by force or by thinking, but letting an organic healing happen, and trusting in the process, that the soul of the family and that the soul of each person will naturally move towards that healing.

Candice Wu 7:14

So, what do I really mean? Here’s an example of the ideal family. Imagine yourself standing with your mom and dad standing behind you, your dad to the back of your right shoulder, standing facing you, with his hand on your shoulder or just standing proud and behind you and your mom, to the back of your left shoulder. And then your grandparents behind them in the same configuration. Now imagine your great grandparents behind them, and your great great grandparents behind them, and so on. For as far back as you can imagine, whether or not you know them or not.

Candice Wu 8:05

So, in this ideal picture, everyone would be standing, standing solid and strong, and grounded, facing forward, present with all of who they are, in order. And the love and resource flowing through them, the ongoing newness of life moving through them towards you, ushering you forward into your life, where it’s easy for you then to move forward with grace, with freedom, with all of the strength and support behind you in case you need it. And that moves through you to empower your path what you birth in your life. What’s in your journey, and in your journey alone, not anyone else’s.

Candice Wu 8:55

Yeah, it’s something that rarely happens is this ideal configuration and you might even be laughing at me thinking yeah, right. I rarely see this happen when we set up a constellation or when we even talk about this. But what I usually see behind a family system, behind a person is that somebody, this is an example that mother is turned around, facing her mother and angry. Father is staring at his wife sitting on the ground. A sibling is roaming around way back there in the ancestry who is perhaps depressed. And maybe grandma back there has lost a baby but nobody ever talks about that, because that was painful.

Candice Wu 9:48

So, we can see then how losses and upsets or overwhelmed in the system, farther back then our life has an impact when we open the family constellations process. And I’ll talk more about those kinds of losses and traumas in a moment. But first, I want to talk about what this process looks like. And the group process of family constellations, we invite each other to represent for certain parts of the family system, or certain parts of someone’s inner world, without any mental knowledge or with very little. And Bert Hillenger calls this the knowing field where we have access to all of those dynamics, energies, feelings, and sensations without being told by the mind and by words that we have knowing beyond the mental capacity.

Candice Wu 10:54

I like to read you an excerpt from Women who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, which describes this very well. She says on page 214 of Women who Run with the Wolves, in systems of bodywork such as the Feldenkrais method, Ayurveda, and others, the body is understood variously as having six senses, not five. The body uses its skin, and deeper fascia and flesh to record all that goes around, goes on around it. Like the Rosetta Stone, for those who know how to read it, the body is a living record of life given, life taken, life hoped for, life healed. It is valued for its articulate ability to register immediate reaction, to feel profoundly, to sense ahead.

Candice Wu 11:50

The body is a multilingual being, it speaks through its color, and temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of non-conviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the center, and rising hope. The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere, the flesh is pressed wrong, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out into a stream.

Candice Wu 12:46

So, I share this with you now, because this is exactly what we see, when we invite each other to represent in the family system for what’s happening. We see that flush of recognition, we see a cold-hearted conviction from somebody, we see emotions emerge almost immediately through the representatives, especially through their body movements, as we ask people to follow their body movement, you can see the whole picture unfold as to what’s happening on the unconscious level.

Candice Wu 13:19

So, this is a little bit different from the conscious level. There are some things that are both unconscious, to some degree and conscious. But what we see here is not always the mental story of what you’ve been told, or what you recognize has been happening in your family. But it’s the unconscious part of what may be living there that hasn’t been seen yet.

Candice Wu 13:49

When we ask ourselves or others to sense into the experience with the whole body, we get a lot of information, and mostly what we get is what is here now. So, anything that’s been on integrated from the past that happened, where it was too hard to bear or too much to feel through in the past. That’s what gets inherited down the family line or we connect with and bond with someone in the family system that has been either left behind or silent, not spoken about, or ostracized because it’s the soul of the family that wants everyone to be there, just like in the movie, Coco, and they said, “We’re all here now, and that’s what matters.” There is something inside innately of our very being that wants everyone to belong, in peace and in love.

Candice Wu 14:46

So, as I said, this is a process of acknowledging what is, what’s here now, without analyzing, fixing or changing, and that we allow the organic movement that takes place by witnessing and acknowledging to allow what kind of movement wants to be had in the system.

Candice Wu 15:11

So, what kinds of traumas or losses are we talking about, that can get passed down or repeated? We are talking about anything that has been unbearable. Anything that was overwhelming, and this can include war, it can include losing a baby or a child, losing a parent early, especially when we lose someone early. It can include miscarriages or abortions. It can include immigration, difficulties with money, being poor or starving, an interrupted reaching out movement, meaning when you’re a child and want to reach out to your parents, and they’re not there. Then the reaching turns inward and is incomplete. Or if there’s parentification, where a child moves into the role of parent, and parents, their own parents. And in that way, they take on the role of grandparents, the place of grandparents.

Candice Wu 16:23

If there’s any imbalance in a relationship, or hurt, abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, physical abuse, or any sort of victim-perpetrator situation, perhaps someone got killed, or in an accident. All of these and more can be losses that were so hard for the family to feel through at the time or that they couldn’t feel through at the time, for example, war, or immigration or some sort life-threatening, dangerous situation where the smartest thing to do was to press forward and not feel, that that way of being gets passed down. And the pain and the fear can also get passed down or the anxiety of that.

Candice Wu 17:18

So, it’s not exactly what has happened in the family lineage. But it was how, it is how it was dealt with that makes something trauma, if it wasn’t dealt with it, if it’s incomplete, then that is trauma, and the soul of the family wants to complete it.

Candice Wu 17:39

One thing I like to think about with family constellations, and with my family system is the farther back I can see, if I can see my great grandparents and even farther than the farther forward I can see as well into my vision, into my path, and the deeper into the present, I can feel grounded and rooted and strong.

Candice Wu 18:03

So, I want to share with you a personal story of family constellations working for me, and having an energetic and unconscious ripple effect out to my family members even though they weren’t present or live in the constellation itself that I did. So, this constellation began by me feeling like there was a great loss, and the facilitator asked me if there were any miscarriages or abortions, or babies lost. And at that time, I remembered my mom sharing with me way back in high school, that at some point in my first year, she had an abortion, and she never talked about it again and never wanted to. And once this constellation unfolded, I realized why.

Candice Wu 19:05

And so the facilitator invited us to set up this constellation, and we did it in somewhat of a traditional way where I got to sit back and watch, while others represented myself and the parts of my family system, which included my mother, father, the aborted child, and my two other siblings. What was revealed in this constellation was the deep loss that this was to me, personally, where I felt like I lost a deep, intimate bond of the sibling, a friend, someone to go through life with me, and left a hole between me and my brother? And in addition, I also carried the weight of the sadness that my mother wasn’t able to feel, given that it was such a hard situation for her as well.

Candice Wu 20:05

So, after the constellation, I began to say that I had three siblings, and not just two, that there were four total of us. And it’s a little tricky, because sometimes I have to explain that one of them is not alive. But they still do it at this point. And the miraculous part is that six months later, after this constellation, even though I had not told my mom about my healing process at all, my mom called me and told me that she named my sister. This is the aborted child. And the first thing I said was, “What? How do you know it’s a girl?” And she said, “I just know.” And I just left it at that, because my mother’s knowing as a mother’s knowing, and I trusted that, too. And so I said, “What is the name of my sister? And she said, Ling, and it means spirit in Chinese.

Candice Wu 21:06

And I just bawled. And the reason I cried so hard was twofold, that my mom was doing the grieving, that hadn’t been done, that she was claiming this child is hers, and naming her Ling, spirit. That, to me, this acknowledgment of the spirit that had been killed in our family that felt like it had been killed, because for so long, it seems like feeling was not possible. And being in the magic of life was not possible, the joy.

Candice Wu 21:40

So, my mom had begun her own process of healing on her own without me, without me telling her that this had gone on with me. And to this day, she does name this child is hers, and she is much more at ease with it, and so am I.

Candice Wu 22:03

So, I love telling that story because the constellations work has such a powerful effect. And the reason that this is, is that when we work internally, on a dynamic, or when we work with the feelings that are inside of our whole being, that has a powerful effect outward. And it impacts all of those that are connected with us and that aren’t connected with us, in our conscious knowing as well. Family constellations, as I like to call it, ancestral medicine, can work like homeopathy. In the process, we look for the direction of attention, where the love is, where the resources, and we can drop in a resource from the outside that seems to be missing from the picture, but held within the realm of all possibility, for example, love, or Divine Mother, or hope.

Candice Wu 23:04

We can also go to the soul level beyond the human family and see the process through a spiritual and energy dynamic and sense into different archetypes or different energies, as I said, Divine Mother, or the father of all fathers, or the soul of our own father, next to our human father, so that we can see that there’s something deeper with much greater capacity, and wholeness.

Candice Wu 23:33

In constellations work, we also might work with parts of us or symbols, for example, our inner critic, our creative self, our future self, the feminine, the career that we are looking at, the career that we don’t like, money, time, anything that we have a relationship with. So, what is the point of all this? In family constellations, there’s an offering of finding freedom, peace, and living from your authentic self, feeling embodied, to move forward with what is and with all of your gifts, with love and resource behind you and in front of you so that you can live the life that you dream of, that you specifically dream of. And to see your true essence on many levels, and create a new image and body sense of what’s your truth now.

Candice Wu 24:32

So, anything from pain, infertility, career, money, issues, value, anxiety, self-esteem, depression, mental imbalance, relationships, love, intimacy, receiving abundance, physical issues, or disease, body image, tension, desire and purpose in life, identity, repeated accidents, any of these things and more can be worked within constellations approach.

Candice Wu 25:03

The resolution and completion of what’s in us and in the ancestry that you’re connected with, can release those bonds, giving you a new sense of belonging, of belonging that has freedom, and love, ease and grounding in who you deeply are, so that you can really walk forward in life instead of being turned around and facing the other direction. So, I’d like to offer you three meditations today that can support you in your own personal growth, as well as in understanding how constellations might work for you.

Candice Wu 25:42

So let’s begin the first exercise. This one’s called the resource and the challenge. I invite you to sit comfortably or to stand up. If you’d like to stand up, I encourage you to do so because you get different kinds of information from the whole body, and from the movement as well. I invite you to become aware of a person, place, thing, animal or spiritual figure that brings you a feeling of safety and calm, or love and peace, or any of those feelings that are good. This is your resource.

Candice Wu 26:35

Now picture this figure in front of you. If this is challenging, place an object in a space in front of you, on the floor or on a table or wherever you are, place an object in front of you to represent this resource of yours. Not something you have to think about, but just take an object that feels intuitively right set it there, and let that be the representation for this resource, and tune into this resource. And allow yourself to feel into it and receive from it, whether that’s the person place thing, spiritual figure or animal.

Candice Wu 27:28

Notice how this part of this figure looks at you or shines upon you. Notice any details, sounds, even smells and tastes or touch. Notice any movement in your body, where your weight is, what sensations you feel. Sense any emotions or thoughts you’re having, and invite yourself to drop down even lower into the body so that you can feel the whole body.

Candice Wu 28:15

And notice what you do feel you may not feel the whole body. May you feel certain parts of you more energized or tingling or achy. But all the perceived here. And if you feel nothing, notice that as well.

Candice Wu 28:37

Now, I invite you to become aware of something in your life that is challenging, whether that’s a relationship with a certain person, your boss, your parent, a friend, a loved one, or something that is has been a challenge to like your work, money, any sort of symbol, or entity. Bring up the image that comes with this, with your challenge. And if you’d like to, if it helps you sense into what object might be just right for you to place there in front of you as well, little bit next to your resource to represent your fear or your challenge.

Candice Wu 29:43

Now, notice this challenge, picture it and do the same thing. Allow all of your senses to be open, and notice what there is to notice. Sense any details. Begin to shift from your thinking mind if you are there to your whole being, your whole body. Feel into your heart, your arms, your belly, your legs. Notice your movement, if any. Notice if there’s any holding or tension or other sensations. Feel into what emotions are here. What thoughts come up, what images? Do you even want to look or do you want to walk away? Allow yourself to be non-judgemental and free, just allowing what comes up to come up.

Candice Wu 30:48

Now, make a conscious shift to go back to your resource, to pendulate from your challenge back to your resource. And take a break and just fill up on this love or strength, peace or calm, whatever it is that’s here now. Letting yourself receive the safety. And when you feel ready, or you want to, you can play with pendulating back to the challenge, and feeling what’s there now. Notice where your eyes want to go, what you sense, and allow it to be fresh in the moment. What do you feel now? Now, what you think you should feel or what you did feel, what’s now?

Candice Wu 31:46

And feel free to explore this in any way you can walk around it, you can just picture it, you can imagine what you wish would happen with it. It’s your challenge. Just sense into the truth of what’s here at the moment. Feel free to move back and forth in your awareness from the resource to the challenge at your own pace. Just notice what you feel each time you shift. And as you look back upon the challenge, what happens then?

Candice Wu 32:41

And at this time, if you need more time for this exercise, I encourage you to pause the podcast and take the time you need or allow yourself to take a break from this, and move on to the next exercise with us. So, if you’re ready to move forward, release these objects or images from your awareness. Give your body a little stretch if it wants or movement, take some deep breaths, wiggle your toes, just allowing the energy to shift and move. And before you move forward, give yourself some gratitude for allowing yourself to receive and to look at your challenge and opening yourself to this process.

Candice Wu 33:38

Now, let’s move to our second exercise. This one is of tuning into your parents. In the constellations process, we can look towards the parents or look farther back, especially if something in the family system seems to be repeated or coming from farther in the ancestry. But today, we’ll just limit it, put a boundary around just you and your parents. So, I invite you to imagine, first your mother in front of you.

Candice Wu 34:22

And if this feels challenging at any time, you can pause, release this from your awareness and go back to the resource that we already established, just bringing that up in your mind, in your image and sensing into that. And as you look towards her mother now, do the same thing. Allow yourself to sense, to see, to feel both what’s outside of you, in your image, and what’s inside of you, and your whole body. Feel free like the first time to place an object down to represent for the moment just as a placeholder or just imagine in your mind.

Candice Wu 35:21

Feel any emotions, sensations, movement, where your eyes go, where they don’t go, and allow whatever is here to be felt. If you are standing you can feel free to move where your body wants to move, and follow any sort of movement in your body. Is there shaking or noises? Allow that to come forward.

Candice Wu 35:54

Notice where your mom is facing, if she’s looking at you. This is a challenge. And I recognize that this may be your biological mother or it may be another mother, a stepmother or an adoptive mother or somebody else that you consider your guardian or parent, you can choose which it is right now. And the constellations work, we work with a biological, as well, even if you don’t know them, there is a bond to that system. So, for now, just tuning in to feeling what’s here. And when you’re ready to add in your father, if you don’t know your father, the presence of your father, I recommend using your biological father. But it’s your choice, you can choose your stepfather, a parent that was in father’s place. A second mother or whoever’s been there as the caretaker.

Candice Wu 37:18

Today, we leave it open. Notice what changes or what happens when your father or this third person is added into the picture. Notice if your dynamic changes, that is what happens to your mother, or the first person, first adult caretaker you put in. Just if they can look at each other, whether or not they’re married, or together. If these are your mother and father, that they are who brought you into this life, who you came through all your stuff to feel whatever feeling comes up to you.

Candice Wu 38:19

And now, imagine sensing into the consciousness of your mother, or the figure that you placed first. You can do this by just sensing in and allowing yourself to change position to look towards yourself or to look from mother’s perspective, or you can literally stand in the place where you placed or saw imagined your mother and mother figure there. From this place. Notice what you see and feel. Notice what it’s like to look towards yourself, if it’s possible. If there’s a feeling of warm or coldness. What emotions are there? Be aware mother or this figure is parental adults might be looking.

Candice Wu 39:29

This is a gathering information process and allowing what’s here. It’s not important to know what’s here in the mind, but to just feel what you sense when you do this.

Candice Wu 39:48

Now, shift out of that, take a deep breath. Imagine bringing your consciousness to the light above, a light of the source of all things, and just washing yourself so you can come back to yourself. And if you’re interested in going into sense the consciousness of your father, or the parental figure that you placed in second, feel free to do that in your imagination or literally by standing in that place. And tune into the sense of felt sense of what’s here now. What you see, feel, hear, notice. What it’s like to look towards yourself, a look towards the other parent.

Candice Wu 41:01

And when you feel complete or you’re ready to move on, this is just a taste. Take a breath, shift back to your place. Mature consciousness dip into the light of the source of all things above you. Just imagine light washing through you. And come back to yourself and even tell it to yourself, my name is, and from here, now, notice what you see when you look towards your parents. Notice how you feel, what might have changed, what has stayed the same. information for you. And it’s evolving and every moment, or your whole body.

Candice Wu 42:02

And let your breath go in and out as you embody what’s here at the moment. And again, if you need more time to rest or to spend time with each of these parts, feel free to pause the podcast and continue on with us when you’re ready. But now, we’ll move to the third exercise. These constellations exercises are in a sense going beyond the human realm and into deeper into the energetic and spiritual realm where we can create, where we can tune into the source of all possibility, to allow healing and strength for ourselves to cultivate.

Candice Wu 43:03

This constellations exercise is creating an inner resource. I invite you to consider if you’d like to create an inner lover, or a Divine Mother or Divine Father, or an inner father, inner mother. An inner guide, inner wisdom or any inner part of you that you feel you’d like to explore or cultivate here. So, whichever you choose, allow this figure to be in front of you now. And you get to design and create whatever this part of you looks like without any limits. It’s great if you have an example, in real life from a movie or a story, or parts of people that you like, that you can culminate into this inner part of you this inner lover, Divine Mother, inner mother, inner wisdom, whichever part that you decide now.

Candice Wu 44:32

And I invite you to look upon this part of you, and just sense and feel. Notice what this part of us like. Notice your relationship with this part of you. And allow yourself to receive anything that you need from this part of you now.

Candice Wu 45:01

You get to design it completely your own. Feel what it’s like to receive exactly what you might need in this moment. And let yourself be nourished by anything that has been missing in your life, or forgotten or needed, allow that to come through now.

Candice Wu 45:33

And of course, anytime you need a break, just take a pause, release it, notice your surroundings, you might come back to the resource you decided on in the beginning. And if you’re here, or you’re coming back to looking at this inner part of you, be gentle and patient with yourself as it may not be feeling possible or may be challenging to feel, maybe very hard or might be quite easy. Just allow what’s here to be noticed and taken in as more information. And you can sense into any messages this part of you has for you today.

Candice Wu 46:30

And again, if you need more time, you want more than just a taste, or want to practice this again, feel free to pause the podcast rewind if you need to. Or if you’re ready, you can think this part of you for showing up. Release this part of you. Just take a moment to tune into your own heart, and your own body. Thank yourself for practicing these three deep practices, for having the courage to look within and to feel into what’s here for you. I invite you to honor anything that you sensed, noticed or witnessed any information that you received or felt, and to surround yourself with love and compassion.

Candice Wu 47:42

So that is the end of our three exercises today. You just did three family constellations/spiritual constellations exercises that can bring you more awareness, insight, freedom, and that is just a taste of the family constellations process of tuning into parts, ancestry, and inner parts of you. I encourage you to reach out to share your experience any feedback that you have or questions and I like to share that I offer a one on one sessions, couple sessions as well as workshops and retreats with family constellations and spiritual constellations processes.

Candice Wu 48:32

Before you leave, I’d like to invite you to subscribe to the weekly and body podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast. And you can learn more about me, about family constellations, get lots of free resources on embodiment and healing meditations and more by going to CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 48:54

Thank you so much and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.