“Flesh” – the only word in my head and an unbearably stiff coldness in my body… I see women’s bodies everywhere, I call them flesh and I’m allowed to own them, use them – that’s my right…

I am in my early 30s, it is my third or fourth time as a representative in a family constellation. Catarina Skirecki, the facilitator of the open group that meets every week in Eastern Berlin, has assigned me the position of a grandfather. The grandfather of the woman, who is seeking help today. As becomes apparent in the course of the constellation, this man experienced a great deal of violence during the Nazi Germany era, and he himself practised it too. Dulled, traumatised and helpless, he raped, murdered and assumed a position of power that still affects the family system generations later. And, as it turns out in our work, significantly shapes the current relationships of the granddaughter who adored her grandfather.

I will never forget that feeling of numbness and coldness at the representative position – I, as Romy, would probably have thrown up at that moment, cried, screamed… Instead, I allowed all the horror to flow through my body as if I were the grandfather myself, in the war over 80 years ago, at war with myself, women, life… The moment I left the role, within seconds all was over. I was myself again. And yet never the same.

It was the moment when I was able to internalise that systemic constellations are not role-playing games or meetings of esoteric wannabe-actors. I began to explore the phenomenon of “representative perception” and to clarify my own burdening issues in constellations. I studied Bert Hellinger, one of the founding fathers of the method, read Rupert Sheldrake’s papers on morphic fields and how they transmit information as an inherent memory across space and time. I participated in business constellations, 7-generation constellations, and shamanic constellations… and learned the basics of the method from my mentor Helga Parkin, who worked closely with Bert Hellinger in the 1980s. 

The mode of action and effectiveness of systemic constellations can still not be fully explained or proven today. In my groups I time and again experience, how patterns are revealed and healed through the perception of the field. I follow my intuition and act as an impulse giver. Usually the participants dont know each other and I experience how within a short time a perfectly orchestrated interaction emerges, people never take on a certain role by chance and the whole group benefits from the processes. We experience how much our cells and nervous systems are connected… with the fate of our ancestors, our nations, our living environment.

For me, systemic constellations are a powerful tool to recognise entanglements, dynamics, disturbances in the flow of life and to bring them into balance in a sustainable way. The work in the field even has an effect on people who are not physically present. My clients report that they experience more serenity, acceptance and peace.