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Chapter 5

Our Family of Origin

The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.

—George Santayana, philosopher

We begin our journey with the most foundational of all Constellations—the Family of Origin Constellation. A Family of Origin Constellation can be thought of as a Soul-remembering ritual. It creates an opportunity for us to acknowledge all of the members of our family. The Constellation simultaneously connects us to the Family Energy Field and with those who have agreed to accompany us on our life’s journey. Likes and dislikes aside, they are our bloodline. We belong to them and them to us. They are our tribe, our clan, an intimate circle of beings with the same genetic imprint.

The pathway that leads to a full experience of our Soul nature begins with our Family of Origin. This particular Constellation summons up our deepest yearning to belong; it also allows us to navigate and take our place in the continuous stream of consciousness that has flowed since the beginning of time through our Family Lineage.

A Family of Origin Constellation is the first step in unraveling the Strands of Awareness. It is a true ‘gathering of souls’—of seeing, feeling, and accepting all the beings that make up our family and discovering where we fit among them. We begin to understand the Threads of Consciousness that bind us together.

Our Family of Origin includes our biological father and mother, our siblings, and both sets of grandparents. It does not matter if we knew them or not, the type of relationships we have or had, or if they are living or deceased. We simply recall their names, their homelands, their lives. As each member takes their appropriate place, the Constellation reveals the unspoken, and often, unconscious, bonds we share with our family. We begin to awaken to a deeper sense of belonging and connection. The finding peace process has begun as we stand present with our Family of Origin.

The Family Soul

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

—Jane Howard, journalist

To appreciate our place within our Family of Origin, let’s contemplate for a moment the number of people who have actually contributed to our DNA beyond the great-grandparents that each of us have:

16 great-great-grandparents

32 great-great-great-grandparents

64 great-great-great-great-grandparents

128 great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

512 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

1024 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

In 10 generations, we are connected to 2,046 ancestors!

It’s humbling to consider the astonishing number of familial forbearers who have walked this path of life before us, living and dying. In the Constellation Approach, the Family Soul is the continuous stream of consciousness that travels along the masculine and feminine lineages into the Family Energy Field that eventually leads to us. Whether family members are aware of it or not, they are unconsciously directed by the Family Soul, much like a conductor directing an orchestra. The Family Soul may also include non-relatives who have had a significant impact on one of our family members—for example, a former wife who may have died or a perpetrator in a violent event that left a family member permanently injured. Constantly seeking and moving towards a state of balance, reconciliation, and peace over generations, the Family Soul is present with us at all times. Like the wind, we can feel it, yet its origins are long ago and very far away. When we let ourselves feel our deep, ancestral connection with our Family of Origin, we awaken to our own unique Soul nature—along with our Soul’s choice to be part of this family lineage.⁷

Rings of Influence and Levels of Conscience

In our journey towards peace with our Family of Origin, it’s important to understand that each of us is affected by influences on our Family of Origin’s conscious and unconscious actions and beliefs. These Rings of Influence are similar to magnetic fields in the way they exert a pressure to stay within the sphere of the group. The Rings are comparable to the Sociogram,⁸ which was described in the writings of Jacob Moreno, the founder of Psychodrama. According to Moreno, human beings are akin to an atom’s nucleus, but larger electromagnetic forces such as family, religion, ethnicity, political affiliations, and congenital illness surround us and direct our movements.

Like atoms, all organizing relationships develop rules, norms, beliefs, and taboos that bind the network together. This creates a system, a systemic order. Those who adhere belong to the group; those who don’t are excluded. As a member within a system, we may feel superior, innocent, or most importantly, that we belong. Yet, to another system, bound by a different set of rules, norms, beliefs, and taboos, we may appear guilty, unreasonable, and excessive. None of us individually has the power to stop the effects of these systemic forces, yet we all bear some of the weight and consequence for the actions of the group to which we belong. These mighty Rings of Influence contribute to something considerable larger than us or our families. They serve the still-larger non-personal consciousness of country, society, and humanity.

After working with hundreds of families over many years, Bert Hellinger began to recognize these greater influences as something mysterious, often unconscious, unseen, yet ever-present—calling them the limits of conscience.⁹

We identify them as four levels of conscience—the personal, familial, collective, and that of the Spirit-Mind.

•Individual conscience relates to those to whom we feel connected—parents, siblings, partners, children, friends, relatives, and groups. This conscience has different standards for each of our different relationships: one for our relationship to our father, another for that with our mother, one for the church/temple, another for the workplace. The individual conscience is held within the family conscience and measured through feelings of guilt and innocence.

•Family conscience often remains unrecognized. We neither feel nor hear this conscience, but we experience its effects as passed from one generation to the next. The family conscience holds everyone’s personal histories, different fates, and important life events. It’s a system with order safeguarding the right of membership for all who belong to the family. It protects the bonds between its members. Family conscience also plays out over generations. Examples of loyalty to the family conscience include the following: marrying within the religion, continuing a lineage of shipbuilders, repeating several generations of alcoholism, etc.

•Collective conscience or Societal conscience, as defined by sociologist Emile Durkheim, is the set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes that operate as a unifying force within society. Like the family conscience, we can’t feel or hear the collective conscience, yet it affects us each waking moment of our lives. The family conscience is considered part of the collective conscience. As an example of collective-conscience shifting, consider the evolution of Gay rights over the last several decades.

•Spirit-Mind guides us beyond the other realms of conscience. It requires great spiritual effort because it tears us away from obedience to the dictates of our family, religion, culture, and personal identity. It challenges us to leave behind what we have previously known. Indescribable and mysterious, the Spirit-Mind is unbound and free. It does not follow the laws of our individual or familial conscience. Marrying outside our race or nationality, refusing to go to war, or joining a revolution are a few of the ways in which we may follow the Spirit-Mind.

Guilt and Innocence—The Operating System of Conscience

In our journey towards acceptance with our Family of Origin, there is a curious tension between innocence and guilt when it comes to whether or not we “belong.” Conscience is always functioning within us. But a clear or guilty conscience has little to do with good and evil, right and wrong, but rather how one’s actions align within our systems of belief. Conversely, we can feel quite guilty for honoring our Soul consciousness when it deviates from what others expect of us. Each of us wants to belong. We need to feel the safety of social convention and predictability of order. These are fundamental needs. In order to have these needs met our conscience demands one need and forbids another.