Family Constellations with Sarasi

2011-06-25T13:47:00.005+01:00

Moumina’s Constellation tale

I did a one-to-one session with a co-therapist, on a work issue. She had been very touched by Hellinger’s insight that unless we can receive our mother, nothing will flourish in our work, relationships or life.

My co-therapist took the place of my mother and I stood opposite. I was unable to come close or to look her in the eyes, so strong was the feeling of shame. I squirmed, intensely uncomfortable in my body. After a long time of her just waiting, something relaxed in me and I was able to come into her arms, but only for short moments, as if my system could only take small doses.

After that session, my mother, who never was able to choose presents for me, rang excitedly, with what she wanted to buy for my birthday. This was the first time since my childhood that she could offer me a gift that I really wanted to receive.

2011-04-20T22:52:00.007+01:00

A weekend of Family Constellation work with Sarasi Rogers.

Excuse me if this sounds like the ravings of a convert to a new religion but …..

I spent three days and about £300 working with Sarasi and 17 others on life-long blocks with family members and it was time and money extremely well-spent as I have come away with a sense of clarity and lightness that has released an enormous amount of energy and loving happiness in me.

Seven of us came to deal with issues and the rest were there to support so we each had plenty of time and space to work. When it was my turn to work Sarasi asked what I wanted to clear.

I chose to focus on a difficult relationship with my sister and in front of the group I gave minimal information about the factual circumstances of my family and our ancestors.Having chosen representatives to play the roles of my basic nuclear family, including myself, and placed them in the room, I sat back from the ‘hot seat’ and watched the dynamics unfold. Under the expert and experienced guidance of Sarasi the representatives entered the so-called ‘knowing field’ and simply trusted their own body impulses to move, behave and speak as they felt.

I watched in amazement as my family dynamic was acted out not as an action replay but as a true reflection of how we would have behaved had we been coming from our absolute truth.This cut straight through all the confusion and lies.Other representatives then went back in time and acted out the story of our ancestors.

This is when the magic happened! As my unknown ancestors expressed their rage and distress the conflict within my own nuclear family calmed and they were able to come together in a loving unit.

Then I was invited into the Constellation and replaced the woman representing me. I then rested in the arms of my healed family and absorbed the flow of love and forgiveness that has been blocked all my life.

A nice fantasy perhaps but, if so, one which has extremely tangible results in the real world. I am feeling more energy, loving connectedness and freedom to take confident action in the world than I have felt for many years.

Encouraged by results I plan now to work with Sarasi on the eyesight difficulties I’ve had for years and then will probably enlist as a representative helper because apart from anything else it was such FUN with loads of dancing, fantastic food and good company with loving people.

Thanks Sarasi,

Love Claire xxx

2010-04-14T11:37:00.005+01:00

It’s said it can take up to a year for a Constellation to work its way through but I often receive letters from people who experience much more immediate shifts and changes in themselves, circumstances or family.

Acknowledging Africa – Rajani’s story

I expected to just be an onlooker and not take part in any of the Constellations, as I was heavily pregnant at the time.

However, that was not the case. I was so surprised to find that two of the participants in the group had Constellations that involved Africa.

As a Black woman it seemed natural for me to be a representative of Africa. In both Constellations I was able to reconnect with my ancestral homeland; a connection that had been broken because of slavery.

As I stepped into the roles I felt the dignity, heart, and wisdom of the African people. It was tremendously healing for me to feel this, as Africa is so often represented negatively in the media.

When it came to my own Constellation, I was asked what I wanted. I said I wanted to feel settled in a relationship. I had become so familiar with relationships ending and was not sure that the relationship I was in was the right one.

In my Constellation what became apparent was how slavery and racism had emasculated and crushed the dignity, strength and spirit of African men. The ramifications were still being felt within the male line of my own family and the results have been very damaging.

At the end of my Constellation, Sarasi played an African piece of music. As the men in my Constellation danced I was able to see again the pride, grace and strength of the African male. In this acknowledgment I was able to relax into my own femininity, which was wonderful.

Taking part in Family Constellation was an empowering process for me, which provided me with the strength I needed to go for a homebirth.

4 months on I do feel more settled in my present relationship with my partner, who is also of African descent. We feel very blessed to have such a beautiful daughter. It feels great to have a little family.

Sarasi facilitated the whole process with sensitivity and wisdom, giving each participant time and space to be heard. Thank you Sarasi for opening up your home so that we can take part in this powerful process in such lovely surroundings.

2010-02-04T12:43:00.000Z

From Italy with love

Margaret Shams traveled to Holeland from her high powered UN job. This is her account.

The weekend at Sarasi’s was my first experience of Family Constellation. To call it exhilarating would be putting it mildly.

An early morning session of breathing and movement greatly facilitated the later work which involved not role-playing but ‘role-being’. It meant each of us (willingly chosen to be in the particular Family Constellation of another participant) being a conduit through which the feelings and words of another person could pass through and out. One did not have to do anything – it simply happened automatically.

When the issues were finally resolved at the end of each Constellation, the collective sigh of relief was palpable. We felt better finally understanding what had gone on and were able to let the matter rest.

Less than half of us had come to work on our own Family Constellation. The others were experienced ‘stand-ins’ to whom we often assigned important roles; they thereby spent a weekend in rural paradise, nurtured and nurturing.

The procedure can take up to a year to have an effect but I feel different already, uplifted and able to appreciate myself a little more. I intend to return once a year.

Born into a loving family and happily married, I nevertheless felt more consistently loved and supported during those forty-eight hours at Sarasi’s than I have ever been before.

2009-12-04T15:04:00.000Z

Lost Voices

Constellations offer a healing forgiving place to the wounds not only of our own childhood, but also of our family system, and maybe even deeper, to start unwinding the ever-accumulating traumas of national and tribal history.

A client of mine in his 50s discovers that he is Jewish. Not only had his family changed their name and religion, but had hidden their whole identity in order to survive.

Constellations offer a healing forgiving place to the wounds not only of our own childhood, but also of our family system, and maybe even deeper, to start unwinding the ever-accumulating traumas of national and tribal history.

Adopted children, similarly cut off, struggle to make sense of who they are and how they fit in, and frequently doubt their legitimacy. Their sense of belonging easily shatters.

Family Constellation offers a rare opportunity to place those missing ancestors there in the room, their voices heard, their lives and feelings acknowledged, because all they wish for is that their descendents can become free.

Frequently, even before the Constellation happens, vital pieces of information come to light. One client, suffering from insomnia, gathering information for his Constellation, discovers that his grandfather was buried alive in the trenches of WW1. Family secrets seem all-too-grateful to be invited out into the light.

Sometimes just signing up for a Constellation sets the ball rolling. One participant, the day after signing up for the workshop, gets a letter from relatives in Jamaica, who she’d had no contact with, inviting her to a family reunion.

So often I’ve witnessed Constellations being a springboard to rebuilding those lost and broken relationships.

Often simply opening the door to the voices being heard, and the whole story being told, is enough. Especially when that can be done in a way that is non-judgmental, coming out of love.

2009-07-28T11:09:00.005+01:00

TINY BUT HUGE

Recently a participant wanted to tell me that a few days after her mini Constellation at last year’s Osho Leela Dance Festival, her son phoned to say that all his anger and resentment had lifted, and he really wanted her to know how much he loved her

Her issue for the Constellation had been about not feeling loved by her grandmother, who had appeared in the initial meditation on the ancestors.

I placed Representatives for her mother, her granny and herself.

The mother was clearly blocking any connection, but when I moved her aside, the client’s Representative moved into a warm loving embrace with the grandmother.

It was very moving for the client to see this.

She said the Constellation was tiny in time but huge in effect. Since then, she told me she has started an exciting new relationship.

2009-07-01T09:58:00.001+01:00

Every Constellation weekend seems to develop a theme. In April’s it was of children disconnected from their birth families. A participant who was adopted reveals some of her story below.

Secrets, the things that cannot be spoken.
Jackie's Story

It wasn’t till I was eight that I was told I had been adopted.

It was an enormous shock, so much that I could not remember the telling, only that my behaviour changed overnight.

After that one time, the adoption was never spoken of again.

When I was sexually abused between the ages of eleven and fourteen by a close family member, I couldn’t tell anyone.

When I was eighteen I was raped at work and again I felt I couldn’t tell anybody.

I have had many problems including depression.

I was in therapy for ten years, but it wasn’t until I met Sarasi that I realised how important my birth family was.

I never thought they would have such a huge impact on my life when they had never seemed part of it.

She encouraged me to find out as much as I could.

Extraordinary things I discovered.

When I did my Constellation, my great aunt’s death by accidental shooting looked like no accident, but rather a cover up of a rape.

A secret was born and carried through generation to generation – it happened to my birth mum, my aunt and then me, all at 17-18. I was conceived from rape and she kept the pregnancy a secret until she went into labour!

I was the first person that my aunt told about her rape, 57 years later.

The whole Constellation experience was mind blowing - it made sense out of something that had no sense.

It’s the feelings that are so real that make it so true and straight to the heart.

I would like to do another Constellation in the future.

Being part of the whole process was like an intensive course in how to ‘be’ and ‘feel’ real.

I look forward to the next time, in an environment that promotes everything human and where love and compassion is the norm.

A sincere thank you Sarasi for letting me come into your home - it was awesome.

2009-02-01T23:51:00.002Z

Dear Friends

The year started with our biggest Constellation weekend yet, lovingly held as ever by the team and Holeland Farm itself.

We laughed, cried, danced and journeyed into family stories so real and touching.

We felt the heart of each family uncover itself, and breathe in life.

The weekend reluctantly came to a close with a ceremony of songs of the heart performed by Surahbhi, lead singer of Presence http://www.myspace.com/presencelive.

As we lay in soft candlelight before going our separate ways, I realised how appropriate is our title, “What Makes Love Work” for the Constellation weekends here.

The weather changed, and Holeland Farm was snowed in, power cut, computer down, happily cut off from the world. (see photos)

It gave me a chance to go through my papers, to read again so many testimonials, words and stories. I thought I’d share a couple of these with you.

Sarasi

Rearranging the Family Furniture, or An Exercise in Compassion

I have attended two weekends of Constellating with Sarasi and on both occasions had my own Constellations done.

In regards to processing my own Constellations … it such a huge rearranging of my family furniture, witnessing the emotional reactions and revealed motivations of all, that history will take time to understand fully.

Yet the most surprising gift of each weekend is the depth of compassion felt for all involved.

I say surprising because when you are having your own Constellation done there is a lot of internal focusing on what will be revealed for you.

That fact is that is a bonus to this great opportunity to travel deep into each other’s pain and history with such care and integrity.

The compassion felt through this not only through the unravelling and healing in each Constellation, but the sustained compassion over two and half days had a profound and cellular effect on me.

I actually didn’t think I was capable of this depth of feeling and everyone including myself was so generous, offering themselves fully to the knowing field and treasure of this living truth.

In the past I explored a lot of faiths and therapies, finding it all exciting and delicious; having almost sadistic desire to reveal the hidden truths in myself.

Yet for a few years now I have felt a bit lost even cynical as it all seemed “been there, done that”.

So to find this process was personally liberating, I love being on my feet exploring truth, being held in trust and love, and trusting myself again to deliver the truth.

It is an amazing emotional workout, as representing you are someone’s mother, child, brother, great grandparent.

You find yourself in this living history, in a culture you personally have no idea about and yet the knowing field holds true, and somehow in your body emerges the emotional secrets held for that person.

Yes, it’s exciting and it is such a privilege, and it is this privilege and the compassion I spoke of earlier that grounds you and reveals the best in oneself.

Victoria in Australia

Reconnections / The ancestral fields / A wave of healing

At Christmas I went to visit my dad.

I had only seen him several times since he left my mum 10 years ago and these had been tense visits leaving me feeling sad and unloved.

My dad was very pleased to see me and got out his laptop to show me photos of his re-union with his long-lost brother and half-brother.

He had not seen them in over 40 years as they had parted on bad terms.

My Constellation was at the end of February and my dad’s brother contacted him at the beginning of April.

In the summer he visited his brothers in Australia. The photos of them happily embracing echoed scenes from my Family Constellation.

My dad got out a box of family photos I had never seen before and proceeded to fill in the gaps that I had when I gave Sarasi details of his family history.

I left my dad feeling closer to him than I had since I was a child.

To say I was amazed is putting it mildly.

Here, I felt, was proof that the ancestral field existed and that through my attempt to resolve my own difficulties I had set in motion a wave of healing that was spreading out through my dad’s family.

Linda in Bristol

2008-12-01T21:02:00.009Z

Dear Friends,

The last workshop has just finished. Constellations are still running through me, deep veins of richness.

Another amazing year.

There was an interesting programme recently about how the trauma of war is transmitted through to the following generations. Listen now - click here

Again and again the threads of war run through the Constellations. I have felt so touched by the many stories.

It is hard to separate them out; just thinking of them I feel the tears. Not just those who are lost, and the broken hearts left stranded waiting for their sons, brothers, loved ones to return – but also the ones who come back but as strangers, living dead, unable to talk about what they have experienced and seen.

Below is a recent example, an individual table top Constellation using stones.

Wishing you all a happy Solstice, Christmas and New Year.

Sarasi

THE GREEN MAN - a client's story

Despite being a professional for many years, exuding confidence, lots of projects, good fees agreed, I continually fell short of success -a lifelong pattern.

I take a stone for my work and what was holding me back

This quickly takes the form of a shame filled man hiding in the forest. Interestingly, that summer I had been asked to play the role of the Green Man at a friend’s wedding, and as I waited in the bushes, I was attacked by a gang of young boys wielding sticks and stones - quite scary.

Sarasi asks me if it reminds me of anybody in the family. I think of my father’s older brother, Uncle Jack, attractive, but dangerous to some. Climbing lamp posts, disappearing for months on end on his motorbike, working on farms, living rough, not the dutiful reliable competent head of the family he was supposed to be.

Then came the war. Uncle Jack saw action in Burma, but he returned a broken man.

The family met and my Dad ended up with the casting vote. Uncle Jack was given a lobotomy, the latest recommended treatment of the time.
I feel my heart break, in huge sobs as I recognise myself in Jack’s empty shell, lost in the woods, suspended, cut off in his prime.

I choose a stone for my father.

I place him next to his big brother. The relief and love, two brothers again, side by side. Something becoming one and whole again.

I sense a reaching back to me and my own childhood, a lost innocence. Tears running down my face I sit for some time..

Back to work, inspired - to be immediately offered a new eco-project in the wilds of Cornwall!.

2008-10-01T21:38:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,

The family constellations work here in Devon becomes richer and stronger.

I’m always amazed at how much celebration, laughter and joy comes out of the weekends. It is almost as if a new family is created.

MY VISIT TO LITHUANIA - story after story of betrayal

Last month I was in Lithuania helping Moumina run a Family Constellation training for 21 participants and their translators.

I was impressed by the huge openness and longing for change after years of living under a very repressive communist regime. Story after story of betrayal and persecution so ready to come to the surface to be healed.

Doctors, teachers, artists, farmers sent to Siberia. Mostly never to return.

Everyone living in fear of it happening to them, unable to trust a neighbour or friend. Even family members could be asked to spy on each other. No one was safe.

I realised how powerful and effective a tool the constellations are in healing such a profound national trauma.

Again and again we were thanked for helping to bring it all to light.

My experience in Lithuania was of a country exploding with enthusiasm, creativity and innocence.

I wonder if the collapse of capitalism or whatever is currently happening here will bring such a spiritual explosion and healing for us all.

LOST IN SIBERIA - The Party Official

One woman’s Grandfather was a Party Official whose job it was to compile the list of fellow Lithuanians who owned land – as little as 10 hectares was enough to be exiled to Siberia.

Her family frequently remembered all the people Grandfather desperately tried to save. He later became an alcoholic – from all the gifts of alcohol that he received, the family joked.

Never acknowledged were the thousands who never returned, but perished from cold and starvation.

In the Constellation, she chose Representatives for those lost in Siberia, and opposite she placed one for her Grandfather, and then Representatives for the chain of Officials right up to Stalin.

Hiding behind fake arrogance, none of them can face the betrayed exiles, who stand in quiet strength, arms reaching out in forgiveness.

However, as the Officials’ denial continues, outrage at the injustice furiously erupts. The Officials slowly begin to crack (but Stalin continues his pacing).

As the anger subsides, softening into quiet dignity, eyes fill with tears, arms reach out again and finally meet, and the room fills with a deep silence and peace.

I hope to see you soon.

With love,

Sarasi

2008-09-01T21:48:00.005+01:00

Dear Friends,

Through this work I see just how deeply affected people are by the unresolved events of their ancestral past. We all have a knowingness when something isn’t right in our lives.

We all have a yearning to move towards love and a lightness of living. A Family Constellation Workshop is an opportunity to free the true story of the family and allow the past to be healed. Love is always swirling around us.

When the family line is healed, love can flow to us. And we can experience the difference of living lighter, happier and more fully in the present..

The 12th-14th September Family Constellation Weekend Workshop is now booking. Fully residential cost is £299.

For those of you taking a summer break, there is the 12th-14th September workshop.

I hope to see you soon.

With love,

Sarasi

ISABEL'S STORY

Exposing Truth

At the start of my Constellation I gave Sarasi only the bare facts about my family. But during the Constellation, all my feelings and past pain about the dignity and integrity of the women in my family were revealed.

To see my truth so clearly exposed was an enormous weight lifted from me..

A great line of femininity.

Grandmother’s spy story. French Resistance. Man murdered on top of her (this broke her, too much for a young woman, went mad). Isabel’s mother had a glass screen in front of her all her life. Didn’t mother her children.

As my Constellation came to an end, the females of my family line – great grandmother, grandmother, mother, daughter all come together.

I always had a feeling of sexual abuse, a fear of being raped and now I see where that came from and I can let it go.

Lying entwined, experiencing for the first time love and acceptance, there formed a great line of femininity.

A womb line.

Lying in this line with them, I received the restored dignity and integrity of these incredible and wonderful women, and I felt the truth of this in my inner core and in my womb.

I also felt for the first time a real movement towards mothering.

Not just as a possibility, but as a certainty.

2008-07-01T23:01:00.007+01:00

Dear Friends,

Our June Family Constellation workshop was astounding.

Each participant’s intent created a dynamism that none of us will easily forget. During the closing ceremony, the sun came out from behind stormy rain clouds and shone its healing warmth on us all.

The 25th-27th July Family Constellation Weekend workshop is now booking.

For those of you taking a summer break, there is the 12th-14th September workshop.

Woof!

At Holeland Farm we now have five terraces of organic gardens.

Anyone who would like to stay and help us dig, plant, pick in return for bed and board, give us a ring.

Or for a Dartmoor break, we have a choice of three caravans – outstanding natural beauty on their doorstep. Ring us.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

With love,
Sarasi

A Constellation can centre around a health issue or an illness.

A recent participant was carrying an intense burning sensation, a “bombshell” in his lower stomach that could not be explained by medical professionals.

The Constellation revealed that in the 1800s his family’s mill was burnt to the ground.

This caused devastation and loss to his family and the surrounding villagers who worked at the mill.

After the Constellation this participant found a newspaper article about the event that described the mill “bursting into flames like a fireball”. He had been physically carrying around these flames of tragedy all his life.

Constellations are like meditations.

Without expectations, we allow them to lead us to whatever wants attention. They are inner movements that guide us to some obstacle standing in our way.

Bert Hellinger describes them as inward journeys to the core:

“Without plans, we are in Love most deeply, and Love shows us the way, moment to moment.”
The Constellation of a mother in despair over her daughter’s anorexia moved towards her son’s early death. It evolved that the daughter was carrying her parent’s unresolved guilt and emotions from this death. The burden was so great, it was affecting the daughter’s core will to live.

“What happens to my pain when I agree to it, when I no longer try to get rid of it, when I take it close to my heart and allow it to calm down in me, when I permit it to take the lead?

Perhaps this pain wants to take me to something I have lost sight of, or to guide me back to something that is wanting recognition, and a solution. It takes me by the hand, further and deeper. When I simply surrender, my pain finds peace."

Bert Hellinger, Journeys to the Core