How is trauma passed down through generations?

When our ancestors have experienced trauma in their personal lives, including traumatic events in family and social history such as: war, suicide, abandonment, mental illness, early death or other challenging events. These can send shock waves of distress through generations, breaking the flow of love from one generation to the next. It makes it difficult for us to receive the love that we need from our parents when they are fragmented by their own trauma.

Recent development in the field of epigenetics has revealed that the protein sheath that wraps around each person’s DNA holds the scars of the traumas our families have lived through. Researchers emphasise the importance of exploring at least 3 generations of family history in order to understand the mechanism behind patterns of trauma and suffering that repeat.

Our bodies hold trauma and stress of the past including painful childhood experiences and tragic events that impacted generations before us…

In short, constellations are three-dimensional images that allow us to break destructive family patterns.

It’s an experiential, participatory exploration of how trauma and past pain can live in individuals and entire family systems. We can do a constellation in person, with individuals representing parts of the system or online using objects.

The trauma each of us experienced is different, though the path toward healing is similar. It’s important to look beyond the behaviours of our family members and ask:

The theory is our emotions, limitations in life and even our financial and relationship successes are inherited from our parents, our relatives, both dead and alive, and closely linked to our partners.

Such links are largely unconscious. If out of harmony or crises are unaddressed, they unconsciously pull us in a way we suffer. A simple example would be when a mother has a failing marriage. Perhaps her husband has treated her badly for many years and she becomes embittered enough to hate men. The daughter growing up sees this. Through unconscious honour, the daughter can often copy her mother’s bitterness towards men.

Subsequently in adult life, without realising it or even wanting it, the daughter may find herself repeatedly failing in relationships and ending up alone just like her mother.

This example might seem obvious but others aren’t so easy to spot. So how can you fix such influences if you are not conscious of them? This is where the true work begins.

What happens in a Constellation?

The first stage of Transgenerational healing is bringing the unconscious links and unbalanced influences of the client (known as the ‘issue holder’) to the fore. This is called “being constellated”.

This is achieved by arranging other participants in the group (who do not know the client or his/her family) to represent the likely elements influencing the issue – examples include a father, uncle, mother, groups, concepts, patterns the client may be embedded in etc.

Once set, what unfolds before the issue holder is a field of energy. The representatives soon find themselves, without being told anything, adopting feelings, sensations, body postures and even hierarchical positions in relation to one another.

These allow release and movement under the guidance of the facilitator. Once conscious of it, the client is then able to understand the process of how this is affecting them, how to release its negative effects and how to find a way to move forward.

How does a session help?

A session allows you not only to see and feel the dynamic you are caught up in, but also find better solutions with the ability to free yourself in a way that no other process can.

This takes place in a brief process of approximately an hour for permanent change and a new perspective.

A similar process takes place in private sessions.