On 26th July 2024, the SCASA Practitioner community circle focused on the theme and practice of ‘resourcing’ in constellations work. ‘Resourcing’ refers to a variety of ways in which facilitators make visible the already existing resourcefulness, resilience and strength in the family (or any other) field. In that moment the client may be focused only on the problem and not in touch with this aspect of resourcefulness in their system nor feel it in their body. With regards to this process of resourcing a client, facilitator or system, I share some of the insights that arose from the SCASA community sharing session, adding my own reflections from experience.
I deeply appreciated everybody’s sharing in the circle. It was quite personal; in particular, when the focus was on situations that may leave us feeling weak or depleted as facilitators and in turn momentarily less able to support our client.
Several key insights on the notion of ‘resourcing’ emerged from the session.
As a facilitator, resourcing is about taking the time to connect back to ‘source’ or ‘Source’. Implied in this are very personal understandings and experiences of the notion of ‘Source’ or the ‘Source of Life’, the beginning of creation, Creation, God/Goddess/Allah/Yaweh/ǀKaggen
/Nomkumbulwana, the universal energy and more. Many of us commented that this process of resourcing-as-connecting-to-source starts inside. What does this mean for the facilitation process?
I strive to find a way to feel resourced in myself as a facilitator so that I may keep on standing in my full embodied presence and remain non-attached to outcome. When I realise that I am feeling under-resourced, this is already the first step to becoming resourced. I am awake to the fact that resourcing is needed. This is a good sign that I am embodied. The body remains the key guide here. The realisation may come in feeling at a loss as what to do next, or feeling suddenly blank, drained and tired, or experiencing sudden fear. It may come as perceiving myself as lacking in some way. In such moments, if we notice, we may internally call on our own resources. Perhaps it’s a deep breath and pause that becomes a moment of resourcing. Breath is our most primal connection with source; we surely know when it’s missing. It helps me to call on or visualise my ancestors or teacher(s) behind me. For others it may be their spiritual guides who they call on. Then, from a more re-sourced place within myself, I am able to support the client to become more present and connected to their body.
Questions surfaced at the SCASA meet-up in our small breakout group around the impact of facilitators’ own histories of traumatic events. We spoke about our personal responses to deep loss, especially in childhood. These sensorial memories may surface during a constellation process when our client (and/or we as facilitators) are under-resourced. We spoke about the importance of our personal healing journeys, and practices that we draw on when facing such a situation with a client. We also contemplated what happens when we as facilitators are being drawn towards or even into the client’s trauma field. This often happens in resonance to our own ‘field of hurts’.
Supervision is a key aspect here for receiving support and staying resourced as a facilitator. In supervision we engage in continual reflection with an experienced colleague who supports the personal healing and professional development of us as facilitators. Supervision helps us to be aware of parts of our personality of which we are unconscious, both as a human being and as a professional offering the work. Of significance are the particularly vulnerable inner parts we have from traumatic times and events. These parts may have a strong (at times secret) longing for recognition and participation. Often, they have been in hiding or supressed. When they surface, they may seek to prove themselves and get us to move off centre. We may lose our grounding and even our path. Such parts can lead us into injurious behaviour towards self or others, including our clients. We may lose our boundaries, and the process becomes unsafe for ourselves and the client. Unconscious fantasies of greatness may motivate taking on too much. As a result, as facilitators, we make ourselves bigger, losing our humility of being smaller than the client’s system and their ancestors. The unconscious wish to fix may motivate us to fall into the role of the ‘rescuer’, and we leave our right size and rightful place in the interaction. It is helpful to have awareness of the drama triangle (Karpman, 1968) and of the rescuer, perpetrator and victim dynamic in us. This enables us to sense when we are slipping into any of those roles. The ‘orders of helping’ by Hellinger (Hellinger et al., 1998) are also a useful part of our work that every facilitator needs to be familiar with.
What can we do as practitioners in moments of feeling under-resourced? How can we remember to tap into the multiple ways of resourcing? One practice shared in our SCASA group was to place a more general representation named ‘resource’ or ‘resourcing’ (or a representation for ‘support’ if that is more resonant with the client). It may mean adding someone or something specifically considered resourceful in the client’s field, embodied through a particular representative (a relative, ancestor or elements from nature). We might ask our client, “What resources you in this situation?” or “What resourced you as a child / when you were that age?”
I have experienced a constellation where we placed a ‘resource’ representative that initially seemed to weaken the client. This resource even became quite angry and threatening towards her and other representatives. As facilitator I had an initial moment of fear and worked with my breath and placing a resource behind me from my own ancestral field. Patiently staying with what was unfolding, it became clear that in this context, the notion of a resource revealed yet another layer in this particular client’s field. This meant that whatever surfaced as a resource and was initially behaving quite menacingly, also wanted to be seen and acknowledged before in the end it could take its role in a more life-supporting way. This example illustrates that simply bringing in a resource does not always necessarily help the client or representatives to feel better in their bodies. Yet the resource in that particular constellation was indeed a resource that was needed for the key healing movement to unfold for the client. However, it initially did not surface as a benevolent energy, and this required containment, patience and presence from the facilitator.
Acknowledging that putting in a resource is never a fool-proof recipe (as there aren’t those ever in constellations…) it is especially sensitive when we as facilitators may wish to ‘lift’ heavy energy in a constellation (consciously or unconsciously). For me, I try to catch myself, checking if I am in a knee jerk movement (helped by placing an external resource as a representative), instead of checking in with myself, “How resourced am I right now?” I have to ask myself as a facilitator whether I am placing the resource to make things better for the client rather than really staying with the unfolding of the constellation, what needs to be seen, and perhaps the discomfort this may bring to me as facilitator. If I have fallen into my blindspot (and we all do at times), then I am receiving a lesson in presence when the resource becomes demanding, or when the resource behaves to act against the client or health of the system, instead of strengthening it. This can illumine another dimension of what is present in the client’s system and lead us towards what is needed.
The conversation of our group returned to resourcing as linked to re-Sourcing. We contemplated the notion of reconnecting to the larger source of life – Source with a capital S. In a constellation Source can be experienced as the primal force from whence all creation emanates; all life force comes from here and returns here. Sometimes we may place ‘Source’ as an actual representative in a constellation. I first witnessed Daan van Kampenhout do this in a workshop he ran in 2007. He suggested this as a valuable practice when we are engaging in large, collective trauma fields (colonialism, the Holocaust, genocide) or deep complex layers of trauma in a family field (incest, sexual trauma, multi-generational wars, no sense of roots, etc). It may be useful when the client has a sense that a past event or a deed is too large for anyone to hold – not the descendants, not their ancestors, not even the larger collective may be able to turn towards it, acknowledge and honour it. Rather than rushing to leave this all behind the movement here is often one of becoming able to look at it all and see what could not (and still for many cannot) be seen and acknowledged.
When we are working as facilitators with healing sentences such as, “I leave this with you now”, we may find that the representatives for the ones who were engaged in the deeds in the past do not show up equipped to look or take responsibility. Or it may be that the representatives for the ones who suffered appear unable to engage at all, and there is a feeling of a ‘black hole’ of sorts in the client. When speaking of a burden carried by future generations, there may be an impulse to address those who were the perpetrators and contributed to that pain, or connect to those who suffered pain and loss. Unable to see a way to do this, the client may be left feeling out at sea, with somatic symptoms of these legacies. Even while they become aware of their own ‘blind love’, it may still lead them to become depleted, passing life energy backwards into death rather than forwards into life.
In the African Constellations Experience, 2017, held in KZN, South Africa, Stephan Hausner showed us how he works with a representative for ‘Death’. He demonstrated placing a representative for ‘Death’ behind himself as the facilitator when he feels in need of clarity or direction, or also when there is a strong pull for the client to follow others into death. Death becomes a helpful resource in discerning what is healing and where the life force and love may flow. Stephan also suggested offering a different healing sentence from the side of the descendants, instead of trying to ‘leave it with you’ (when there is nobody prepared to ‘have it’). In his practice the sentence goes, “I give you a place in my heart”. Another practice shared was placing some of the ancient, further-back, well-resourced ancestors behind the ones who cannot look or acknowledge what happened, thus re-enabling a connection for the client to the resourcefulness of their parental lineages.
Further helpful resources are linked to nature (a mountain, the ocean, a water body) or to the client’s belief system and a form of higher support they relate to (angelic presence, benevolent guides or specific supportive ancestors). It is important to note that resourcing is always specific and situational, and we have to ask ourselves whether and how this is appropriate in a particular constellation. In that way we can stay true to the phenomenological root and principle of ‘being in the moment’ with ‘what is here’; with the observable facts. When it comes to culture and gauging what are culturally appropriate resources for a client, again we need to be aware of our potential personal biases and blindspots.
From our conversation in the SCASA session, I am left with the feeling that resourcing enables us to expand our perspective and connect to a wider range of possibilities, perspectives and responses. Resourcing can enable me as the facilitator to perceive more, as well as the client. For some of us in the circle, the notion was that the facilitator needs to be in connection with their soul. For others it was about remaining fully embodied in the here and now. As facilitators we endeavour to be present in our bodies. In yogic wisdom and several other spiritual traditions, the body is the manifestation of the finite domain, while the soul dwells in the infinite. In constellations work the body and its direct experiencing – symptoms, sensations, micro-feelings and quirks – guide us to where love-as-life-energy wants to flow again in the field, where the blockages are. We receive hints as to what healing movements may arise. The body is prominent here as our primary sense organ; it keeps on allowing the somatic intelligence to guide us in the constellations process. When we lose touch with this intelligence and manage to notice it, then we can turn to resourcing-as-reconnecting with the body.
Aware of the need for resourcing as facilitators, we can then lean into something larger that holds us as we host the constellation and the client. One fellow practitioner said for her this is named the ‘Mother-Father-Guru-God’. Her words connected me instantly to the deeper longing for ‘feeling held’ in the work we do. Clients often have such a deep longing for ’Mother’ and / or ‘Father’, no matter what the specifics of their constellation, and they may turn to us in those moments to receive this holding. Their longing itself is a resource, offering guidance on the particular healing movement seeking to unfold through their constellation. At the same time, we resist falling into the role of mother or father for the client. When we who are facilitating can lean into resourcing and becoming skilful at staying present and empty, then the client’s longing, our own longing and the larger collective human longing in the field altogether become an offering that enlivens the constellation. Our particular resourceful embodiment in turn strengthens the field.
Practicing resourcing in constellations work can enable us as facilitators to stand with ease in the work and to receive love, wisdom, guidance and alignment within our personal paths. In our shared experience during the SCASA circle we learned this: when resourced, the work feeds off and also replenishes our own life energy in an endless interchange. We come out energised. Resourcing feels important for keeping constellations contained and safe, helping us to sense our own right-size in relation to the client and their system.
We observed that we felt resourced ourselves at the end of the SCASA circle sharing. In the check-out round, a colleague said: “I feel less alone now”, and another, “I felt us becoming a community”.
Thank you for all those who contributed to this gathering.
by Dr Undine Whande (SCASA Facilitator & Trainer) – https://undine.co.za/
References
Hellinger, B., Weber, G, & Beaumont, H. (1998). Love’s Hidden Symmety: What makes love work in relationships. Heidelberg, Germany: Carl-Auer-Systeme-Verlag.
Karpman, S. (1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7(26), 39-43.