If a historical echo chamber is of complex magnitude, it merges into a dense systemic ‘mass’. Integrating, then, continues to be the work of a lifetime (I’ll keep you posted.) Undoubtedly, collective weight behind my personal heritage is vast, making my Odenwaldian-German origin and German nationality a case in point: I am the descendant of war children (my parents) and of ‘colonizing-waring-genociding’ forbears (my grand- and great grandparents.) The ones in my parental lineages, obviously, survived and partook in the mounting events of the first halve of the 20th century. Their experience –bona fide wounds and indisputable guilt– were passed on to my body, mind, and soul, mostly in gestalt of compromised and fragmented presence during the second half of the century.
I was 39 years old when, holding the end of my rope, I traveled far to arrive at a welcoming place (River House, Lyons, CO), and be with caring persons (Trauma Lamas, Dr. Anngwyn St. Just and Dr. Peter Levine, and their, then, students.) Unfolding the dense systemic silence of my childhood and unveiling the pain of my biographical fragmentation became the work. Some fragments began to move into close enough proximity to actually see them. Two years into the work, in a moment of doubting my ‘complex trauma load’, I was told with quiet determination: “You qualify!”
No, this was not, nor is it still, a linear process. Albeit, a steady passion to learn more and to turn knowledge into skills accumulated in a relatively linear and integrating fashion. This passion is informed by the heritage of horrors perpetrated by my ancestral and collective forbears. It is informed by acknowledging the human-ness of the terrifyingly inhumane. At times, it is held by the tenacity to survive, passed on by above mentioned generations, when thriving is at odds.
The staggering magnitude of destruction in the field of my socio-historical location, at my conception in 1955, merged with more terrifying experiences during my “first 1000 days” (Alan Schore, Oslo 2014.) Mercifully, I can meanwhile be deeply grateful for some of those . Sharing, and presencing, from a place of lived experience becomes a privilege, while I support mending broken connection wherever possible. On the whole, I continue my voyage on similar paths as all my change seekers. What’s mine to contribute, to mostly younger ones, is the wisdom and skill I gathered during the decades I traveled ahead of them.
Sooo, what do my constellations look (and feel) like?
To those, otherwise apprenticed / experienced /trained, it may be my emphasis on emergent, trauma sensitive processing that is (mostly) unorthodox. I continue to respect the team of originators (including, not limited to, Bert Hellinger) and pollinators of the global spread of the constellating phenomenon. I refrain, however, from orders of love as guiding lights. Note! It is not love, per see, but an implicit ‘rightness’ –even universality– of (any given!) order.
A side note: This, may emerge from refuting what my forbears abided and fell by. Orders were the LIFEBLOOD of Nazi-Germany’s twelve year run on a 1000 Year Reich. Orders pressed every aspect of private, social, cultural, and military live into shape.
In contrast, I honour (even centre) the shattering effect of disordered love by tending the emerging, erstwhile inflicted, wounds. Many a times, I work with change seekers themselves. At other times, I work vicariously with a representative’s nervous system. In my experience (and, yes!, also my opinion) any facilitator who works with a change seekers request needs to have a heart for complex trauma; the trauma that dwells in their body and nervous system, from real time terror and alienation as intrinsic memory. And, yes, all too often that also has been passed forward by the parents, and their intrinsic, unredeemed hurt. Both, and !
One’s heart for complex trauma, of course, is expressed through trauma and neglect sensitive comportment. Also by knowing how to hold trauma and offer it mending. This is established by fostering and including engaged participant withnessing, and by carefully addressing a change seekers –so far– somatically lodged fear, pain, and often utter aloneness.
