The story of the constellation
As I look back now on the systemic constellation that we did, I can see how all the elements that were needed in the constellation came up in the two days before, as elements of different conversations. Yesterday in a conversation about the gathering with George, it became clear to me that in a deep, collective U-process as we did in this gathering, a systemic constellation can be a format that makes a ‘collective letting come’ possible. More on this later.
For now I want to describe some of the important movements that happened in this constellation and the learnings we got out from it. Let’s start with the beginning.
In the beginning it was clear that Leadership needed support. The person representing Leadership felt unstable and fell almost to the back. The Future representative felt this need for support and wanted to stand behind Leadership, but it was not the right place for Future; so she went back to her initial position. Only when Leadership could take more distance from the Pain of the world, she could really look and felt all right. After the constellation she reported: “I was really struck how passive I can be; I rather went out instead of doing something.”
The element of Holding Back was in our conversations from the beginning, and was part of the initial question and invitation: As women, are we holding back our qualities, instead of bringing them into the world? In the constellation we saw that the best place for her was next to Leadership, and they – almost immediately – gave hands to each other. The Holding Back representative said she felt as a very female energy. She said afterwards: “Before, I could never think it was good to be there, next to Leadership. I was to woman next to the Leader, not behind ‘him’. We were equal; it was a good relationship.” Later on, Future named the hidden quality of Holding Back as caution, which seemed to be important.
More support for Leadership came when Inner Knowing made a clear statement that she really wanted to support Leadership. Her right position was on the other side of Leadership; who was now supported by two ‘feminine’ energies. She reported later: “I felt whole when both were at my side.”
The relationship between Leadership and Community was fascinating. Leadership named it as some kind of fight; Community was confused and “didn’t know how to help”. In the beginning Community seemed to me, as a child who thinks he can help his parents. As if she knew more about leadership than the Leaders themselves. Holding Back was very clear that she didn’t trust this. Leadership told afterwards: “I was struck with how Community des-empowers its leaders, by not trusting them.” It took some inner processing before Community could express her gratitude for Leadership to take on this difficult task of leading. This bridged the chasm between the two of them. In Spiral Dynamic terms, the representative of Community was a clear example of the Green meme, in the beginning not being able to look beyond its own ideas.
All these processes and movements took some time, and meanwhile the Pain of the world was kind of left alone. She felt angry about it and hoped to be rescued by Leadership. When the relationship between Leadership and Community was settled, Community could join with Consciousness. Later on Consciousness reported that she couldn’t take any initiative from her own, and that she had to be claimed. Now that Community was settled, everybody could finally look at the Pain of the World! Leadership now approached the Pain of the world and without saying much bowed for it, together with Holding Back. Her arrogance melted away. Pain’s representative told later: “In order for the Pain to be addressed by Leadership, it has to be held in Consciousness, and Consciousness is big enough to hold that. Once Consciousness has embraced the Pain of the world, then Leadership can look Pain in the eyes. That connection transmutes the world’s pain into compassionate action.”
Future said something related to this: “When Community and Consciousness came together, the two ‘camps’ could come together. There is some knowing needed on both sides.”
All the time Action felt a lot of energy ‘to do’ something, she had a lot of ideas of what others needed to do to solve the problems. She felt relieved when Pain was looked at. She said later: “I felt I was the driver for Consciousness and Inner Knowing, they don’t have a driver by themselves.”
All the time the Future was witnessing, and this felt important to different representatives; as if ‘the seven generations’ to come were present.
When finally all representatives gathered in a half circle, with an opening to Future, she said to all of them: “Now you are ready to face your real challenge. This was your created challenge. The real task is to lead humanity to the essence of consciousness, that is the true task of leadership. You can only do it together, you cannot do it as long as you are fighting among your selves.”
All this was very impressing for all of us; and we gathered after dinner to harvest our learnings and questions; even if all of us were tired. Fascinating was that in this harvesting time a new idea was born: Why not organise a world’s leaders day? To bring all leaders some flowers, give them breakfast, or something else; and speak of the gratitude that they take on the hardship of leadership. We all felt energized by this great idea! It could easily be done, just to spread the idea! Judith, as Leadership’s representative said immediately: “I need to feel – as leaders – that it is something I can trust.”
This could become huge! What would happen if we established this as a global practice? The book Entangled Minds speaks about the power of combined attention; we wondered about the measurable effects that would happen to world leaders if we could get this running…