Holiday Tip #1- Getting Along With Your Family

One of my favorite elements of my professional practice are the Systemic, Structural and Family Constellation Workshops which I facilitate. In these amazing groups, people come together as strangers and in a few short hours, create intimacy, trust, and profound support for one another. Participants leave with a renewed sense of connection, respect, and inclusion. How is it that we can create this safety in our temporary community and find it so difficult to do within our own families?

For me, (and for Bert Hellinger who inspired this work), it starts with the right to belong. If we allow each family member their own space and due respect for their place in the family, however they have behaved, then we are on the right path. If these words have already struck a note of resistance in you, this may be a source of your difficulty with your family. In your inner imagery, imagine the family member with whom you have difficulty in front of you. In your imagination, tell them how you feel about them. How do you feel when you express your negativity? How is it for you when you express acceptance and gratitude? How do you want to feel? It’s up to you!