Everything in life has a purpose. Although we might not recognize it right away. Even that, what we do not like, is part of life, like everything else. This is also true for disease, for pain, for all the symptoms and phenomena of the body.

 

The body is wise and in contrast to the rather limited human intellect connected with a wider spirit. The body knows much more than the human being who lives in it, much more than the dissecting mind that can only understand by dividing, separating one from the other and therefore also splitting the human being, whom it reflects, into body, soul and spirit. Plus, the human intellect limits its perception to the five senses. While the body naturally uses the perception of the soul and the spirit, namely the intuition.

 

The body has an intuitive wisdom which it would like to give to us as a present with pleasure because it is our friend, because it belongs to us. But we have forgotten how to understand its language. In addition, its phenomena bother us, because they sometimes hurt, stop us, where we want to rush forward and appear to thwart the plan of our life.

We want the negative phenomena of the body to fall silent, swallow painkillers and antibiotics, although our body just wants to warn us, stop, don‘t go on like this, think twice, turn around, you're going in the wrong direction, or you remain too long in the rigidity of irresolution. Decide now!

 

The body talks to us. Its messages are important, sometimes vital. The good news is, we can learn to understand his language. The best tool, which is available for this today, is the systemic constellation work. Because this method gives a voice to the body, the body symptoms, the organ or even the disease.

It is highly interesting to listen to your own heart, your lungs, a kidney, the stomach, to the knee, or to a pain, a rash, a sad mood, or to understand the message of a tumor or an inflammation.

 

But how does the systemic constellation work operate? I will briefly explain it to you now:

The parts of a system, for example the system of the body, are spatially positioned referring to the client. Then this positions are filled with representatives, for example with the members of a therapy group. In individual therapy I take over this duty and place myself into the different positions one after the other in order to collect information.

Because, as soon as one stands in a systemic position as a representative, one begins to perceive and feel the condition of the person for whom one is standing. Like a radio receiver one receives information that is in the air. This phenomenon is called "representing perception". It is the effective core of any constellation, because it provides  informations that explain the system with its interconnections. 

The systemic constellation work was developed for the family system by Bert Hellinger decades ago. Later on the method was expanded by others including myself to body-symptoms, organs and diseases.

 

But how does an organ feel? How does a symptom feel and how does a disease feel? The informations, that are showing, are enriching and surprising at the same time. Normally they serve the healing of the whole person. It is never just the body, that is sick, it is never just the soul or just the spirit. The person is sick in its entirety and therefore it can only heal as a whole.

 

Some diseases are healing by themselves, for example a flu. Although a flu would not have to stay as long, if you would understand, why it has appeared.

Because each disease brings something, what you lack to wholeness. The German language is profound at this point. If someone is sick, we ask in Germany: What are you missing?

But what could be the missing?

In the broadest sense it is an insight.

 

Basically, there are three categories of messages and insights, which are provided by diseases and symptoms:

 

1. First, the factual messages. These are insights and advices that you desperately need in the current stage of your life.

2. Second, there are messages that indicate that your soul may not be complete, that you may have eventually left back a part of your soul in the past, for example in a traumatic situation in childhood or even in a previous incarnation

3. Thirdly, there are the messages that tell you that your clan is not complete, that you are missing a certain person in the consciousness of your family-system.

 

Item 1: 

Let's start with the factual messages. If you develop a symptom with a factual message, you obviously should understand something in your actual life situation, so you can make better decisions. Or in more simple terms, you should do something differently than in the past. Perhaps you have excluded or forgotten a central topic of your life.

A runny nose for example says, watch out man, don‘t you see that you are jolly well fed up also in a figurative sense. Intuitively, one immediately understands what the topic is. We know for a long time, of what we have had enough, but we did not want to know because we shied away from the consequences. Maybe you had enough of a stressful situation at work, perhaps it would be better to quit. Or it is a problem in your relationship, maybe you should finally talk to your partner about it. In this case you could start the conversation with: I have enough of ... 

The runny nose will withdraw pretty quick.

 

Another example, coughing: In Germany if we are angry at somebody, we say “Dem huste ich etwas.”, which literally means, “I cough something at somebody”. In English you would say, “Somebody can just get lost.” But who is it?

Someone might expect a certain behaviour from you. You might not realize right away that you actually don’t want that or you don’t have the courage to make that clear. At this point, the body jumps in developing a cough reflex or a full-blown bronchitis. The inner conflict, do I want this or not, or should I say something or not, rages in your lungs as a bronchitis. By fitfully coughing out breath, combined with the intonation of coughing, it is clear that you should raise your voice. You just would have to move your lips and say, what really is the matter, and the cough would pretty soon fade.

 

In other inflammations too there might be a conflict that is not fought out on a mental level and therefore is displaced into the body. Or more precisely, the body as our friend cares and points out with his symptoms, cough, cystitis, fever, that there is a conflict, which we should take care of right away.

 

There are many more examples, in which the symbolism of the symptom already shows the way. The symbolism of symptoms is well researched. For decades the psychosomatic medicine (psyche = soul, soma = body) is concerned with the symbolic power of physical symptoms. This requires no constellation work.

But in many other physical symptoms you don’t understand what's going on even with the knowledge of the symbolism of the body. Here systemic constellation work helps. In such cases I set up a new position in the constellation, named “A potential message of the symptom”. If there really is such a message, it shows immediately. Sometimes a client already understands during the constellation, what the message means, another time it takes a few days. But if the message is detected and there is also the will, to draw the consequences, the symptom is weakening or diminishes completely. The affected organ gets better and the client too.

 

The factual messages that show up in symptom constellations may be quite different:

 

Here are some examples. In all examples, the names are changed.

Christine has abdominal pain. She is suffering, but doesn’t want to deal with the stomach pain. Nevertheless she agrees to medical examinations after some time. As the results show no pathological findings, but the abdominal pain returns again, she wants a symptom constellation to be done. The constellation shows that the abdominal pain carries a message. The message bows in front of Christine like a servant. When Christine sees this, she realizes that its about time to seek for help. She also remembers the problem, for which she could very well need help in order to solve it. The topic is a career decision, which she so far couldn’t make by her own efforts. After Christine decides to definitely seek advice for her problem, the abdominal pain retreats. Already during the constellation Christine feels relief.

She had waited too long for the next career step. Her body had to show her that she couldn’t carry on like this.

 

Simon repeatedly injured his right ankle. Once he stressed his ankle falling down a staircase, another time he was hit playing soccer. In the beginning of the constellation the symptom of accident risk wanted to hit Simon’s right ankle again and again, reflecting the actual situation of the recent weeks this way. I positioned a potential message of the accident risk. But this position did not appear like an abstract message, but rather like a person, actually like a woman who was waiting for Simon.

But Simon initially couldn’t do anything with this message. He was single and got along well being single. The question remained unsettled.

Two weeks later he broke his right ankle playing badminton on a lawn. Surgery had to be done. Because the fracture did not heal properly and got inflamed repeatedly, he came back for another systemic constellation. Right at the beginning he informed me, that a women came to his mind lately, who had written a lovely E-Mail to him two months ago. But he had not responding at that time.

In the constellation we again set up Simon’s symptom that apparently became an inflammation of his operated ankle now. I placed the message of the symptom opposite of Simon. Next to the message I placed the woman, who had written the e-mail to Simon.

It was immediately clear that the message concerned that woman. When Simon decided to contact her, the symptom of inflammation became weaker. Simon and this women started a relationship in real life. As a result the fracture healed without any problem.

Surprising! A body symptom as an initiation of a relationship.

 

Another example:

Anna is constantly tired and exhausted. In the symptom constellation the potential message of the fatigue shows an amazing reaction. It turns away offended like someone who was not noticed for a long time. At first Anna didn’t know what that meant. Only after the message of the symptom developed childlike features, Anna says that she has had a desire to have children for years, but suppressed this desire lately, because her partner simply did not want children.

When we set up the position “Anna’s desire for children” in the constellation, this position and the message of the symptom moved together closely. When Anna realizes how important her desire for children still is, she is suddenly wide awake. She understood that it is high time to open her eyes and to clarify something fundamentally in her relationship.

A body symptom as a call of the unborn to life?!

 

Item 2:

Now we continue with the messages that indicate that one has left behind a fraction of one’s soul, for example in a trauma. Something like this often manifests itself in mental symptoms such as anxiety, sadness and aggression or even in physical pain. Often it concerns a trauma in childhood.

 

Trauma is a situation, in which one is existentially endangered and which often is life threatening. In this situations an automatic reaction of protection occurs. One closes up physically and mentally in seconds, in order to not have to experience the inflicted pain. People, who have been attacked by a lion, report that they have indeed noticed that the lion jumped at them, but they can’t remember the collision, the bite or the injury. In such a situation it might be, that a part of the soul is not aware of the rescue and remains in the trauma.

Whenever one experiences a situation later on, which is evocative of a threat even remotely, emotional reactivation of the previous trauma can occur. The child, that one was at that time, pops up from somewhere inside and the adult begins to feel as if he were a small child in a very dangerous situation.

At first this feeling is not understood, because there is no matching trigger in present life. But in a symptom constellation of the anxiety you can set up a potential trauma in your own biography. If there really is a trauma of this kind, it clearly shows. By that the memory sometimes comes back. Because often a threatening trauma has been forgotten or repressed. A constellation can help to lift the veil of forgetfulness. Then in trauma therapy one can free the abandoned part of the soul from the former situation in a protected therapeutic setting and integrate it. You take the little child to your chest and let it sink into your present adult person.

 

Depression or chronic abdominal pain for example can indicate sexual abuse in childhood. Fears of abandonment remind of an abandonment trauma, for example a long hospitalization as a baby or a stay in a children’s home. General fears can for example be an indication of an accidental trauma with life-threatening.

 

A trauma from a previous life can also sometimes play a role. This happens more often than you think. In these cases the trauma is usually linked to a dramatic death, which ended a previous life. Apparently it is possible that a part of the soul can remain in a previous life too.

Now, if you experience a situation in present life, which reminds only slightly of the  former situation, there also can occur an emotional reactivation of the trauma. That means, you begin to feel, as if you were still in the former situation, which often triggers dramatic feelings of course. But no one understands it. Unless you think of a trauma in a past life and include that possibility into your consideration.

 

Here a few examples:

 

A scientist made a discovery, which he published in a scientific journal. When he was invited to present his discovery at an university conference in front of hundreds of people, he got into an anxiety state already in advance. He was about to cancel his participation in the event, although it would have been an important milestone in his career.

In the symptom constellation it became obvious that the anxiety state had to do with a trauma. The potential message of the symptom pointing far back in time. It showed a strong connection to a past life. As the constellation went on, the following image developed: Already then the man had worked as a scientist and had published a new discovery, but was burned for that as a heretic at the stake.

It was not easy, but step by step he could integrate the part of his soul, which had remained attached to the former trauma situation. In the process of detachment the man, who he was in the past life, understood that the horror had passed and that now a new era has dawned, in which one can publish scientific findings without danger to life and limb.

The anxiety state did not recur after that. The event became a celebrated success.

 

Next example:

George falls in love. At the beginning the relationship is difficult. Again and again there are separations and reconciliations. In the phases of separation George gets into deep pain, which he doesn’t understand and which, he quite knows it, are exaggerated. Nevertheless, he somehow has no chance to fight this sadness.

In the systemic counseling it turns out, that he was already connected with his girlfriend in a previous life and that the girlfriend then had been killed during a raid at a young age. At that time Georg could not deal with this stroke of fate. A part of his soul was stuck in this traumatic loss.

In the present life he unconsciously felt the deep sorrow of the past in any situation, which only slightly suggested a separation from his girlfriend. This caused him to cling to his girlfriend. She intuitively felt overstrained and withdrew from him more and more.

During the constellation Georg succeeded in giving back the excessive grief to the previous life in a symbolic act. At the same time he integrated the part of his soul, which was remaining in the former loss situation. In the very same moment he understood that he didn’t need to worry about the relationship with his girlfriend, because it was a grand, everlasting love, which was overarching incarnations. 

In this way Georg drew confidence. The relationship got a new chance.

 

Healing a trauma is always about wholeness and completion. For that purpose you bring the abandoned part of the soul from childhood or a past life into the present and integrate it into your personality. The symptom that indicated the gap in the soul, weakens or vanishes completely.

 

Item 3: 

Now we look at the third category, the messages that tell you, that your clan is not complete, that you are missing a certain person in the consciousness of your clan. This person may be far away from you in space or time, but in your heart she or he is still near.

Two clan-systems play a role: 

​

1. The clan of your family of origin: Brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so on.

2. The clan of your heart. These are people who you meet not until you are a teenager or adult. But they belong to you just as intimately. This particularly concerns love relationships.

 

First to the clan of the family of origin:

 

Through family constellations it has been discovered that some diseases are an expression of  transgenerational transfer of fate within the family system.

When you hear that for the first time, you don’t want to believe it at first. Why should a child or grandchild get sick just because someone from the parent or grandparent generation had died  early, was killed in an accident or in a war?

Meanwhile, however, the mechanism of transgenerational transfer of fate has been verified by many thousands of cases. But that this can happen, it takes some preconditions:

The risk of transfer of fate is especially high, if a former member of the family, for example an aunt, an uncle, a grandfather or a grandmother, was excluded or forgotten due to his or her early death or doe to another stroke of fate.

The family system apparently doesn‘t tolerate that, because it becomes incomplete by the exclusion of a member. There is a force in the system that tries to restore the completeness of the system by letting the fate of the forgotten reappear in a later generation, in order to remember the excluded one. If you don‘t know that, this attempt of the system is unsuccessful and only leads to the fact that a stressful fate is repeated from generation to generation.

The solution is that one gives the forgotten a good place in one’s own heart. Then one can give back the burden to the ancients. The disease becomes weaker or in the ideal case drops off completely.

 

Some examples:

 

Example: Depression

Benno develops a depressive disorder at age 20. He is at risk of committing suicide. The symptom constellation shows, that the depression has its origin within the family system. On inquiry the mother states that one of Benno's uncles, a brother of his father, committed suicide at age 22. Benno never knew about this uncle. Back then the family had not really mourned, but tried to forget the matter. Therefore it was not allowed to speak about this uncle. The matter became a family secret.

In the family constellation Benno's secret energetic connection to this uncle becomes obvious. He succeeds in integrating the uncle in his inner image of his clan by telling him: "Dear Uncle Thomas. I did’nt know about you. But now I know about you. You belong to the familiy, just like me and everyone else. Now I'm giving you a good place in my heart as my uncle. But from now on I leave your fate completely to you in respect and love. "

It is important, that love can stay during the process of giving back the foreign burden. Because the deep bond to the people of our own ancestry is near and dear to us, no matter what we might think about it superficially. 

 

Not only severe, life-threatening depressive disorders, but also easier depressive moods, addictive disorders and even somatic deseases can have a family-systemic background.

 

An example: alcohol addiction

Wolfgang, forty years old, has problems with alcohol. In the constellation the position of the alcohol addiction seems related to a child. On inquiry Wolfgang says that he has an illegitimate daughter, who is now seventeen, and whom he had never seen, even though she lives in a neighboring village. The systemic solution suggests that he contacts his daughter, be a father to her and brings his two small children, he has with his current wife, together with her older sister.

Wolfgang’s addiction was, as so often, the search for the real thing. His soul wanted the contact with his daughter. In addiction though one finds only the substitute. Substitutes have the big disadvantage that they destroy. When in the constellation the daughter came closer, the position of alcoholism showed a willingness to withdraw.

 

Example: cancer.

Mary, 42, has breast cancer. After surgery, radiation and chemotherapy she seems to be on the right track. Over two years she is free of tumor already. In order to increase her chances of permanent cure she wants to have a systemic constellation. In the constellation the breast cancer indeed stands a few steps away from Mary, but obviously is still waiting for a chance to return. The position of a potential message of the breast cancer is referring to the family system. To the question whether there is a woman in her family system, who died young, Mary answered that her grandmother has died at the birth of her mother.

The solution for Mary was to integrate the grandmother in her inner clan and to give her a good place in her heart. After Mary succeeded to perform this inner step, the position of the breast cancer moved back in the constellation and showed tendencies for dissolution. As a result Maria felt free of the fear of relapse. Previously she intuitively still had felt the closeness of the disease.

 

Now we proceed with the „Clan of your heart“, those persons who you get to know not until you are a teenager or an adult, but who belong to you just as intimately. The clan of your heart exists over several incarnations. With these persons one is connected with a incarnation overarching tie. At reunion you recognize each other, feel the connection in the heart and are happy.

There are only a few persons that belong to the clan of the heart. Sometimes you meet only one person from the clan of the heart, sometimes two or three. The characteristic feature is the deep love, that existed already in a past life, and is recognized again in this life. You have the feeling, that you have known each other for ages. It would be natural and healthy, to revive a bonding of this dimension, to continue and complete the arch of love.

But if one rejects a relationship of this dimension, the body gives notice with symptoms. Often it is the heart that responds, hurts or gets out of rhythm. Or a depressed mood pops up and stays despite all efforts of treatment. 

At this point I want to tell you about a new phenomenon, which popped up just recently in my work, and which surprised me after all those years. I had several cases in which a body-symptom was linked to a person of the „clan of the heart“, who the client did not meet so far, but would meet in the near future. The symptom obviously prepared the client for the fact that he will soon meet an important person. And the symptom would not go away until this person appeared and the client agreed to the deep heartfelt connection with all the consequences.

 

Example:

Sabine is suffering from listlessness. She has the feeling of walking through life under a very heavy burden. This condition has lasted for a long time. Everything, she has tried so far, did’nt help.

In the symptom constellation the burden, which is pulling Sabine down, clearly shows. The message of the symptom apparently stands on its position for a long time, is bored and just points in a direction, in which right now nobody stands. When we set up the one, who is missing, something begins to change with Sabine. She suspects, who that man could be. Carefully, she goes towards him step by step. Doing so the burden drops piece by piece. The more she approaches him, the more she straightens up to her full size.

It becomes obvious that they both love each other and that they belong together. Already during the constellation Sabine finds into his arms (this means: Sabine’s representative ends up in the arms of the man’s representative).

In real life it took several weeks before the two found each other. A whole new life began for Sabine. This man belonged to the clan of her heart (Herzensklan).

 

Another Example:

Paul has a heart pain, angina pectoris. The message of the heart pain points at a woman of small stature. Paul immediately knows who is meant. Some time ago he had decided against the relationship on rational appeal. When it became clear, that they were already connected in a past life, that this woman thus belonged to the clan of his heart and that therefore it was quite natural and perfectly alright to open his heart for her, he could finally contact her. The heart pain was left back in the past.

 

Another man, who experienced something similar, once said to me: But if I really agree with this new relationship, I have to give up my previous life. Yes, I said, may be. But you also need to give it up, when you die of a heart attack. This he could understand.

 

This was an overview of the messages that can be carried by symptoms. The same applies for diseases. Because you can set them up in constellations too and decode their messages in this way.

Sometimes I set up a morbid organ too. The heart, the lung, a kidney or a knee or hip. Its really interesting to hear what organs have to say. We learn at first-hand, how they are doing, and are more willing to do something for them, to keep them away from harmful things and first of all to listen to their messages. 

 

The body is our friend. It is much wiser than we. It knows no separation from soul or spirit. It is deeply connected to everything and therefore has a great wisdom. Learn to listen to its voice. It is worth it.