(Adapted from the Family Constillation©work of Bert Hellinger)
The primary use of this spread is to locate and understand the influence of “cast members” with whom you shared the life stage production called “my family, my childhood.”
Family is your first society and is central to physical survival. It the source of one’s most profound and meaningful learning. Family, or its substitutes, provide one’s initial imprinting for living, which includes: identity formation – either in supportive or wounding ways. It is influences of one’s: parents, siblings, relatives, but even beloved teachers and pets, all in the environment (economic, geographic, and racial) the family unit was nested.
Renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell went even further to suggest that Father and Mother are the first corporeal (physical) and phenomenological[1] (environmental) representations of God (Goddess), the child perceives. By extension, our childhood experiences with them informs one’s concrete beliefs of what power and authority, and love and compassion look like. You can imagine why there are so many personal variations of how people perceive God! It has been extrapolated from their parents (as people), or parenting (style).
- Card 1 – Father: Actual sire, or the person who was the male person who raised you (Draw additional cards if more than one player is significant.)
- Card 2 – Mother: Actual birth woman (even if not known), or the female person(s) who who raised you (Draw additional cards if more than one player is significant.)
- Card 3 – Siblings: Pull one card each, per sibling. If you have no siblings – include a significant friend, relative, or pet who may have served in that capacity as close equal. If you had none, this card holds the significant perception of a sibling you held instinctively or idealized.
- Card 4 – You – Center of your Soloverse: The reaction which might impede progress or alter the outcome negatively.
Shifts to current influences:
- Card 5 – Your Spouse or Significant Other (Or the reason that role is unfulfilled in your life): What action style should you proceed with?
- Card 6 – Child, Pet, Work, Public Image: You may choose a card for any of them or all of them. However, the energy of this placeholder signifies who the recipients of the effects of your family imprinting are receiving it right now.
- Card 7 – Dreams and Aspirations: Everyone is born with some vision of “who they want to be when they grow up.” It never leaves us, though it may mature, morph, and sometimes is lost in the ravages of our lives. This reminds you what the kernel of those original hopes were and how you might reclaim them.
[1] A philosophical treatise based on the study of the consciousness formation due to the influences of the structures of experience that one operate within. Michael’s notion of familial imprinting and acculturation fall under this general concept.
[2] http://www2.hellinger.com/en/home/
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