Over the next twelve months, I am going to show you how to use systemic work to create your own success and you are going to learn to use basic constellations. I will share a small piece of systemic work and then invite you to use the exercises at the end of each month’s blog, so you can begin to shape the life you desire.
First, I want to give you a broad overview of what systemic work is and show you how constellations can create change in your life…
What is systemic work?
Systemic work is the framework for exploring your systems and creating growth and shift in your life. It contains a lot of the information around why you struggle and how to succeed. These systems include: your family of origin, your current family, your profession, your organizations, etc.
You unconsciously form patterns in all areas of your life based on events, decisions and unconscious loyalties. Clues to what lives there lie in words, phrases, mindsets and actions that you use and exhibit, playing your part in the system. Understanding what lives in your systems provides valuables clues to your success and failure and allows you to switch fates into destinies. For both individuals and organizations, this work causes profound change and shift.
What is a constellation?
A constellation is a 3 D experiential approach to interacting with an issue or a goal in a way that engages multiple senses, so you can see, feel and shift at a much deeper level. Experiences add value and dimension to our lives because they engage our bodies and our minds. They facilitate insights, shifts, and expansion. We tell ourselves who we are and are not through experiences and our thoughts and feelings about them and this constantly shapes our possibilities and limitations.
Can I use this approach to improve my life and career?
Systemic work and constellations are gaining wide attention from and use by Fortune 500 companies and top executives to explore complex issues, facilitating deep insights and breakthroughs
How do they help me to live the life I want? Can this approach really help me to change years of struggling or failure?
When you combine an intention to shift with an insight into what lives in your system and the higher emotion of possibility, you are able to go deeper and see more clearly. And when an experience is heightened or activated in a way that catches your attention, in a mind changing way an inner shift occurs. The brain is activated and the new way of thinking and feeling begins to lay down a new neural pathway, leading to new outcomes. Constellations provide such an experience.
Science and epigenetics are now demonstrating that we are quite capable of changing our lives and circumstances. Neuroscience shows how rewiring our brains can rewire our lives.
You do indeed have within you what you need to create what you desire.
Ancestry.com shows you where you belong but they don’t show you how that matters to who you are and who you want to become. Multigenerational patterns matter! They create your Emotional DNA whether you know your family or not—and depending on you, they become your fate or your destiny! Patterns occur in three ways:
· You inherit them – often unconsciously
· You repeat them – often unconsciously
· You create them – often unconsciously
No matter which way they occur, a pattern is a pattern and it can tie you up in knots or catapult you into success. The difference between the two lies in your willingness to look, see and shift and your commitment to make it happen!
Once you understand the hidden patterns and unconscious loyalties that operate in your life, you can turn obstacles into steps to the future you want. Constellations and the systemic lens show you why those patterns matter and how they are always in service of you.
You will learn how you got here and then step into, feel, see and experience the shifts that allow you to disentangle from struggle and create more of what you want. It is well known we are able to rewire our brains and thereby our genes and circumstances.
We also know that a felt or embodied experience of either a trauma or a victory, changes us profoundly. We revisit them because they are so meaningful to us and so a neural pathway is laid down. Constellations and systemic work combine to invite a journey into deep shifts that create conscious neural pathways in service of our purpose and growth.
You will understand how some people do the seemingly incredible and then you will have the opportunity to do it yourself.
You will learn to physically map and step into the issues or goals you have and design the future you want. With eyes, heart and mind wide open, you will teach yourself to achieve breakthroughs, insights and success. Growing your inner world – grows your outer world. You will learn that you are capable of living a remarkable life if you choose to do so.
You will discover that you have a rich and deep inheritance waiting to serve you. You will realize that not only do you inherit your physical DNA, you also inherit your emotional DNA and with that, all the ways in which you can become stuck and limited. You will also discover that you can create the emotional DNA you want and become the remarkable being you dreamed of becoming.
Consider this: A traumatic incident creates an experience that leaves you shaken and permanently marked. A neural pathway is laid down instantly and the after effects are there for years, if not forever. However, exactly the opposite also occurs. You have an incredible win or experience that is so profound that it changes you forever. In this case a neural pathway is also laid down and the after effects may also last forever. Both shape the life you live. Which would you rather experience?
Imagine being able to rise to greatness on a consistent basis and live the life you want to live. You weren’t born to suffer, you were born to excel and constellations show us how to consciously create the emotional DNA we want.
They show us how to:
· Disentangle from the limitations that keep us stuck
· Change our mindsets profoundly and thereby our circumstances and lives
· Lay down a neural pathway during a constellation with a keenly felt sense of inner shift that is life changing, profound and lasting
Whenever I work with a new client, I ask them one simple question. “How big are you willing to be?” Invariably they ask me if that isn’t egotistical and the answer is no.
We were born to and are quite capable of being, doing and achieving the remarkable. The day that we agree to be the biggest version of ourselves is the humblest day of our lives. In that moment we agree to become fully responsible for who we are in the world and for growing ourselves as much as we can. We agree to all that is possible for and through us and we dedicate our lives to achieving our maximum potential and sharing it with the world. That is discipline. Not ego.
Systemic work and constellations put the ability to grow and create the life you want in your own hands. Once you begin to understand the patterns, mindsets and hidden loyalties that got you here and keep you stuck, you can begin to consciously create the lasting change you want to experience.
Putting This Into Practice
Over the next twelve months, you and I are going to go on a voyage of discovery. Along the way, you may decide to come and take one of the workshops or certification programs I offer around the world and experience a constellation for yourself. Perhaps I will see you in one of the workshops I teach in a corporate setting to leaders and entrepreneurs who now use this approach to change lives and to solve complex issues.
Constellations use a highly interactive and experiential approach to explore your inner and outer worlds. They show you how to create new mindsets and lay down new neural pathways that serve you. And with constellations, you will learn to use multiple senses and multi-generations to connect the dots and shift from stuck to flying.
Systemic work takes the whole system into consideration and teaches us to think in layers and connect dots in ways that change our lives and the lives of those who come after us.
Putting This Into Practice: How can I use systemic work and constellations to create the life I want?
It’s important to realize that most of us think we only use our brains to navigate life. High performers and visionary leaders consciously do it differently. They maximize the knowledge in their head, heart and gut. I am going to teach you to do what they do, using a systemic lens and a constellation so you can make the invisible – visible and achieve your own insights and shifts.
So here we go. The theory bit. It’s critical to be aware that you don’t just inherit your physical DNA, you also inherit your emotional DNA. Sometimes through many generations. The difference is that you can change your emotional DNA, thoughts and possibilities—and as studies show in neuroscience, possibly even your body and genes. You can most certainly change your life and your destiny.
There are 3 principles that frame a systemic lens. I use this in boardrooms and with my clients to unravel even the most complex issues, achieve breakthroughs and remarkable success.
In systems, most issues resolve into these 3 basic principles:
- Order – you get too big or too small
- Belonging – in, out or on the edge of the systems with which you interact
- Balance of give and receive – you give too much or receive too little
This makes it simple to see what kind of issue you are dealing with and how to restore balance, resolve issues and create success.
If you get too big or too small in your systems, you go out of order and may carry too much or become too small and invisible. When you struggle with belonging, you may struggle to find your place, or figure out how to fit in. With an imbalance in give and receive, you may give too much, or receive too little.
Issues in any of these areas may limit your ability to achieve full success, but be aware that issues in your life sit right next something remarkable that wants to emerge through you.
Exercise
Okay constellations time! Remember constellations engage multiple senses and this is a super simple one. It will start to give you a felt sense of your systems and that’s what we want here. Let’s use the 3 principles to start your journey. (Keep what you write down with you, so you can expand upon it with each subsequent monthly blog this year.)
Write down 3 different systems that you belong to, on 3 separate pieces of paper. One must be your family of origin. Another might be your friends and a third might be your career or place of work. Place them on the floor from left to right. (It’s okay even my top executives around the world do this). Now walk towards each piece of paper and notice:
· How close can you get to each piece?
· Where do you feel it in your body?
· How do you belong in your family?
· Are you in or out of order – do you get too big or feel too small?
· Do you give too much or receive too little?
· What do you tell yourself about this? (Write this down)
· Which one of the 3 principles is dominant for you and how?
Write to me with questions or insights or attend a workshop to learn more. Vist my Workshops page for more information.