Author: Judy Wilkins-Smith

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Who Are You When You Embrace Gratitude?

It may sound strange to think that Gratitude affects your life directly but I want you think about this for a minute: 

There are two important things to know about systemic work and constellations:

  1. The decisions you make about events in your system become language and actions that run your life, and 
  2. We are affected by multi-generational patterns that we follow quite unconsciously. They create mindsets that can empower or limit us and we inherit them just like we inherit our physical DNA. 

Decisions You Are Making

Taking that into consideration, you might ask yourself what decisions you are making about events in your life right now?

When you keep telling yourself how stressed, tired or unhappy you are, this becomes your truth, You and your children repeat it. 

However, when you begin to introduce gratitude into your personal and professional life, your life changes.

Through this lens you can begin to see how much and how often you are blessed, do things right, are capable and are creating a life that responds to the way you shape it. You can teach yourself what’s possible simply by being conscious of what you already do! 

Gratitude focuses on what’s working, what you are creating and receiving and when that becomes your focus, your language, actions, and mindsets have no option but to change. So do the ways you describe your personal and professional self.

Instead of being stressed, sad, lonely, struggling, you begin talking about yourself as lucky, blessed and engaged. 

That becomes the new truth in your systems. Yes. I hear you say but I’ve had THIS happen to me.

And my question is:  What did you make that mean in your world?

You are given remarkable gifts, sometimes the wrapping isn’t too pleasant but look at it through the lens of gratitude and ask: “What’s possible here” and you will find the remarkable life you are looking for. It’s right there waiting for you to speak or action it into reality.

The Constellations Piece

Now the constellations piece – dimensionalizing what I’ve just said. In other words, being able to see, feel, touch and even taste gratitude. Here’s an exercise that will help you to begin gaining a sense of what I mean. ( We call that transforming yourself)

The Life-Changing Event

I want you to write down one of the worst things that has ever happened to you. (Not one that will freak you out just one you can look at.) 

  • Write it out on a piece of paper and place that paper on the floor. That is your life-changing event. 
  • Walk around it,  stand on it or near it or notice how you may back away or move closer.   That is all information.
  • Write down each limiting thing you say about this event on a different piece of paper and lay them down to the right of that piece of paper with the event written on it.
  • Feel how that feels in your body and notice your thoughts.
  • Be aware of how these thoughts and feelings affect your life. 
The Gift

Now. Please notice what skillsets, coping mechanisms, talents, careers, you have developed as a result of this event.

For example, you might say it’s made me too afraid to speak out- yes – and have you become really good at seeing things that others don’t, or only speaking when you can bring wisdom? You might say I am hardly alive- yes- and did you thank yourself for surviving? Are you grateful for the gift of life?

  • Write down each gift, skillset, coping mechanism you have developed onto a different piece of paper. Lay those down to the left of the piece of paper with the event on it.
  • Notice your thoughts, feelings, sensations in your body. 
The Full Picture

Take a step back and look at the full picture. 

  • Walk towards the limiting side and see how true this feels for you.
  • Go back and then walk towards the gifts, skillsets possibilities etc. and notice how that feels for you.
  • Notice what limiting language or actions on those pieces of paper, you are ready to put down. See if you can acknowledge them and turn the piece of paper over.
  • Now notice from the papers on the left, what you are ready to embrace, start, make a reality in your world and acknowledge them.
Gratitude

Write down the word gratitude on a piece of paper and take that in your hands. 

  • Notice if anything changes for you.
  • Notice if anything else wants to stop or be embraced. 

You might want to take a picture of your layout to remind yourself who you are when think you are limited and who you are when you embrace gratitude.

You are quite likely two very different people and how you emerge is your choice to make.

____________________

We think we are living our own lives but all too often we are simply re-living a history until we become aware of the strengths and limitations that we have inherited as a way to belong or not belong in our families. We feel these patterns in our bodies and repeat them in our thoughts and feelings. They are also incredible unlockers of our limitations and our purpose in life and their effects and potentials are profound. Decoding them and using them wisely we are able to unlock our own profound wisdom and potential. 

We all have this ability; we just have to learn to use it. Once we begin to work with our patterns we are amazed to discover just how big we are. We were born to do the profound, the uncommon and the incredible. We are literally able to change our patterns and our lives. 

What is the chapter that only you can write? How big are you willing to be? 

Come and Find out at the Emotional DNA Workshop

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Case Study: Beaten and Broken

what is systemic coaching?

Patterns that keep us stuck often begin in prior generations with decisions made about events that then become law in our universe.

People have to flee, and subsequent generations struggle to find a place to belong. Someone is told they’re a terrible communicator by a senior and that becomes the truth for them. What we don’t always realize is that patterns don’t just use repeating words and actions they also incorporate things as clues to what’s happened in the system as you will see in the following case. 

Initial Meeting:

The older heavy-set woman who made her way into the room leaned heavily on a cane and lowered herself carefully onto a chair her eyes downcast, her shoulders pulled up. When she introduced herself, participants had to lean forward to hear her. She was there to learn and listen she said quietly but didn’t volunteer much more than that until she sat in the chair to do a constellation. 

Once upon a not so long time ago, she had been a successful law enforcement agent until she was beaten by one her own with a stick and injured badly, hence the cane. Since then life had been difficult. She’d been poisoned by a partner and become severely ill and depressed. She wondered if she had ‘risen above her raising’ and was now paying the price. Perhaps she’d deserved the beatings and injuries. She felt ashamed and just wanted to make peace with it all and find a place to belong. 

 

There were several striking aspects of her language but there was an element that would prove surprisingly important. 

I asked if anyone else in her family had suffered something similar and her eyes widened with shock. Her grandmother came from a very poor background but was very pretty and had had an affair with a prominent businessman in the town and gotten pregnant. Great-grandmother took her to the town square and beat her up with a rod telling her: “That’s what you get when you rise above your raising. You’ve brought terrible shame upon this family.” It left grandmother crippled, broken and excommunicated from the family. The child that was born was my client’s mother who always felt guilty that she’d caused her mother so much pain and would ‘beat herself up’ for being such a burden. 

Looking at the pattern together, we could see how the shame, the beating, the fear of getting too big, had traveled through the generations as a way to bring attention to her excluded grandmother. This client was repeating history like most of us do, rather than living her own life.

Now she had a real chance to write the chapter that only she could write and change the pattern in the family. We worked together to understand how the stick could move from a punisher to strength. We also looked at how she could include her grandmother and great-grandmother and how she belonged in the family. First as a fellow sufferer and now as a change agent. She left in a better frame of mind. 

Six Months Later:

Six months later at a subsequent workshop, a slim young woman bounced into the room with a smile and bid everyone a happy hello. No one knew who she was until she introduced herself and several people gasped in shock. The stick was gone, the extra weight was gone and the person in the room looked nothing like the woman who had shuffled into the room on a cane. 

She said she had felt the weight of the shame and betrayal leave her during the constellation. Her thoughts and feelings about herself had shifted and she’d shed the burden and with it the pounds. There was a lightness about her. She shared that she had begun a foundation to help some of the many wounded warriors in the country and she held up a stick to show us that she now carried the baton for others who needed to heal. What had been an instrument for inflicting pain, was now a symbol of hope.

____________________

We think we are living our own lives but all too often we are simply re-living a history until we become aware of the strengths and limitations that we have inherited as a way to belong or not belong in our families. We feel these patterns in our bodies and repeat them in our thoughts and feelings. They are also incredible unlockers of our limitations and our purpose in life and their effects and potentials are profound. Decoding them and using them wisely we are able to unlock our own profound wisdom and potential. 

We all have this ability; we just have to learn to use it. Once we begin to work with our patterns we are amazed to discover just how big we are. We were born to do the profound, the uncommon and the incredible. We are literally able to change our patterns and our lives. 

What is the chapter that only you can write? How big are you willing to be? 

Come and Find out at the Emotional DNA Workshop

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It’s All About You, It’s NOT All About You, It’s All About You!

When you come to a systemic work and constellations class, you may have heard that this is a highly interactive approach and you may have heard that it creates remarkable shifts. You know more is possible in your life and you want it and you’ve heard that this may be a way for you to finally get that life you want. If you actually experience a constellation then you bring an issue you want to deal with or a limitation you want to get past. In other words, it’s all about you…or perhaps…

In systemic work and constellations, many of the places where you get stuck or hit brick walls seem inexplicable. You are doing what you know how to do and yet you still hit those limits or self-sabotage right at the point of success, or just can’t seem to flourish.

And that’s where it may not be about you. You may be unconsciously, let me repeat that… unconsciously entangled with a limitation or pattern from a predecessor. Imagine that! You might have inherited a pattern that has outlived its use and when patterns do that, they become a problem.

What was once a solution for a predecessor is now a problem for you!

When someone tells you, you are just like your mother, father, uncle, you want to pay attention because someone is pointing you to the source of your stuck-ness. Now. That doesn’t mean that you have someone to blame. It simply means you have insight into what may have you stuck and yes – originally it may not have been about you. Science now shows that trauma can pass from generation to generation. Neuroscience shows you that until you start thinking and feeling differently you may be simply repeating history.

And here’s the breakthrough.

Systems look for inclusion and carry significant clues to your success and failure. In other words, everyone has a place and when someone is displaced or excluded, the pattern that caused that displacement or exclusion finds a way to emerge again through a later generation in order to show what wants to come into a state of balance. In other words, what hasn’t been resolved in one generation can seek resolution in a later one through you and that’s where you come in.

Where you feel stuck, limited, frustrated, that’s the pattern asking to be seen, so that something different is possible. And that…is where you come in. You see, your frustration or deep desire is simply your subconscious trying to get your attention and what can happen next is goosebump worthy!

Once you see and feel what has you stuck or isn’t working, you can choose something different.  If you choose that change then not only does your life change, the entire system changes and your purpose has the space to emerge! This is the chapter that only you can write, and it is profound. When people invest in their purpose and growth, the remarkable can and does happen.

At the Advanced course in Disney, where we explored purpose and clarity, it became quite evident that purpose is an antidote for all the limitations and excuses we use to keep ourselves stuck when we don’t know what to look for. Purpose will propel you past all the limitations, roadblocks, frustrations, un-worthiness and doubt. If you choose it.

And this is again where it is indeed all about you! Once you invest in the new pattern that’s trying to emerge through you, you begin to experience your bigger self – your true self to be exact. The welcome home carpet rolls out and you are finally doing the thing you were born to do.

Of course, at the same time, you are changing your own life, the rest of the system is evolving. The minute one part of a system shifts that system is no longer the same and so, of course, it’s not all about you …and yet it truly is, and the beat goes on.

Now the constellations piece. Tuning into your purpose.

So many of you ask me how to find your purpose and there’s a long answer to that but here’s a short way to begin getting in tune with it.

Please bear in mind that purpose is a life-long commitment, but it all begins with one choice and one step. It’s yours to take now.

One of my favorite places is stuck. Stuck lets you know right away that you have outgrown your box and you have a few options. Try staying small, give up and shrink to fit or grow! And contrary to popular thought, growing can be a lot of fun. Your Purpose lives there.

  • Find a place where you are stuck. Name it and write it down on a piece of paper. Place it on the floor
  • Write down all the ways you are stuck, each on its own piece of paper and place them in relation to the place you are stuck
  • Now allow yourself to think, feel and sense all that this stops you from doing.
  • Was anyone in your family system ever stuck in this way?
  • Step away from that and ask yourself: “What do I really not want?”
  • Write that down and place it on the floor too.
  • Feel that
  • Now write down how or where you want to be and find a place to place that
  • Stand near that and again allow yourself to become aware of your feeling’s thoughts and senses.
  • Can you feel the difference?

How big are you willing to be?

Our first workshop of the year is doing the work of Emotional DNA.  Find out more here: Emotional DNA Workshop

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Is Systemic Work and Constellations Transformational?

Transformational

I am often asked is constellations work transformational?

Will it unleash the power within me as other disciplines offer?

Can it rewire my brain?

Can I use this approach as a practical way to change my life?

 

The simple answer is yes. Just like other approaches, the results depend on the client and that’s good news. If you are ready to take charge of your life and if you want more, than yes this is an approach that may help you to achieve the shifts that can facilitate change. 

 

Unconscious Loyalties

Imagine discovering that you are unconsciously loyal to hidden patterns in your system and that they may be running your life. Now, what if you could actually see them and explore your thoughts, feelings and decisions about issues, events, relationships, money, leadership and then consciously do something different? How might your life change? Systemic work and constellations facilitate that journey.

Constellations illuminate those hidden patterns and unconscious loyalties, they reveal obstacles, limitations, possibilities. Engaging multiple senses, this dimensional approach enables deep insights and lasting shifts and we know that by changing thoughts and emotions you are indeed capable of rewiring your brain. And when use those changes to break multi-generational patterns, your life can change too.

 

Have I seen careers rise and lives change? Yes. Too many times to count at this stage. Once people understand the framework of this approach and they are committed to change, they are able to leverage their insights, change their feelings from reactive to creative, and harness the power of their choices to create “the remarkable” in their lives. 

Fortune 500 companies use this approach to solve complex problems with high engagement and success. Individuals report amazing shifts in increasing numbers and the field of human potential recognizes that we are quite capable of life-changing breakthroughs. Some people call it magical – we call it unlocking your natural abilities to create a destiny rather than settling for fate.

 

Over the coming months and throughout the book I am writing, (it may take a while) I will be sharing practical ways for you to use this powerful approach to create the life you want and yes you can do it. You can do it!  You are going to find out how capable you are of doing the incredible. And if you want to accelerate your own life change within a growing community then you are welcome to attend one of our workshops where we work with you to facilitate those insights and changes.

Start Today – Don’t Wait for January 1st! 

So today, your first shift begins. It may seem small at first but pay attention. That’s one of the first rules in any sort of transformative work. Pay attention. Notice small changes – and big ones. They aren’t a coincidence. There’s no such thing. Transformation relies on you being a partner in the process. 

  • Write down one limiting thought on a piece of paper e.g. I’m not good enough.
  • Write down one feeling that you have that limits you on a separate piece of paper– I feel scared or angry or sad or hopeless.
  • Place them on the floor in front of you and back away a bit.
  • Now notice what happens for you as you walk towards each one. Use as many senses as you can (No tasting the paper please????)
  • Notice what happens in your mind and your body.
  • That’s you using multiple senses to connect with what’s going on inside you! These senses and abilities to notice are going to take you places!

We are tuning into your ability to feel and notice things. It begins with knowing yourself and understanding your ability to perceive and shift. Now ask yourself:

  • When did I first think this thought, or feel this feeling?
  • Who else in my family thought or felt this way?
  • Does it serve me? Does it belong to me or have I inherited or borrowed it?
  • Is it mine to change? Am I the change agent? Is this the chapter that is mine to write my way?
  • Am I ready to look at it?

 

For the next month, I want you to explore the sentence and the feeling you wrote down. 

  • See if you can identify their origins.
  • Notice everything that they are costing you.
  • Step towards those pieces of paper and then away from them and notice how your thoughts and feelings change as you move closer or further away. 

We are building your ability to sense and feel what is going on around you so that you can use it to understand yourself and then create your biggest life!  Here we come 2020!  

And as always, How big are you willing to be?

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Sentenced to Number Two

Leadership

Leadership styles don’t just happen in a vacuum.

How we are as leaders begins with who we are in our family system coupled to events, and decisions we make about those events. Often unconscious loyalties can lead us to be smaller versions of ourselves.

Jake was well-respected in the global company he’d been part of for the last ten years. He had a real flair for understanding difficult bosses and translating their needs into jobs well done. In a few years he might retire, he said. Life was good. 

He came to see me because his current boss was retiring, and he wanted something different. He was great at getting others promoted without ever getting the credit for the work he did behind the scenes. I asked what stopped him from being a leader in his own right and he said he’d always been told he was a great number two. I asked where that had started, and he said it began way back as a kid when his mother had told him he was a great number two man in the house and that had stuck. He’d developed a real talent around that. Then he remembered that his father had also been a great number two at his own place of work. 

Hidden Loyalty:

Through work we did together Jake began to realize that he had a hidden loyalty to his father. If number two was good enough for his dad,  it was good enough for him. He also remembered that a manager at his first job had told him that he would go far if he didn’t settle for less and now he wondered what might happen if he explored that possibility. We worked on thoughts, patterns, sentences, and mindsets that kept him limited, seeing what was true and what was simply something he had told himself.

He even asked his father’s blessing to go as far as he could and be a number one, a conversation that moved them both. He reported several times that he could feel his thoughts and emotions changing. He found himself stepping forward and saying yes to all sorts of things. He even volunteered to travel abroad to facilitate goodwill between his company and a new partner. He’d been interested in the culture for a long time and fit in really well.  

Within six months Jake had taken an overt lead in company projects and made suggestions that were so helpful to the organization that he was promoted to be an international team lead.

He says that life is no longer good,  it’s incredible and that being fully himself is unbelievable!

He has developed a real flair for being number one too. 

Systemic coaches with a background in constellations understand the multi-generational ties that bind us and the treasure that lies in our thoughts, words and actions. Once clients understand this simple yet effective framework for changing their lives, they are creating their own lives, not repeating the history of their ancestors. 

In our leadership DNA workshops, we explore patterns in leadership, their origins and their effects. Then we look at the hidden gifts, events, thoughts, emotions and mindsets within your leadership style and help you to break through your own barriers and elevate your ability to become an inspiring and visionary leader. 

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The Magic of Purpose & Clarity

Purpose & Clarity

When people tell me they’re stuck and can’t find their purpose quite often what they are sharing is that they haven’t made something meaningful enough to commit to and invest in all the way.

Your old patterns and unconscious loyalties may be getting in your way. You see, that kind of purpose doesn’t have excuses or reasons to stop. It is strong and you find yourself plugging in until you get there and you are the one who chooses it. You make meaning of something that changes your life.  

Many people who make it, tell themselves something really important and builds a strong enough reason to bypass all their ‘buts’ and all the multi-generational patterns and focus on that one thing. Watch people in the zone. They are living their purpose. The bumps and hiccups are a part of the adventure and they know that. Every step grows their purpose in some way. 

By the way, you are always living a purpose but there are different levels of purpose and I will be sharing more about this in my advanced class on Purpose and Clarity DNA at Disney World.

One of the reasons people are so drawn to purpose is that they suspect that there’s something rather special about it and they are right. Purpose is the antidote to your cycles of limitation. It is one of the keys to a life you want. When you have a strong purpose nothing much will stop you. When everyone is looking at all the reasons something can’t happen, you are figuring out how it can. 

Purpose pulls you past all the limiting thoughts in your family, your organization, your community. It is in service of the bigger you and then you are in service of so much more. You find yourself wanting to share what you have learned or gained. You become the difference.

With purpose comes its companion, clarity. It can appear in a few ways. It might illuminate your purpose or the path to your purpose or help you gain clarity around the patterns and loyalties that may have lived in your systems for generations. You may find that you are having discussions you have avoided or you might see how your limitations were inherited from way back in the system and now it’s time for that to change through you. 

Finding your purpose begins with paying attention to what calls to you. Transformation always begins with wanting more and paying attention. If nothing has moved you then you might ask yourself what stops me from wanting or feeling. Once you pay attention and notice what keeps showing up for you that calls to your spirit and you make it mean something special, the game is on! 

Purpose demands a step beyond complacency, the couch, and the television. It stretches you and elevates you. There’s a mighty good reason that purpose is associated with endorphins. It’s a clue to the transformation you seek. 

At the Purpose and Clarity workshop, attendees will find out what stops you from finding your purpose and learn how to find it.

Break the patterns that keep you stuck and you breakthrough to your greatness.   

How big are you willing to be?

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A Practical Guide to Moving Beyond Limiting Cycles and What’s Holding You Back

I teach and facilitate many workshops globally and watch people do the remarkable, become remarkable and change their lives. I am privileged to work with incredible businesses to help them shift into a higher gear. Two of the questions I am most often asked is: “We see the shifts during constellations. Some people change and keep going and others subside again. Why? The other question I am most often asked is: “Can you show me a practical way to shift that I can use on a daily basis. “

To answer the first question: It’s about choice. Some people choose the shift and invest in it. Others are still more invested in what has them stuck than what wants to emerge. Breaking a cycle is often exactly the same as becoming an athlete. You have to practice accurately and then tweak and repeat. Doing something one time and breaking a cycle can and does happen. We see this often during the workshops we offer but for most of us, it’s exercising that muscle relentlessly. I ask people: “If you do nothing where will you be two years down the line?”

Now to the practical piece. Breaking a cycle in a doable daily way. Here we access neuroscience in constellations. We are always making meaning of events or patterns and then using aligned thoughts and feelings to hardwire the meaning into our bodies. Often as the result of an event that upset us and put us on notice. If we do the same minus the fear or because of a remarkable experience we can achieve the same result. And if we start to invest the same energy into exploring and celebrating what we do right, then we achieve the remarkable.

Putting It Into Practice

To break a cycle remind yourself that you are willing to look.  This isn’t a blame game it’s called hunt the clues, connect the dots, seek the treasure, invest in the journey and go there. Practically speaking:

  • Sit down and look at something that has you stuck. You keep hitting that same thing.
  • Write down everything you tell yourself about that.
  • Write down how you feel and identify where you feel that in your body.
  • Write down the actions you do/don’t take as a result
  • Write down everything you make this mean e.g. “I am not smart enough I will never succeed.”
  • Now think about what or who first-ever triggered that or something like that. Write it down.
  • Write down all the meaning you made of that event or the source of your feelings.
  • It might be an event or a multi-generation pattern. If it’s a pattern, ask yourself who said or did that first – for example – who said: “You can have love or money but not both.”? Or who might have said: “No one in our family becomes wealthy or successful.”
  • Now ask yourself does that meaning serve you? If not, can you lay it down or return it to its originator? Wanting more means you have outgrown this old pattern anyway. Return it with gratitude for lessons learned and feel the desire to be, do and have more. Dare to go there!
  • Look again at everything you say, do or don’t do and ask yourself: “Do I still want this?”
  • If the answer is no, then ask yourself what would you like to say, feel think about this?
  • Now start telling yourself a different story. Remember you teach your brain what you need it to know to serve you.
  • You are already doing this- mostly in a limiting way and living the results of your story.
  • Mindfully give yourself 3 new sentences to say each day and 1 new action to take that supports what you want. Feel it deeply for a few minutes each day and make it your truth.
  • Always go to bed and get out of bed thankful and optimistic. Your choices matter!

The remarkable thing is that if you follow this recipe, you cannot stay the same. You will be rewiring your neural pathways and breaking old cycles. Whoever said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks simply didn’t understand the brain!

If you want a different life then it’s time to give up those old cycles and the thoughts and feelings that make you unhappy and invest in what gives you purpose and joy. Guilt, frustration, and sadness bring poor returns. I have worked with too many people from all walks of life to think you can’t do it. They all did and you can too.

And if you want it to happen faster, please join me at one of my workshops. You have a remarkable life, if only you know how to see it!

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Looking at Burnout through Systemic Work and Constellations

Burnout plays a specific role in our lives, especially when we look at it through a systemic lens and through constellations.

The Mayo Clinic describes burnout as a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.

Let’s explore burnout using the 3 principles present in all systems: Order, balance of give and receive, and belonging.

If any of these are out of whack, they can cause stress and distress. They can, however, also serve as clues to patterns that need to stop and new ones that need to start to advance beyond burnout. Sometimes the origins of burnout can be in the company, or even your family of origin. A pattern has outlived its current usefulness, and something needs to change.

Let me give you an example: A CFO is suffering from burnout. He is overwhelmed and physically and mentally exhausted. He says he has to ensure that the company and its members are taken care of and he finds himself re-checking everything his team does. In the last while, he thinks about taking any other job where he doesn’t feel like he has the blood of the company on his hands’. He doesn’t understand why only he sees the danger of becoming too complacent.

Notice the words he uses that seem inflated or charged. ‘Exhaustion’,’ Making sure the company is taken care of’, ‘have the blood of the company on his hands’; ‘danger in becoming too complacent.’ We might wonder what has created a sense of urgency and a heightened desire to take care of everything.

Systemically, by taking care of everything, he has made himself too big. We call that being out of order. You might find as a result that his team is also out of order. When people carry too much, they may experience burnout. When people are micro-managed, they may feel themselves to be un-useful or unworthy and too small and may leave.

The company history revealed that there had been an accident where several team members were killed. The official finding was reckless endangerment due to inadequate equipment. The CFO who had been in the role for a year was blamed for failing to approve its acquisition. Team leaders had told him the equipment was fine and he’d taken their word for it. His two successors each lasted a year. This CFO had been in the role for a year and was feeling overwhelmed and fearful. The accident was not ever discussed. It was ‘put behind them.’

In systemic work and constellations, we know that what you exclude, creates a pattern that expands and repeats. It can suddenly show up as dysfunction or fear in the system.

This CFO’s father had left home when he was young. He’d often felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenges he’d faced as the eldest of 5 siblings. He’d had to be big so they could survive.

As we talked, he could see how he’d had to be big for a long time and had always taken care of too much. Now that his siblings were grown up and successful and the company’s safety regulations had mandated the right equipment, he could see that in both situations it was time to stop holding it all and time to start sharing the responsibilities.  He could give both events a place in his heart as sources of wisdom.

Burnout is sometimes an elegant systemic clue that something in your life needs to change. It’s not the end of a road but rather a pivot point or portal to the chapter you were meant to write. When you understand that, burnout can shift you to a new direction or a fresh sense of purpose.

Putting It Into Practice: Beyond Burnout

Let’s see how we can use a constellation to explore a place where you may feel burnt out or overwhelmed and notice if you can shift just a little. Remember it may take a little time but with a willingness to look and new insights comes to a shift and you may be surprised by the results a one-degree shift can produce for you.

Get yourself some pieces of paper and a marker. We are going to use the floor to engage multiple senses and give you a heightened sense of what’s happening and show you how to shift just one degree.

Today I want you to write down the event that has pushed you into burnout or overwhelm.

  • Write down who or what belongs in this event. Each component should be on a separate piece of paper.
  • Place them on the floor in relationship to each other.
  • Now. This is a testing constellation. I want you to find the place that overwhelms you the most.
  • Then find the place that allows you to breathe easier
  • If possible, find a place that makes you feel hopeful or happy.

Now ask yourself:

  • When did this first start for you?
  • What was happening at the time?
  • What is your biggest fear? (this is the pattern that wants to stop)
  • What is your heart’s biggest desire? (this is the pattern that wants to emerge through you)
  • What one small thing might you do, think or say differently that might shift your mindset and the feelings in your body.
  • Write it down and place it beyond the other pieces of paper.
  • Now, see if you can move there and stand on that and notice what you tell yourself about that and how you feel.
  • Remember choosing this is the first step.
  • Accepting your choice is the second. That’s all you need to do for now.

Please feel free to let me know how this works for you. And of course, if you want to know more or explore this in more depth please reach out to me directly or attend one of my workshops. This year’s advanced class addresses Purpose and Clarity DNA and will be held at Disney World. Details can be found in the Workshops link above.

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Systemic Transformation: What Is It and How Do We Do It?

Many of you have shared how your lives have changed since you started doing constellations work. You ask how to do more of that on a daily basis and you also ask what transformation really means. Seeing as transformation means so many things to so many different people, the second half of that question is a little harder, but I am going to answer both from a systemic perspective.

Have you ever felt that full-on body experience that gives you goosebumps? Perhaps you even felt like you were in an altered state, seeing and feeling things differently and at that moment you knew something had shifted. You may even speak of it as a time or event that changed your life. For all too many of us, this happens when we have an event that forces us to change and not always in what feels like a good way at the time. We will say in retrospect it was a good thing but having to change from shock or urgency isn’t pleasant nor is it necessary.

Conscious change carries a whole other level of transformation. In this space, we intentionally identify places we wish to change and the ways we want to feel and then actively go about making both happen. We switch from victims to co-creators and refer to this space as euphoric and life-changing. Why?

We get so caught up in our day to day life that we forget all that we are truly capable of creating and experiencing the remarkable. It’s not that we are closed-minded it’s that we may be closed-hearted and when the heart closes, so does the mind. When we hold strong points of view, we often don’t look for others, and so our point of view can become a reality for us. We may say: “I can’t do x, I am simply not smart enough, tall enough, pretty enough” and then that becomes the truth. Only, it’s really just your truth and you can change that any time you want to.

It’s when we deeply desire something or run out of excuses and mindfully open our hearts and actively look for and envision what we truly desire that everything changes. We create our own space in our systems, using our unique voices and it feels incredible, wonderful and right.

We find with systemic work and constellations, that you are able to create transformation where the right space exists when you are in a particular frame of mind, and when you consciously choose to change. To change, you first have to acknowledge your life exactly the way that it is without wishing for it to be different. You stop resisting and struggling and look. Now, you are free to imagine what’s possible and explore other options. Then you have to choose that path and follow it all the way to the conclusion. In neuroscience, they would say you are rewiring your brain. In constellations work, we say that you are rewriting your multi-generational histories and your futures.

Now. Transformation. When you open your heart, you can see possibilities. As you raise your consciousness or awareness, you are capable of profound and lasting shifts. Constellations make use of multiple senses and patterns to facilitate that. By dimensionalizing your inner image so that you can see it, feel it and interact with it, you shift from a head exercise to that full body-heart-mind experience that facilitates change and transformation. At that moment you are literally changing who you are. Your brain is rewiring. Your future is no longer repetition of your ancestral history. You are writing a new chapter.

We see students of systemic work returning to explore more layers of themselves and we see successful executives and organizations specifically requesting systemic coaches. They understand that transformation is a way of life, not a one-time thing and they recognize that the integrated human brain, heart and gut system is an emerging capability for humanity.

Daily Transformation

And this is the second part of your question. How do you create transformation daily?

As always, it’s time to grow your constellations insight just a bit more. And by the way, I love hearing from those of you who use these free exercises and let me know the results. Thank you. Keep the comments coming. Please also remember that transformation is no longer a woo-woo word. These days for successful people, it’s a must in their toolkits.

Today I want you to write down something that you would really like to do, that you know would grow you in ways that would make you happy and fulfilled and yet, you don’t do it. Then put that piece of paper down on the floor and just notice what happens as it lies there. What do you tell yourself about it and how do you feel?

Write down on separate pieces of paper:

  • Why I can’t do that
  • Who first told me I couldn’t do it?
  • Who told them they couldn’t do it?
  • What it feels like to not do what I really want to do
  • What it would feel like to do that thing and be really good at it
  • What it might cost me if I did it?
  • What it might cost me if I don’t?

Now place that thing you want to do on the floor and then place all the other pieces of paper around it in a way that feels right to you. (Trust your gut on this one. You have a better inner guidance system than you suppose.)  They represent the edge of the conscience that has you stuck. Stand on or near each one. Notice all the inner sentences that stop you and ask are they really true or have you made them your reason for not writing your own chapter? Remember, if you don’t, those who come after you can’t either.

Then stand on that thing you really want to do. No censoring. Just stand there and allow yourself to feel what that feels like. Feel it as much as you can.

Finally, ask yourself:

  • Is my desire to do what calls me, strong enough to get me past what tells me I can’t. If not, what steps do I need to put in place to create enough weight to move to the desire.

Remember if you are excited to learn more, or stuck and wanting to move ahead, there are workshops to assist you to do just that. Please explore my Workshops and join me for a life-changing experience.

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Beyond Your Invisible Do’s and Don’ts

Often what stops you most in life are the invisible do’s and don’ts that keep you locked down. Let me explain. We are all part of many systems. Our family systems, the organizations we belong to, our sports communities, our religious communities. And each system has spoken and unspoken rules about the ways we belong, the place or order we inhabit, how much we should have and receive.

We know that cussing in church won’t get us any brownie points and praying in a bar might raise a few eyebrows. We shouldn’t get too big for our boots and we should give a lot and receive a little. In other words, we have a clear sense of the rules and instinctively adjust to each different system. In systemic work, we call this the conscience of the system. You might say it’s the edge of a system. The place you don’t go beyond. You will hear it in your own words – ‘I can’t do that; I will get into trouble. Or ‘My family won’t like that.’ These are words that tell us we know we’re going into bad conscience. In other words, we are going contrary to the current rules of the system.

In systems, we know that the only function of the conscience is to bond us to our groups. Ever noticed that we do some awful things like killing each other in a war in good conscience and yet we do some really good things when we step into what we call bad conscience.  In fact, this is quite a transformative place and our head, heart, gut, and neural pathways know it when we go there. Many times, we find ourselves wanting to hit the brakes even though we know this is going to grow us. It feels unfamiliar but…this is often the place where we begin to expand the system and write our own chapters. It’s a truly incredible place. Once you start stepping out of limiting patterns and into your own destiny, the incredible tends to unfold.

So, let’s talk about that place. I like to describe it as moving beyond the fences of a system. I worked with a client who came to see me because she was depressed, and she’d tried everything. As we spoke her tone was fairly flat. Her family life she said, was okay but boring. And then suddenly she lit up. I’d asked her about things she liked to do outside of work. And when she said, ‘I love to sing!’ her whole face just beamed. She told me her teachers and mentors said she had incredible talent but then she looked at me and said: “What a waste. I can’t do anything with it.”

I asked why not, and she said: “In our tradition, the daughter stays at home and takes care of the parents.” I asked what might happen if she were to do it differently and have a career in singing and still be able to care for her parents in some way? She insisted that it was not allowed. We spoke for a while and she described her parents as loving and kind, so I asked her to just have a little courage on her behalf and talk to her parents about her talent. She nodded and left promising to have ‘the talk’ but not convinced anything would change.

I received an email a few weeks later. Turns out her parents, immigrants to the U.S., had come here to make a new life, like so many of us do. Her mother had already taken the first steps in moving ahead and described to her daughter that it was difficult, yet right. They had moved here to give the children a different chance and were only too happy for her to take the next step. Notice how the mother said”: “It was difficult but right.” That’s the system asking to stretch through you. It can feel difficult and yet when we go there, we feel the weight off our shoulders and the possibility in our wings. I always remind my clients that this is not a selfish thing. To grow the system, it has to begin with each of us.

Putting It Into Practice: Beyond the Do’s and Don’ts 

As always, it’s time to grow your constellations insight just a bit more. And by the way, I love hearing from those of you who use these freebie practices and let me know the results. Thank you. Keep the comments coming. Please also remember that transformation is no longer a woo-woo word. These days for successful people it’s a must in their toolkits.

Today I want you to write down something that you would really like to do, that you know would grow you in ways that would make you happy and fulfilled and yet you don’t do it. Then put that piece of paper down on the floor and just notice what happens as it lies there. What do you tell yourself about it and how do you feel?

Write down on separate pieces of paper:

  • Why I can’t do that
  • Who first told me I couldn’t do it?
  • Who told them they couldn’t do it?
  • What it feels like to not do what I really want to do
  • What it would feel like to do that thing and be really good at it
  • What it might cost me if I did it?
  • What it might cost me if I don’t?

Now place that thing you want to do on the floor and then place all the other pieces of paper behind it in a row.  They represent the edge of the conscience that has you stuck. Stand on or near each one. Notice all the inner sentences that stop you and ask are they really true or have you made them your reason for not writing your own chapter? Remember if you don’t those who come after you can’t either.

Then see if you can step beyond them and stand on that thing you really want to do. No censoring. Just stand there and allow yourself to feel what that feels like. Feel it as much as you can.

Finally, ask yourself:

  • Is my desire to do what calls me, strong enough to get me past what tells me I can’t. If not, what steps do I need to put in place to create enough weight to move closer to the desire.