Category: Systemic Patterns

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Breaking the Systemic Trance and Multi-Generational Spell

Relationship DNA

People are a little surprised when I tell them that magicians, magic and spells are alive—and spells are cast every day and quite possibly you are under one too. Let me explain.

In the last two blogs, we spoke about orders and principles in systems. We also spoke about multigenerational patterns and systemic trances, the things that keep you stuck and limited. They often begin with inherited patterns that you accept as though they were the absolute truth when they are in fact, just your truth.

Teacher says: “Tammy, you are great at drawing but don’t ever speak in public. That’s not your thing, you stutter a little.” Tammy always loved speaking to people but the teacher knows best and so Tammy’s truth becomes that she is no good at speaking in public and she passes up any opportunity to do so.  When we look at her history we find that grandma and mom stuttered and now, so does Tammy. We call this a systemic trance – or as I said in the beginning – what the ancients probably referred to as a spell.

To break a systemic trance or a pattern, you first have to acknowledge that it exists, in the way it exists without wishing for it to be different. That doesn’t mean loving it. It just means acknowledging it. Now you know where ground zero is.

Once you acknowledge the pattern you will begin to notice how much it affects your life. It’s the ‘spell’ that has you stuck. And maybe generations of family or company members are stuck in a similar manner.

By having a deep desire for something different and feeling it and growing it, you begin to make a stronger case for yourself to be able to go there. Or– if the pull isn’t strong enough you see it as just wishful thinking and subside into the systemic trance or spell.

You do this all the time by the way. “I want to go to Hawaii on vacation. I’ve always wanted to travel and do something exciting but my mom and dad have always said this state has all we need. Never mind, I’ll watch travel channels. That’s good enough for me too. Maybe one day…”

And then there are the wonderful times when you exceed your inherited Emotional DNA and go the other way. “I want to go to Hawaii on vacation. I know Mom and Dad say this state has all we need but I have a deep desire to see a little more.” So off you go and before you know it mom and dad are along for the next vacation too. When you ask why they never went before they tell you that their parents couldn’t afford it and so they all did vacations close to home and saying “what’s in this state is good enough” was a systemic sentence they created so that everyone felt good and belonged.

When you change a pattern, it has an effect going back and forwards. You move the system in a new direction and many times the pattern that has become a limitation can now rest and a new one can emerge. Your heart’s desires are the system’s way of encouraging you to move beyond the limiting or redundant patterns that no longer serve the system. Sometimes a solution in one generation becomes a limiter in another. It has outlived its usefulness and it needs someone to change it.

You have just shifted from being limited in the same way, to doing things differently, remembering that everything that came before this has a place and a purpose and it led to you and to this moment of the switch. The systemic trance is broken and the ‘spell’ is no more.

Putting This Into Practice

Today I want you to write down a place where you feel really stuck or you keep bumping into the same brick wall over and over again. Put that onto the floor as a floor anchor – to make the invisible, visible and answer these questions:

  • When did you first notice you were stuck and how did that feel?
  • What did you tell yourself about that?
  • Is or was anyone in else your family stuck in the same way?
  • Are there family sayings or mottoes around this?

Now ask yourself how you would really like things to be and write that down and place it on the floor a little bit away from the first floor anchor. Stand on the first floor anchor and look at this new one and answer these questions:

  • How much do you want this?
  • What old pattern would it be breaking?
  • How might that change your life?

Final step still standing on the first floor anchor.

See if you can create a new thought and a new emotion strong enough to move you from where you are to where you want to be. When you feel that, allow yourself to move over to the second floor anchor and stand there. Now feel that and notice what thoughts and emotions you have at that new place.

If you keep investing in those new ways thoroughly, you will move out of the old systemic pattern and into a new neural pathway that you are creating consciously. Now you are breaking the old cycles and creating new Emotional DNA.

In our workshops, we take a much deeper dive into your systems, what makes them tick, how they affect you and how to change your life and dimensionalize issues and desires but this allows you to start getting a sense of your head, heart, gut and family systems working together. Good luck.

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How Multi-Generational Patterns in Systems Shape Your Life

Science shows that your brain is shaped and changed by your choices about your experiences every day. This is referred to as neural plasticity. Understanding what lives in your systems, beginning with your family system, can help you to change patterns, increase happiness, health and success.

Now, the theory piece. How does my ability to choose play out in theory?

What are multi-generational patterns in systems?

Patterns aren’t created by events in your life but by your decisions and actions about them. Events trigger reactions, thoughts and emotions that lead to decisions and actions. You create words, phrases and actions to support those decisions and they become mindsets or patterns. You think this is the truth when in fact it is just your truth.

Take it a step further. Your primary pattern maker is your family and your pattern may actually be a multi-generational one. (Remember you inherit your emotional DNA). Over time details of events fade but patterns get stronger until someone sees them and decides to change the Emotional DNA.

Example: You get divorced. Your siblings are all happily married. You tell yourself you are bad at relationships. That thought becomes your reality and it now governs your relationships. Let’s look a little deeper. In your family there are three generations of women who have all divorced at about the same age. This may be a multi-generational pattern and you might ask, who called themselves bad at relationships first?

How do they shape my life?

The bad news is that when a significant event frightens or stresses you, you tend to default to an old, maybe even multi-generational pattern, in times of stress. You may experience heightened states of anxiety and failure that seem inescapable. We call this a systemic trance.

Can I use them to create the life I want?

The good news is that you are able to change your Emotional DNA.

The extraordinary news is that once you understand what lives in your systems, you can shift limiting patterns and enhance successful ones transforming your life and creating success on a continual basis. Constellations and systemic work facilitate these shifts.

Often when you say you are stuck we call that the pattern that is trying to rest. Your heart’s desire and deepest wish often contains the pattern that is trying to emerge. The two patterns frequently sit alongside each other.

In our workshops, we show you how to access and process these patterns consciously to set down long held struggles and create success, happiness, peace and joy.

Exercise: Putting Patterns Into Practice

Now for the constellations piece. Again, we are going to use a simple exercise to dimensionalize what you are feeling and thinking. We are making the invisible, visible and the unconscious, conscious.

On a piece of paper, write down the one thing you would like to stop doing or experiencing in your life. Place it on the floor. Notice what you tell yourself and how you feel about it. You might even have a facial expression, a saying or an action that happens for you around that. Good. This is the pattern you are trying to stop.

Ask yourself are you the only one in your family who has had this experience? Or is it just like your father, mother, or perhaps someone else in the family?

Now write down your heart’s deepest desire or highest wish on another piece of paper. Place that on the floor in relationship to the first piece of paper. What does that feel like? What do you tell yourself or feel about that? Where do you feel it in your body?

Now take your place in relationship to these two pieces of paper. Notice: How close/distant you are to or from each one. Ask yourself how much do I want this? Do I really want this or do I just want to want this? Or am I even allowed to want this?

In my next blog, you will see there are things you can do to shift from the pattern that want to rest to the pattern that’s trying to emerge. One contains your fate, the other holds your destiny.

In our workshops, we take a much deeper dive with you but this allows you to start getting a sense of your head, heart and gut working together. Good luck.

Write to me with questions or insights or attend a workshop to learn more.

 

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Use Systemic Work to Create Your Own Success

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.

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Unleashing the Emerging Pattern in Your Life

{% load account_tags %}Often, we are deeply loyal to the failure and suffering that may run generations deep in our family systems. It’s interesting how this loyalty to failure often makes us blind to the gifts that are also ours from our systems.

In systems, there are 3 principles that are entry and exit points for most of the issues and struggles we experience:

  • Belonging
  • The balance of give and receive
  • Order

This means that we can often hold ourselves back in these areas—but we also can find our gifts in these areas too. In other words, what ails us sits right next to the solution to our happiness and fulfillment.

In your own experience, there are patterns that you picked up from your systems that are running in your own experience. Some might be causing you to suffer while others may be the key to your success.

There are two parts to these patterns: 1. the patterns that want to rest and may be generations over and ready to stop—and 2. the patterns that are trying to emerge—through you!

We are often so unconsciously entangled with the challenging patterns, that we cannot see the winning patterns that are right in front of us – trying really hard to attract our attention through our wants and desires. Life is truly remarkable if you only know how to see it.

Let me share two examples of unhealthy patterns which transformed once we took a systemic look to see what new pattern was trying to emerge.

I worked closely with someone who had struggled with money since they were a child. Another client was always sad and wanted very much to be happy, but was afraid it would cost her everything. For both, the common denominator was a family pattern around belonging.

In each case, events in their lives had created thoughts, emotions and actions that had them trapped and feeling their sense of belonging in an unhealthy way.

As we looked closer at these patterns, we could see that the ways in which they were stuck had begun generations before and cycled down through them. Their family history was becoming their likely future.

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Now let’s take a systemic look at each one.

The money struggle. As a child, this person had been left alone but was able to find just enough money to be able to eat. History revealed that many family members had struggled to stay alive. The words they heard most were “Money is a struggle.” When they could notice, instead, that they were resilient, resourceful and creative, they could say “Money is always there for me.” Now rather than it being a struggle, money could become a desired friend. Through them, money could finally flow.

For the one who was always sad and afraid of losing everything, they were mostly afraid of losing their family if they were to be happy. A terrible event in the family generations before had resulted in the sentence: “We will never be happy again”—and everyone had quite unconsciously followed that declaration. They were all caught in a systemic trance. Breaking it might mean exclusion or not belonging. Acknowledging what had happened, they could do something to remember the event and agree to use it, with gratitude, as a catalyst for a good life. Their gift was to finally bring happiness back to the family system.

Being in these old patterns and places of doubt can be scary. We are stuck and often scared but we don’t know why. This indicates a pattern that’s trying to rest. Yet in that same place, our wonderful ability to desire more is the clue to the pattern that’s trying to emerge. That tug isn’t greedy or selfish – it’s the system’s way of trying to get you to grow. You may feel it as a heart’s desire to be, do or have more. That is the gift, your legacy, your voice and your destiny.

Often places of struggle indicate the system’s deep desire to create positive change in the system. Learn to love your struggles and your desires. They are the places that unlock your life!

Start your journey now by diving into my Flight of Transformation: Unleashing the Emerging Pattern workbook. If you’re traveling somewhere, download it and take it with you. Transformation could literally be a flight away for you. Click here to download the workbook now!

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Interactive Genealogy Is About to Change Your Life

Genealogy is more than a record of your ancestry. It holds the clues to where you belong, and how and why you struggle or succeed. And if you know how to look at what’s in your lineage, it may just change your life–now and for generations to come.

Using what you know to decode your Emotional DNA and recode your future

This is a shout-out to ancestry.com, 23andme.com, and all of you who have eagerly pursued your roots (myself included). It’s exciting to find out where you come from and to whom you’re related but the question is, what do you do with that information?

Most of us connect, smile and close the computer. Some of us are driven to trace our roots back as far as we can, and we’re even a bit fascinated by the similarities we may uncover. However most of us don’t realize that clues to our own success are contained in events and decisions made by our ancestors. They shape who we are for generations–until someone chooses to be the changemaker.

Applying systemic work and exploring family constellations can show you what to do with what you’ve learned about your ancestry through interactive genealogy. By exploring our ancestry through a deeper systemic lens, we begin to see that actions, language, mindsets, successes and failures often repeat. In fact, you might ask yourself if your limitations and failures began with you.

The conscious awareness of what lives in our system stops our history from becoming our future.

You’ve heard me say many times not only do we inherit our physical DNA, we also inherit our Emotional DNA. You may want to look at your thoughts and points of view and see if indeed they belong to you and if they serve you. If the answer is no, then also know this. The future is yours to change!

Decisions about the significant events in our families create patterns that can affect our success and failure without us realizing that the inheritance has trickled down to us. So sometimes when we feel stuck or lost it may pay us to do more than just look at where we belong. In fact, it may not even be our stuck-ness!

Using the systemic approach and constellations, we can illuminate hidden patterns, and work to resolve or reframe them. We can turn our limitations into the gifts and opportunities they were meant to be.

You are the changemaker. Once you know what lives in your systems, beginning with your family system you can consciously decide what to keep, what to change and what to leave behind.

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Explore the next step on your journey of discovery with me, and dive into Emotional DNA and Your Genealogy in my 1-day workshop at Disney World in Florida.