(00:00) You’re inside connected with your ancestors with the people from your past and also several generations. You have all the time access to have that connection with them. You’ve told me in session that my past dynamics with men either in my family or in my romantic life don’t have to inform or be a template for my future.
(00:26) We just need to reconcile ourselves with the way we were in the past relationships. The way those partners were. We chose them because we were the way we were. There are only three things that we cannot control. Life, love, and death. We’re helpless also in front of our mothers. Deep inside our psyche, everybody fears the mother.
(00:50) If you still carry things that are unresolved from your family of origin, how can you make it happen in a good way in your present family or partnership? It’s about Hi and welcome back to Reclamation Radio. I am Dr. Kelly Brogan and today I sit down to discuss the hot topic of relationships. both moving beyond past relationships and readying yourself for healthy love with family constellation practitioner and therapist Elitsa Velikova whom I was introduced to by my glorious friend Vana Lazerova and I had the opportunity to be in one of her workshops which was so inspirational to me that I have recorded several solos which I’ll link to below on the practices that allowed me to see
(01:38) these covert dynamics that are still going on related to my family of origin as applies to romance and partnership. So in this episode we will talk about why your past with your family of origin with your past romantic partners does not have to repeat into your future.
(02:06) how you can shed this belief that this is just how you are in relationships. We’ll also talk about the three things that are important to resolve with your mama in order to have and experience healthy love. We’ll talk about what a good ending with a past romantic partner actually looks like.
(02:30) And we’ll talk about who is more responsible for your relationship patterns, your mama or your papa, and the roles that they play relative to each other and relative to you in patterning these experiences of rejection, betrayal, abandonment, and essentially where it is that we need to move to in order to liberate ourselves from these dynamics. Enjoy.
(02:54) Welcome, Haley, to the show. Thank you so much for inviting me today. It’s such a pleasure. I am very interested in using this time to dive into a lot of the material on relationships that we worked through in a workshop that you brought to Miami recently. I had the distinct honor and pleasure of meeting you in person and have continued to work with you since.
(03:21) And it’s such an honor. you are such a uniquely gifted and wise woman and before we do that you know there’s so many modalities that I’m sure you could be tapping into and you have a very open I would say like a very open channel you know like you are extremely intuitive and I would love to know actually because I’ve never asked you know why it is that family constellation therapy is your focus you know you travel the world I mean you’re extremely busy and service-oriented woman and it seems like one of the driving passions behind that schedule is really your
(04:02) commitment to to this work. So, I’d love to hear a little bit about what family consolation therapy is to you and and why you feel so passionately about it as do I, you know, like where where does it come from? To be honest, I think family constellation found me rather than me finding family constellation. And since then, I’m on fire about this work.
(04:23) Actually, I went like many people as a non-believer. And the first I I think many people who do family constellation as participants for the first time do not believe in what the field can expose and reveal to us until they become actually a representative. So I was um I think already about 20 years ago uh for the first time a participant and then immediately I was pulled into the field to represent somebody and I’m there as a student of psychology and kind of very academic at that time wondering what the hell I’m doing there and suddenly when
(05:03) I’m into the field there is a whoosh of emotion coming from that lady that I was representing and I start to cry in front of people which I would never believe that I would do. And then um it was beyond me. It was out of my control. And I think at that moment I really felt like this is something that I want to study and go deeper into because it’s not happening out of my analytical mind or what I know from the textbooks.
(05:32) It’s purely happening in the moment and I’m guided. This is what I be I really feel passionate about. I’m guided through this process and as much as I can, I just don’t put obstacles to it. This is a work that is very organical. So, it’s very custommade.
(05:51) It’s designed for everyone in such a unique way that it’s never revealed too much or how can I say it’s it’s like you just get what whatever you’re able to take in that moment. So, it comes in a very uh customized way for the level that you can take at that moment. And I imagine that many people listening are familiar because I’ve had my teacher and friend Omarly Centenno on the show a couple times and I am I like to joke like a door-to-door salesman about family constellation.
(06:24) Like I’m so passionate about it because I enjoy shifts, right? Like so many people, I enjoy seeing in my material world the evidence that my input actually yielded something. And pretty much every time I enter into a constellation field, I see a shift, whether as a participant or as, you know, somebody who’s actually constellating.
(06:48) A lot of folks may imagine that it involves psycho drama, right? So that it involves sort of like acting out all of your, you know, childhood grievances or that it’s even like, you know, a catharsisbased uh kind of modality. You referenced that you’re guided, right? And so I wonder if you can speak a little bit to like what you actually believe is going on in these fields where I can put a total stranger as a representative of my father and another of my brother and another of my mother and my daughter and I can witness and allow to be exposed to the light of my awareness these dynamics that feel more true than anything I could have even decided on my own is the
(07:28) case. Right? It’s like it’s like a it’s a a revelation truly. And when you’re in the field, you don’t have to necessarily be somebody who’s like heavily meditated and knows all about, you know, being attuned to their body. I mean, my sense is that pretty much anybody could be a representative, you know, and somehow know how it is that they feel towards the other representatives, somehow access their own experience as this other stranger that they are symbolizing.
(08:05) So, what do you actually not that you need to know, by the way, like I don’t think these things need answers, and I don’t certainly don’t think we need to invoke quote unquote science, but what do you actually think goes on? Like, how would you explain to somebody who’s new to Family Constellation what they’re getting involved with? Cuz I’ve tried a lot of times and I don’t think I’m doing like a great job. It’s it’s very difficult cuz it’s so mysterious.
(08:29) To be honest, the best way to explain the family consolation is to invite somebody to be a participant, of course. But speaking about it, it’s um I would say that for me the most intriguing thing about this method is that there is a part that is unexplainable or let’s say it’s not yet explained by science. There are already some data that has been gathered about quantum physics and quantum entanglements and the fact that we are all connected which is scientifically proven and um you know you can find some thread of information that points to the fact that we are incredibly connected
(09:09) energetically and also in many invisible ways with everybody that is important to us. But it’s most most importantly with the people that we are bloodreated and who are part of our destiny and part of our life. I believe that synchronicities always guide us even outside. The field is present everywhere.
(09:34) It’s not just in the therapeutic room where we set up to do a constellation. The field is everywhere. Even right now that we’re talking, you’re inside connected with your ancestors, with the people that they’re from your past that you had relationships with and also several generations. You have them inside of you and you have all the time access to have that connection with them if you want.
(10:01) Of course, luckily we don’t have to move in that field all the time connected. We can disconnect when we need. But when we enter therapeutically, this field becomes available to all who are present. Because it is not only for us, it is for everybody who is part of that circle.
(10:21) If you are today with me in my constellation, it means that you are somehow related to me spiritually. Which means that we are in some way part of a bigger spiritual family or community. And that means that today maybe through my consolation, through doing service to somebody else, I would be able also to do something for myself by just being a channel or being um a resonator with somebody that will open the possibility for me to also move through my own issues or have a revelation. So the knowing field is present everywhere.
(10:53) It has been observed as morphogenetic fields, same as with birds or flocks of fish. And there are many uh biological systems that are showing the same movements that they’re basically guiding us these movements towards evolution. But the evolution happens through insight, through awareness. And when a hidden dynamic is shown in the field and you have a revelation, you from that moment on have a choice how to move on in life. You have seen it.
(11:24) You can go the same way and there is no evolution or you can change something and then based on the experiences of your ancestors who gave you a certain label with your DNA. It means science is trying to catch up with something that has already been there and it has already been there for many many years before all of these fancy etiquettes came along.
(11:48) It’s wonderful that we can now find the right words to explain it also scientifically. But the most important thing is you have responsibility. Once you see a pattern or a model or something where you belonged and that wasn’t going well for your ancestors, a trauma that has happened in the field, you can heal not the past.
(12:08) You can heal the future and of course yourself in the present. you will still be holding on a little bit of that tension because you’re the middleman between the past and the future, but you’re the first one that can change the direction of something that has been going on.
(12:27) So, I believe that the field comes and invites only those who have the the braveness to actually go a little bit more alone with a little sense of responsibility for changing the the past, the old. I agree that you know the sort of how it works is for me it’s just like a fun chat but it’s really immaterial to and it’s irrelevant to the actual experience that you either show up for literally like there’s some reason that your body shows up at a workshop or a group setting or it doesn’t and like so many of these modalities you get attracted to that
(13:03) which will very likely you know serve you and it’s it’s funny I was thinking about when you were talking about being a representative, right? Because you can come to a a group constellation and you can be the one who is constellating your stuck pattern, whether it’s with finances or in relationships or with your health or you can support somebody else’s constellation as a representative. I’m just sort of explaining this context a little bit.
(13:34) And so I participated in like probably I don’t know 15 or so constellations, group constellations over the course of a couple of years and over and over and over and they were what is called blinded which means that the the constellator is choosing who is representing let’s say her parents but the people who were chosen don’t know who they’re representing. That was sort of the style uh that I was participating in anyway.
(13:59) And I would get chosen over and over and over again as people’s fathers. I mean, it became almost a joke by like time 10 that I got picked and I would find out after the constellation like who I was, right? That I was picked as people’s fathers. And I had this like very compelling, insightful, and compassioninducing experience where I could almost feel this stillness in my body that was very foreign to me that I can only imagine approximates something like a male system. This is super super interesting. And then when I left my last marriage, I
(14:38) constellated probably within a week or two and I was in a very raw state and that was the first time and there were many subsequent chosen to be someone’s mom. Isn’t that amazing? So it was like some energetic shift and even I remember you know my my daughter reflecting to me how much softer I seemed at that time where I was of course like broken open you know and there was some energetic you know something that I was putting off and again I don’t know these people for the most part I’m sitting there quietly it’s
(15:11) not like you know I come with my resume or something and I found that absolutely you know fascinating that there there is um an experience you can have as a representative that allows you to to to gain sort of more insight into something that you are resonating with, right? Or you wouldn’t have been chosen.
(15:37) And also sometimes you just see something that you don’t even know that you were carrying. for example, then you take it into your own story, maybe with your own father or with your own mother, and then you suddenly are given the gift of understanding something that you didn’t even have the question for. Yeah, I love that.
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(17:29) So you’ve told me in session if I could summarize you know that my personally that my past dynamics you know with men either in my family or in my romantic life don’t have to inform or be a template for my future dynamics right and that sounds fantastic and would to many women right especially who are in you know the liinal space uh between relationships and the the shadow of working on yourself so that you could become a a woman who is more available for healthy love is the message that there’s something wrong with you to begin with.
(18:09) Right? So it sort of reinforces that and in my experience zooming out to encompass the role of my parents or you know anyone’s mother and father in these relationship patterns and templates. It really relieves that burden I guess while also allowing you to take responsibility only for the things that you actually can control. All right? So not for the things that potentially got handed down to you.
(18:43) So I want to talk a little bit about how it is that you see the process of coming into healthy love based dynamics and the role you know that our parents play in these yeah repeated and ongoing and persistent struggles around you know experiences of betrayal or rejection or abandonment and I wonder if we can to that, you know, to that end, maybe start with how you think about romantic partnerships in general, right? Like how how what do you think they’re for? How do you think they get made? And do you think there is kind
(19:27) of a maturational arc that most of us follow when it comes to relationships? Because there’s certainly some folks who get married young, grow together, have what appears to be, you know, very beautiful intimacy, and then there are others who continue to search for the experience of love and and encounter, you know, many of their own habits and patterns that feel almost like a like a part of us.
(20:01) It’s like how do I separate myself from the ways that I’ve learned to love which are deeply uh intertwined with a lot of dysfunction and and trauma and and stress related physiology and responses. So yeah, I’d love to sort of set the stage just hearing a bit about how you think about uh relationships in in people’s lives. I mean I’ve never seen a person who for whom this topic is not an evergreen topic.
(20:27) If if they are in a relationship, of course, that is the topic. And then if you don’t have a relationship, you’re looking for one. So, it’s both conditions do not we do not feel fulfilled or satisfied or settled in either of them because I think we’re not meant to have the settlement. I believe that through relationships, we learn the most.
(20:53) and not only learning but it’s also a process of learning and teaching at the same time it’s um exchange I believe that exactly like in the principles of Kabala which I’m not an expert on but I just use that very mainstream principle which is as much as you give as much as you receive in the relationship it’s a circulation of the good as well as a circulation of the bad if you are given something you can take it, receive it with gratitude from your partner, a teaching, a lesson, sometimes the good and then of course you can return it with a little bit on top. When it is with a positive sign, you return it with
(21:32) a little bit on top and then the other person can receive that a little bit more and then he or she can return it back to you in the same way and then the good can evolve. But then of course sometimes in the relationships we give to each other with the negative sign and then the principle there is to give a little bit less of the negative.
(21:58) It’s not about forgiving or just swiping it away or saying oh you know it’s nothing we just continue or taking vengeance or separating necessarily. Sometimes you do but not necessarily. And then it’s about the exchange and teaching and learning becomes the same process in the relationship. Because if I teach you something, it means I am giving you the possibility to know about me and where I am.
(22:29) And if you receive that, you can also give me back your perception of what you take from me. So I mean it is something of um an of um unity that becomes between two people. This sounds too much maybe romantic but in reality the principles are very how can I say orderly. There are orders of love the way bird hen called it and there are certain conditions that really need to happen before you can find the right flow in a relationship.
(22:57) One of them, of course, is related to the family of origin. If you still carry things that are unresolved from your family of origin, how can you make it happen in a good way in your present family or partnership? It’s about letting go of some burdens, the patterns, knowing your history, knowing where you come from, what has happened to your ancestors, why it happened, and separating from that with respect, with love.
(23:32) It is something that you do not by throwing away what’s burdening you. It’s by honoring their way of living, their choices, sometimes their inability to act, their suffering, their traumas, whatever they survived or lived through. It’s something that you separate yourself from because your loyalty might have made you repeat the same pattern in your own life.
(23:58) Now if you realize those patterns, you can just go down symbolically and leave the imprints consciously in your mind to those who actually experience them. Do not make good company to let’s say women who were always betrayed in relationships and you’re the next one or men who has always been unfaithful. It’s about changing a pattern and the first one who notices that they’re at the end of that pattern has the responsibility or the choice to actually change that.
(24:34) So leaving the past is one of the conditions separating with love. The other condition would be to mature or to grow up to what I’m saying is about becoming responsible for your own life. If you still hold grudges to your parents that they’re this way or that way or that they didn’t give you enough or if they were different kinds of parents, maybe I would be a better person and I will have a better start in life or at least I will be like the others who had better parents. As much as you have some kind of grudge about
(25:12) the way you were raised, it means you have a grudge about life the way it came. So in that way you hold the parents responsible for your happiness today and you put a condition to your happiness and in that case to your love. So basically let’s say like this of course you need to do maybe some additional inner child work or something where you can and heal and give love to the inner child in you because you do have um reasons to be emotionally unsatisfied or because you were wounded.
(25:49) But at the same time now as a mature person you need to understand that you have everything that you need in order to create a good relationship. What I mean by that is that you are equipped with everything necessary right now and you can provide for yourself and start asking support from elsewhere not from the parents. In that way you mature otherwise you remain the child who will always look for more from the parents.
(26:19) And so the third condition would be to also look at your past or previous relationships. So to release the past means not only the parents and the burdens from the larger past but also the past relationships, our exes and to be honest everyone matters. We think that maybe there is just you know um the serious relationships that they’re giving us the imprints but actually everyone that we have allowed to be close to us even for a very short time matters and it just means that you need to be able to look at the past and go
(27:01) over the things that didn’t go well. Take what you need to take as a understanding from them. separate with love sounds um maybe too much simple but actually there are so many unprocessed emotions from past relationships that can litter the new one and we enter into a new relationship with all the filters of the past.
(27:28) So we just need to reconcile ourselves with the way we were in the past relationships. The way those partners were, we chose them because we were the way we were. And so there are no wrong partners. There are always right partners for the reasons that they came exactly because we were the way we were. And when we take responsibility, this is a good ending.
(27:51) Taking responsibility means to acknowledge the part that is my responsibility for what happened and the way I was treated. And I don’t mean violence, of course, God forbid, but I mean to the point of where I can say I attracted you into my life because you were the one that I can learn from in this period of my life or I attracted you because I was loyal to all the women in my past who had those kind of experiences.
(28:24) So I just didn’t know but I was the one that was asking to have that experience to be loyal to them. So in a way taking responsibility means you’re already starting to distance yourself from what happened and then move on in a new way.
(28:49) So when we look at these patterns, right, like let’s say a pattern of infidelity, right? Like every guy you’ve ever been with always cheats on you and that’s your narrative and you’re feeling, you know, it’s familiarity and also it’s constraint and you’re at a point in your life where you want to to attract and manifest something quite different, right? You might look back and when you talk about this loyalty, you might look back on your motherline and see that that story has been held by many other women who were cheated on, so to speak.
(29:21) And you know, you might be in loyalty to that pattern or you might be in some sort of compensation for it, right? where you don’t get into relationships or maybe you’re the one who cheats first so that you cannot experience what these others in your line have experienced. But either way, there is an inshment and a sharing of responsibility that isn’t representative of our sovereign distinct destinies, right? And and and paths.
(29:51) So, you know, when we talk about our patterns in this way, you can see almost like these causal dynamics. You can see what may be driving what otherwise seems just like kind of semi- random experiences that we, you know, we have as we bump around the earth. And it’s interesting that you mentioned inner child work because I know that you also, you know, sort of layer that in to your constellation work, but the most pivotal con basically my first constellation that that really changed the game to me uh for me rather my inner child, my inner girl was one of the entities, right, that was represented on
(30:30) the board. And that’s actually seeing her vivified in this way is what affirmed the necessity for me to to leave really uh my my last dynamic. And the it’s not, you know, had nothing to do in some ways with with the actual relationship like it was it was just a recognition of these inner influences, right? whether it’s my inner child or my ancestry or my parents that are working something out through my behavior and seeing again like you said the choices that arise when you uh become aware. No, just because there are many different layers
(31:16) and the child is let’s say the emotional layer that we work with and then you relate to her because you see yourself in your emotional self and you recognize that this emotional self is exactly causing the trouble or is part of the conflict in the relationship that is acting out right now.
(31:41) So then you can take care of what’s yours in that relationship and then sometimes that means that the relationship should end. So I want to speak more about the role of our mothers and our fathers in our present day life and the kinds of practices that you took us through in that workshop.
(32:02) But before we do that, I want to kind of double click on what you brought up, which is the completion of past romantic relationships and the imperative to complete those relationships. Uh you said something that I thought was so profound and I’d love you to speak a little bit more to it. You said saying yes to love is saying yes to the end which is ultimately saying yes to death.
(32:31) And what did you mean by that? Saying yes to love life, saying yes to love, I would say they’re pretty much the same. uh brings on the topic of death because actually the first object of our love is our mother and unfortunately we are bonded to her through our survival and so love and survival become intricately connected. So we love but also we are biologically wired to survive which means that from then on love and whatever we need to do in order to survive to adapt become entangled. So if we say yes to love, it means that we say yes to something that
(33:15) we cannot control, that is out of our control. And there are only three things that we cannot control, which is life, love, and death. That’s why I’m putting them kind of equal. These are things that we cannot make happen. We don’t have any chance of controlling them which means that they bring out fear because we’re helpless.
(33:41) We’re helpless also in front of our mothers and we don’t want to think in these terms because we’re grown up people independent functional and all of that but actually deep inside our psyche I believe that everybody fears the mother and it’s even represented in some art as you know the big spider and um so many different mythological creatures because we she’s so great in our first days, years and months of of life that actually we cannot admit that we are so much under so much influence.
(34:16) And then of course if we haven’t had the first period of our life in a good way with her that whatever attachment we developed or wounds or deeper traumas that happened, they will influence the first relationship that we have with a partner. And so the next person that we want to let in will have that imprint of the fear of what happened in the first days with our mother in the first month.
(34:49) And that’s why I believe that here the situation with our mother will be really important to look at to uh come back to trust and I would say it shortly go beyond the mother. Go beyond means to take her in three movements. Three movements. Take her as she is. Accept. Accept. That is a word that is very difficult to actually really make it through inside. But accept the mother.
(35:21) And then at the same time, once you’re kind of one with her, you need to be able to also go away from her. And going away for some people are much more difficult than coming closer. So if coming closer means acceptance, going away means leaving her alone, leaving her to her own destiny, leaving her the burdens that I carry with her, for her instead of her to her.
(35:49) And then also meaning feeling a little bit more alone and you know so many complications to this movement away from her. And then the third movement will be to actually turn around. And turning around what does it mean? She’s behind me. She I feel her as a resource but I make her a resource. It’s not that she needs to be there deserving that place, you know.
(36:08) It’s not a by deserving. It’s she’s there as a resource because she’s a portal or a gate for the life to come through. And if I can make her stand in that place, even though she was not the mother that I needed when I was a child, still if I place her now as my resource, I would receive all the energy that I need for my life on and that means I take responsibility and I turn around into my own life, but I am in good terms with her standing behind me. So that is going beyond the mother.
(36:45) If if we’re able to accept her, take her in, move away from her, and take responsibility, turn towards our own life, I think you’re whole. You’re a person that is ready for a relationship, at least on the basic level. So, the companion community and program to my new book, The Reclaimed Woman, is called Reclaimed.
(37:11) It is a step-by-step six-w week approach to love your shadow, embody your feminine gifts, and to experience the specific pleasure of who you are. If you have followed all the good independent girl rules, and you still feel overwhelmed, resentful, and disappointed, you may think that you need to practice or learn or study how to be more soft, slow, abundant, and pleasure-led as a feminine woman.
(37:37) Or you might think that you have to be brave and courageous and finally stand up for what’s yours. But the truth is that chasing femininity and fighting for power will just leave you more wired, judgmental, and disconnected. There’s a plot twist, a big reveal, and a hidden path that does not require rose petals and goddess circles or declaring yourself a queen or learning the tricks of a high value woman.
(38:05) You need a huge permission field that can be conferred by other like-minded andhearted women and perhaps my fairy dust to help you remember who you are. I want you to imagine what it would be like to feel a rush of pride as you decline an invitation without a trace of fear or defensiveness.
(38:29) or to sip your tea as you watch your husband fix the door hinge, feeling like the prize who won the prize, remembering when you used to think that you needed to show him how to do everything right. Or to feel the breeze move over your body and a wave of pleasure roll through you, opening your eyes wider to the dancing leaves and the light fragrance in the air.
(38:50) or to wait in the car line for your kiddo, hear your phone ding with a notification and smile that you’re making 3K while mommying. Or maybe to feel the charge of a trigger move from your chest down to your stomach, letting it swirl until a smile creeps onto your face because you know now exactly what you need to create from this energy.
(39:14) or maybe to never be afraid of symptoms or illness again because you know that your body does not make mistakes. Let me show you how to claim the confidence, creativity, and pleasure that are already there awaiting the safe conditions to emerge in 6 weeks. The link is in show notes. I will see you in there.
(39:39) You offered this phrase in a practice related to what you’re talking about where we were able to feel in our bodies what it was like to move closer and farther and then turn away from a representative of our mothers relative to our partners who were also or potential partners who are also in the field.
(39:58) You offered this phrase that is you are something like right correct me if I get it wrong but you are the only mother for me and the partner is one of many and and so especially us romantics right um there is this notion of like the the one and only and of course if that relationship you know ends and you’re in the recovery process still imagining that maybe you lost the thing you were meant to deep somehow that is um my understanding from your perspective is a projection right of of that mother onto the the partner.
(40:37) So I I’d love for you to speak a little bit about that because I thought it was I’d never heard somebody use that phrase before, you know, and maybe you could say correctly so I don’t bastardize it and I think it’s such a um it’s it’s emblematic of adult consciousness in a way that you can’t argue with, right? Same thing from another angle.
(40:58) Basically with the mother, yes, she is the only one. We cannot have another one in this life. Partner, you say yes to somebody out of your free will and choice. Which means that you have survived before that person many many years. Which means that this person is there by his own or her own choice and by your own choice.
(41:27) which means that he’s every day you need to recheck with yourself is my choice still valid for me. That makes the person choosable or unchoosable. Yeah. Is that how you say it? Um means that you can you you are you are open to choose every day and check with yourself. Do I want the same person? Am I ready to continue? And that will make the relationship very fresh. It will make it real.
(42:00) When you say yes to somebody and you say that’s it for life, nothing is going to separate us. Yes, you can feel that in your heart. I’m giving it my all and I think it will be forever. But it is not forever because there is no other option. It’s forever because I choose it and I choose it every day. So in that case you can be with just one person forever but it will be out of your choice and not out of the fear because many people hold on to a relationship out of fear.
(42:34) And then if you see a partner that you cannot survive without it means that right now you’re acting as the child. The child is abandoned. An adult is not abandoned and can never be abandoned because actually the adult can take care of themselves and they can be alone or sometimes lonely but not abandoned.
(42:59) So therefore to make the parallel between the mother and the partner almost everybody has an imprint of that first relationship with the mother knowingly or not. and the way you treat your mother most probably you will find traces of that in the way you treat a partner or love in general. So that means that we need to look really in our head we can do that as an exercise.
(43:24) See your mother, see the partner and then you see the two people back and forth and you check with yourself. Do I feel equal to partner and small in front of mother? Do I feel in exchange with partner and do I feel that I can receive from mother? These are different positions and they need to be very clearly made difference inside of us so that they can be distinct and we can still have problems with our mother but at the same time we don’t have to put them bring them into the relationship with a partner. You can work with mother as much as you want but don’t involve a
(44:02) partner any partner. That’s why I was saying you can still have a good relationship even if you had many traumas because it’s the ability to see what I carry knowing knowing what I have makes me in charge of it. And then the more you understand your past behaviors and your history or uh what you carry from your original family, the more you will be able to stay clean out of those in your present relationship.
(44:34) But it takes it’s work you know I think relationships are work to put it shortly after your other question about relationships it’s work and requires courage and emotional maturity and exposure to yourself actually not so much to the other it’s to yourself yes exactly maybe that’s exactly what they are technology for is exposure to to yourself so I want to circle back a bit to the completion topic because you have so much to say about this that I haven’t really heard elsewhere.
(45:09) And I think there’s just so many people who can relate who either still feel like this yearning for a past partner or maybe they have romanticized the relationship and feel like they’re never going to have something like that again or uh you know maybe there’s something they could have done differently or whether it’s you know probably the much more common you know experience of resentment and bitterness and blame and maybe even contempt.
(45:41) So, you know, when you when you were speaking to us about completion of a relationship, like what does that even mean? You suggested that it might mean that you actually want this person to be happy with another person. So, I’d love for you to speak a little bit about what it looks like, right? So, we did a practice and there were healing statements.
(46:07) What does it look like in terms of the sentiments and the intentions and the orientation to towards this person when you have come to completion like what what does that process potentially look like? How do you know that you have separated from somebody in a good way? So what is a good ending? The good ending is basically the one where you can wish for this person at the end of the day to be happy with somebody else.
(46:36) If you are not truly feeling that inside of you, it just means that there are still things that you’re holding on to from the relationship or the way it ended or it could even be related to something earlier that this relationship is bringing up to the surface. And so the good ending is the one where each partner takes responsibility for their share and their part of what has happened and what brought it to an end.
(47:02) And also it requires that you do feel gratitude. To be honest, even in the worst kind of relationships, after a while and after healing, you can find the real meaning of that relationship for yourself in your life. If you have done a good therapeutic work, then you will truly be able to congratulate yourself for going through that process and having that experience and you come out a different person. That is already good enough. You won’t be the same person.
(47:34) Hopefully, after healing, you’re not broken. But even with that negative experience, you can use it to create something much better in the future. So gratitude is the second ingredient. And the third one is when you can feel happy for the person himself or herself just because that signifies that what connected you is truly on a deep level love. I don’t want you for for me.
(48:05) I want you to be happy in your own path. It’s about saying yes to the individual path of each of the partners, your own path and his or her own path. Which means that basically you have more reverence to the mission to the meaning of your life and the life of your partner rather than the meaning of staying together because I need you.
(48:30) In that way, you remain respectful to life and respectful to the force that brought you together. And maybe that same force at some point will say, well, you know, you walk that stretch and it’s enough. And then you take your own way and you you’re needed here and the other person is needed somewhere else.
(48:49) And then if you can respect that, you will be able to walk away and then feel happy about this person or this person just wants to go away. Possessiveness is something that we carry from childhood and possessiveness means that I uh you’re not free from my demands and I’m not free from needing you and then the oxygen in that relationship will definitely finish.
(49:20) So, what are some of the the phrases that you might say in practice, right, in your in your own experience or maybe even in the field to this exartner? It’s like a small ritual and sometimes it’s not a one-time thing that you do. It’s a process.
(49:44) So, of course, depending on what happened and the context of that relationship, it might take a longer process before you’re able to truly say those sentences. But basically, it’s like that you were important to me and you will always have a place in my heart as my partner or one of my partners or the father or the mother of my children. I take responsibility for my part of what happened between us. And I take with me what I cherish.
(50:11) And you can even count for yourself what are the things that you can take with you as insights or good experiences for you to which you’re grateful. And I take with me this and this. And then I give back. I leave with you. I release from myself some of the things that I want to release. What I want to leave behind. I’m separating with this person.
(50:38) Which means that basically it’s good for me if I leave all the stuff that I don’t want to carry there. It means that I’m also separating from that part of me that was with that person because maybe with that person I have to leave my old self or aspects of myself as well. And so I leave behind these and these and these characteristics of me which I don’t actually feel like caring more and maybe I leave some hurt or if there were things that I want to name it would make it more strong more personal and then I take back to myself not just the things that I’m grateful for but what I want to reclaim is your word Kay reclaiming.
(51:24) It’s like coming back to something that maybe I have lost along this road with this partner which I now want to come back to. I always suggest to people to remember who they were before they met that partner with the added value of the experience that they had in this relationship now.
(51:45) So they were most probably in a good state when they met their partner. Almost always the uh true love happenings come at a point where you feel good with yourself from that point means okay I was like that is there something that I lost because I lost myself in this relationship can I take it back it’s mine so these are the sentences I take back or I reclaim and then I wish you something well good with somebody else I wish you good with somebody else I release you from my entire being and I let you free from my expectations that you should be different and I release myself from my expectations that I should have been
(52:30) different. It’s like this go in peace and I go with peace. So these are reconciliation sentences and if you hear me say I never use the word forgiveness because I believe that forgiveness puts you in a place where you are kind of above the other person or you’re in a position to uh free the other person of their guilt which I don’t think we have the possibility to do.
(53:02) So forgiveness is not an option but reconciliation is it means I agree to what happened and I make space to live well with what happened then the healing is I think it’s done when you feel okay or in a good place with what has happened that’s so beautiful because so many of us really end up in relationship with a ghost right for for so many years and sometimes even a lifetime.
(53:33) And so to get to this place where there is uh I’ve actually heard Pat Allen talk about, you know, to get to the place of empathy and apathy, right, where you can really come with love and and go in peace is the reclamation. And so I love these sentiments.
(53:51) And of course, when you’re doing these practices in a family constellation setting, your body will show you where those sentiments are not actually authentic, right? where you feel some resistance or it feels like a contraction, right? Because a lot of the, you know, the body- based observation in family constellation is pretty basic, right? It’s like do you feel contracted? Do you feel open? Do you feel kind of bigger? Do you feel small? It’s it’s quite basic. Yeah.
(54:16) Mentory, right? Uh the way that you can to know that actually if you cannot separate from somebody truly, it means that you haven’t separated from one of the parents. Most probably behind that person there is somebody else that you still can not let go of mother or father and this particular partner is a suitable face uh with which you can relate and hold on to but actually behind there is somebody else. Yes.
(54:43) And so lastly, but not leastly, I would love to talk about inshment with the father as a a foundation for so many of the relational issues that we have as as women and how that can look, right? So if you have a woman who still has this entanglement inshment, still is in these subconscious dynamics like you just alluded to with her father, how might that show up in either her relationship or her lack thereof? Would you say father’s role is certainly so important and at the same time it comes after the mother or let’s say the mother facilitates the way towards the father. So which means that the relationship
(55:30) between a child and the father will very much depend on the relationship between the parents and the mother do does have influence on that relationship and how it can go. And I believe that the position that the child has with the father always secretly involves the mother.
(55:56) So a daughter can be too close to the father like that is princess or she can uh feel more important than the mother because mother has put her in front and she’s carrying something for her becoming the so-called surrogate partner for the father or then from there that girl will have difficulty to connect with other women and she will try to find recognition from men And she will not have the strength of women behind her with which she can stand as a woman.
(56:28) And at the same time, she might have many different relationships with men or she can seduce men easily but feel alone and never have actually a stable relationship with men. This is just one trivial example. But father can also be missing.
(56:50) And the missing father also has other dimensions apart from not being reflected from the father or you don’t have a sense of yourself being looked at as a woman or being not supported as a man from your father not having that lineage. So basically father missing father has very strong damages just because he’s not there and try the compensations that come with that are very serious because we either become like him or we try to be close with him by identifying becoming him. Basically because we don’t have him we become him.
(57:26) Either we reject him and we become him or because he’s missing we’re connecting in that invisible way. We are him and of course that also means that we are somehow inheriting inheriting his characteristics and sometimes even the destiny and all of that unconscious we do not choose it but it’s a way to feel close.
(57:55) So basically to reconcile with our father same principles is you need to put him in a place that is good for you. It’s the last the final stop is there. Maybe it’s a process. You need to go through different stages but at the end of the day you place your father inside of you where you need him to be where you feel good that he’s there. Whether he’s there or not, it’s not important because in your life, you might not connect with him.
(58:20) You might not even decide to speak or maybe he was aggressive or maybe he doesn’t want to find to speak with you. But at the same time, you place him in a good place inside of your heart. Why? It’s not offenses. It’s something that gives you the feeling that you are protected. You have him inside.
(58:43) And also it doesn’t matter anymore whether he’s like that or not because you’re by yourself. You’re independent. You’re responsible. And then it doesn’t matter if he’s there or not. You make him inside like that because you’re a better person if you carry your father like that. And then you like yourself better.
(59:02) And then you don’t uh jump on other male energies who remind you of him. And then you know you don’t protect yourself from other male energies reminding him. And I believe that father is really important for our spiritual development. Mother in many different ways. She’s the gate of life.
(59:21) She’s abundance because everything comes through her starting with food in the beginning. But father is more about our vertical connection. You know it’s in many traditions father is the you know the god and it’s not because he’s superior. It’s because the dimension that belongs to the realm of father’s energy is the spiritual energy and um the other is not less spiritual. It’s just it supports us to go higher in our consciousness whenever we connect with the male in our lineage.
(59:58) No matter if you’re a woman or a man, it’s a practice of discipline as well as uh strength. um direct direction in your life and going forward. So these are energies that we all that we need and if we point them upwards and inside they become spiritual energy. Now of course we can also use the same kind of energy in our career.
(1:00:30) So we can move it outwards and forward which is masculine energy going out. But the masculine energy going in will be upward and inward. Amazing. So what would you say in summary is the invitation for someone who is interested in coming into secure attachment, healthy connection, actual intimacy between two independent adults.
(1:00:57) What do you think that family constellation has to offer to that process? It’s a journey and I believe that once you start it, you will always arrive at the place where you want to arrive. Just because it doesn’t matter how long it takes. The very idea that you want to find peace, reconciliation, and connection is already healing.
(1:01:21) And sometimes you want and it’s just not happening. And there is this inner struggle of wanting it to be different. And the um shift that happens inside happens always and always and I have seen it with so many people when you finally give up the idea that things should have been different. So the invitation is to start with acceptance.
(1:01:46) Accepting who your parents are, accepting what happened, accepting how life came to you, accepting who you are out of that. And that acceptance is already a very fertile ground where a person will come and will match you in the place where you are. Such beautiful work and you are such a beautiful ambassador of this wisdom. I’m so appreciative of you and thank you for this conversation.
(1:02:12) I know that you are all over the place. What is the best way for people to find out how to connect to you? I’m mostly working in Europe, but sometimes I do come to the states. So I do have some courses that I also do online in English with family constellation and some practical exercises. So I will provide the link and maybe they can Sure. Sure. We’ll make sure it’s there.
(1:02:36) Yeah, sure. It will be there. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much, Ellie. Really, thank you so much. It was great to talk with you. [Music] I feel like I know I feel like
