Have you ever watched the beautiful sight of birds flying together, moving in the sky like one unit? We see this unconscious connection like a magnet that joins birds, schools of fish, wolves and other animals. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist who refers to this phenomena as a morphic field. This field allows the birds, fish and other animals to tune into the resonance of the field as a collective, like they all share the same thoughts and move as one.
For anyone who has been a representative in a group session in family constellations, you will have experienced this phenomena as you experience a persons family dynamics without conscious knowledge of the real dynamics. The reason we can step in as a representative and take on the dynamics, feelings and sometimes behaviours of another person can be explained as a morphic field, sometimes in family constellations called 'the knowing field' or the family soul.
Our family system consists of the past, current and future generations, and in family constellations we experience how unconsciously we are connected to our family system. If someone in our family in past generations was excluded, for example:
died suddenly and was not fully grieved
a secret, eg: a secret child born out of wedlock, or adopted out
a first love that we weren't allowed to be with because they were a different religion or class
someone who committed a crime and were in prisoned and never spoken about again.
a people who died in the war and weren't spoke of because of the grief, shame or trauma.
Our family system holds the memories of past family members and this is not always a conscious memory. How is it that someone who was adopted can have similar interests, behaviours and dynamics as family members they don't know? How is it that someone can reach the age their grandmother was when she lost her husband and experience fears that their partner will leave even thought they are in a loving stable relationship? How is it that someone can keep having situations where they make money then lose it, just like their ancestors who's fortune was taken from them. Maybe a person is feeling depressed when they have everything going for them - could it have something to do with their family who lost everything in the great depression?
Sometimes it can be many generations later that a current family member has feelings, or displaying behaviours that don't consciously make sense to them. They may have been to see many people to help them with these feelings and never seem to resolve it. In family constellations we don't just look at you, we work with your whole system, even if you don't consciously know the stories of your family history. In constellations we realise the person may be entangled with that family member from generations past, and out of unconscious love remembers this person by repeating the same patterns to allowing healing in the family system in order to reinclude that person in the family system/soul.
If we attend a constellation as a representative we may be asked to represent someone, their parent or grandparent and when we step in all of a sudden we feel things that may not make sense in our life, yet they make sense in the life and family of the person we are representing. Through this phenomena of tapping into the families morphic field or family soul we can help others seek resolution, or new insights to situations and reconnect their family. The beauty of this work is you don't need to bring your whole family, they don't even need to know you are doing the work and yet you can work and heal situations even if the people involved are deceased.
Rupert Sheldrake gives a a great explanation of morphic fields
To experience the phenomena of representing in a group join us for a group constellation session online or face to face in Melbourne, Australia. For dates see our website