I have a small dog behind my head. He is acting as a neck pillow. He woke me up twice last night, walking all over the bed. His collar is a small bell.

Yesterday was surprisingly full. Time went by oddly. Unsure of whether it moved fast or slow. It felt like some timeline beyond just the day was shifted. People talk about quantum leaping, I truly don’t know what that means but if any day was a quantum leap it was yesterday.

Constellations

Why the day was so in the space of no-time was because I received a constellation from my friend Adam. Adam is an absolutely incredible facilitator, energy worker, soul initiator, somatic therapist, and shaman who wouldn’t ever call himself that; he has been a huge part of my healing journey in more ways than one. Adam is grounded and truly radiates love.

Adam’s primary work is constellations.

A constellation is a powerful somatic therapy for clearing ancestral wounds, transforming unseen patterns, and stepping into your own living space fueled by love, lineage, and wisdom.

A constellation is one of the most potent and effective soul-based healing journeys I’ve been grateful to experience. It’s truly hard to explain what happens (that’s why a good facilitator is so important). But together, you build a living map of what’s going on beneath the surface of a feeling or emotion that’s most alive for you. Exploring, typically ancestrally, why the stuck pattern is there and even what the purpose of it might have been. It unearths the ancestral stories you didn’t even know you were carrying. The things you feel in your body but can’t explain.

In a session, you bring an intention or question, something you’re trying to understand or shift. And then, instead of just talking about it, the facilitator sets up a constellation: a kind of energetic representation of your inner world. In the case of yesterday, we used objects that Adam had, on a mini carpet, on a desk, which I could see through a second camera.

The objects (which in group constellations are other people) stand in for parts of your system—your mother, your anxiety, your future, your ancestors, the thing you can’t name.

Remember the anxiety I wrote about yesterday? Ya, that was what we focused on. I still truly am shocked at how shamanic practices have supported my healing (more than others) and the ways in which I’m worked by the impending container without my active knowledge or understanding. The anxiety I wrote about ended up being the exact thing that needed to be moved within the constellation. The field we created (with the objects) held an ancestral story that I know deeply without knowing anything, that is held in the body and made conscious through this process.

We ultimately unearthed why that anxiety is there and where it came from, how far back generationally, even. It gave me immense clarity as to why and even pride in how it supported our survival. For why I’m here today. It doesn’t solve all of my anxiety, but it makes it clear where the line is between what’s mine and what I’m still carrying of my ancestors.

I won’t say too much else about what happened in the session, because holding it close is how it integrates, and that’s important to me.

I will say that the last constellation I did with Adam was so impactful, my dad texted me just days later apologizing for the anger she used to express to us growing up, and how her parents were angry too, and how their parents were angry too. Obviously, I had done the constellation on anger. This is the kind of thing that happens in constellation work. You’re impacting the energetic in real time. So everyone who gets represented in the constellation receives a healing of the work being done, too. How and when they feel it might take a little more time than the days in which I saw mine take root, but my soul seeks FAST transformation right now. It has me in a sports car I didn’t buy, truly.

I couldn’t recommend Adam and his work more highly. If you’re in Colorado, you can meet in person. If you’re not, Zoom is just as impactful. If you’ve never received a constellation, but you’re curious after this, reach out to Adam through his website. I’ll link it here and add a button at the bottom.

To all my relations

Constellation work was created by Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist and former priest, in the ‘90s, but like most wisdom medicine, its roots go way deeper. He combined Western psychology with what he learned from the Zulu people about family, belonging, and ancestral reverence. It started as a way to untangle family dynamics, but today it’s used for everything from inner child work to collective healing.

There’s a reason ancestral work is coming to the surface right now. We’re waking up to the fact that not everything we carry is ours. Like me, carrying the anxiety of my mother. I bet if you look at one thing that ails you, there’s some connection back either to your family or the collective. So many of our fears, patterns, and even illnesses were inherited. Passed down like family heirlooms no one meant to keep. Constellation work, and all types of ancestral healing, gives us a way to see that. To feel it. To return what isn’t ours and reclaim what is.

In a world that’s obsessed with hyper-individual healing (you go to therapy alone, you tell a few people you’re in therapy, you get medication, maybe, and take that every day so no one can see it), this work reminds us that we’re part of a much longer story. A story that needs to be remembered and brought to the surface so it can shift.

If you’re interested in learning more about constellations, have questions, or would like to schedule with Adam, click the button below.

Love,
Val