Let us look at healing sentences from the point of view of systems and examine some of the core sentences with a systemic lens. Covered in a previous lesson, the ancestors, our parents, are bigger than us. A healing sentence, in all its variety and multitude, is constructed to establish this basic order. There are many manifestations of trying to be bigger than one's parents, and you will come across them in your own constellations. This is where one would need a revealing sentence. I first came across the term revealing sentence in the work of Bertold Ulsamer and of course in the work of Bert Hellinger's classic Love's Hidden Symmetry.
A revealing sentence reveals the entanglement and lack of order [Ulsamer, Bertold, The Art and Practice of Family Constellations], and a healing sentence brings in the intervention. For example, a revealing sentence would be, Dear Mum, I carried it out of love for you because I am bigger. That is a revealing sentence, and it shows the imbalance of the system. Another one with ancestors would be, I carried your burden because I see that you couldn't. So, these are all sentences that reveal that the descendant child is trying to be bigger, attempting to make themselves bigger [Hellinger, Weber, Beaumont, Love's Hidden Symmetry]. Of course, there are situations in life that have led to these entanglements. For example, a father going off to war. The role of the provider is prematurely given to one of the children, maybe forcing them to be older, more responsible than their age and developmental stage. There are many manifestations of that, a parent who is ill, divorce, and in the modern world, we can probably find a lot more of these confusions.
Of course, at the time, it was necessity, it was survival. And the healing comes in when we can reveal these with sentences, and then we can be with the unprocessed energy, whether this is trauma or loss, pain; we need to be able to be with that energy to create movement in the system. This is where the healing movements happen. We are not changing facts. We are bringing in a healing ancestor or healing resource for the ancestor, and this is to help with the release of that energy. It also helps with the descendant, the child, to give back what they have carried, honour what happened and acknowledge the difficult fate.
Fate is also key to bringing order and balance to a system. So, what is fate? Fate is the result of all the things that came before you, that have led to the decisions that you have made, even if they are unconscious. It is not only your individual path but is shaped by hidden systemic forces within the family [Hellinger, Weber, Beaumont, Love's Hidden Symmetry]. If a parent is absent, if there has been divorce, if there have been entanglements with the church, if there have been the trauma bonds with deeper systems, fate is the result of all these hidden loyalties and this conscience.
And what would be the healing sentence? The core healing sentences would be, "Dear Grandad, I honour your fate. It was difficult. But I see that you have the resources now to carry it now". A significant concept in healing sentences and with our ancestors is dignity. When we give the burdens back to our ancestors, we honour their fates; we establish dignity. So to continue with the healing sentences, "I give back what belongs to you" is another core healing sentence. Now, I've come across a lot of resistance to this healing sentence, and I believe it's because, as descendants, as children, we are still trying to make ourselves bigger than our parents and our ancestors. A lot of spiritual beliefs feed into this, whether it comes from the Kabbalah, new age systems, or other religious traditions, which would put us in a position where we believe we are able to heal our ancestors.
Effectively, we are putting ourselves in a position of arrogance as well, where we do not believe that our ancestors and our parents have a powerful spirit. Yes, the system may have lost capacity to process; the ancestors may not have had the opportunity to process the losses, but that is what the ancestors are for. The ancestors of the ancestors are able to come in and widen the system and to widen the field.
When we follow the field and work with naming, clues will surface and we will become conscious of the sentences we need find the sentences, to use revealing sentences, and it will also give you clues about where the entanglements are. To this end, it is important to remain in contact with the client, because they can tell you as well what is present for them and what happened. This is the reality component of your constellation.