How love flows through systems

I think almost constantly about systems, and our place, role, size, leverage, bonds, binds, and loyalties therein.

Systems are endlessly fascinating to me, whether biologically made (i.e. families) or human made (i.e. organizations) As systems accumulate, we get the systemic, or collective system. It's intricate and fractal, with an underlying order. Systems are amazingly loyal to patterns, passed across generations.

native plant known both as bear grass, and witch's tit

Human systems tend to run in accordance with predictable underlying dynamics. Of all the frameworks I’ve explored, I find Bert Hellinger’s Orders of Love to be the most useful. The Orders of Love are: Belonging, Give & Take, and Social/Chronological Order. These principles hold serious sway within our hearts and yearnings, so they’re worth serious consideration.

Often when something in life is amiss, one or more of the Orders of Love are out of whack. For example, when we want to break from the pack, we’re threatening our belonging. When we work more than we’re paid, the balance of give and take is skewed. When we’re over-functioning for our role in family, we’re not negotiating our place within the order. And sometimes when we’re very sick, we may be unconsciously serving as the “symptom bearer” for the whole system.

The Orders of Love help us zoom out of the gob-smacking chaos of daily life and get an actual grip. These systemic principles have been found to be pretty reliable across decades, cultures, and socioeconomic realities. Looking at life through these principles let's us see new possibilities.

Hellinger taught that to do something new, we have to fully acknowledge What Is. Naturally, we prefer to turn away from unpleasant or painful things, or deny what we cannot tolerate. Yet facilitator Stephan Hausner taught me, “when one person in the system has the courage to include everyone who belongs and everything that has happened, then change is possible for the entire system.” 

Systemic and Family Constellations are one mechanism to support this. Constellations allow us to take a birds eye view of any system, and then experience what happens when subtle shifts increase the flow of love. We arrive with one picture, and leave with another, nourished in the process.