Imagine being wrenched deep into the ocean by overpowering currents, being swirled and tossed around by the forces of the water, desperately trying to find your way up but not knowing which why up is. Up from the depths of the unknown. Up to the water surface where you could draw air and fill your lungs with much needed oxygen. This was the image I had when I revisited the feelings arising as I felt into the sensation of what I experienced in the moments I did not know what to do and felt stuck when facilitating my first family constellation workshop.
I have facilitated many workshops in my time using EFT, EFT with family constellation processes, creative processes but never relying solely on my family constellation skills. Having just completed my foundation training, I naively thought it would not be that challenging.
Image courtesy of luigi diamanti at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
When I think about facilitating EFT processes, I feel I am an experienced surfer, skilfully navigating the waves on an EFT beach for surf experts. Somehow I thought that if I surfed on a Family Constellation beach for surf experts, the waves and currents would be similar. But unfortunately I was faced with a whole new set of challenges that I was not prepared for. So, when the power of the ancestral current tugged me under, I lost my balance, fell off the board and was drawn deeper into the ocean. Luckily I had with me an experience family constellator, Kim Goode, and a colleague to come out and rescue me if I ran into trouble.
Being an EFT trainer, I now have a lot more compassion and sensitivity to my students, having had a very real experience of being in lost in the beginners mind.
Although the feedback from the participants was very positive – here is one from Rachael: “Honestly, it was amazing, such deep healing going on in me and through me. Feeling so honoured to be a part of it all. “ – I felt traumatised so I did some EFT (with the help of my husband and EFT trainer, Peter Donn) on the image I had and when I looked back at the image, after doing EFT, it had changed. It started to soften, appear more distant and I became more buoyant so that when I was tugged under, my body could not stay down there as it was lighter and floated up to the surface where I could catch my breath, pause and check the scenery to see where I was and what needed to happen next. Time ran out so some more processing to do but suffice to say that I am looking forward to running my next Family Constellation workshop!
