Intensive Schedule

Details are subject to change.

3. Morning and Afternoon Sessions: Cohort Groups

2023 Intensive Workshop Descriptions

STUCK!
Led by Suzi Tucker

So many of us describe ourselves as “stuck.” A small word to describe an encompassing feeling. Stuck … to? inside? with? Stuck at a threshold. Staying at the threshold can eventually become a lifestyle. But on a deeper level,  “stuck” may translate to “safe.” The question then becomes, safe from what? Where did actualization become a threat and to whom?

In Constellation, we move from the interior system of the individual, where we judge ourselves, into the wider system where our behaviors, choices, and compulsions make sense. In this wide vista, we can discover the profound logic of remaining stuck. Where was survival paramount, where did people stop in their tracks to survive?  As these images emerge, we can begin to unlock the grip of the pattern. Stuck: at the threshold between past and next … between obligation and aspiration … between what was and what is aching to be.

Supporting The Courage to Face Love with Systemic Constellations
Led by Francesca Mason Boring

This workshop will highlight the powerful tools available through Family Systems Constellation to understand and engage in enlightened love.

Reviewing our own systemic messages regarding intimacy and healthy partner connections we will explore through constellation work some of the dynamics that hinder or strengthen deep bonds,  joy and passion in our companion relationships.

• Do you believe in love?
• Are you able to support clients and family members who believe in love?
• Are you avoiding the inevitable loss that comes with a heart that is open to love?

What is Mine, What is the World’s?
Led by Sarah Peyton

In this time of great tragedy, wars and genocides, our own pain and struggles can be exacerbated by the pain of the world. What is it like to use constellations to differentiate between our own pain and what we share with the universe? Come explore and discover the relieving difference, so that we can focus on what is truly ours to do.

The Long Overdue Funeral: Rituals of Solidarity with our Ancestors
Led by Leslie Nipps

This is what constellations often are: the long overdue funeral — or confession, or reckoning, or memorial, or grieving — for something that clobbered our ancestors, and which we are still living out in their honor. People and communities that experience trauma need larger circles of support, so they can face what they’ve experienced and find effective support. But when hard times arrive, this is often unavailable — for cultural reasons, or reasons of shame, or because they were too busy surviving the barely-survivable. But now, we can stand in solidarity with those ones who lost so much in the past; we can be that circle they needed. And for us, their descendants, we don’t have to bear the witnessing alone anymore — we have fellow mourners, witnesses, and confessors. This is what we’ll do together in this workshop.

Constellation and Other Acts of Creativity
Led by Suzi Tucker

As creatures in this world of vivid uncertainty, personal relationships, aspirations, and contributions may feel insignificant or impossible. We are tired, dejected, and full of despair as we look around us. But from the beginning, the Constellation lens has held a kind of gritty optimism that includes both the edge and the horizon. Together we will explore the place and process of Constellation in sparking renewed curiosity and anchoring creativity, collectively and as individuals, as we seek ways to better navigate the current landscape. We stand at the threshold between our predecessors and descendants. We can turn to the wellspring of the ancestors, “Please help us find our way, teach us your songs of survival so that we may place our hands with love on the shoulders of the next.”

The Applications & Implications of Nature & Environmental Constellations
Led by Francesca Mason Boring

A grounded application of systemic constellations provides expansion of our understanding and interface with nature and the environment.  Finding an embodied relationship and honoring who came first, acknowledging our place in the natural world encourages a hope based in a realistic paradigm. Utilizing systemic constellations we will begin a dialogue with the systems of the natural world and remember our place within that system.

How does your garden grow? Where is your family pet in the family system? What are our energy choices? What are the conversations that are happening within nature?  What is the level of consciousness of the systems entwined in Nature? This workshop will provide opportunity for individual and collective inquiry.

Getting Right with our Ancestors: Claiming Ancestors as Resource
Led by Sarah Peyton

Sometimes finding the flow of love coming from past generations can be complicated by judgements and pain that we have about how our ancestors lived. When we reach for the love that our ancestors have for us, sometimes what we touch instead is the felt sense of trans-generational trauma. Come experience simple tools and practices that open the flow of love, even in difficult situations.

The Gift of Resistance: What Hasn’t Been Included Yet?
Led by Leslie Nipps

Resistance — when a client in any way declines what otherwise seems like a good thing — has long been pathologized. The old saw: “The therapy failed because the client was resistant,” has been replaced by softer versions like “the client wasn’t ready.” But I don’t think any of us are truly unready for healing and for our lives to be better. So, why is there resistance? Because, something very important is still at stake — something more important than the good thing we’re resisting. In constellations, we call it loyalty. But we can also just call it love: love for something or someone that hasn’t yet been given a full place in the system. Sometimes it is something personal, like as aspect of our own experience that hasn’t been seen fully yet. Or, often it’s because a person or event from the past has not been given a place, and so despite all the good reasons to move forward, the system won’t until that person or thing is included. Resistance, therefore, is a gift. It is a sign of something, just out of vision, that belongs. Let’s honor our resistance, and what’s been missing, so that much-longed-for movement can start…