These reflections arise from the experience of twenty years of Focusing interviews and courses and fifteen years of Family Constellations. The connection points between the two methods are many: both are based on welcoming and non-judgment, stopping, feeling the body, proceeding slowly and carefully, respecting the timings of the process. Used together, they enhance each other. There are many tools offered by the Constellations, which can be used in a Focusing interview, in these reflections, I will deal above all with the significant phrases of reconciliation which facilitate and support change.
These reflections arise from the experience of twenty years of Focusing interviews and courses and fifteen years of Family Constellations. The connection points between the two methods are many: both are based on welcoming and non-judgment, stopping, feeling the body, proceeding slowly and carefully, respecting the timings of the process. Used together, they enhance each other. There are many tools offered by the Constellations, which can be used in a Focusing interview, in these reflections, I will deal above all with the significant phrases of reconciliation which facilitate and support change.
Resonance with past events
Sometimes, a recent event touches us in a particular way.
What it has aroused in us is much stronger than what has actually happened in the current situation: probably what is happening now is also going to awaken the memory of past events.
By describing the mood and the Felt Sense of the recent situation, the memory of an episode from the past can emerge, a moment in which we have already experienced something similar, and which resonates with what is happening now. Often a precise episode emerges, even a very old one, a phrase that has been said to us emerges.
We are able to recognize which are these phrases of power, which annihilate.
The body feels it and signals it to us, feels the weight, the power of this information which acts like a poison that feeds fear, poisons life and directs our choices.
Phrases of power which annihilate
These are phrases that have a particular power, for example a sick mother who says to her daughter who cares for her: "You will never take care of me, as your friend cared for her mother." Or the mother who says to her daughter who has just started a relationship: "You will never find a man who loves you as your father." or "The more you study, the more stupid you become."
These phrases act like evil spells, thrown in a more or less conscious way; they are like a small stone which manages to block a large and complex mechanism, preventing its movement. Something gets stuck and can no longer flow. These phrases have a special power and we feel it clearly in the body.
When these phrases emerge, we welcome them.
We can imagine getting closer to that 'daughter' part of us, to the memory of that episode which is alive in us; we imagine that part of us which is that age and is experiencing that situation, and in our entirety, with the strength and the tools which we now possess, we are in its presence, we listen to it, we welcome it, we are close to it, we give it support. We can stand behind her, at her side and tell her: "I'm here with you, I know how hard it was to hear these words, to hear this statement". First of all, we give her empathy, we make her feel our presence and unconditional love.
We remain silent or put those sentences in a container
We can simply remain silent, respectfully, and wait for a small step to take place, so that, through the Presence of the client and the facilitator, the frozen process melts away and the energy starts flowing again.
We can also invite the 'daughter' part of us to welcome that phrase now and put it in a container, as when we use the exercise of clearing space: we recognize what interferes with our well-being and place it at a certain distance. This container, in addition to placing it, we can also return it. This is an act of Family Constellations which we can add to the Focusing process, achieving a very powerful result.
We return it
We invite that part, the memory of that event which is alive in us, to put that particular phrase in a suitable container and to return it to the person who said it.
In this way we also give back to the person, who said the sentence, the power to take care of it.
We tell her: "This thing is yours, only you can take care of it, I'll give it back to you." and we take a step back, we free ourselves from the weight and the effect which that phrase has had in our lives. We were taking on something that was not really ours.
These phrases, the judgments, speak more of those who give them, rather than of those who receive them, they are fears expressed in a destructive and manipulative
We always listen to the body
We proceed slowly and with every step, for every sentence, for every small movement of this process, we recognize what is happening in the body. It is the body that gradually guides us, that knows how to dissolve what has been blocked, the energy that had frozen. Each step, if felt and authentic, can be very powerful and liberating, the body knows it and if it is true, the body signals it to us and shows us the direction to follow. If it is not authentic it does not help and does not produce any change, the body knows it and tells us, and it is important to trust the body, not to force.
No process can be forced, it would be contrary to the profound quality of acceptance which underlies both Focusing and Family Constellations.
We always go at the pace of the slowest process. Slowness, calmness, space, time are fundamental. As professor Gendlin wrote, 'we watch the grass growing'.
We put it back into the flow
We can also invite the person who received that sentence in return, to return it in turn so that this information can be sent back, returned to the sender.
Probably that harshness, that sarcasm are something sick that she herself received and not knowing how to dissolve it, she passed it on, like a witness, to a later generation. We activate a backward movement, from generation to generation, an endless process which causes this statement to lose power, for this sound dissolves. In this way we free ourselves, a part of us is freed, and the person who said that phrase at the time is also freed, and going back in time, all the ancestors who in turn had transmitted that information, are freed.
Something is transformed
It can happen that we perceive that something is transforming in us, and that there is a movement, a shift in perspective. This makes us perceive a great strength, the flow of life which was previously blocked, now starts flowing again from the past to the present, up to us and also to the next generations.
Before, this energy was blocked and the blockage, in an unconscious way, directed our choices and fed our fears. Now this energy can flow again in the direction of life and well-being.
We get rid of a memory
This is a work of liberation that not only lightens me, my present, my past, and my ancestors. It's a powerful process and it's the wonderful, powerful force of something extremely simple which acts on our memories and liberates us.
We create a rebirth phrase
We can also create a sentence which defines this process of rebirth.
Each step of this process is verified in the body: what moves, what is transformed, what it resonates with. This is not an intellectual work, nor is it a purely imaginative work; it is a work on energies.
The body recognizes very well if something produces a change or not, if what I state heals, transforms or if there is something which is not entirely clear and that needs to be revealed still. (We will see this clearly in Colloquium 2, reproduced at the end of the text).
In this search for the phrase of rebirth I can go and refine more and more what I state by listening, to obtain an instrument which has all the energy necessary for transformation.
The power of words
This work also makes us understand the power of words. Some words have really had the power to block us; understanding it makes us become more and more responsible for what we say. Let our words always support life, enlarge possibilities, be constructive, let's become aware of their power and use this power to transform, dissolve, resolve, strengthen, sustain the flow of life.
When each of us does this work on himself, every time someone is freed, all of humanity celebrates and what was previously blocked is now energy, it is life and joy.
In Family Constellations, significant phrases of reconciliation are used
They are concise, simple, clear and powerful phrases, for example, "Now I see you", "I am one of you", "You are the big one and I am the little one", "I put myself in my place".
These are not stereotypical phrases of a predefined protocol, but they are so simple and powerful that it is difficult to improve them, at the same time it is necessary to know how to apply them to the specific situation.
We use them as inspiration tools which we then tailor to the process.
***
Example of a Focusing interview in which I used phrases from Family Constellations.
When in an interview I feel that using the tools of Family Constellations could help the person, I give notice and ask permission to use a tool other than Focusing, especially since many of the interviews take place with people who are learning Focusing or who are becoming Focusing Facilitators and, for didactic clarity, it is important that they know how to distinguish the different tools.
Below is a part of a Focusing interview in which I used phrases from Family Constellations.
It was transcribed by the customer herself who had wanted to record it, aware that something important would emerge from the theme she brought. My interventions are minimal as the client had completed Family Constellations training in a school, and basic Focusing training and with me.
She herself knows which phrase to choose and acts autonomously and I accompany her, sheltering her from her critical parts. In the parts in which she speaks at length, there have been several reflections, invitations to welcome, which for brevity and simplification have not been reported in the text.
Interview 1
Focusing interview in which I used phrases from Family Constellations.
C (client): I remember that I had difficulty reading in middle school, my mother, urged by the teacher, one day told me: 'You have a problem', the teacher hypothesized 'she reads badly because she sees badly' but I knew it happened because I was shy and not because I had a vision problem.
I struggled to read in front of another person, during tests, when I had to show the other person, present. When I had to read aloud, I felt pressure from others watching.
L (Laura): Do you want to try to listen to this pressure?
C: I feel a grip on my shoulders, there is someone who holds his hands on my shoulders, blocks me. I have to stay still, and I feel a sensation in the solar plexus, a contracture, as if it were preparing to receive a blow.
Someone holds me down so that someone hits me and I know it. I am out of breath.
L: Observe this scene from the outside, at a certain distance, without identifying yourself
C: From the outside I look, I am no longer identified with the solar plexus part, now the feeling to the shoulders changes, they are not just held and somehow these hands on the shoulders support in order to bear.
L: The hands on the shoulders hold, block but there is also a quality of support.
C: Another part of me has to stand still and a third party says: you can bear it, you can bear to be denigrated, put aside, excluded, mocked, not to be appreciated.
My breath breaks and emotion comes, when I recognize this part of me which knows she can make it, that she can endure.
I listen to the part which can bear, I feel a sense of loneliness, I am alone in all this, I cannot get help from my mother.
I also solved the problem of reading on my own, maybe I was dyslexic because I remember that the letters moved. I understood why: the eyes and the head ran forward and read fast, while the mouth had a slower timing, I was ahead of the mouth and the words overlapped, there were different speeds. Reading was ok, but reading aloud, with my mouth, to demonstrate, no: my mouth is slower, I have to go slower and the time to assimilate the words I read is even slower. I was 11 years old.
L: Can you recognize the ability you had at 11 years old to observe and understand this mechanism, and find a solution? You can say to that little girl, "Well done!"
C: The breath stops, the emotion rises, I find it hard to tell her that she is good, I know she was good but I find it hard to tell her, she had to solve the problem, no longer be a problem and get by on her own.
L: listen to this: "Well done!"
C: the breath stops, I feel like a separation between throat and trunk, on the one hand the child would like to hear her mother say well done, at the same time a part of me does not want it to happen and rejects her mother.
L: Try to perceive what could happen if she said "Well done!"
C: it happened once: I felt debased, she told me 'well done' in front of others, as if she wanted to show me off, as an object to be proud of, as if she said: 'see? She's my daughter, look how good she is. She wasn't telling me, she used me to show off.
I recognize that that child did everything to satisfy the needs of others, as I did with my studies. I studied economics and business because my dad wanted it and because I could have helped my older brother graduate, I sacrificed myself. Not only for my dad, I recognize that perhaps I wanted to make him happy, but not only him, I am at the service of the family, of many, they all report to me.
My father had gone into debt and made a vow to Virgin Mary: "If you help me I will give you another daughter" and I arrived, like a bargaining chip.
At first I felt this being tied to a vow, to a give to get, but then I understood and recognized that we were all born in a similar context, some in one way and some in another, a condition greater than what personal freedom is. You are born not free to then become free, you are born in a certain condition, not with a blank sheet of paper but with many things already written, but these are the same conditions that can make you become free, it is like the concept of 'original sin', I think, or being born in ignorance... yes.
L: Your father made an exchange with Virgin Mary... you see how precious you are, he told her: "If you help me I'll give you another daughter, I'll bring her into the world..." Do you see this being precious?
C: I feel a sentence being born and the need to say things to my dad.
"Dear Dad, I have had enough experience of sacrificing myself and doing for you what you wanted" I imagine my dad in front of me and bowing down to him.
L: You can also add "Thank you. You gave me life, this is the greatest gift, you made a pact with Virgin Mary... I thank you."
C: Yes. "I have had enough experience of sacrificing myself, being the savior, I give this back to you so that you can take care of it, I give it back to you and I free myself and I free you from having to be the one who prevents me from doing what I want to do and I take the time to understand what I want to do."
L: Can you imagine this little girl stepping forward and breaking free from the hands that hold her?
C: Yes, the hands are already gone, they no longer hold me.
L: Can you stand next to this little girl and say:, "You are free now?"
C: Yes, but she tells me "I've always been Free, free to stay still there, now I can move, I have finished doing what I had to".
I feel a wide, deep, very slow breath opening up, long in the inhalation, exhalation and pause, it almost seems as if I am not breathing from how slow and long it is, and I feel a sense of fullness.
I feel it in my chest, like a sky inside, a sense of expansion, but different from other times; usually when I feel this expansion I feel like I am merging with the universe: losing the boundaries of the body and merging, but now I feel the body which contains the universe, the chest is open, it brings out what is inside, there is like a vortex from which this universe enters and exits in the chest and the body is like a thin thread.
...
C: I thank focusing, a great help that changes everyday life, I recognize that thanks to him I am living a time in which many things are being done.
L: If you want, you can look for a symbol which can help you regain this feeling of fullness.
C: Yes it is a rose quartz which I have on my bedside table, I recognize that it is a precious stone. I continue to listen to this fullness and when I open my eyes again I see in my arms a white pillow embroidered with bright flowers.
I think back to the 'precious' and I feel that it symbolizes Life received from my father and my mother that I have now taken in my hands to live it for me, and no longer for them, for the family. Now it is in my hands, for me, mine. Thank you.
***
For further information you can read Chapter 22 'Focusing and Family Constellations', taken from the book 'Focusing – connecting to Life' pp. 244-254 ed. Terre sommerse, Laura M Talamoni 2015, where I illustrate the points of resonance between the two methods.
Here is an example of how Focusing listening was able to complete a process that began in a constellation and remained suspended.
Interview 2
Further listening with Focusing was able to complete a process
Client: My ex-wife became pregnant before we were married and decided to have an abortion so that her parents wouldn’t find out.
Laura: Bring your attention to the body, try to feel what it feels like...
Client: It's a big weight, everywhere, especially in the chest and shoulders.
L: You can take this burden, say "Hello" to it... welcome him and try to ask him: "What is the worst thing about all this that has happened?"
C: That the person who helped us find a doctor at the time, then told friends and families about everything.
L: How is the body now?
C: A little better, but not much.
L: And what's the worst thing about the fact that he told everyone about it?
C: I have always been afraid that my children, the ones we had after marriage, would find out.
L: Try to feel how the body is now...
C: The weight in the chest is now gone, but the shoulders are still heavy.
L: Embrace this change, something has lightened... You can try asking the shoulders, "What's the worst thing... What could happen if my children knew?"
C: They wouldn't trust me anymore, they might think: “How many things you've hidden from us! “
L: How are your shoulders now?
C: The weight is still there, as before.
L: Try asking the shoulders: "But apart from this 'How many things have you hidden from us' what else is there?"
C: There is that.... That you don't kill kids... that I helped to do it, I didn't say no. It seemed absurd to me but I didn't stop it.
L: Try to listen to your shoulders now, how are they?
C: My shoulders are lighter and my back straightens, I sit up straighter.
L: Embrace this transformation, and the physical sensation of your back straightening... and if you want you can ask your back: "What is it that I learned from this experience?"
C: That when something is not right for me, I have to say NO.
That I have to trust what I feel, be determined and defend and affirm what I feel is true. I want to be stronger.
L: You can ask the back, "Is there anything that could help me be stronger?"
C: Now I can truly feel gratitude for this unborn child, and feel that the pain and guilt that I have suffocated for so many years for allowing something irreparable, turn into love. The conductor of the Constellation had suggested it to me but I couldn't do it, I didn't understand the meaning. What I can do now is do what feels right for me and not be afraid of external conditioning and what people think.
L: Do you want to feel what is in the body now?
C: There is a great strength and a sense of stability, the back is straight, I straightened from the inside, it is the body that tells me: "I am this."
The information that has now emerged makes the experience of the Constellation even more valuable and useful, which had had a certain effect, but much had remained unsaid, not understood.
The Focusing listening allowed this 'something' to emerge and this produced a significant step forward in the process.
Now the person feels the full understanding of the problem, there is a greater awareness and a great release of energy.
***
In summary: Focusing can make the use of family Constellations even more effective, as it expands the fundamental quality of Being present and Receptive to the information that comes from the field.
This reduces some possible risks, for example that the Constellations be conducted in a rigid way, using stereotyped formulas, applying rules, and fixed phrases to the process, moving away from Feeling and being here and now; that they be too directive, and that the conductor assumes an attitude in which he 'does, says, orders, moves, etc.', following more Rationality than Intuition and receptivity.
At the same time, the knowledge of Family Constellations makes Focusing even more effective, enhancing its ability to transform.
I thank my dear friend, colleague and travel companion, Patrizia de Patto for the careful review of the text and above all for the affection and encouragement.
I thank my dear nephew Ruggero Chicco for the review of the English version.
I hope that these reflections will be useful to you.
Roma 19.3.2026
D.ssa Laura M. Talamoni
Coordinator e Trainer di Focusing certificata dall'istituto di Focusing (NY)
Yoga, Comunicazione Empatica, Costellazioni Familiari
spoken language:Italian, English, Spanish
cell. +39 348-1618387 [email protected]