What happens in an Identity Constellations workshop?

The IoPT process is a somatic self-enquiry process. You can ask a question about anything – about yourself, your life, relationship, family, health, sexuality, work, money or life choices.

You form an Intention for the self-enquiry which feels right for you. This can be in the form of a sentence or drawing which you write on the whiteboard. If its a drawing the facilitator will ask you what the components of the drawing are – a line, a heart, a house, a face.  You never have more than 7 words or parts of an image as it gets too confusing.

Example Intentions : “I want to value myself more.” “Why can’t I get my business started?” “I want to explore why I get migraines.” “Why do I avoid intimacy?” “I want to find my voice.” “Why is life such a  struggle?”

It’s better if you don’t  give any  background information to explain your Intention.  This keeps you more in yourself and out of your head and the story.

Your Intention  commits and guides you in the constellation, makes your self-enquiry clear and provides the frame for the work.

In group workshops you then ask each person to resonate with a word you give them. 

You stand with the facilitator and say when you are ready for the resonances in your self-enquiry  to start.  

It’s good to watch the resonances in silence for a short while.

You then say when you are ready to go with the facilitator and get information from each resonance.          

You will experience the participants, who act as your resource, resonating with the word  through felt sense and mindful focus. They may move or freeze, feel physical sensations, move in relation to you, describe how they feel and think. They may feel positive or negative in their connection with another word. In this way you begin to see the unconsious parts of yourself and how they work against or resource each other.

As you see the intention unfold through the resonance of others, you see where the parts of your inner psyche are healthy, hold early trauma or survival mechanisms – ways of coping with early attachment wounds.

Seeing and feeling the representatives of the words you’ve chosen as you connect with them brings greater understanding, a release of embodied trauma energy and gentle movement towards integrating the splits within you. These are usually very young parts that need to be seen and have life. You may need a quiet evening after the process to integrate what you have found out about yourself.   

If you don’t like the idea of a self-enquiry in a workshop with other people, you may feel you prefer to do a constellation privately, in which case I facilitate  using floor markers to help with the resonance. You choose the markers, feminine or masculine and the direction, Then you take time standing on each one, or you may ask me to resonate on one of the markers. I may agree to this depending on the constellation.

You can also do a tabletop constellation 1:1 online or in a face-to-face session. You use small felts or pebbles or playmobil and resonate with them. Believe me it is possible across the Atlantic!

Enjoy this  special and profound way of getting to know yourself and taking gentle steps to feeling more secure and happy to be who you are.