Systemic family constellations revealing long-term holding patterns of fear may link to chronic illness & emotional stress or trauma. The underlying basis of stress and trauma is fear. The research community has recently shifted gears and there is now a long list of chronic conditions and dis-eases, originally thought to be of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental origin, that have been linked to unresolved or unhealed negative emotions, stress, and early trauma. If you’re interested, you might like to read the following books, Even If It Costs Me My Life: Systemic Constellations and Serious Illness by Stephan Hausner or one that takes a more traditional scientific approach with a discussion of many studies, Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease by Robin Karr-Morse with Meredith S. Wiley. The authors of Scared Sick point out some ghastly statistics about the epidemic levels of chronic conditions in the United States for both adults and children.
There is a link between chronic illness and emotional stress or trauma, so to respond by burying your head in the sand and to ignore the underlying emotional aspect of your condition is done at your own peril. We know too much now to pretend there is no connection. The medical community in general is barely touching into this realm of patient history and so it is up to you to insist on taking a deeper look at your family history and context when you or someone you love is unwell. There are many steps you can take to heal yourself. Remember that healing and curing are two very different concepts.
Chronic Illness & Emotional Stress or Trauma
The connection between chronic illness & emotional stress or trauma is affirmed in the book Scared Sick. The research community suspects there is a link between the following situations of chronic illness & emotional stress or trauma:
Fibromyalgia
Osteoarthritis
Irritable bowel syndrome
Crohn’s disease
Various cancers (such as breast cancer and melanoma)
Anorexia nervosa
Ulcerative colitis
Anxiety and depression
Obesity
Hypertension
Alzheimer’s disease
Cardiovascular disease
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Cushing’s syndrome
Osteoporosis
Addictions to drugs, alcohol, and nicotine
Systemic Family Constellations and Chronic Illness
I have attended several workshops related to systemic family constellations, chronic illness & emotional stress or trauma and I know the list is a lot longer. When looking at the link between chronic illness & emotional stress or trauma, generalizations are difficult. The individual’s family context is very important and uniquely connected to that particular person’s condition. The susceptibility to any given condition may have many different unique situations in the background. However, there is a list gathering of the conditions that pertain to an unhealthy relationship with mother or father, which usually comes from further back in the family system, or the transgenerational transmission of unresolved family emotional trauma. As well, when someone is shunned or missing in the family system, or there is a family secret, they will often show up as a symptom, condition, or relationship issue for a descendant of the family.
Hausner’s book, written from a systemic constellation point of view, emphasizes that “one cannot practice holistic medicine without including the family or the patient’s relevant social context.” Due to a high number of symptoms and conditions showing up in my own family system, with many having no medically understood cause, I am very interested in the link between chronic illness & emotional stress or trauma.
This past spring I was fortunate to spend a couple days in systemic constellation workshops facilitated by Hausner in Germany. Although this is far from a complete list, he would likely agree with it and add the following situations where chronic illness & emotional stress or trauma were found associated in his book:
Sleep disorders
Lyme disease
Digestive problems
Stomach ailments
Multiple sclerosis
Miscarriage
Fertility issues
Respiratory Illness
Skin conditions
Sudeck’s syndrome
Dental problems
Lupus erythematosus
Cervical dystonia
Autoimmune glomerular nephritis
Dermatomyositis
Chronic headaches
Migraines
Basil cell carcinoma
Allergies
Asthma
Seizures
AIDS
Chronic gastritis
Scoliosis
High blood pressure
Menière’s syndrome
Environmental sensitivities
Chronic polyarthritis
Type 2 diabetes
Addictive behaviours
Manic-depressive disorder
Eating disorders
Neurodermatitis
Ovarian cysts and cancer
Chronic thyroid disease
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
Nephrotic syndrome
Cancer in general
Prostate tumors
Brain tumors
Menstruation issues
Dizzy spells
Cervical dysplasia
Loss of speech
Nightmares
Scleroderma
Aerophobia
Suicidal tendencies
ADHD or ADD
Arterial disease
Panic attacks
Chronic sinus infections
Behavioural disorder
Problematic fantasies
Schizophrenia
When it comes to symptoms and conditions, I would add the following:
Any chronic health concern
PTSD
Tremors
Psychosis
Menopause issues
Vitiligo
Tinnitus
Abdominal pain of unknown cause
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Vision problems
Hearing problems
Issues around reproduction
Erectile dysfunction
Inability to reach orgasm
Herniated discs
Parkinson’s disease
Pregnancy and birth difficulties
Celiac disease
Stoic or disconnected behaviour
Communication problems such as stuttering
Chronic pain
Arthritis
Motor difficulties such as cerebral palsy
Any other way you are stuck or unwell in life
Susceptibility to a condition may appear to be genetic in origin because it continually shows up in a family line, but more often there is unresolved family emotional stress, fears, and trauma transmitted transgenerationally through epigenetic inheritance, or the individual is stuck using childhood emotional response strategies developed in utero or in early childhood.
The susceptibility to symptoms and conditions can occur even before conception. If grandmother experienced trauma or emotional challenges when she was pregnant with your mother, such as relationship issues with her partner or exposure to war, then you, as one of the eggs within her, is already developed and receiving emotional input by the time mother is just a baby five months in utero.
Epigenetic Inheritance
If you pay attention, these epigenetic inheritance patterns show up in many families (http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v10/n11/full/5200901a.html). Many people unconsciously fit into their family system by being ill. Grandmother was depressed, mother is depressed, and now you are depressed. Grandfather had addictive behaviours, father has addictive behaviours, and now you find yourself with addictive behaviours. I would like to point out that addictive behaviours can include anything that is taken to an extreme. Addictive behaviours include the abuse of prescription or recreational drugs or alcohol, gambling, unhealthy sexual activity, eating disorders, workaholism, extreme exercise regimes or activities, emotional shopping, computer use, cell phone use, television viewing, etc. Obsessive compulsive behaviours (OCD) and behaviours like hoarding also have underlying emotional causes that can be found in the family system.
If you are stuck in life or unwell in some way, it’s time to look back through your family system for possible underlying emotional causes. It is possible to shift these emotional patterns that are creating symptoms and conditions. Systemic family constellations are a valuable way to get important insight about the emotional dynamics in your family system. Are you willing to get involved in resolving your own or a loved one’s unwellness?
Very comprehensive & informative. T Y Patricia 🙂
My older sister was dancing on the bed with me when I was 2 years old – her foot got stuck in the covers & I was flung into the bedpost. From what I now know, my upper spinal alignment was badly damaged & resulted in ADD/ dyslexia. Later my mother used to call me a ‘stupid kid’ when I didn’t catch on quickly. Even now, when someone challenges me when my brain is ‘stuck’, I burst into tears instantaneously.
Years later, my young son fell out of a Safeway grocery cart which resulted in a similar injury. For years, I explored every avenue to help my child & which finally led to correction of his spinal alignment in his mid-teens.
In retrospect, the clues all make sense – without my journey to wellness with my son, I would have missed my own healing & I’m trusting my grandchildren will not need to suffer this learning.
I deeply appreciate the opportunity to reflect,
Much Love, Glenda
Thank you Glenda for sharing your family experiences. When we become aware of these interconnected emotional traumas within our family system, we are able to choose to do something about them, just as you did. We can stop the emotional trauma from travelling another generation before it is noticed. Through your own healing work you have shifted the energy field of your family system. What a beautiful gift to your children, grandchildren, and greater family system.
Wow. One of the reasons I wanted to find my natural mother was for this reason. I had already worked out that what happens in the womb has an effect. Thanks so much for your insight.
Thank you for your positive comment Kathleen.
Your comment suggests that you may not have been raised by your biological mother. Any emotional separation from biological mother in the womb, at birth, or a bonding injury or separation in childhood may be a contributing factor behind chronic illness and conditions. The child may carry suppressed emotional holding patterns in the cells of the body for a lifetime if the separation injury is not addressed. These holding patterns were there for protection and survival in childhood but they may not serve you well as an adult. The healing work can be done without ever physically meeting or knowing your biological mother.
You may want to look at working with someone around the interruption of the reaching out movement of the child. Healing also involves fully accepting your life as it is, saying YES to life, fully accepting your biological parents as they are or were even if you don’t know them (your body knows them – you are 50% mother and 50% father), and taking in the love of your biological parents.
We all benefit when we do this healing work and develop compassion for the journey of our parents, grandparents, and ancestors.
It also involves accepting that we chose our major challenges in life before coming to birth. We also chose our parents and the rest of our family system. It might be hard to believe but for your own spiritual development and growth you may have chosen to be given away or raised by others. Frequently, the relationship with biological mother sets you up with the fears and challenges you wanted to experience in this lifetime. It becomes a template for life. Consider whether you may have chosen to experience separation, exclusion, victimization, inadequacy, worthlessness, vulnerability, unpredictability, or any similar pattern that has shown up consistently in your life.
Once you recognize your core fear or perception you can minimize the energetic emotional hold it has on you. Since you can’t completely eliminate your fears, you can shift your life to live within the plus aspects of that fear rather than the minus aspects. When doing this healing work ensure that the practitioner is doing body-focused healing work with you. Our emotions are felt and held in our body. We can’t heal unless we shift the emotions held inside.
Hello! I have delved into this and several aspects of healing trauma on my own journey, I keep discovering and learning more through websites like this one but what I would like to ask now is that do you feel it is possible to reverse a physical condition once you have been afflicted?
Hi Shan, Thank you for your comments! Your question has both a simple and a complex answer. The short answer, yes it is possible to shift physical conditions. I have accomplished this in my own life. When discussing physical conditions it is important to determine if it is strictly physical (a one-off incident, lack of attention, etc., may or may not have an underlying emotional component) or whether there is an underlying emotional component to the presenting symptoms (often chronic conditions). Did a similar condition (or a condition with a similar energy) occur in a previous generation? Does the symptom mimic something in the family system? Do symptoms create a boundary for the individual when they don’t have healthy energy boundaries with others? Is the symptom supporting the individual in some way until they have the awareness and strength themselves to look at what needs to be seen, whether in their own life or in the greater family system? Does the symptom represent or remind the family of someone missing, excluded, or forgotten? I believe that physical conditions can be shifted by working through the transgenerational trauma carried for the family system. Some symptoms can totally disappear, some may significantly recede, and some more ingrained symptoms may continue in a different way. Sometimes traditional treatments may begin to work more effectively once the underlying emotional components are addressed and shifted. A significant shift in belief system and attitude can have profound impacts on symptoms and conditions. It is the individual’s response to the symptoms and conditions that bring about huge changes in life, even if some symptoms remain. Sometimes the condition is a journey one chose to experience as a challenge in this lifetime for spiritual development and growth. In this situation, instead of asking the question “why me?” it might be more appropriate to ask “why not me?”