Do you feel like something is missing in your life, or that it is difficult for you to find your place in the world, or that you are carrying a burden that seems too heavy to be just yours?
From the lens of Family Constellations, taking your rightful place in your family of origin allows you to find your place in the world. Perhaps one of the most significant dynamics I see in my work is that many people are not in their place because they are unconsciously taking someone else’s place.
Examples of this are taking the place of a parent (parentification) or grandparent or an excluded ancestor or taking the place of a sibling that is not included openly in the family or that you don’t know about consciously.
Every sibling needs to be included and given a place so that you can be in yours. This includes siblings that were not born (ex. miscarriages, abortions, vanished twins, IVF embryos), the ones that were stillborn, the ones that were children of one of our parents with someone else, whether born or unborn, and the ones that were given away.
If, for example, you have been told that you are the first of your siblings and there was a miscarriage or abortion before you, you are not the first and therefore not in your place. You have taken on the place of your unborn sibling and may feel burdened or like you are carrying too much responsibility or not allowing yourself to follow your soul’s calling in life. There is an entanglement between you and your missing sibling that affects the way you feel and live your life.
Taking the place of someone else in the family is not done consciously and we are not aware of it. However, at the level of the soul no one can be excluded, not even the ones that were not born, otherwise someone else in the family system will include them by taking on energies that belong to them and even their fate. There is a deep identification between living siblings and the ones that were not mentioned that can only be dissolved by seeing and acknowledging them, giving them their place and including them in our heart.
Many times, we do not know if our parents had other born or unborn children either with each other or with other partners, and perhaps our parents prefer not to share that information with their current partner or with us. The good news is that we do not need to know consciously because the information is within you and often revealed in a family constellation, working with the Field.
There is an exercise you can do in order to feel into your order amongst your siblings:
Sibling Birth Order Exercise: Finding Your Place in Your Sibling Line
- Take a few moments to go within, focusing on your breath, until you feel centred and present
- Place pieces of paper (or anything else you have to stand on) to represent each of your known siblings and one for you in the order that you have been told you are, the younger ones to the left of the older ones.
- Stand in your paper and take a moment to tune in and see how it feels to be in that place
- If you know there have been miscarriages or abortions, take pieces of paper and place them in the place where they belong.
- Say out loud: I am the (first or second etc.) of (The total number) and see how that feels for you
- If you feel guided, explore by placing other papers in different positions to represent possible missing siblings and see how you feel when you stand in your place and include them. For example, place one just beside you as a vanished twin. Do you feel stronger and more solid or weaker? Does it feel “right” or does it feel better to not have that paper beside you?
- Every time you explore an option, stand in your position again to test it and say out loud your order in the different options until you reach one that feels right for you, where you feel centred, stronger and more balanced than the others.
Of course, this can also be explored accompanied by someone in a Family Constellation.
To go deeper into this subject, join us for my upcoming Family Constellations Online Workshop: My siblings and I: Same beginnings, different lives.
We will also be setting up constellations on any issue that arises on the Family Constellations Online Workshops: Ready for a Shift.
