One of the great insights of Bert Hellinger, the founder of constellations work, is that our belongings bestow on us an unconscious “conscience,” which tells us who we are, what the rules are, what is right and wrong, and so much more. He discovered it when working in post-war Germany, and observing that people had done terrible things in a good conscience. Our belongings can lead us to great good, or it can lead us to do terrible things, all in the name of our belonging.
We observe this with people who have left destructive cults: they look back with horror on the things they did, that seemed right because they were right for the group, but which before the cult they never would have done. In a documentary on one of these cults, one former member said “I effectively taught people the Nazi salute, and thought I was doing a good thing. I don’t know how I got there. I hate myself.”
Such belonging conscience can also lead us to injure ourselves and people we love, all because it feels like it is a good thing to do within the context of belonging.
In cults, a lot of this can be conscious. But in families, a lot of this runs unconsciously. We may injure ourselves or others, and have no idea why we are doing it — we may chock it up to mental illness or stress or “just the way I am” — without realizing the behavior is part of the conscience of our family belonging.
As Suzi Tucker says “We were all raised in a cult.” This is not intended as an insult on particular families or families in general; she simply means that the reality that is created by belonging, and the necessity of having to belong in order to survive, is nearly total.
Sometimes, uncovering the power of unconscious belonging is the key to change. One recent client was suffering in his relationship with his siblings. Something felt out of balance, he felt left out and was angry about it, and he couldn’t find a way to put it into order. In constellation work, we discovered, and found a way to honor, a lost first child in their father’s family, which had let to extreme sibling disorder in that family.
That historical sibling disorder and its unacknowledged pain was the systemic meaning that my client and his siblings were born into, and to which they belonged. Only in honoring the truth of the past, and giving a place to the lost child, can my client and his siblings begin to be freed from the unconscious rules of sibling disorder that they had inherited.
When have you found yourself changed when you saw the influence of the conscience of belonging? Share your stories on my blog below.
Leave a Reply