Latest / Constellations and all that... / 18. Feminine Healing: Moon Cycles, Ancestral Wisdom & Family Constellations with Antonia Kersting

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18. Feminine Healing: Moon Cycles, Ancestral Wisdom & Family Constellations with Antonia Kersting · Constellations and all that...

• 0:00
  Tracy Cartwright: Kia ora and welcome to Constellations and All That.
• 0:03
  Tracy Cartwright: I'm your host Tracey Cartwright, and together we will be exploring the world of family constellations with facilitators and clients from around the world, looking at different perspectives and experiences in the work, having a cup of tea and just chatting with some friends around their experiences in constellations.
• 0:23
  Tracy Cartwright: We'd love for you to join us.
• 0:25
  Tracy Cartwright: I hope that you enjoy this series as much as I have loved making it.
• 0:33
  Tracy Cartwright: Kia ora everyone, welcome to Constellations and All That.
• 0:37
  Tracy Cartwright: Today I have the pleasure of chatting with Antonia Kirsting from Australia.
• 0:44
  Tracy Cartwright: I'm going to invite Antonia to, to share a little bit about herself, but I just want to say I've just recently met.
• 0:52
  Tracy Cartwright: Antonia in Sydney in, oh gosh, November, October.
• 0:58
  Tracy Cartwright: And this lady has blown me away.
• 1:00
  Tracy Cartwright: She is so amazing.
• 1:01
  Tracy Cartwright: So anyway, I'm going to hand over to Antonia to share a little bit about herself before we get into it.
• 1:06
  Antonia Kersting: Oh, thank you so much, Tracy, and thanks for having me.
• 1:09
  Antonia Kersting: I really appreciate it.
• 1:10
  Antonia Kersting: It's lovely to be here, um, with our cups of teas, you know, across oceans.
• 1:15
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and, yeah, so, I'm Antonia.
• 1:18
  Antonia Kersting: I, um, you know, professionally, I'm a counsellor, I'm a family constellations facilitator, and I'm a shamanic craftswoman.
• 1:26
  Antonia Kersting: I'm actually from Germany originally, from Berlin, and, uh, I've been in Australia for about 15 years now.
• 1:33
  Antonia Kersting: Um, but yeah, in Germany is where I first actually met Constellations work, uh, when I was 14 years old.
• 1:39
  Antonia Kersting: I attended my first workshop, and I really haven't stopped since.
• 1:43
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and so it was kind of, it's been really a full circle year for me.
• 1:48
  Antonia Kersting: You know, I've been facilitating for about six years now in lots of different spaces.
• 1:52
  Antonia Kersting: And then this year.
• 1:54
  Antonia Kersting: Um, you know, starting to be a teacher for other facilitators and also teaching or like presenting at the Australasian conference, um, was just such a full circle moment.
• 2:05
  Antonia Kersting: You know, you're like, oh wow, like how did I get here?
• 2:07
  Antonia Kersting: I would have loved to tell my 14 year old self, you know, this is where we're going to be.
• 2:12
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, I'm, I'm really passionate about this work, but I'm, I'm really, you know, I see like one of my life missions is really to help people.
• 2:22
  Antonia Kersting: come back into wholeness and to reclaim their strength and their inner knowing.
• 2:27
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and you know, that really comes out of, I guess, my own journey.
• 2:31
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and having quite, being quite disconnected from my body and my intuition and things like that.
• 2:36
  Antonia Kersting: And then really having that journey of embodiment and coming back together and wanting to share the magic and the power that comes with that, uh, with other people.
• 2:45
  Antonia Kersting: That's what I'm really, really passionate about.
• 2:47
  Antonia Kersting: And I do that, you know, through one on one sessions.
• 2:49
  Antonia Kersting: I do that through rites of passage work predominantly with women and I do that through constellations.
• 2:54
  Antonia Kersting: So I'm really excited to be here and have a chat about it all.
• 2:58
  Tracy Cartwright: Fantastic, and you do it so well.
• 3:00
  Tracy Cartwright: I had the pleasure of being in your, in your presentation at Sydney and it was just fantastic.
• 3:07
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, it was, unfortunately it was only a couple of hours, like we could have just been in there a whole week and it would have just been still touching the surface, right?
• 3:15
  Tracy Cartwright: Um, yeah, it was amazing.
• 3:18
  Tracy Cartwright: It was amazing.
• 3:19
  Tracy Cartwright: So, when did you come to, when did you go to Australia?
• 3:22
  Antonia Kersting: I came when I was
• 3:24
  Tracy Cartwright: 15.
• 3:24
  Tracy Cartwright: 15, because you haven't got much of a German accent left.
• 3:28
  Antonia Kersting: No, look, I was, um, I was fluent before I came, so over in Germany, you know, we pretty much, we learned English from grade three, and I was very lucky, I had English teachers, so I had people who didn't have a German accent, because if you learn from people who have an accent, you generally tend to take on that accent, um, and so I was really lucky that I just, I had really good, very, like, clean speaking English teachers, and I was, um, and I went to an international school in grade eight and nine, so, um, I was Quite fluent by the time I came over here and only a little bit of the accent remains.
• 4:00
  Tracy Cartwright: Ah, is that why?
• 4:01
  Tracy Cartwright: Because sometimes you do meet people, even younger people, that are German that have a very German English accent and then others that don't.
• 4:09
  Tracy Cartwright: So you've answered that question for me.
• 4:11
  Tracy Cartwright: Beautiful.
• 4:13
  Antonia Kersting: If I get, hang around other German people, so like it just starts popping in, you know?
• 4:18
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 4:19
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, it's a little bit like when, um, Kiwis and Aussies are overseas, isn't it?
• 4:25
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, and we start, we start to, to get a little bit lingo y with each other.
• 4:30
  Tracy Cartwright: Um, before we started recording you and I, I was sharing with you about my not sleeping and I thought, and then you shared something with me about the moon because like, as building up to the, to the moon, I can usually, not until the moon has gone full and then it's starting to, uh, to wane, wane again, wane's the right word eh, then I start to be able to sleep again.
• 4:56
  Tracy Cartwright: Otherwise, building up to it for at least a week building up to it.
• 4:59
  Tracy Cartwright: I can't get to sleep till after midnight, maybe closer to one o'clock.
• 5:03
  Tracy Cartwright: And you shared some amazing information with me.
• 5:05
  Tracy Cartwright: And I thought when you were sharing it, I was thinking, I would love Antonia to share that for this, for this podcast, because it's about constellations and all that.
• 5:14
  Tracy Cartwright: So we're going to add some other things in there.
• 5:16
  Tracy Cartwright: And this is part of your specialty.
• 5:18
  Antonia Kersting: That's right, yeah, I mean, I do work with sort of the cycles and the seasons and all that, um, because I think often people, they're like, oh, I have this experience, and they think they're crazy, and it's like, no, actually, what you experience is really normal, you know, in the context of, like, the cycle that we're in.
• 5:32
  Antonia Kersting: Um, so, yeah, we're, we're coming up to full moon.
• 5:36
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, the, like the moon used to be our second biggest light source yet in our world, you know, until the invention of electricity with the sun being obviously the biggest.
• 5:47
  Antonia Kersting: But then we have the moon and light, um, affects our melatonin production.
• 5:52
  Antonia Kersting: And melatonin is the hormone that helps us sleep.
• 5:54
  Antonia Kersting: So it's, you know, what we have that melatonin rise before we go to bed.
• 5:57
  Antonia Kersting: And that's what makes us tired.
• 5:59
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and that's why blue light is such an issue, right?
• 6:00
  Antonia Kersting: Because blue light suppresses your melatonin.
• 6:03
  Antonia Kersting: So you don't sleep as well.
• 6:05
  Antonia Kersting: And before we were all surrounded by electricity and it was doing all sorts of weird and wacky things with our melatonin, the moon was actually what, you know, controlled that to a degree.
• 6:15
  Antonia Kersting: And a lot of people have the same issue that you have that around the full moon.
• 6:18
  Antonia Kersting: You just don't tend to sleep as well.
• 6:20
  Antonia Kersting: It has a lot to do with the light and your body knows, you know, there's a part of your body that knows and is exposed to that extra light at night.
• 6:27
  Antonia Kersting: And it actually, the melatonin has a knock on effect onto a lot of other hormones.
• 6:31
  Antonia Kersting: So it's not just makes you sleep, it also interacts with, um, especially your sex hormones.
• 6:36
  Antonia Kersting: And for women, you know, uh, before the invention of electricity, we probably all used to cycle together because our melatonin was cycling with the moon and so our sex hormones were cycling with the moon as well.
• 6:51
  Antonia Kersting: And so we were probably all bleeding around the new moon and ovulating around the full moon.
• 6:55
  Antonia Kersting: And then, you know, you can add all other things onto that, you know, longer nights make for, you know, better lovemaking, um, brighter lights, um, all of those things, you know, and it's really interesting because the full moon on an energetic level is also is something has to do with illumination and intensity.
• 7:15
  Antonia Kersting: It's really, you know, it coincides with like, you know, the apex of the month and with ovulation.
• 7:22
  Antonia Kersting: And if you look at, you know, the wheel of cycles that we look at, it coincides with sort of motherhood and like the peak of life and intensity.
• 7:31
  Antonia Kersting: And often it can be very, um, Can be very beautiful, but it can also bring up a lot of stuff.
• 7:35
  Antonia Kersting: It can illuminate a lot of things.
• 7:37
  Antonia Kersting: And so, um, there's all these sort of little different layers.
• 7:40
  Antonia Kersting: We've got the biological layer and then there's the energetic layer.
• 7:43
  Antonia Kersting: And it all sort of comes together to sometimes, yeah, result in a short night's sleep.
• 7:48
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 7:48
  Tracy Cartwright: Aren't we amazing humans?
• 7:51
  Tracy Cartwright: We are.
• 7:52
  Tracy Cartwright: You know, I think most speakers are, but just the way that when you break it down in that way and you get out of the way society shows us that we are, or we've been patterned or programmed or whatever you want to call it, into the world, you get up, you do this, but actually there's so much more to us.
• 8:11
  Tracy Cartwright: We're so much more in tune with the nature if we listen and, uh, and trust our bodies.
• 8:19
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:20
  Antonia Kersting: And you know, the, the funny thing is that this idea that we're separate from nature is such an illusion.
• 8:26
  Antonia Kersting: You know, like, the reality is we're always interlinked.
• 8:30
  Antonia Kersting: And more so probably than what most people realize would be like, Oh, I'm just not a nature person.
• 8:35
  Antonia Kersting: I'm like, well, you don't really have a choice, you know, like you are of nature and nature is of you.
• 8:39
  Antonia Kersting: And there is all these interactions happening that you might not be aware of, but they're happening anyway.
• 8:45
  Tracy Cartwright: Exactly, exactly.
• 8:47
  Tracy Cartwright: That's beautiful.
• 8:48
  Tracy Cartwright: So you said that you got into Constellations at 14, you had your first experience.
• 8:53
  Tracy Cartwright: Are you able to share a little bit about that, what led you to there, if that's
• 8:57
  Antonia Kersting: something you'd
• 8:58
  Tracy Cartwright: like sharing?
• 8:59
  Antonia Kersting: Absolutely, so Um, I think the first thing to say is that in, in Germany where I grew up, and especially in Berlin, constellation work is less of a fringe modality than what it is in New Zealand and Australia, um, in America.
• 9:14
  Antonia Kersting: It's kind of, I wouldn't say it's like super mainstream, but people do tend to know about or have heard about it in some sort of context.
• 9:20
  Antonia Kersting: I mean, it comes from there, so it's a little bit more I guess, yeah, it's a little bit more mainstream.
• 9:24
  Antonia Kersting: My mum was going through her own healing journey at the time where she was, um, you know, she, uh, went from being, uh, an aesthetist to, um, moving into functional medicine and environmental medicine and things like that.
• 9:36
  Antonia Kersting: And along that journey, you know, she tried kinesiology and da da da da and all the things.
• 9:40
  Antonia Kersting: And she'd done constellation work.
• 9:42
  Antonia Kersting: So she inevitably jumped into constellation work and she attended a workshop.
• 9:46
  Antonia Kersting: And she sort of always took me along for the ride, you know, there's no detox I haven't done, you know, and there's no, uh, I don't know, alternative modality I haven't tried before the age of 15, you know, so, um, she was like, yeah, I think you'd really love this.
• 10:01
  Antonia Kersting: And it was actually, uh, we had just moved into the city.
• 10:04
  Antonia Kersting: We'd always lived in the suburbs.
• 10:05
  Antonia Kersting: We'd just moved into the city and just like high riser.
• 10:07
  Antonia Kersting: We're on the fifth floor and on the ground level, there was a natropathy practice.
• 10:12
  Antonia Kersting: And this lady, she was also a family conservations facilitator.
• 10:15
  Antonia Kersting: And she used to hold regular workshops where you could come and attend.
• 10:19
  Antonia Kersting: And the way that she did it was because she would see her clients and then she would, essentially she would already know the people that were going to do the Constellation because they would be her one on one clients.
• 10:28
  Antonia Kersting: And so she would just get representatives in so you could come in as a representative.
• 10:32
  Antonia Kersting: And that's what I did.
• 10:33
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, yeah, I absolutely, I loved it.
• 10:36
  Antonia Kersting: I loved it straight away.
• 10:38
  Antonia Kersting: It was just, I think when you're that young, it's very intuitive and you tend to hold a lot less stories around like what it means to be a mother or a father or, you know, freedom or the heart or something like that.
• 10:52
  Antonia Kersting: It just, I think the somatic experience can be quite strong.
• 10:56
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, yeah, it was, it was such a potent experience that I actually, I went back very regularly.
• 11:01
  Antonia Kersting: I think I went back maybe.
• 11:03
  Antonia Kersting: Oh gosh, over a few months, probably five, six times or something like that.
• 11:08
  Antonia Kersting: I don't know.
• 11:09
  Antonia Kersting: Like fortnightly.
• 11:10
  Antonia Kersting: And so yeah, Friday nights, you know, that's, that's what I got up to.
• 11:14
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and it was really, really profound.
• 11:16
  Antonia Kersting: And, you know, I was going through a custody battle at the time.
• 11:20
  Antonia Kersting: Um, well, you know, my family was going through a custody battle at the time and it was very stressful.
• 11:24
  Antonia Kersting: And I think, you know, in a lot of ways, I always say like, I think it really saved my life because the experiences I had in representation was so healing and so impactful.
• 11:32
  Antonia Kersting: And so perspective widening and shifting.
• 11:36
  Antonia Kersting: That it took me out of all of the, the stress and the pressure and all the things that I was experiencing in my own life.
• 11:42
  Antonia Kersting: So
• 11:43
  Tracy Cartwright: what a beautiful thing for a young, young lady.
• 11:46
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 11:46
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 11:46
  Antonia Kersting: It was, it was really beautiful.
• 11:48
  Antonia Kersting: I'm very grateful for that.
• 11:50
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Tracy Cartwright: Fantastic.
• 11:51
  Tracy Cartwright: And what took you to Australia?
• 11:53
  Antonia Kersting: That's a very long story, but in a nutshell, um, well, I decided when I was five, I wanted to live in Australia and become a veterinarian here.
• 12:00
  Antonia Kersting: Then my brother actually came on exchange and he finished his education here and then, like, work and travel.
• 12:07
  Antonia Kersting: And, uh, we had visited him when I was 12 and I didn't want to leave then.
• 12:12
  Antonia Kersting: Like, I was like, I want to stay.
• 12:13
  Antonia Kersting: I would have stayed if that had been an option, you know?
• 12:16
  Antonia Kersting: And so I came on exchange when I was 15 and I was only meant to stay for six months.
• 12:21
  Antonia Kersting: But then It just so happened that things aligned and I was able to stay.
• 12:28
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and then I finished my education here and, you know, went through all the permanent residency stuff and all the things.
• 12:36
  Antonia Kersting: And here I am, yeah, 15 years later.
• 12:39
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, so it was um.
• 12:41
  Tracy Cartwright: Beautiful.
• 12:42
  Tracy Cartwright: So can you share with the listeners how you use constellations in your work?
• 12:47
  Tracy Cartwright: Because I know you do things a little bit differently too, because you have a focus.
• 12:53
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, I mean, the focus chose me, I think, because, you know, I never went out there and I'm like, this is what I'm going to do, but it just tends to be what happens.
• 13:02
  Antonia Kersting: Um, or the people that come see me in my open workshops.
• 13:06
  Antonia Kersting: I think, you know, the way I work.
• 13:10
  Antonia Kersting: It really incorporates a lot of the shamanic side of things and also circle work.
• 13:15
  Antonia Kersting: So, you know, especially when I do workshops, I actually do quite a bit of sharing and circle work.
• 13:21
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and almost sometimes, you know, so much group therapy elements in there as well, because I find there's so much medicine that comes out when people are allowed to share.
• 13:31
  Antonia Kersting: And loud to hear each other and, uh, share about their experiences and then someone goes, Wow, that's exactly my experience as well, you know, and it's just all of that wisdom and connection that comes from that.
• 13:40
  Antonia Kersting: And I do a lot of parts work with Constellation, so that's inner parts work, Um, and like reclamation rituals is a huge part of what I do, Uh, where, you know, when people have experienced trauma, you know, there is often a part of them that was left behind or an aspect of them that they leave, you know, whether that's their innocence or their joy or their confidence, you know, their courage, whatever it was, that event had such an impact on their life that they leave part of them behind.
• 14:10
  Antonia Kersting: And what I'm really passionate about doing is supporting people to reclaim that.
• 14:16
  Antonia Kersting: And I don't do that for them.
• 14:18
  Antonia Kersting: You know, um, in old sort of, uh, traditional shamanism, the shaman would go and retrieve the soul and bring it back.
• 14:24
  Antonia Kersting: And I'm, I guess, more of like a modern day shaman, if you want to use that terminology, but bring it more into like the 21st century where I create this space and the support for people to go do that themselves and then come back and integrate, you know, so I'm sort of like the container.
• 14:40
  Antonia Kersting: And one of the things that I do a lot and work a lot with is rites of passage.
• 14:44
  Antonia Kersting: So.
• 14:45
  Antonia Kersting: You know, there's, um, I do this especially with women, but I've also done this with men.
• 14:50
  Antonia Kersting: You know, when there's big events that happen in life, and for women, you know, um, it's really the blood mysteries that I work with.
• 14:56
  Antonia Kersting: So that's our own birth, that's our menarche, um, that is, uh, birthing, uh, yourself, um, and then menopause and death.
• 15:06
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and when I say birthing, by the way, that does not mean that that's exclusive to children, though that's of course a big part of it, but.
• 15:13
  Antonia Kersting: Birthing in this context means anything that a woman has created, whether that's a business, or a career, or a home, or, you know, there's lots of different ways that women birth, right?
• 15:24
  Antonia Kersting: It's not just children.
• 15:26
  Antonia Kersting: And often what happens is that these rites are not acknowledged as rites of passage, and a lot of time they're pathologized, you know, um, as we did in the workshop in Sydney, you know, we talked about menarche, so the first time a woman bleeds, right, the first time she gets her period, and I asked the room of 40 women, you know, who had a positive menarche experience, and not a single person put their hand up, right, and For me, that's such a good indicator of what generally tends to happen when I talk about these topics, is that we've been so, uh, shamed and miseducated, you know, there's so much miseducation around what's happened, if we are educated at all.
• 16:06
  Antonia Kersting: And it's actually, these things are incredibly powerful.
• 16:08
  Antonia Kersting: And my beautiful teacher, um, Jane Hardwick Collins, you know, she always says, um, everything that's like shamed and hidden in society is a good indicator, there's a lot of power behind it.
• 16:19
  Antonia Kersting: And so for me, a big big part of what I do is also help women reclaim those rites of passage and sometimes actually reliving those rites of passage into womanhood, so that they can really feel themselves arrive in that.
• 16:33
  Antonia Kersting: Because however we experience that rite, that tells us what to expect for that next chapter.
• 16:39
  Antonia Kersting: So if we have menak that expects that was to tell, um, that expects that tells us what to expect of womanhood.
• 16:45
  Antonia Kersting: And so if we have no ritual, we're shamed, you know.
• 16:48
  Antonia Kersting: What does that tell us about being a woman?
• 16:50
  Antonia Kersting: And sometimes using constellation work to re experience these rituals can be just so, so potent in rewriting how people see themselves and how they've really experienced that whole chapter of life.
• 17:04
  Tracy Cartwright: Amazing.
• 17:06
  Tracy Cartwright: So just watching you work so powerful, so potent, and in that short amount of time that we had.
• 17:13
  Tracy Cartwright: And then listening to you now, I'm like, yeah, man, imagine how much more powerful women would feel without, if they had that opportunity to have that, to not experience the oppression that we experienced in those early years, you know, that should be for, that should be our celebration and, you know, connection to ourselves and to our ancestors and yeah, but instead there's a lot of shame.
• 17:37
  Tracy Cartwright: I know myself, I was the youngest and I had a couple of older brothers.
• 17:42
  Tracy Cartwright: One of them was very kind to me and the other one was not.
• 17:44
  Tracy Cartwright: He was incredibly unkind at every angle that he could And one of them was around my brown bleeding.
• 17:52
  Tracy Cartwright: And I had an older sister, who was a couple of years older than me, and I watched him torment her and I just, oh, I was terrified.
• 18:01
  Tracy Cartwright: Terrified to, to tell people and yeah.
• 18:05
  Tracy Cartwright: And, and plus, my experience wasn't that great anyway with, with my first bleed.
• 18:10
  Tracy Cartwright: It was indication, signs and indications of my sexual abuse that, um, that I'd buried so deeply.
• 18:18
  Tracy Cartwright: But yeah, I look back now at all the different signs of, things.
• 18:21
  Tracy Cartwright: And I think, why did nobody ask questions?
• 18:24
  Tracy Cartwright: Why did nobody prod a little bit deeper?
• 18:27
  Tracy Cartwright: You know, I had buried it so, so, so well.
• 18:31
  Tracy Cartwright: I guess I probably would have said I was all right anyway.
• 18:34
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Tracy Cartwright: Because I was trying to fit in and trying to be okay.
• 18:38
  Tracy Cartwright: And the, um, quotation marks normal, it's not much normal about me, but that's, which is great.
• 18:47
  Tracy Cartwright: And I'm, I'm embracing these days.
• 18:49
  Tracy Cartwright: I love it.
• 18:50
  Antonia Kersting: What is normal?
• 18:51
  Antonia Kersting: You know, like, I don't know if any of us are normal.
• 18:54
  Antonia Kersting: But what you're describing is such a common experience, I think, that, you know, women are having these experiences and we just don't really know where to go, right?
• 19:03
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, there's the sanitization that happens because we live in a very male dominated world that's running on a 24 hour hormone cycle and we don't do that, right?
• 19:12
  Antonia Kersting: We run on a 28, 29, 30 day hormone cycle.
• 19:17
  Antonia Kersting: And, um It's always struck me how, like, Western medicine in particular tries to sanitize, like, a cycle.
• 19:25
  Antonia Kersting: Like, try to, like, you know, you, you start bleeding, well, you better go on the pill.
• 19:29
  Antonia Kersting: If, especially if there's something wrong with your cycle, well, you just go on the pill, you know, and that will even you out.
• 19:35
  Tracy Cartwright: Which, by the way, It was another one of my experiences.
• 19:37
  Tracy Cartwright: Yep.
• 19:38
  Tracy Cartwright: They're very young.
• 19:38
  Tracy Cartwright: And
• 19:40
  Antonia Kersting: it doesn't actually fix your cycle, right?
• 19:42
  Antonia Kersting: Because then you come off it and you've got the same issues, if not worse.
• 19:45
  Antonia Kersting: Then, you know, and it's not like the pill is harmless, right?
• 19:49
  Antonia Kersting: There's lots of side effects.
• 19:51
  Antonia Kersting: Anyways, all of these things that happen, um, and then we have birth and they're like, well, that's really dangerous.
• 19:56
  Antonia Kersting: We would have medicalized, you know, the crap out of that.
• 19:59
  Antonia Kersting: Best if you just do a scheduled C section so we don't have any variability in there, you know?
• 20:04
  Antonia Kersting: And then, you know, you have menopause and they're like, well, we can't have that.
• 20:08
  Antonia Kersting: He just go back on hormone replacement therapies.
• 20:10
  Antonia Kersting: We actually don't know how to help you.
• 20:12
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 20:13
  Antonia Kersting: No.
• 20:13
  Antonia Kersting: So this whole time it's just like, women are just being
• 20:16
  Tracy Cartwright: mystery, right?
• 20:19
  Antonia Kersting: So mysterious, you know?
• 20:22
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 20:22
  Antonia Kersting: So yeah, I, I really empathize with your experience, Tracy.
• 20:25
  Antonia Kersting: I think that's a, that's a really common experience, especially when you're not having a good time and there's not really anywhere to turn, you know, um, or to get.
• 20:35
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:36
  Tracy Cartwright: So if, are you able to give us an example, uh, without, obviously, you know, with, through the confidentiality and that, but is there any constellations that you can think of that would be, you'd feel comfortable in sharing here that,
• 20:50
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 20:51
  Tracy Cartwright: Because the listeners, I know that's one of the things, they always love to hear the examples and other people's stories.
• 20:57
  Tracy Cartwright: And like you say, you know, in the sharing circles, when people are sharing and people go, Oh, that's me, the listeners, this is the feedback that I'm getting from people is that they're like, Wow, yeah, hearing the stories is great, because then I recognize that it's not just me.
• 21:10
  Antonia Kersting: I can actually share one that, like, pops up straight to mind and, um, you know, obviously I won't name names, but um, uh, I used to work in a, um, mental health retreat, uh, rehab.
• 21:21
  Antonia Kersting: So, you know, drugs, alcohol, and essentially just lots and lots of trauma.
• 21:25
  Antonia Kersting: And I did this beautiful beautiful rites of passage.
• 21:30
  Antonia Kersting: We actually was, uh, there was a lot of women.
• 21:32
  Antonia Kersting: There were some men in the group, but we were about 15 in the group.
• 21:35
  Antonia Kersting: And I think we probably had maybe four men and the rest were women.
• 21:39
  Antonia Kersting: And I was working with this beautiful woman and she was telling me, you know, I'd already heard a little bit in, in the circle space.
• 21:46
  Antonia Kersting: And then she was, I was sitting next to her.
• 21:48
  Antonia Kersting: She was the seeker.
• 21:49
  Antonia Kersting: She wanted to work on something.
• 21:51
  Antonia Kersting: And she was telling me a bit about her story.
• 21:53
  Antonia Kersting: And I remember being so touched and just.
• 21:56
  Antonia Kersting: And how it felt like at every turn, choices had been taken from her.
• 22:01
  Antonia Kersting: And she, you know, she was a bit older, and had really, you know, grew up rurally, and it really felt like she had been so stifled as a woman in her expression, in her choices, you know, from everything, you know.
• 22:13
  Antonia Kersting: And um, and I asked her if she, you know, if she felt like she had ever really learned what it was like to be a woman.
• 22:22
  Antonia Kersting: And she was like, no.
• 22:23
  Antonia Kersting: And she was about to go through menopause, she was entering perimenopause.
• 22:27
  Antonia Kersting: And I did this ritual with her, because we, it just so happened, you know, as a dozen constellations, that we had, we had maidens there, so we had people under 25, we had mothers there, and we had margas, and we even had 65, so we had the whole spread.
• 22:43
  Tracy Cartwright: And
• 22:43
  Antonia Kersting: I put them into each section, so we had the maidens at the front, and then we had the mothers, and then we had the margas, which margas is, um, when you're in a pausal, and then we had the crones.
• 22:55
  Antonia Kersting: And.
• 22:56
  Antonia Kersting: I actually, you know, each section, I allowed her to take her time to meet the women in that section, and then to take the step over into the next, like through that right, into the next stage of life.
• 23:12
  Antonia Kersting: And it was so incredibly powerful just to walk with this woman, you know, like I didn't do that, I was just there to support her, you know, hold that space for her, to meet, you know, the archetypes of Mother, Maiden, Marga, and Crone, and for her to actually feel and reclaim, you know, each one of those rights and doing it on her own terms, rather than having it being done to her.
• 23:41
  Antonia Kersting: It was incredibly powerful.
• 23:42
  Antonia Kersting: And, you know, and then it was just, you know, we got to sort of the, the mother and she reclaimed a lot there around her own birthing experience with her own children.
• 23:50
  Antonia Kersting: And then she, you know, took that final step into MAGA over the threshold of menopause and into that, you know, MAGA realm.
• 23:58
  Antonia Kersting: And I just remember, It was like her whole face changed, you know, like her whole body posture, her face, like there was just all of a sudden this solidity in her that just hadn't been there before.
• 24:14
  Antonia Kersting: And it was so beautiful to see these other menopausal women coming in and welcoming her to that space and just making it not this terrifying thing that was happening to her once again, but actually this like, conscious step into this like, elderhood and welcoming her and then from there, even looking forward into like, crone years, you know, and
• 24:36
  Tracy Cartwright: So crone being
• 24:38
  Antonia Kersting: developed
• 24:38
  Tracy Cartwright: with the hood of it, yeah, carry on.
• 24:42
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, so we've got, um, maiden, which is up to 25 years and we've got mother, which is from 25 to menopause.
• 24:50
  Antonia Kersting: And then we've got Marga, which is from menopause about 65, and then we've got Chrome, which is 65 onwards.
• 24:57
  Tracy Cartwright: So you're not really in Marga for that long?
• 25:00
  Antonia Kersting: Well, I mean, some women go through menopause about 40.
• 25:04
  Antonia Kersting: 45. So you could be in there for 20 years.
• 25:07
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, it depends, you know, it's variable depending on where, where you, yeah, when, when you stop your bleed.
• 25:13
  Antonia Kersting: And yeah, so that was probably one of the, I, that still so resonates with me.
• 25:17
  Antonia Kersting: And it was also so powerful for everyone else, you know, for all the other women to witness that.
• 25:23
  Antonia Kersting: I could
• 25:23
  Tracy Cartwright: feel it when you were talking about it.
• 25:24
  Tracy Cartwright: I could feel it rising up in me.
• 25:25
  Tracy Cartwright: I'm going, I'm going to have a little explore after this.
• 25:29
  Tracy Cartwright: That was exciting.
• 25:31
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 25:32
  Antonia Kersting: Um, so that, that was really, really, really beautiful.
• 25:36
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, and she just, you know, and I saw her afterwards a few times because I was doing group therapy at the time.
• 25:42
  Antonia Kersting: And it was just like, she just had a completely different stance to life.
• 25:48
  Antonia Kersting: Or like, that's how I experienced her anyway.
• 25:50
  Antonia Kersting: And, um.
• 25:51
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, she thanked me like she was blown away, but you know, it's a fairly simple process, but so incredibly powerful, so impactful, and doing variations of this, you know, yeah, can be so, so healing for women.
• 26:05
  Antonia Kersting: I
• 26:06
  Tracy Cartwright: find those simple exercises are incredibly powerful, right?
• 26:10
  Tracy Cartwright: Because, you know, it takes the complications out of things as well, and we're just, we're stepping in for this simple exercise and, and just, it's almost like the door opens for something greater to come through.
• 26:22
  Tracy Cartwright: That's my experience of it.
• 26:24
  Antonia Kersting: Absolutely.
• 26:24
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:26
  Antonia Kersting: It's such a beautiful way to use constellations in that more ritualistic way as well, you know, where it's really, we're stepping in as the, the community like this, you know, with the representatives for the community that wasn't there at the time.
• 26:38
  Antonia Kersting: Right.
• 26:39
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, being able to rewrite the experience.
• 26:43
  Antonia Kersting: I think that's, that's so powerful.
• 26:46
  Tracy Cartwright: You're beautiful.
• 26:47
  Tracy Cartwright: How would you describe constellations if you were meeting someone for the first time and they asked you, what do you do?
• 26:53
  Tracy Cartwright: I
• 26:55
  Antonia Kersting: love this one.
• 26:56
  Antonia Kersting: Okay, so the way that I generally describe constellations is that I say, you know, when we normally do therapy, It's very much focused on yourself, right?
• 27:09
  Antonia Kersting: The focus is on what is my process, what are my thoughts, what are my emotions, you know, what are my behaviors, um, understanding yourself, like why am I the way that I am, and I might want to change that, so how can I do that, right?
• 27:22
  Antonia Kersting: So that's the focus of one on one therapy.
• 27:25
  Antonia Kersting: But Constellations sort of takes it to that bigger picture, where we say, well, you're an individual, yes, and you have all of those experiences and that's all valid, and you don't exist in a vacuum.
• 27:39
  Antonia Kersting: You exist in relationship.
• 27:40
  Antonia Kersting: You exist in connection to other people and you exist as part of systems, whether that is your family of origin, whether that's your family now, whether that's your relationship with your partner, whether that's your workplace or your culture, right?
• 27:56
  Antonia Kersting: We never exist in isolation.
• 27:57
  Antonia Kersting: We're always existing in relationship to someone or something.
• 28:01
  Antonia Kersting: Even your inner world, right?
• 28:03
  Antonia Kersting: Like that's, there's different parts that we're existing in relationship to.
• 28:07
  Antonia Kersting: And so what constellation work allows us to do is it allows us to have a look at those external factors, at those relational aspects that you're relating to and connected to, and see if there are any entanglements or dysfunctional patterns playing out between you and the other elements that's around you.
• 28:30
  Antonia Kersting: And we can use constellation work to resolve those entanglements and to heal some of those ingrained patterns that might not be serving you anymore.
• 28:39
  Antonia Kersting: That you can live your life in a more empowered and a more authentic way, so you're not drawn in by these unconscious loyalties and, you know, Hidden dynamics that are pulling at you, but you can actually consciously make choices and live your life the way that you want to live.
• 28:58
  Antonia Kersting: And constellation work allows us to pull in all those different players that you might be entangled with and resolve those dynamics.
• 29:07
  Tracy Cartwright: Fantastic.
• 29:08
  Tracy Cartwright: I love it how everybody has their own unique way of describing it.
• 29:12
  Tracy Cartwright: And it's so poetic, it's so beautiful.
• 29:14
  Tracy Cartwright: Thank you.
• 29:14
  Antonia Kersting: Great question.
• 29:17
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, it is.
• 29:18
  Tracy Cartwright: And it's always Like I was yesterday, I had a random, I had to go into town and I had to spend hours in town because my car windscreen was being fixed.
• 29:28
  Tracy Cartwright: And so I thought I'll go and have a, I'll go and shout myself a nice lunch.
• 29:33
  Tracy Cartwright: And this elderly gentleman, I saw him, he was standing behind me in the line and then he came out and he wanted, he was going to sit next to me, but I could see the cafe was getting really full.
• 29:42
  Tracy Cartwright: And I had, I had four chairs and myself, so I said, would you like to share this table with me?
• 29:49
  Tracy Cartwright: So he comes and sits down and then he's, we're just.
• 29:53
  Tracy Cartwright: chatting away and then he asked me, so what do you do?
• 29:56
  Tracy Cartwright: And I'm thinking, oh okay.
• 29:59
  Tracy Cartwright: I, yeah, because I don't know anything about this man.
• 30:02
  Tracy Cartwright: How do I describe this?
• 30:04
  Tracy Cartwright: So I shared with him in the way how I describe it about intergenerational trauma and stuff.
• 30:09
  Tracy Cartwright: And he goes, leaned over the table and he goes, I've heard about you, this lady in Glenburry who does those, who does funny things with, with trauma and intergenerational stuff.
• 30:22
  Tracy Cartwright: And I, and I was like, of all the people that I could have invited to sit at my table.
• 30:27
  Tracy Cartwright: And then he goes on to share that he works with this.
• 30:30
  Tracy Cartwright: machine that he's had for 40 odd years, the only one in the country, and he does all sorts of alternative work as well.
• 30:37
  Tracy Cartwright: So it was one of those serendipitous moments.
• 30:40
  Tracy Cartwright: But just having to describe to someone, you know, because you don't know from what angle people come, right?
• 30:45
  Tracy Cartwright: So it's like, how do we do this in a way that it's going to feel cohesive for people to grab, to understand?
• 30:55
  Antonia Kersting: I hear that.
• 30:56
  Antonia Kersting: It's such an experiential modality.
• 30:57
  Antonia Kersting: I always say to people, look, just come, just come to a workshop, you know, like it's.
• 31:02
  Antonia Kersting: You'll understand, you know, um, it's just really such a felt experience, you know.
• 31:07
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah,
• 31:07
  Tracy Cartwright: yeah, I think most constellators will say, just come, it's easy to experience and it is to, to just, to explain.
• 31:15
  Tracy Cartwright: So, yeah, that's very cool, very cool.
• 31:19
  Tracy Cartwright: I love that you mentioned that as well.
• 31:22
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, it was really interesting conversation.
• 31:23
  Tracy Cartwright: I love the way the universe puts people in around me.
• 31:27
  Tracy Cartwright: I've had a few funny moments recently where the perfect person has been in the right place.
• 31:32
  Tracy Cartwright: I don't know if I've shared this already, like, so sometimes my con, because I have lots of conversations with other people as well, and whether I've shared this on this podcast, so for my listeners, bear with me if I've already shared this story, that, uh, a few weeks ago, we ran a mini immersion in Auckland and The night before, so we'd all gone down to Auckland, those of us facilitators, that were running it, and I walked into the supermarket and my shoe broke.
• 31:59
  Tracy Cartwright: Oh, darn.
• 32:00
  Tracy Cartwright: Like it was the only pair of shoes.
• 32:01
  Tracy Cartwright: It was late Friday night.
• 32:03
  Tracy Cartwright: We had our immersion starting the next day.
• 32:06
  Tracy Cartwright: What am I going to do?
• 32:07
  Tracy Cartwright: I'm like, okay, I need some glue.
• 32:09
  Tracy Cartwright: I need some glue.
• 32:10
  Tracy Cartwright: This is the only thing I can do because I don't have any other shoes and it's late.
• 32:15
  Tracy Cartwright: And so I asked this young guy and he takes me down to the aisle where the glue was and there was one tube of glue and it was PVA, which is like what you would It's not gonna work for a pair of shoes, right?
• 32:27
  Tracy Cartwright: It might if you had all that right equipment to hold it down and stuff.
• 32:31
  Tracy Cartwright: And I said out loud, there was only one other person in the aisle, and I said out loud, oh damn, this isn't gonna fix my shoe.
• 32:38
  Tracy Cartwright: And the other man that was in the aisle got very excited and he came.
• 32:43
  Tracy Cartwright: Trotting over to me and he goes, Shu shu tell me what, what's happened to your shoe?
• 32:48
  Tracy Cartwright: And I said, I don't like, like Cinderella.
• 32:50
  Tracy Cartwright: I'm like showing him my shoe.
• 32:53
  Tracy Cartwright: And he is, ah, ah.
• 32:55
  Tracy Cartwright: He goes, well, it's very fortuitous'cause I'm the local cobbler and I could fix your shoe for you.
• 33:01
  Tracy Cartwright: And I was like, even his words and everything, it was like, what?
• 33:05
  Tracy Cartwright: Really?
• 33:06
  Tracy Cartwright: And he says, I'm actually going back.
• 33:08
  Tracy Cartwright: He wanted to do it in the morning.
• 33:09
  Tracy Cartwright: He said, I could do it for you in the morning.
• 33:11
  Tracy Cartwright: And I explained time challenges.
• 33:15
  Tracy Cartwright: He says, well, I'm actually going back there now to drop something off so I could glue it and clamp it and you could pick it up at nine o'clock in the morning.
• 33:21
  Tracy Cartwright: I was like, oh, thank you universe for bringing in the right people at the right time.
• 33:27
  Tracy Cartwright: And just so grateful to have these experiences where you meet people in your life at the right time.
• 33:35
  Tracy Cartwright: Right.
• 33:36
  Tracy Cartwright: And sometimes it's even goes for.
• 33:38
  Tracy Cartwright: Those experiences that we have that aren't so great, you know, I, I personally experienced a lot of trauma, which then led to a cycle of putting myself into really dangerous places.
• 33:50
  Tracy Cartwright: And I got really good at that.
• 33:52
  Tracy Cartwright: And so also from that, you know, you, you meet others that.
• 33:58
  Tracy Cartwright: Or you're attracting it, aren't you?
• 34:00
  Tracy Cartwright: I guess that's probably the easiest way to say it, because of the frequency that you end up on if you're traumatised and you've got just, you're oozing trauma, you're oozing that.
• 34:12
  Tracy Cartwright: Um, and that whole fractionated part of yourself out there into the world, then that's what you are attracting as well.
• 34:20
  Tracy Cartwright: And occasionally you'll get a nice angel that comes in and helps to shift your vibration.
• 34:25
  Tracy Cartwright: And I was really lucky because I had a few of those come through my life.
• 34:30
  Tracy Cartwright: And, uh, yeah.
• 34:31
  Tracy Cartwright: And then funny little reminders like meeting a shoe elf in the supermarket and then the lovely gentleman yesterday.
• 34:38
  Tracy Cartwright: So a little bit off the story there, but, uh, I just wanted to share
• 34:43
  Antonia Kersting: that.
• 34:44
  Antonia Kersting: That's, I feel like that's constellation in real life, right?
• 34:46
  Antonia Kersting: Like, like we always think it's like, Oh, it's just a workshop, but like, it, it, it happens all around us all the time.
• 34:51
  Antonia Kersting: Right.
• 34:52
  Antonia Kersting: And if we're, if we're open, if we're looking for it, I guess.
• 34:55
  Antonia Kersting: So I love that so much because it's like, yeah, it's beautiful.
• 35:02
  Tracy Cartwright: Now you are part of the Australian, uh, how, what is the institute that you're part of?
• 35:09
  Antonia Kersting: Uh, we're STEMI Constellation Academy.
• 35:11
  Tracy Cartwright: Academy, sorry, Academy.
• 35:13
  Tracy Cartwright: Yes, with Marguerite and Mel.
• 35:17
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, you want to explain a little bit more about that for the listeners?
• 35:21
  Antonia Kersting: Sure.
• 35:21
  Antonia Kersting: So, oh gosh, I think about two years ago now, Marguerite, who's also been on this podcast, I believe, yeah, she, she came to me in mail and, you know, Marguerite is my teacher.
• 35:34
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and, you know, I was really lucky that essentially, after I did my facilitator training with her, she sort of almost like apprenticed with her, you know, she, I sort of came to all her workshops and supported her and I did some admin stuff for her and I just, I learned a lot, um, you know, from just being around her.
• 35:52
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and so we become quite close and her and Mel have known each other for 15 years or something like that, um, through a similar route and we're all three German.
• 36:01
  Antonia Kersting: And we'd already worked together at the health retreat that I spoke about previously, um, as sort of a team and we were going in there every fortnight to do constellations.
• 36:09
  Antonia Kersting: And then Marguerite, we actually were meant to have a meeting about this, um, about the retreat, um, and then Marguerite's like, actually, you know, would you guys like to start a training company?
• 36:21
  Antonia Kersting: And we were like, What?
• 36:23
  Antonia Kersting: Um, so like a quick half an hour Zoom meeting turned into about a two hour discussion.
• 36:28
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, essentially, you know, Marguerite used to run very regular yearly trainings before COVID hit.
• 36:34
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 36:34
  Antonia Kersting: For facilitator training.
• 36:36
  Antonia Kersting: And, you know, she's getting, um, to an age now where she doesn't really want to be doing it by herself anymore.
• 36:42
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and also, you know, uh, there's really for her this desire to leave a legacy and to pass on her knowledge because, you know, she's got 40 plus years of accumulated wisdom and knowledge.
• 36:52
  Antonia Kersting: And so.
• 36:54
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, she brought us on board, as well as Trin, who I should mention as well, she's really beautiful, um, too, and she, um, she just couldn't do it time wise, um, it was a bit too much of a commitment, but she does come on board with us, she's there on the weekends, she helps with the catering and things like that.
• 37:09
  Antonia Kersting: So, yeah, and we essentially have created this seven month training, which is blended, it's, but the biggest component of it is in person, because that was for us was, you know, such a big thing as it's a lot of online constellations happening, a lot of online trainings, but as we all know, there's a difference between doing like an online training and doing an in person training.
• 37:32
  Antonia Kersting: And so we really wanted to create something That was really solid, and where, you know, when people walk away from it, they feel like, yes, I can implement this into my practice, you know, maybe even already throughout the training, they feel like, yep, I can do this, you know, I can do this, and I can do it in a way that's my own style.
• 37:51
  Antonia Kersting: This is not like, oh, this is how you do a constellation, so I must do it like this, but using the tools that they may already have, the skills they already have learned, you know, and bringing that all together and doing it in their own way.
• 38:02
  Antonia Kersting: And so yeah, we've created this really amazing seven month program where we have different semesters.
• 38:08
  Antonia Kersting: Um, we do like a foundation semester, we do second semester is focused on one on one and like traditional constellations.
• 38:15
  Antonia Kersting: And the third semester is like group the uh, sorry, group facilitation and creative applications.
• 38:21
  Antonia Kersting: And then the fourth semester is really about like finding your own groove, like finding your own approach to the modality.
• 38:27
  Antonia Kersting: And yeah, we've got online materials, all that kind of stuff.
• 38:30
  Antonia Kersting: It's, it's really, you know, One of the big things we want to focus on is really creating a community.
• 38:36
  Antonia Kersting: So it's not just like you do the training, you never see each other again.
• 38:38
  Antonia Kersting: But, you know, there is ongoing professional development.
• 38:42
  Antonia Kersting: There's ongoing community connection.
• 38:44
  Antonia Kersting: You know, it's actually, um, great.
• 38:45
  Antonia Kersting: There's a fair few of us coming to New Zealand together.
• 38:48
  Antonia Kersting: So a lot of our students are going to be at the, they're not students anymore.
• 38:52
  Antonia Kersting: They're, um, you know, now graduated facilitators.
• 38:54
  Antonia Kersting: We're all going to be at the New Zealand intensive together.
• 38:57
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, and things like that, you know, so.
• 39:00
  Antonia Kersting: It's really beautiful to also be building this community and, and having a bit more of support and exchange because what we were all noticing, Marit, Mel and I, was it was felt like we're all like these islands, you know, and, and there was as much connection as we would have liked and not as much exchange.
• 39:19
  Antonia Kersting: And so, yeah, that was sort of our vision to create something where people, you know, of course, where people walk out and they're like, yep, I can facilitate in my own way, the way that feels good for me.
• 39:29
  Antonia Kersting: And, you know, there's ongoing connection, there's ongoing growth and exploration of Constellation work.
• 39:34
  Antonia Kersting: Because all three of us, you know, Marguerite, Mel and I, we all facilitate differently, we all have different viewpoints.
• 39:39
  Antonia Kersting: And we also bring that to the training, you know, that it's all three of us teaching, um, and offering our own perspectives and, yeah, approaches.
• 39:46
  Antonia Kersting: Which is really exciting.
• 39:47
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, yeah, it's been, it's been a really interesting journey and, and I've enjoyed it a lot.
• 39:52
  Antonia Kersting: It's um, I really love teaching so it's, it's been really a pleasure.
• 39:57
  Tracy Cartwright: And do you have people from all around Australia or mostly from the area or how does that?
• 40:02
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, it's um, it's a bit of both.
• 40:04
  Antonia Kersting: So we, so we're located in southeast Queensland and we run the trainings in Mullaney which is in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, so about an hour and a half north of Brisbane.
• 40:13
  Antonia Kersting: And yeah, we have people from the area, um, and we also have people from the northern rivers.
• 40:18
  Antonia Kersting: and Gold Coast area.
• 40:20
  Antonia Kersting: And then we also have people from Sydney.
• 40:22
  Antonia Kersting: So, um, it's sort of spreading there, you know, I think as we're moving and we're, you know, doing more, there's a couple of people's interest from Melbourne, all that kind of stuff.
• 40:32
  Antonia Kersting: So I think it will probably expand a little bit and, you know, maybe we will also expand and where we teach, we'll see.
• 40:39
  Antonia Kersting: But yeah, so, you know, for now it's sort of local, but a lot of people are flying in as well.
• 40:44
  Antonia Kersting: So.
• 40:46
  Antonia Kersting: It's, um, it's pretty exciting, um, to, to have that.
• 40:48
  Antonia Kersting: And then also, you know, growing those communities.
• 40:51
  Antonia Kersting: So we have now, we have a community practice group in the Sunshine Coast and the Northern Rivers.
• 40:55
  Antonia Kersting: And hopefully next year we will have one in Sydney as well, because there'll be more people from Sydney coming.
• 41:01
  Antonia Kersting: one person down there who's graduated.
• 41:03
  Antonia Kersting: And these community groups, the way that they started is that the, um, students want to practice more, uh, then just inviting people from the public, it's free and they're, or they're doing it by donation now and they all get to co facilitate and, and practice.
• 41:18
  Antonia Kersting: Um, but that way they get to see each other, they get to practice and it sort of keeps growing the.
• 41:22
  Antonia Kersting: The community even more, which is so lovely.
• 41:24
  Antonia Kersting: So yeah,
• 41:26
  Tracy Cartwright: beautiful.
• 41:27
  Tracy Cartwright: That's so beautiful because that's what constellations is, right?
• 41:29
  Tracy Cartwright: You know, as humans, we're, we're tribal beings, so we want to be part of, of a community.
• 41:35
  Tracy Cartwright: So, and I do notice in some parts that there are quite the lone wolves.
• 41:41
  Tracy Cartwright: We have You know, I've witnessed that.
• 41:44
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, it would be, it's beautiful to have the communities coming together to support and yeah, we call it awhi, to awhi each other.
• 41:54
  Tracy Cartwright: So to awhi, support, love, bring in the love and the nurturing and yeah.
• 41:58
  Tracy Cartwright: The Māori word?
• 42:00
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 42:03
  Tracy Cartwright: We use a lot of te reo, which is Māori language, in our, in our work.
• 42:07
  Tracy Cartwright: In our every day.
• 42:08
  Tracy Cartwright: Well, a lot of us, I think, a very large majority of New Zealanders do.
• 42:12
  Tracy Cartwright: That's quite, you know, and a lot of, I remember when Dan Cohen came to New Zealand and, and he was, he commented on that, and even Shavasti commented on it this time around how integrated we are with our language.
• 42:28
  Tracy Cartwright: And we don't realise because we just do it, I think, yeah.
• 42:32
  Tracy Cartwright: And I have to say it's not for every New Zealander, but the majority of us do.
• 42:38
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, it's so beautiful.
• 42:39
  Antonia Kersting: It's such a beautiful way of honouring, you know, honouring what Came before and what still is, right?
• 42:45
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah,
• 42:45
  Tracy Cartwright: yeah, absolutely.
• 42:46
  Tracy Cartwright: Um, and, and then sometimes it's just like one or two words thrown into a sentence, but it has, because it has, there's more meaning to it, there's more depth within the Māori language, and so much more for me to learn as well.
• 42:59
  Tracy Cartwright: I have, um, Māori heritage, but I think in 2025, maybe part of my journey, which is what I'm calling in to learn more reo, more, speaking more te reo.
• 43:13
  Antonia Kersting: That's beautiful.
• 43:14
  Antonia Kersting: I love that.
• 43:15
  Antonia Kersting: That's, yeah.
• 43:16
  Antonia Kersting: Do you feel it resonate within you when you speak it?
• 43:19
  Tracy Cartwright: Absolutely.
• 43:20
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 43:20
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 43:21
  Tracy Cartwright: And to be immersed in it when you're around others that are fully speaking the reo, it's just, you can feel it.
• 43:31
  Tracy Cartwright: It's the thing.
• 43:32
  Tracy Cartwright: It's a real felt language as well.
• 43:36
  Antonia Kersting: Oh, that's so beautiful.
• 43:38
  Antonia Kersting: You'll have to teach me some when I come over.
• 43:40
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, sure.
• 43:41
  Tracy Cartwright: That would be easy.
• 43:42
  Tracy Cartwright: We have some experts in it on the team.
• 43:46
  Tracy Cartwright: I love that.
• 43:48
  Tracy Cartwright: Oh, beautiful.
• 43:50
  Tracy Cartwright: What else do we want to ask?
• 43:51
  Tracy Cartwright: Field?
• 43:52
  Tracy Cartwright: I have your card here.
• 43:53
  Tracy Cartwright: I've been having it as inspiration.
• 44:00
  Tracy Cartwright: It's a beautiful card.
• 44:02
  Tracy Cartwright: Womancraft.
• 44:04
  Tracy Cartwright: Family constellations, counselling and womancraft.
• 44:07
  Tracy Cartwright: That's beautiful.
• 44:09
  Tracy Cartwright: There's so much more of that needed in the world, right?
• 44:12
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, I think so.
• 44:14
  Antonia Kersting: I, you know, I know that it's maybe not for everyone and for some people it might be.
• 44:19
  Antonia Kersting: I guess to woo woo, you know, to use very technical terms, but I guess my approach has always been to come at this from the most grounded place where we can come at it, where it's not all out there.
• 44:31
  Antonia Kersting: It's actually happening in your body and it's happening right now, you know, like in connection to the earth and your surroundings.
• 44:37
  Antonia Kersting: And it's just, yeah, it's like what I said in the beginning, you know, like we think we're separate, but we're not like, we're actually so interconnected and not just with nature, but with each other.
• 44:46
  Antonia Kersting: And when we start healing.
• 44:49
  Antonia Kersting: those relational dynamics when we start healing, you know, how we connect to ourselves and to the environment and to other people, like that's where the real magic happens.
• 44:57
  Antonia Kersting: Because then it's like, you know, you're saying with the serendipity, all of a sudden we're open to those things, right?
• 45:03
  Antonia Kersting: If you, if you didn't voice that, or if you weren't open to that, you also wouldn't see it, you know, even though it might be there.
• 45:11
  Antonia Kersting: And I think that's the difference.
• 45:12
  Antonia Kersting: It's like, I don't think you're changing your life.
• 45:14
  Antonia Kersting: I think you just become more observant of opportunity, you know, like you're like, Oh, there's, you know, your life doesn't change, but all of a sudden you can see more options.
• 45:24
  Antonia Kersting: And I think that's like the beauty of doing the work, whatever the work is, you know, that you change the way that you perceive what's available.
• 45:33
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 45:34
  Tracy Cartwright: Was Constellation something that you were always going to go in or did you have another direction?
• 45:39
  Tracy Cartwright: Oh, that's right.
• 45:39
  Tracy Cartwright: You wanted to be a vet.
• 45:41
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah I was a veterinary nurse, uh, for seven years.
• 45:45
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 45:45
  Antonia Kersting: Essentially, I, I did very well in school and I could have done veterinary, uh, veterinary science.
• 45:51
  Antonia Kersting: But, um, if you're an international student, it's incredibly expensive.
• 45:54
  Antonia Kersting: People don't know this, but you have to pay upfront and it's about 50 grand a year.
• 45:58
  Antonia Kersting: So it's 250 grand.
• 45:59
  Antonia Kersting: Which I did not have.
• 46:01
  Antonia Kersting: So, um, you know, I was, I was bartending at the time and, um, thinking, you know, can I do this?
• 46:07
  Antonia Kersting: And I just, it was, there was no way.
• 46:08
  Antonia Kersting: And I was still quite a few years off of having permanent residency.
• 46:12
  Antonia Kersting: So I decided to do the thing I could do, which was veterinary nursing.
• 46:15
  Antonia Kersting: I was like, okay, that's the closest I could do.
• 46:17
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 46:17
  Antonia Kersting: And I, I studied and I, you know, did very well and I enjoyed a lot of it.
• 46:22
  Antonia Kersting: Um, I really loved emergency and critical care.
• 46:27
  Antonia Kersting: Um, I did that for probably a year and a half towards the end of my career.
• 46:31
  Antonia Kersting: And, you know, I love medicine, both my parents are doctors, so I think it's somehow in my blood, you know, this, this medical thinking.
• 46:37
  Antonia Kersting: And, you know, and we talk about intergenerational trauma, but I definitely felt like there was intergenerational gifts, like, Both are nepotists.
• 46:46
  Antonia Kersting: And um, you know, so funny, you know, someone asked me the other day, like, oh, what do you think you inherited from your dad?
• 46:52
  Antonia Kersting: And I was like, oh, I think just the way that I put in like an IV, you know, cause I just never miss a vein.
• 46:58
  Antonia Kersting: And, uh, I think that's really come through from my parents because I remember the first time putting in an, you know, an IV line and they're like, it's okay.
• 47:05
  Antonia Kersting: You'll probably miss.
• 47:05
  Antonia Kersting: And I just.
• 47:07
  Antonia Kersting: Just, you know, did it.
• 47:08
  Antonia Kersting: And so, yeah, I felt that a lot, you know, I felt my parents with me that the medical industry as I'm not sure how, you know, what your thoughts are on that, but, um, I really struggle with, I guess, the way that we manage health and that we think about health and where there's a lot of things that we just don't address.
• 47:30
  Antonia Kersting: And, you know, in veterinary, what I often saw was that the pets were essentially carrying the things for the owners.
• 47:37
  Tracy Cartwright: Yes, I have so noticed that as well.
• 47:40
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah, and, you know, and that is completely gross, unacknowledged.
• 47:44
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, I remember this one consult I was in, I could not, I was like, you can't make it up.
• 47:49
  Antonia Kersting: There was this, uh, lady and she had a poodle, and the poodle had, just on the left hand side, the eye wasn't making enough moisture.
• 47:58
  Antonia Kersting: Um, so we had like drops and whatever, and it was close to losing the eye.
• 48:02
  Antonia Kersting: Cause it wasn't, you know, um, all those things.
• 48:05
  Antonia Kersting: She's like, that's the darndest thing.
• 48:06
  Antonia Kersting: I have the exact same condition.
• 48:08
  Antonia Kersting: And I was like, but she completely, like, she didn't see, like she said it, but there was no, you know, no integration that there was like an overlap.
• 48:19
  Antonia Kersting: I was like, wow.
• 48:19
  Antonia Kersting: Like that's, that's crazy.
• 48:21
  Antonia Kersting: And you know, like the medical model, um, I struggle with the lack of.
• 48:25
  Antonia Kersting: holistic approach in it, you know, we're, you know, what about diet, what about exercise?
• 48:30
  Antonia Kersting: And I struggle with people and it's the same in veterinary medicine, um, and chronic conditions managing that, yeah, was not the way that I would approach it.
• 48:39
  Antonia Kersting: And, um, that's why I ended up in critical care.
• 48:41
  Antonia Kersting: Cause I feel like that's where Western medicine really shines is in acute care, you know, like that's really
• 48:47
  Tracy Cartwright: when it's needed at that most at that moment.
• 48:49
  Tracy Cartwright: Right.
• 48:50
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 48:50
  Antonia Kersting: And I really.
• 48:51
  Antonia Kersting: noticed, um, because I got finally got into veterinary nursing because I didn't like people that much, but through my own work that I was doing and, you know, I was already doing constellations and stuff like that, I suddenly noticed I was actually really good with people, especially in crisis.
• 49:08
  Antonia Kersting: Um, you know, I would have people that would come in and Not to paint too many pictures, but they're covered in blood because their dog just got run over or, you know, they're in shock because they've just found out they have to, you know, their dog's dying or whatever it is, you know, or they don't have the money or, you know, whatever the crisis is, and I just realized.
• 49:25
  Antonia Kersting: I was very good at sitting with those people in those places and regulating them, essentially.
• 49:31
  Antonia Kersting: I didn't have, I think, the terms for that at that time, but that's what I was doing, and just helping them take some deep breaths, you know, putting their feet on the floor, helping them walk through the options that they have, you know, like, staying very calm in those situations.
• 49:44
  Antonia Kersting: Like, I really thrived in emergency care because I just was, like, level.
• 49:48
  Antonia Kersting: And I was like, hey, maybe Maybe I should work with people.
• 49:51
  Antonia Kersting: And then I decided to, yeah, study a whole bachelor of counseling and almost a whole bachelor of psychology as well.
• 49:56
  Antonia Kersting: So yeah, that's, I, I had a whole nother career before, um, before I, um, yeah, went into constellations and, and therapy.
• 50:06
  Antonia Kersting: Yeah.
• 50:07
  Tracy Cartwright: Beautiful.
• 50:08
  Tracy Cartwright: Have you ever done a constellation?
• 50:10
  Tracy Cartwright: for an animal or have animals in your work because my dog's always part of my, particularly one on ones and my cat, he comes in often as the villain, that's not probably the right word, perpetrator, he goes, he comes in as the perpetrator quite often and occasionally he can be very nice, uh, but my dog's often part of the work That I do, and I have, I have it done a constellation for a dog, believe it or not.
• 50:37
  Tracy Cartwright: For the human, for the dog, but it was around the dog, yeah.
• 50:40
  Tracy Cartwright: So have you ever done anything?
• 50:41
  Antonia Kersting: Um, I haven't done one for an animal.
• 50:45
  Antonia Kersting: Um, I definitely, I bring animals in as resources a lot.
• 50:49
  Antonia Kersting: Like often people, you know, when you get them to bring in support, they'll bring in their dog or their cat or something like that.
• 50:54
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and so I'll have, like, someone step in as a representation for that resource, for that animal, which often is a very joyful representation.
• 51:01
  Antonia Kersting: Um, so I've done that, and my dog, um, can't show her because she's fast asleep right here next to me, just out, like a light.
• 51:10
  Antonia Kersting: Um, but yeah, she works with me in my one on ones, um, and she often does come in at interesting times.
• 51:16
  Antonia Kersting: Often as a resource, often she'll come in, um, sometimes also maybe at, um, to, if there's something that has been ignored, like if something's been excluded, she tends to go and sit on that pillow or, um, so that's really interesting.
• 51:31
  Antonia Kersting: Um, and in my work, especially in workshops and things like that, I really bring in.
• 51:37
  Antonia Kersting: the nature.
• 51:38
  Antonia Kersting: So often if there's like bird call or um, you know, if there is a dog around, you know, what are they doing?
• 51:45
  Antonia Kersting: Or you know, how's the environment responding to what, what we're doing?
• 51:50
  Antonia Kersting: You know, is it raining?
• 51:51
  Antonia Kersting: Is there, you know, is there a butterfly suddenly in the room or dragonfly or, uh, you know, so bringing like those elements in quite consciously, often I'll point them out.
• 52:01
  Antonia Kersting: I had actually, uh, very funny, uh, once I had a workshop where someone had to leave early, um, and, uh, something had happened at home and she had to, had to go and the cat, who has never come in ever, like I, you know, facilitated this house many times, the cat came in and sat on her pillow for the remainder of the workshop.
• 52:21
  Antonia Kersting: I was like, great, he, he just filled the spot, you know, needed to fill the circle, um, and that was hilarious.
• 52:26
  Antonia Kersting: And he got up and he left, you know, like it was just, oh yeah, it was really interesting.
• 52:30
  Antonia Kersting: And I think animals.
• 52:31
  Antonia Kersting: Again, you know, it's all like, we're all very interconnected and they sense things that we don't.
• 52:35
  Antonia Kersting: So
• 52:36
  Tracy Cartwright: it's very interesting.
• 52:37
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 52:37
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 52:38
  Tracy Cartwright: Like I was saying about my cat.
• 52:39
  Tracy Cartwright: He, I've had one, one I remember he came in and he was just the nicest and smoochy.
• 52:46
  Tracy Cartwright: And they were, it was a real resource for this person.
• 52:49
  Tracy Cartwright: And they were able to pet him.
• 52:50
  Tracy Cartwright: And I was like, Oh, cause you know, we don't normally pet him too much.
• 52:53
  Tracy Cartwright: Cause he, he lets you have a little bit and then he bites you.
• 52:56
  Tracy Cartwright: But he was just soaking it all up.
• 52:58
  Tracy Cartwright: And uh, it wasn't till, as soon as the constellations ended, like at the minute there was the that breath out, okay, should we leave it here?
• 53:07
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah.
• 53:08
  Tracy Cartwright: And then she went to pat the cat.
• 53:09
  Tracy Cartwright: The cat was like, nah, no more of this.
• 53:10
  Tracy Cartwright: It's over.
• 53:12
  Tracy Cartwright: Wow.
• 53:12
  Tracy Cartwright: From being this amazing, beautiful, loving resource to, that's it, I've done my bit.
• 53:17
  Tracy Cartwright: I'm outtie.
• 53:18
  Antonia Kersting: Amazing, isn't it?
• 53:19
  Antonia Kersting: They definitely, yeah, I love that you bring your animals in as well.
• 53:22
  Antonia Kersting: That's such a, It's like, they are such a resource and they're just, they bring that little bit of an extra dimension in, I think.
• 53:29
  Tracy Cartwright: They do, they do.
• 53:31
  Tracy Cartwright: Well, today has been beautiful.
• 53:33
  Tracy Cartwright: Thank you so much for all your sharing.
• 53:35
  Antonia Kersting: Oh, thank you for the beautiful questions.
• 53:37
  Antonia Kersting: I appreciate it.
• 53:38
  Antonia Kersting: Like, there's things I want to ask you, but yeah, okay, we'll have to, we'll have to do another episode.
• 53:41
  Tracy Cartwright: We can do another one.
• 53:42
  Tracy Cartwright: You can ask me, you can interview me.
• 53:44
  Tracy Cartwright: How does that sound?
• 53:44
  Tracy Cartwright: Sounds good.
• 53:46
  Tracy Cartwright: I like it.
• 53:47
  Tracy Cartwright: We'll have a reverse, uh, constellation, well, conversation.
• 53:51
  Tracy Cartwright: Here you go.
• 53:51
  Tracy Cartwright: Yeah, that would be great.
• 53:53
  Tracy Cartwright: Maybe we could do that when you're over even.
• 53:55
  Tracy Cartwright: I'm thinking about getting some other recording devices as well so that I can do some in person conversations.
• 54:02
  Tracy Cartwright: We'll see.
• 54:03
  Tracy Cartwright: Time will rise, right?
• 54:05
  Tracy Cartwright: Who knows what's going to be happening at our intensive in April.
• 54:10
  Tracy Cartwright: That's exciting.
• 54:12
  Tracy Cartwright: Okay, I'm going to sign off here.
• 54:14
  Tracy Cartwright: Thank you so much.
• 54:16
  Tracy Cartwright: Thank you so much for being here and to the listeners.
• 54:20
  Tracy Cartwright: Thank you for listening.
• 54:21
  Tracy Cartwright: We can't do this without you.
• 54:22
  Tracy Cartwright: Really appreciate that you take the time to be here and to listen to this podcast.
• 54:28
  Antonia Kersting: Thanks so much for having me, Tracy.
• 54:30
  Antonia Kersting: Really appreciate it.
• 54:32
  Tracy Cartwright: Thank you for listening.
• 54:33
  Tracy Cartwright: Head over to Instagram and tell me what's resonated for you With this episode, you'll find me at Tracy dot Cartwright.
• 54:41
  Tracy Cartwright: That's Tracy with no e dot Cartwright, and or head over to my website, Tracy cartwright.co.nz and receive a free audio with the gift from your ancestors.
• 54:54
  Tracy Cartwright: So until next time, be kind to yourself and have fun doing it.