Latest / Constellations and all that... / 34. Family Constellation, Legacy & Loss: Healing Through the Living Field with Robin Woodsford

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34. Family Constellation, Legacy & Loss: Healing Through the Living Field with Robin Woodsford · Constellations and all that...

• 0:00
  Kiona and welcome to Constellations and all that.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Tracy Cartwright, and together we will be exploring the world of family constellations with facilitators for 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
  We'd love for you to join us.
• 0:25
  I hope that you enjoy this series as much as I have loved making it.
• 0:33
  Kiata everyone.
• 0:34
  Welcome to Constellations and all that today.
• 0:38
  The nice, beautiful sunny weather here in re, I had the pleasure of chatting with Robin Woodford.
• 0:46
  Thank you for agreeing to be part of this conversation.
• 0:49
  This my pleasure.
• 0:50
  Good to be.
• 0:50
  Yeah.
• 0:51
  But my invitation is for you to introduce yourself a little bit about.
• 0:55
  You who you are, where, where you're based, and just some information for the viewers and the listeners to get a little bit more understanding of who you are.
• 1:04
  Well, I'm, I'm based here at the top of the south, just about 40 minutes out of Nelson, towards UR and a three acre block of land with a lovely old 1950s house, which were.
• 1:19
  We are sort of bringing into the 21st century and a, an old garden and a lovely forest.
• 1:26
  Old property we found five, six years ago and thought, oh, this will work for us.
• 1:30
  I've been based in Christchurch since 1995 with my wife Judy and I, she's a, a home birth midwife and she'd been teaching students.
• 1:39
  I had a general practice as a psychotherapist.
• 1:42
  Breath work has kind of been an important part of, um, my whole practice working with people on breathing in terms of.
• 1:51
  Stress, blood pressure, heart rate, the breath being so important in terms of detox, detoxification.
• 1:56
  So I had a general practice in Christchurch for 23 years, and we had a little vineyard as, um, part of that work with the head worked with the hands was a lovely combination.
• 2:07
  And I built a seminar room into our, our house in the vineyard and, and ran seminars there for the general public.
• 2:15
  That was a lovely environment, lifestyle.
• 2:18
  After 23 years, we went, eh.
• 2:21
  Vineyard, I think we're ready to move on.
• 2:24
  And we wanted to go somewhere a little warmer.
• 2:27
  So we looked at your area and north of Auckland and we looked at the Corman and we looked at the top of the south.
• 2:34
  We decided going through Auckland to get where you are, such a pain in the butt for ourselves and our friends that were just going, oh, we just couldn't do it.
• 2:44
  Although we love the area.
• 2:48
  Was great for holiday and we have friends there, so we thought top of the south.
• 2:52
  So we spent two years and found this place and we've been here since 2019 and I closed my general practice down and thought I'll start writing some books.
• 3:02
  Focus on some teaching works, seminars, cons.
• 3:06
  Installation work and within about six weeks, there's a knock on the door and, and um, a local person said, oh look, I've had to deal with a difficult suicide.
• 3:18
  Can I have a chat to you?
• 3:19
  I've got your name off somebody.
• 3:21
  And, and away it went again.
• 3:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 3:25
  Um, so yeah, I'm based here.
• 3:28
  Just published my first book last year.
• 3:30
  Got that done.
• 3:32
  Doing three or four constellations a year.
• 3:36
  In the local area here, teaching some breath work and seeing a few clients, not maybe three or four maximum.
• 3:42
  So it's just a nice balance.
• 3:45
  That's right.
• 3:45
  And, and you work in a, you, you do this in a retreat center, is that right?
• 3:50
  It's interesting, Tracy.
• 3:51
  When you go to an area where you don't really know anyone, it's a wonderful opportunity to do discovery work and discover who's out there.
• 3:59
  And of course, Nelson's been of a bit of a hotbed of, um.
• 4:03
  Sort of hippies and alternative and complimentary life stuff.
• 4:06
  A bit like the Corona earlier since the, the sixties.
• 4:08
  And I remember coming up here as a student in the sixties and, and so forth.
• 4:12
  So there's a lot of artists, a lot of alternative complimentary health practitioners.
• 4:18
  A lot of it's a lot of stuff happening.
• 4:20
  So for me it was like, Ooh, who am I gonna meet?
• 4:24
  And I have a saying that goes, A stranger is just someone you feel strange with.
• 4:30
  Everyone else has an opportunity for an.
• 4:32
  Adventure and you never know what that adventure might be or who you're going to meet.
• 4:37
  So, uh, I've just discovered the Ruby Bay Retreat Center, uh, within about six months.
• 4:43
  Well, actually they discovered me through a another friend and said, oh, hmm.
• 4:48
  So we got chatting and I, I really liked what they were doing.
• 4:52
  They do retreats with people around addiction, but also they've broadened out now into, um.
• 4:58
  Of stuff, not just addictions.
• 5:01
  So there's a team of us have developed around Ruby Retreat and I'm part of that team.
• 5:06
  So they, they bring us in, there's equine, there's um.
• 5:10
  There's counseling, there's um, constellation work, there's breath work, there's yoga, there's swimming.
• 5:17
  They're doing wonderful things.
• 5:18
  So I'm kind of, um, uh, working through there and under their umbrella we're doing, uh, constellation work and putting out things, and I'm just supporting, I guess it's 76.
• 5:30
  I'm going, how do I support the next generations coming through?
• 5:33
  How do I be a conscious eldership with all this?
• 5:37
  I'm not gonna sit in a rocking chair.
• 5:40
  Fade away on the deck.
• 5:43
  Yeah.
• 5:43
  Um, and I'm not gonna, I'm not a golfer and I'm not a fisher, so what do I do with my time?
• 5:49
  That's useful.
• 5:51
  Practical, create a legacy.
• 5:53
  Yeah.
• 5:54
  Um, I hadn't thought of that.
• 5:56
  Yeah.
• 5:56
  Yeah.
• 5:56
  I guess, oh, that's what you're doing though, isn't it?
• 5:58
  In the garden and the land.
• 5:59
  But yeah, pass on.
• 6:01
  I've learned so much.
• 6:02
  I'm amazed at how much I've learned and uh, how much I just realize I. I just still don't have no idea on this so much.
• 6:11
  The more I know, the more I realize.
• 6:12
  I dunno.
• 6:13
  So I'm in this wonderful stage of going, what do I do with this and who do I share it with and how do I value my time?
• 6:20
  Yeah.
• 6:21
  In terms of giving it.
• 6:25
  That's wonderful.
• 6:25
  I, I love that concept too of the Ruby retreat and what they're doing.
• 6:29
  That's amazing.
• 6:31
  Yeah, it was lovely.
• 6:32
  I mean, they're in their forties, they're just going for it and they're exploring and, um.
• 6:37
  It's just, uh, lovely to be able to support competent good work that you find around the place.
• 6:43
  Yeah.
• 6:44
  And, um, nourish that Great.
• 6:46
  Yeah.
• 6:47
  Yeah.
• 6:47
  So how did you get into Constellations?
• 6:50
  How did you first hear about it all?
• 6:52
  How did it find you?
• 6:53
  Uh, well that's an interesting journey.
• 6:56
  I. Trained in psychodrama in Christchurch in the late seventies, early eighties, and got into Joseph Marino in the early kind of stuff happening.
• 7:05
  I did all the modules I could in in Christchurch and had to go to Walkland to do the more advanced modules because I. Because we are the last bus stop before the South Pole.
• 7:15
  It often comes from Germany or America, and eventually someone comes down here on a boat and demonstrates what they've been doing over there and so forth.
• 7:22
  So, um, there's a guy, max Clayton, based in Australia and uh, he'd been doing stuff and people here trained and then I was doing, had to go to Auckland.
• 7:33
  So I went to Auckland.
• 7:34
  Was um.
• 7:35
  Heavily into that.
• 7:36
  And then I, I discovered breath work while I was up there and that took me on a journey of exploring how to work with the breath in a psychotherapeutic setting.
• 7:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:46
  So, uh, I left New Zealand in 19 end of 87 and, uh, did a whole lot of.
• 7:53
  International work for a while, did a breath work training, psychotherapy training, uh, based out of New York and stayed there for six years and came back in 1995 and joined the New Zealand Association of Breath Workers.
• 8:07
  Here I.
• 8:08
  And in 1998, a woman called Nemi Nth came from Australia.
• 8:13
  German woman, I think it was.
• 8:14
  She'd taken a name, Nemi Nth, I think it was a Sanskrit name she'd taken.
• 8:19
  She came in at our conference in Wellington, presented this family constellation process, which she picked up a Germany, I think.
• 8:28
  And uh, and I, we were like, wow, this is.
• 8:32
  Oh, the breath takes you down into the soul, into the energy of the universe, out of the intellect and working stuff out.
• 8:39
  And the ego and constellation work very clearly took you down into the field where, ah, what needs to be discovered will be discovered.
• 8:48
  What?
• 8:49
  What comes up?
• 8:50
  Needs to be found, will be found when we get the chattering ego out of the way.
• 8:55
  And I was like, wow.
• 8:57
  So a couple of us went back to Christchurch and went, we wanna, we wanna know more about this.
• 9:03
  Well, there's no one really doing much in 98, I think, in Christ in, uh, New Zealand at that stage that we could find.
• 9:09
  So we invited Nemi to come back and do some stuff with us in Christchurch.
• 9:14
  So we just paid her to come over and teach us how to use the process and work with it.
• 9:18
  And then people started to come to Auckland in the early two thousands and I think Goy Backside did some stuff with her and uh, um, psychologist.
• 9:27
  Did you know Ika Chisel?
• 9:29
  That's where I met Ika.
• 9:30
  Um, she was part of that first, yeah, we kind of turned up together.
• 9:34
  I think I met her.
• 9:34
  There was a guy, Chris, somebody brothers, Chris Walsh.
• 9:39
  Can't remember his name.
• 9:39
  He did something there.
• 9:40
  I met Anica up there on a couple of things.
• 9:45
  And um, so Chris Walsh is from Melbourne.
• 9:48
  Oh, can't remember.
• 9:49
  I just remember, you know, my, my approach is if you wanna learn something, if you wanna learn how to cook, go and get in the kitchen with the best cooks you can find and start learning.
• 9:59
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:00
  And, um, jumping in, so I kind of, uh, you know, that first 2, 3, 4 years was just.
• 10:08
  Discovering stuff, training opportunities, learning more.
• 10:12
  And then I, I, it was a natural step for me from psychodrama into, um, family con constellation work.
• 10:18
  It was very, very easy.
• 10:19
  It was like, ah, I do remember getting a little frustrated with, um.
• 10:25
  The role changing in, um, psychodrama work and, and the slight clunkiness of that, and that's a fantastic process.
• 10:34
  What I enjoyed with constellation work is just getting into that flow of the field of just being with the energy and trusting the kind of knowing that comes from that.
• 10:44
  So, um, that was a little bit of, that's how it started for me.
• 10:47
  And of course I'm working with clients, so immediately start using this as a tool.
• 10:52
  I found for me, you know, choose something off my shelf that could represent your mother and put it somewhere.
• 10:59
  And using the process, I was also running a, uh, each year I ran a program called Homecoming, which was a six or seven month program.
• 11:10
  Seven, eight weekends where I took a group of 20 people, just the general public, often my clients and people who heard about it through a program of starting with your conception, your birth, your gestation, your infancy, childhood.
• 11:24
  Adolescents and looking at what happened to you along that way, along that journey.
• 11:29
  God, sex, money, you know, all the important things.
• 11:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:33
  And, uh, a once a month program, um, a, a weekend and as one of those weekends I did a consolation weekend doing, and I gradually developed what I've called the family of Origin Constellation, which is just saying to people, if.
• 11:51
  The first consolation that I would support you to do is lay your own own family out in its wonderful, dysfunctional, normal disorder and see what we've got, and then move it through into its order so everyone finds the right place and the energy flows, and again, in the family.
• 12:09
  And you're not doing it to change your family, you're doing it to, to get the flow.
• 12:15
  For yourself and whatever happens to your family.
• 12:17
  Happens to your family.
• 12:19
  Sorry.
• 12:19
  Are you doing this with figurines or with, uh, with people.
• 12:22
  With, with people, yeah.
• 12:24
  So with a group of 20, you know, someone to represent your father, someone to represent your mother, whoever's in your family, and I'd work usually about an hour and a half each person, and, uh, just a family of origin.
• 12:36
  Let's, let's just get that in order.
• 12:38
  Let's see where the energy's been stuck and see if we can.
• 12:41
  Play with it and get it into a place.
• 12:44
  And for me, it was my first experience of Helen a work, whereas, you know, this is my right place.
• 12:49
  I'm, I'm, you know, order.
• 12:50
  I'm number one, I'm number two, I'm number three, I'm number four, and I come before you the orders of love.
• 12:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:57
  So I'm a big fan of that.
• 12:59
  So, uh, I would do that and I did that every year.
• 13:03
  And then I, people started to go, oh, I love this work.
• 13:06
  Can we have more?
• 13:07
  So it kind of developed its own.
• 13:10
  And it is, isn't it?
• 13:11
  You get this.
• 13:12
  Um, and I know for myself, you know, like as soon as I met the work, it was like, oh, I want more of this.
• 13:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:18
  So have some people that, um, fans of the work, we'll call 'em.
• 13:23
  Wow.
• 13:23
  They come often.
• 13:24
  They don't always wanna do a piece of work.
• 13:26
  They just sometimes just wanna come and be a representative or Exactly.
• 13:31
  Space and witness.
• 13:32
  Hmm.
• 13:34
  Well, I think it brings people home.
• 13:35
  It brings us home to that deeper.
• 13:37
  We're kind of so split now in our society where we're just, the outside world is so, such a strain on people that it's creating so much stress.
• 13:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:48
  What I notice in order for people to live today.
• 13:52
  And I'm just talking about an, an ordinary life where you can pay your, put a roof over your head, have some food, find some meaningful work, and some people to love and connect with the strain that is on people.
• 14:04
  Just to achieve that is creating a massive amount of stress, and I see strain as different from stress.
• 14:11
  I think we need to understand that stress as a result of when you strain something enough.
• 14:17
  An engineer will tell you, you strain.
• 14:19
  You strain a piece of timber, you strain and get to a certain point or go kaba a building, but we're the same.
• 14:25
  So there's this, I see the strain on people and it's going, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 14:32
  Let's just stop and breathe and come down and be a constellation Work.
• 14:38
  Allows that to happen.
• 14:40
  Yeah, I think that's just a waddle, let alone whatever it resolves.
• 14:44
  And I think our ego wants to fix everything, but actually we, we really, if we unk down into the true nature of the universe and ourselves, we don't need fixing.
• 14:56
  We just need to learn to play again.
• 14:58
  So I think Constellation allows us to, to experience that.
• 15:01
  And I think a lot of people enjoy that.
• 15:04
  Yeah.
• 15:05
  I've noticed that in Constellation work, it really has had a huge effect on my nervous system.
• 15:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:12
  In such a positive way.
• 15:14
  It's like, you know, you're talking about strain and stress.
• 15:17
  So my nervous system was so wound up, I think it was.
• 15:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:22
  There was some big cracks in it, and I'm just, and slowly it's unwinding and Yes.
• 15:27
  And I might get to a layer where I'm coming back to one of those things that.
• 15:32
  That need a little bit of attention and you get there.
• 15:35
  And so slowly I'm coming back into what would be, I guess, you know, your ultimate perfect alignment, which my body probably hasn't been in since I was very little, maybe even if it was Mm.
• 15:48
  And I have a, I have a, a much deeper connection to myself and a sense of belonging within myself.
• 15:57
  That's right.
• 15:57
  I call it coming home.
• 15:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:59
  Yeah.
• 15:59
  That's beautiful.
• 16:01
  You know when you're home, you know, you watch a sunset.
• 16:04
  Look, I've worked all around the world doing this kind of work.
• 16:07
  I've sat around a fire in Russia.
• 16:10
  I've sat around a fire in Spain.
• 16:12
  I've sat around a fire on the West coast.
• 16:14
  The same thing happens.
• 16:17
  You look at the stars around the fire out in the country, you look at the stars, you're around the fire, and everyone goes, Baha, look at that.
• 16:25
  There's this doesn't matter what race, what culture, feelings the same.
• 16:30
  And we come home to wow, we are part of something that is so amazing and we feel that the rest of life can pull us out into this madness that we are very good at.
• 16:43
  Adapting to you gradually wound yourself into that place.
• 16:48
  Without even noticing it and wonderful news is you do notice it and go, actually, I need to, in Constellation work can give you an experience of going, ah, gosh.
• 16:59
  Exactly as you were saying.
• 17:00
  Yeah.
• 17:01
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:03
  So on a, if you were having a conversation with someone who'd never met Family Constellations, how would you describe it?
• 17:09
  Mm. What's your elevator pitch?
• 17:14
  The speech.
• 17:15
  Yeah.
• 17:15
  People say, oh, what is Constellation work?
• 17:18
  And, uh, what I find myself saying, well, um, the way I work with constellation work and what I think it is, it's about working with the energy that lies underneath us, that lies below us, that the physical world is actually, there's not.
• 17:36
  We tend to think that there's two worlds.
• 17:38
  There's, there's kind of the physical world and then there's that other spiritual world sort of thing.
• 17:43
  But actually the physical world is the result of the invisible world and the the invisible world, which is the world Einstein worked and spoke of is the world of energy.
• 17:54
  And everything in the universe is just energy.
• 17:56
  And energy is the movement of life.
• 18:00
  So when we're up on the mechanical world, paying the mortgages and working, we're in that kind of mechanical world, swimming along on that top part.
• 18:09
  But actually there is a deeper world, the one that we talked about sitting around the fire, that, um, we stand in that one and we get caught up in the other one.
• 18:19
  So Constellation work allows us to drop out of that and come down into that deeper world, which.
• 18:27
  Actually, when we get that deeper world in alignment, the physical one works a lot better because the two are a reflection of each other.
• 18:36
  So I, for example, as a psychotherapist, I've often found over the years I'm working with people on stuff.
• 18:43
  They're trying to, could be relationship stuff or whatever it is.
• 18:46
  They're trying to nut it out and work it out.
• 18:48
  We're doing some good work.
• 18:50
  We've often found that actually the the reason things are out of alignment.
• 18:55
  Up at that level is because something deeper is out of, out of place, out of sync.
• 19:02
  So all good psychotherapists in the end do start to look at the field underneath and go, why?
• 19:09
  What's, what's the cause?
• 19:11
  You know, we peel the onion and you know, I mean, if you look at Jung's work, he did a lot of work on the spiritual field, so to speak.
• 19:19
  The world that's unseen, that lies beneath the physical world.
• 19:24
  They are just a reflection of each other.
• 19:26
  So constellation work is a very practical way to just have a look at what's going on underneath that's causing the bubbles to happen on the surface.
• 19:38
  So.
• 19:39
  Above.
• 19:40
  And I just say to people, it's very practical.
• 19:42
  It's very simple.
• 19:44
  You ever joke and wandering off the street and we can say, let's have a look at your family.
• 19:50
  How are you doing with your family?
• 19:51
  Who's, uh, who are you having fun with?
• 19:53
  Who are you're not having fun with?
• 19:55
  And we go, okay, well let's, let's, let's get them here and let's start playing with, um, where's the energy?
• 20:02
  And it's amazing what happens.
• 20:04
  Of course, as you know, you know, um, yeah.
• 20:07
  When we start to listen to what's going on underneath the surface, there's real treasure down there, real wonder, and amazing healing for people and balance.
• 20:21
  All indigenous people will tell you the same thing.
• 20:24
  Yes, absolutely.
• 20:26
  You know, come down to the, when you connect with country, when you connect with the land and you begin to feel and be with that, you'll know what to do.
• 20:37
  So I think we are taught, aren't we?
• 20:39
  Or, um, we're programmed these days and, and it's been over time, over generations mm-hmm.
• 20:48
  To be here.
• 20:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:50
  And not to be well in the heart, which connects us down too, the greater field of things as well.
• 20:55
  So, and part of, and that's really important, you know, that that's the piece for me.
• 21:01
  All the work I've done.
• 21:02
  I mean, I started, I helped set up Youth Line when I was 21 years old and I got a taste for counseling.
• 21:08
  I became a youth worker and I love working with people.
• 21:11
  So I've spent my life working with people in groups.
• 21:15
  One thing that's very clear to me that happens to all human beings, and I'm, this is quite normal, but it's not necessarily functional when children.
• 21:27
  Get fearful or get frightened and have a, a scary experience or something fearful happens to them if there's nobody around to support them and be with them to help process that, they want to get away from that feeling.
• 21:42
  So they go up and there's a pattern of going away from the emotion, from the feeling, the energy that's felt in the body to try and work it out.
• 21:51
  And so what happens with children, because we've not.
• 21:54
  Being good around attachment and nourishment, and particularly, particularly for Europeans who descended from the English culture where emotions are not highly valued or recognized.
• 22:06
  What happens is you have an adult who's learned to move away from feelings and go up and work stuff out, and so we spend our lives trying to work stuff out as opposed to just feel it because our first experience of it was too scary to feel it.
• 22:20
  No, there was not an elder there.
• 22:22
  It's okay.
• 22:23
  You're just feeling some funny feelings and that's normal.
• 22:26
  It's the same as when you go to the edge of a cliff and you look over and go, it's just tied up with competition at school and kids being a bit silly.
• 22:37
  And it doesn't mean if there's no one to help you work through that, what do you do?
• 22:41
  Yeah.
• 22:42
  You're trying to make things of yourself right.
• 22:43
  And it becomes this big swirling pool of That's right.
• 22:47
  That's right.
• 22:47
  Stuff.
• 22:48
  So we numb out and we go upstairs, and then we become.
• 22:52
  Alive from the neck up, working everything out.
• 22:54
  Yeah.
• 22:54
  Figuring everything out.
• 22:55
  Yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 22:56
  I need to crash at some point because to be human means to be feel this means, to feel, to be human, means to feel.
• 23:05
  And it's interesting that what that word that you just said to numb out because you know, there's often, there's the substances that we take, right?
• 23:13
  Yeah.
• 23:14
  My uh, and I just got a flash of my mum's mum.
• 23:17
  She.
• 23:19
  She wasn't taking drugs that I know of, but she was very numb, very disassociated.
• 23:25
  Mm. And, um, and I guess for her, her poison was sugar.
• 23:29
  Okay.
• 23:31
  Yeah.
• 23:32
  And, and she freely handed that one out.
• 23:35
  Yeah.
• 23:36
  And well, we do what we do need to do to survive, whether it be they're real primitive survival techniques for traumatized children, traumatized people.
• 23:46
  And I think I've come to understand more recently, we're actually a highly traumatized species, is only just beginning to recognize how traumatized we are.
• 23:57
  It's been rough on this planet.
• 23:59
  It's been really rough and it still is for a lot of people.
• 24:04
  Yeah, we tend to think we're in this western, liberal, safe, kind of nice advanced culture, but we're just, we're still in survival.
• 24:16
  COVID began a process of shifting us out of that back into where we've been for a long, long, long time.
• 24:24
  Prior to 1945.
• 24:28
  Yeah.
• 24:28
  I think for some people it shifted them in a different direction, but, but the majority of people started to shift.
• 24:34
  Yeah.
• 24:35
  Yeah.
• 24:35
  It's opened the door on a lot of, on a shift into, hang on a minute, if we're gonna have 7 billion people living together on the planet, how are we gonna be together That.
• 24:47
  And only cooperation is gonna work.
• 24:49
  And we're a long way from that.
• 24:53
  Um, so Constellation work for me is a wonderful way to teach people how to cooperate together.
• 24:59
  That actually we're all, I am my brother's keeper.
• 25:01
  I am.
• 25:01
  I said, I'm you.
• 25:02
  You are me.
• 25:03
  We are.
• 25:04
  It's just energy.
• 25:06
  We're in it together.
• 25:09
  Examples of the work that you would feel comfortable in sharing?
• 25:13
  Obviously without, um, anyone's confidentiality being crossed or, or, um, what, what are you thinking of?
• 25:20
  Maybe something of your own, maybe there's an example of something that you've seen a really big shift.
• 25:25
  Like what was the reason that was being looked at and what was maybe what happened or, I don't know.
• 25:31
  Yeah.
• 25:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:33
  It's, um, I've, oh, there's lots of, um, well, let me think of something that's, uh, succinct, doing a constellation with a guy who's, uh, he was, um, his father was a Dutch immigrant that came out from, um, Holland after the Second World War as a young man, and came to New Zealand and married somebody here.
• 25:56
  And so I, and had had some children, one of whom was.
• 26:01
  This man I was working with who was in his forties.
• 26:04
  And uh, so he was just looking at where, where the energy got stuck in his family and where he was and his relationships.
• 26:12
  He'd gone through a separation and, and he was processing where he was at.
• 26:17
  So we ended up with working with him.
• 26:19
  And then we had his dad who'd immigrated and then we brought in his grandfather.
• 26:26
  And, uh, what emerged was that.
• 26:30
  His father was 11 years old, somewhere, rather during the war, somewhere around 11 or 12, and the last time he saw his father, who was the person who's doing the constellation's grandfather, mm-hmm.
• 26:49
  Was his, his father said to him, you need to get out the back window.
• 26:54
  I think the Germans are coming and we might be in trouble.
• 26:58
  So this 11 or 12-year-old, which is my, my client's father.
• 27:02
  Yeah.
• 27:03
  And Holland climbed out the back window and that was the last time he ever saw his father.
• 27:09
  And he disappeared somewhere or other into the German war machine and so forth.
• 27:16
  And it was really interesting unraveling the complete loss that he, he was on his own, had to find his way.
• 27:24
  I don't remember what happened.
• 27:26
  We did a whole process with him, reconnecting with his grandfather and he, and working on that, uh, split that incident, that powerful.
• 27:39
  And I remember it was very interesting for the, for my client to look at that.
• 27:42
  He just had tears rolling down his face as they work through that piece.
• 27:47
  And he said, I never realized.
• 27:49
  What my father went through, I've just been pissed at him for da da and it was a massive, it was a whole, and I remember, I remember feeling it myself, even telling you again.
• 28:00
  I was like, I felt quite, there was sadness, there was outrage, there was just a deep loss.
• 28:07
  I dunno where the mother was.
• 28:09
  It was, um, I, I, I can't remember.
• 28:12
  Details, but suddenly this, he never saw his father again.
• 28:15
  He is 11.
• 28:16
  That was at Ton New Zealand after the war.
• 28:18
  I think as a orphan or a, I don't know what it was, I can't remember the details.
• 28:22
  Has a family, has great difficulty relating to his son because what have I got to give my son?
• 28:29
  I'm in survival myself.
• 28:31
  He not not gone into any form of therapy to deal with his own loss of what happened to him.
• 28:36
  Climb out the back window and never see your family again.
• 28:40
  Oh, how do you handle that?
• 28:42
  Exactly.
• 28:43
  That was a, an incredibly powerful, I remember that there, there's, there's lots and lots wonderful, rich stories that come out of healing the interrupted energy.
• 28:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:56
  It's just the life journey shit happens.
• 28:59
  That's, that's, you know, I used to have a vineyard used to go make some fine wine.
• 29:05
  One of the things is when you're growing grapes, if you put a little bit of stress on the grapes, they go, Ooh, we better perform.
• 29:11
  We better get some juice going here'cause we don't want to die off.
• 29:14
  But if you put too much stress, you damage them.
• 29:18
  So there's a fine, and I think we're the same.
• 29:21
  We need a little bit of oomph to push us along.
• 29:23
  'cause we need to grow because we get, we kind of.
• 29:27
  We're a bit lazy, you know?
• 29:30
  So we need a little bit to offer along, but we don't need too much.
• 29:32
  So that whole balance, working the levels of strain and stress on people creates a whole process of survival.
• 29:44
  So we've got this wonderful game that we're playing as a species of who makes it out the end of the shoot in one piece.
• 29:52
  Exactly.
• 29:54
  Exactly.
• 29:55
  And yeah, that's why I'm, you know, it's just so grateful for this week and I'm, mm, I'm constantly amazed.
• 30:02
  I'm always pleasantly surprised about how this, what shows up in and what, when we give it the space, what can be released and what can be Unentangled or you.
• 30:13
  Yes.
• 30:13
  And it's so simple because Country Mother Nature, the laws of the universe, they tell us what we need to do if we can listen to them.
• 30:22
  Mm. I was thinking, I was doing some work the other day and there was a massive thunderstorm you might have seen here in Nelson and Nelson got flooded at, there was water bubbling up through shops and they go, oh God, here we go again.
• 30:36
  And I go, I was thinking, that's country.
• 30:39
  That's the land telling you something.
• 30:43
  When you go tramping, you don't put your tent down beside the river unless there's a drought on.
• 30:49
  You always go for high ground.
• 30:52
  So we build these lovely cities like Nelson all along the river, and it's beautiful and it's lovely, but it is a catchment for, for the Richmond Rangers, which is a massive area.
• 31:03
  And so Mother Nature says, this is where you put your house.
• 31:07
  This is not where you put your house.
• 31:09
  So if we can just listen, country land, it tells us what.
• 31:15
  We need to do and where we need to be, but we don't listen.
• 31:18
  We listen to our own pictures, which are quite distorted as a result of our trauma, and we'd all sorts of nutty stuff and then go, why did that happen to me?
• 31:27
  Which emotionally, if you think of that in an emotional sense, or you know, like, 'cause the water's being the emotions, right?
• 31:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:35
  Flowing of the waters within us.
• 31:37
  Um, often we are on the banks of the river when we are in our trauma, in our PTSD or in our anxiety and depression.
• 31:44
  Right.
• 31:45
  We are pitched on the banks of the river and we, we have to find our way up to higher ground too, to be able to observe it without being, uh, washed away by it.
• 31:55
  Oh, nothing more frightening than being caught in that.
• 31:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:58
  Being overwhelmed.
• 31:59
  Yep.
• 32:01
  So I've always looked for tools that can take me.
• 32:04
  Into the deeper truth.
• 32:06
  The breath, psychodrama, just processes, breath, meditation, stillness, gardening, family, constellation work.
• 32:16
  What can take us into, was this something that was of interest within your family system?
• 32:22
  Were you the, the psychedelic sheep within your system?
• 32:28
  No.
• 32:28
  Look, I, I was the angry cat.
• 32:31
  Uh oh.
• 32:31
  I was, I'm an only child.
• 32:32
  Look, my, my mother went off.
• 32:36
  I've written, I've told my story in my book about my journey as a baby boomer looking at the whole baby boomer generation, but in, in simple terms, my mother, my mother went off and, and married.
• 32:47
  She was a, from a staunchly Catholic family, married a non-Catholic, disapproval, all that stuff back, and then.
• 32:55
  Went up to Auckland and, uh, promptly got stuck, 21, 22 depressed and long way from home and da, da da da.
• 33:03
  Thought I'll have a baby and that'll make things better.
• 33:07
  And so I arrived and it got worse and we all ended up in hospital and stuck and so forth.
• 33:13
  And, uh.
• 33:14
  Long story short, the relationship collapsed.
• 33:17
  And so my mom was a solo mom by the time I was 15 months old, never saw my father again.
• 33:23
  Uh, she was kind of, sort of shut away in, in her, um, brother's, her, her father's place down, back down in Christchurch.
• 33:32
  So I grew up there.
• 33:34
  And I, you know, it was just, uh, I was gonna be the living proof that she hadn't failed.
• 33:41
  So the pressure was on me to be, to be a good boy.
• 33:43
  Of course, the more pressure there was, the more I pushed back.
• 33:47
  I didn't know that.
• 33:48
  So I was the, I was just very angry at, uh, I didn't, who, where's my, no one told me where my father was and who he was, and, and it was all this religious stuff and Catholic stuff and, and.
• 34:02
  It just the rebel, I pushed back against that stuff.
• 34:07
  So for me it was like, no, no, no.
• 34:09
  So I was also, you know, um, my nervous system had been pretty disturbed through that first experience, disastrous attachment with my mother.
• 34:19
  She fell apart.
• 34:20
  So mothership, I, I, I got disconnected.
• 34:23
  So pretty A DHD kid, the nun said, oh, little Robin.
• 34:27
  He's, he's just highly strong.
• 34:29
  He's just highly strong.
• 34:30
  Can't sit still.
• 34:31
  And, uh, some years later I recognized, oh, that was actually a DHD, um, mild dyslexia, love reading, but often get things around the wrong way and go to the wrong address and get dates mixed up.
• 34:45
  And, and of course, you know, push was angry about that because the harder I tried, the more I got the numbers wrong.
• 34:53
  And look, I worked really hard for school cer and maths.
• 34:56
  I had a math tutor and I got 11 out of a hundred.
• 35:00
  So it's not, so you're under that pressure of what are you doing wrong?
• 35:05
  So I came, I came out, and by the time I'm 18 and 19, I'm angry and frustrated, and then it's the sixties and we go, well screw you Vietnam War.
• 35:16
  No thank you, da da da da da.
• 35:18
  So I got involved in youth work, youth groups.
• 35:23
  What I noticed is when I was helping people, I felt better and I thought that was interesting.
• 35:30
  So I trained as a school teacher and three months before graduation, I got a year's leave of absence and got a job as youth work, youth worker and never went back.
• 35:39
  And I've been involved in the people group, external change and then internal change.
• 35:46
  So that's what I've been interested in and that's what fired me up.
• 35:51
  Nothing like a, a crappy start to, to life to to get a fire under your butt.
• 35:58
  Yeah, I think, you know, gives us many resources.
• 36:01
  Hey, you know, once you start working through those things, those things that were once, uh, the triggers or the, the things that activated us or the things that's blocked us, and we can look at them, then they become our, our resources.
• 36:16
  Yeah.
• 36:16
  I think we either become a victim of our circumstances or we don't, and a lot of people.
• 36:23
  Victim hood is very popular on the planet and is very much supported by religions, unfortunately.
• 36:29
  And I think we've had 2000 years of going off on a victim tangent with religion.
• 36:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:35
  And I would lay at reli religious, um, field people group at their door.
• 36:42
  The idea to examine that victim home actually keeps people.
• 36:46
  A form of servitude and slavery.
• 36:49
  Yeah.
• 36:49
  Because in the end, we are the masters of our own destiny, but until we understand that, we're stuck.
• 36:56
  So, yeah.
• 36:58
  So just outta my own curiosity, did you ever find your father Tony up?
• 37:04
  My mother died of, uh.
• 37:07
  Stomach cancer at 53.
• 37:08
  I earthed her for three months until she took her last breath.
• 37:11
  I was there with her and it was an amazing process.
• 37:14
  10 days before she died, she pulled out a brown envelope and said, this is your father.
• 37:20
  This is what happened, da, da, da, da.
• 37:21
  And after an, now I just had this 10-year-old at my arms crying, saying I never had a mother.
• 37:26
  Her mother had, she'd never, her mother had tuberculosis.
• 37:31
  When she was born, she was immediately separated from her mother.
• 37:34
  So she never saw, ever connected with her.
• 37:37
  And I think there'd been some sexual abuse for her.
• 37:40
  She'd never had anybody, and I just ended up with this 10-year-old in my arms crying.
• 37:46
  Mm.
• 37:46
  Now I never had a mother and.
• 37:49
  And I'd done my own therapy.
• 37:51
  By then, I realized my mother was a deeply wounded human being that I didn't need to be angry at.
• 37:56
  Yeah.
• 37:56
  I had a deal that she was gonna be the mother, and I was pissed that she didn't turn up.
• 38:00
  But when I figured out why she didn't turn up and my compassion was able to come forward, and so we had a wonderful completion.
• 38:09
  And about three weeks after that, a letter arrived for me from my father.
• 38:13
  And I'll never forget, he said, I received the news of her death in my classroom today.
• 38:18
  Nothing will ever erase the pain of a failed marriage, but I'd love to see you.
• 38:23
  And it was like, wow.
• 38:25
  So I was 30 and I met him and uh, we connected and the kind of their two stories called of Amalgamated together.
• 38:35
  He died 10 years.
• 38:37
  After I met him, had a heart attack in his car.
• 38:39
  I think he was 64.
• 38:41
  Wow.
• 38:42
  Yeah.
• 38:44
  So you've really outlived your parents, haven't you?
• 38:47
  Yeah.
• 38:47
  I often think about that, I think Hmm, hmm.
• 38:50
  Yeah.
• 38:51
  Yeah.
• 38:51
  My youngest is, uh, 26.
• 38:53
  He is born when I was 49.
• 38:55
  I said, I'll do your deal.
• 38:56
  I'm gonna, I'll be here until I, until you're 40.
• 38:59
  Then I'll review it.
• 38:59
  That'll make me 90.
• 39:00
  So we've got a deal going.
• 39:06
  None.
• 39:09
  Yeah.
• 39:11
  Put it out there.
• 39:12
  Well, what a bonus that your, for your children, that you've been able to do all this work and then you are also opening the doors for others to do the healing too.
• 39:20
  Hey.
• 39:21
  Mm mm I mean, it, it couldn't be otherwise.
• 39:24
  This, this is life.
• 39:25
  This is just life and the exploration of life.
• 39:29
  Just for the listeners, just so you know, we, we are, um, humans as well as facilitators that, and we have, there's still stuff that rolls up, right?
• 39:37
  Absolutely.
• 39:38
  None of our families are perfect and none of our systems are, and we're, we're, I often say to my client, yeah, yeah, Tracy, so well said.
• 39:48
  I often say to my clients, the certificate on the wall just tells you I've done a course.
• 39:53
  My real qualification is that I've been to the bottom of my barrel too, and I've come back up again.
• 39:58
  So I know a little bit about going down there and what you can do to move through it.
• 40:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:05
  And otherwise, I think it's a form of arrogance.
• 40:09
  I remember Jung gave a talk to some German doctors and he said, if you think you are the one who has it together and you are ministering to the one who doesn't have it together, you're in.
• 40:21
  There's an arrogance there, or eventually kill your career or trap you.
• 40:26
  We need to acknowledge we're all fallible, we all have stuff, and it's in the engagement of that, that compassion and empathy develops and your ability to really be with people on the healing journey.
• 40:39
  Absolutely.
• 40:40
  Yeah.
• 40:42
  Beautiful.
• 40:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:45
  I could talk to you for ages, Robin.
• 40:46
  I mean, we've only met this year in April, but I know Yeah, that's right.
• 40:51
  There's an ease there.
• 40:53
  So, um, you know, like an, a really easeful connection and relationship in, in this.
• 40:59
  Um, well, I'd have to say it was.
• 41:03
  Yeah, that, a comment on that that I'd been, I'd just been busy submerged down here in the, in the south, doing what I've been doing and I hadn't ventured up to Auckland or know, I think she went, which was the only options to do any training in New Zealand, really was to go to Germany if you want to do, do the full on thing.
• 41:20
  And I know she went and did that and really hats off to her and she's come back and delivered all that stuff to you guys up there and you've just gone for it.
• 41:28
  So.
• 41:29
  I've been busy and then I went, oh, what's this immersion thing that's going on that I discovered?
• 41:35
  And I went, oh, I'm into that.
• 41:37
  I didn't know what they were doing that other world up, up north.
• 41:42
  And so I jumped into the immersion and discovered there's a whole wonderful couple of generations of grown out of.
• 41:48
  The, the stuff in the nineties and, and, and you trained with, and then you've been training people and they're now out there.
• 41:55
  So I go, what a wonderful thing that was to see, and I really acknowledge you for that, the, the energy and the life that you guys have.
• 42:04
  Uh, and you in particular, Tracy, go for it.
• 42:07
  It's, uh, it's wonderful for me to see.
• 42:10
  Thank you.
• 42:12
  Yeah, I just love this work and I think that the more people we can share it with too, hey, yeah, the more, and there's so much of it needed in so many different angles and areas and you know, little bit of something for everyone.
• 42:27
  Yeah, I, that's definitely, I've begun to, I hadn't thought of offering, you know, teaching anyone because I've been so busy.
• 42:34
  But through the Ruby Retreat, people started to say, how can we learn some more about constellation work?
• 42:39
  And I thought.
• 42:41
  I have to stop just doing the, the stuff I'm doing and do some, offer some training options.
• 42:46
  So we're getting to do that now.
• 42:48
  So I've got one coming up at the end of July.
• 42:50
  I will do Friday night, Saturday, do some families.
• 42:53
  Then on Sunday have a, a training day on how, um, just experiencing the process, how it works, some of the theory and, and, um, people, uh, who are interested can go a little deeper and then we'll have a look at what are options moving forward from there.
• 43:09
  From.
• 43:09
  Yeah.
• 43:10
  And if you feel to tell them about Anki and there's always information.
• 43:14
  We're putting information up all the time.
• 43:17
  Um, passing that on as, I mean, that's the nice thing.
• 43:20
  I can work away here locally and then there's this springboard of a deeper pondered pull for people.
• 43:26
  So I've got a few people lined up for next year.
• 43:28
  So pretty forward to that.
• 43:31
  Beautiful forward to seeing you there as well.
• 43:33
  And uh, and potentially presenting maybe, oh, well, we'll see what the universe delivers.
• 43:40
  I'm open, I'm available.
• 43:41
  Yeah.
• 43:41
  Yeah.
• 43:42
  It's good.
• 43:43
  Good for people to see.
• 43:44
  You know, different facilitators and Yeah, I'd, I'd love to see, well, isn't that the richness?
• 43:50
  Yeah.
• 43:51
  Isn't that the richness of constellation work?
• 43:54
  It's so varied where each facilitator goes with what they're able to, it's like artists.
• 44:05
  Painters, they look at the landscape and they're all paint a different painting, but it'll be the same landscape, but in a different way.
• 44:10
  They'll all capture something that's particular or photographers.
• 44:14
  So I love constellations.
• 44:17
  Um, just the variation and the richness that comes from all the different paths into the field that a facilitator will go down to find.
• 44:28
  Yeah, ly, I love that richness.
• 44:30
  Many roads lead to, uh, Rome.
• 44:33
  Hey, as the saying goes.
• 44:35
  Yeah, the field.
• 44:37
  So if someone wanted to get a hold of you, um, in your beautiful little haven that you have down there in the top of the south island, how would someone get in touch with you?
• 44:47
  I've got a web website, Robin Woods for.co nz gets me to.
• 44:52
  It's, uh, a bit of a website around my book primarily, but they contact me there.
• 44:57
  New Zealand Association of Breath Workers, I'm listed there or through the Ruby Retreats, Ruby Bay Retreat Center.
• 45:05
  Through there.
• 45:06
  So it's kind of three portals, website, association of Breath Workers, and Ruby, Ruby Bay Retreat Center and, um, beautiful.
• 45:17
  So I think we'll leave it there.
• 45:18
  It is so good to talk to you and, um, really grateful that you've been able to take this time and, and share and, um, yeah, pleasure, knowledge.
• 45:28
  A wealth of knowledge there, Robin.
• 45:30
  Look forward to yeah, to spending more time with you next year and.
• 45:34
  Who knows, maybe I'll get done and get to experience some of your work.
• 45:37
  Done your way as well.
• 45:39
  Love to.
• 45:39
  Well, there always a bed here.
• 45:40
  Always a bed here.
• 45:42
  Yeah.
• 45:43
  Yeah.
• 45:43
  Lovely.
• 45:43
  No love, love sharing the journey and really appreciate your energy and all that you've given Tracy and do give, so thank you.
• 45:50
  You are welcome.
• 45:52
  Yeah, much appreciated.
• 45:55
  Thank you for listening.
• 45:56
  Head over to Instagram and tell me what's resonated for you with this episode.
• 46:01
  You'll find me at Tracy dot Cartwright.
• 46:04
  That's Tracy with no e dot Cartwright and the or head over to my website, Tracy cartwright.co.nz and receive a free audio with the gift from your ancestors.
• 46:17
  So until next time, be kind to yourself and have fun doing it.