Latest / The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids / Breaking Generational Cycles with Family Systemic Constellations with Elizabeth Lynn Rohr
Transcript
- 0:00Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And so what happens, based on this concept of family, systemic constellations, is that someone further down in the line decides that, unconsciously, of course, they decide this they're going to take this on for that child, or they're going to take this on for the mother who never grieved, or they're going to take this on for the father who was never a part of the system.
- 0:25Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, so it's about love getting interrupted somewhere along the line, and someone down the line has sometimes it's the capacity to heal it, sometimes it's just a desire to heal it, sometimes it's just a desire to heal it, and they start having issues that can't necessarily be explained by science or therapy.
- 0:57Carrie Lingenfelter: Hi Conscious Parents.
- 0:58Carrie Lingenfelter: It's Keri here and I am here with a little info about raising our mindful kids.
- 1:03Carrie Lingenfelter: I've got some tips and tricks about breaking free of the box and becoming who you are and teaching your kids how to do that.
- 1:10Carrie Lingenfelter: Along the way, Join us.
- 1:12Carrie Lingenfelter: Hi there and welcome back.
- 1:13Carrie Lingenfelter: It's Carrie, your friendly, intuitive mama here, and I'm so excited I have somebody that's personally helped me today here on the podcast and so I'm so excited to connect all of you with Elizabeth Lynn Rohr.
- 1:27Carrie Lingenfelter: She is a expert in family systematic constellations and it's a little bit of a mouthful to say right now, elizabeth, but I'm so excited to have you here today and connect with you again.
- 1:40Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's wonderful to be here, and can I clarify something?
- 1:43Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I'm not an expert.
- 1:44Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I'm learning and growing along with my clients, so I like to always point that out.
- 1:50Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, I love that.
- 1:51Carrie Lingenfelter: Yes, I totally understand that.
- 1:53Carrie Lingenfelter: So I was going to ask you for our listeners what does family systematic constellations mean?
- 2:00Carrie Lingenfelter: What is it?
- 2:00Carrie Lingenfelter: And sometimes I've heard it referred to as family constellations, so I'm really glad you helped me to understand.
- 2:07Carrie Lingenfelter: To add the systematic in there.
- 2:10Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's actually systemic.
- 2:11Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So we think about families as a system and that's the point of entry for this modality.
- 2:20Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's a healing modality, but there's all kinds of systems out there.
- 2:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's not just families, there's businesses.
- 2:27Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Some people do organizational constellation work.
- 2:30Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: There is collective like what's going on in the world right now is causing a lot of people wobbles and people are doing what we call collective constellations.
- 2:41Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Because we live as a system.
- 2:43Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: We're all interrelated.
- 2:44Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So what happens in Washington affects what's going on here.
- 2:47Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So that's why we call it systemic.
- 2:52Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's a fairly new modality.
- 2:55Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It was created by a gentleman named Bert Hellinger in Germany back in World War II, and he has an interesting background.
- 3:04Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I always like to tell people his diverse background.
- 3:07Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: He was a Catholic priest.
- 3:09Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: He studied with the Zulus, which is a tribe in Africa.
- 3:14Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So besides the ritualistic piece of Catholicism he also got the indigenous piece from the Zulu tribe, and then he also studied family systems with people such as some people might know, virginia Satir.
- 3:31Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: She was one of my idols when I went to college and trained as a therapist.
- 3:36Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: She studied families and how mom and dad affect the kids, how the kids affect mom and dad.
- 3:43Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, so I guess the way I would describe it.
- 3:49Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: The best way I like to describe it is the concept is that things that occur in our everyday life, say, financial problems, anger management, it can be anything depression, children with ADHD, children with that the way Family Systemic Constellations looks at it is that it's not something the person did.
- 4:19Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's not a wound.
- 4:20Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's based on something that happened back in someone's lineage, and what happened was that love stopped somewhere in the lineage.
- 4:32Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It could be the story of our great grandmother who had an abortion, and think about that.
- 4:40Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That wasn't a normal thing back then and so people didn't process that.
- 4:45Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And so there's that child that never had a place in that family line.
- 4:51Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And so what happens, based on this concept of family systemic constellations, is that someone further down in the line decides that unconsciously, of course, they decide this.
- 5:05Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They're going to take this on for that child, or they're going to take this on for the mother who never grieved, or they're going to take this on for the father who was never a part of the system.
- 5:19Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, so it's about love getting interrupted somewhere along the line and someone down the line has sometimes it's the capacity to heal it, sometimes it's just a desire to heal it, and they start having issues that can't necessarily be explained by science or therapy.
- 5:48Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I say to people all the time when they want to do a constellation, think about something in your life that you've been to therapy for many years ago with you know to look at and it's never really shifted.
- 6:00Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That's the kind of thing you want to look at with family systemic constellations that maybe you're not to blame, maybe it's not your issue, maybe it's out of love.
- 6:14Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I've taken this on for my grandmother, my grandfather, my great-grandmother, my great-grandfather.
- 6:20Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Think about we're a country of I think this is important to say we're a country of immigrants.
- 6:27Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: All of us came from someplace else, and usually the coming from someplace else had to do with war or famine or some tragic event.
- 6:36Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Right, that doesn't necessarily get processed when it's occurring, and so some of us down the line decide to take this on.
- 6:47Carrie Lingenfelter: Okay.
- 6:48Carrie Lingenfelter: So it's really interesting, as I was listening to this and I know because I've gone to you before, so I'm speaking a little bit with experience.
- 6:57Carrie Lingenfelter: For example, I'd love to share that there were things that were coming up for my kiddo and I had been to occupational therapists, I had been to counselors, I had been to psychologists and because I was a speech therapist myself, I tend to go looking for what kind of therapy do we need for this behavior or this feelings or things going on in our house.
- 7:20Carrie Lingenfelter: And I actually had therapists say well, we've taught you a lot of therapy skills and basically you're at the end of therapy.
- 7:30Carrie Lingenfelter: There's not much we can do for you, there's not much left that we can do to help you support your kiddo or to help him with these behaviors.
- 7:36Carrie Lingenfelter: And at that point I was like, okay, well, now it's time to try family constellations.
- 7:42Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I wish I had done it earlier, but like you said it's always the right time, though it's always perfect timing Right.
- 7:50Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, and it's interesting as a parent, there were behaviors in myself that came up once I had my son that I had never had before.
- 8:00Carrie Lingenfelter: And I'm sharing this about myself because I'm here and I'm willing to say, yes, carrie, you can share this, whereas I don't have my kiddo, so I'm not sharing his behaviors per se, but for me it was like these angry moments that just came up and my husband was like I have never seen you like this.
- 8:17Carrie Lingenfelter: And looking back, it came up right after my son was born.
- 8:22Carrie Lingenfelter: I didn't have postpartum depression.
- 8:24Carrie Lingenfelter: I had like postpartum anger where I was angry at my husband and sometimes I would just be angry with my son for not being perfect and I was like where is this coming from?
- 8:33Carrie Lingenfelter: I'm a therapist and a teacher and I normally have such an ability to stay calm and regulated and connect, and so I wanted to share that piece.
- 8:45Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Beautiful, that's beautiful and that specifically speaks to what I'm saying is that it's something that you try everything else for and it's not working, or or your mind can't quite grasp what's happening.
- 8:58Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Why are you, why am I doing this?
- 9:00Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Why is this a pattern in my life?
- 9:02Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Right, I've known people that I know.
- 9:05Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: One of my early on personal constellations I received, so I have been known as a nomad, meaning I move every couple of years, and I've moved all over the country and I've moved even to other countries, and I did a constellation one time with a woman and I saw one of my ancestors as a gypsy in Germany and I am the roar name is German, it's very German, and it's probably three generations back that we came over and who knows what's in our lineage, right, like I don't have every piece of knowledge, but this gypsy was killed by a German soldier and I was the, my lineage was the gypsy and so, whatever happened, I don't even remember the particulars, but something came to me like this knowing this understanding of why I do what I do, that I'm trying to almost make amends for what happened back then.
- 10:08Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, I'm allowing that person to come through me to have a different experience with all of this.
- 10:15Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, it was fascinating, yeah.
- 10:19Carrie Lingenfelter: It's really powerful yeah.
- 10:21Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Those of us who actually facilitate these sessions I will recommend this to everybody should also be doing sessions for themselves, so that we stay as clear as possible when we work with clients.
- 10:32Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
- 10:34Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, and so so when we're working I guess in a session like that I've done with you, it was my husband and I and want to do this work- he was so skillful in what he did and it didn't take a lot of time to get to what needed to happen.
- 11:12Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: But he did create a couple of rules and one of them is right order is what we call it in systemic constellation work.
- 11:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So right order is first comes the parent and then comes the child.
- 11:30Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Behind the parent is their parents, behind their parents is their parents.
- 11:34Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So the flow of love should be coming that way right.
- 11:40Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: What I see in my work is that some of us, myself included got born into families where our parents weren't quite able to give us what we needed and that there was an interruption of love in their world.
- 11:54Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Right, so we became parents of our parents.
- 12:00Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: This is really interesting.
- 12:01Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's come up a lot recently in the work I've done with people.
- 12:04Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: This is really interesting.
- 12:05Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's come up a lot recently in the work I've done with people.
- 12:10Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: The whole piece is to shift that back so that you become the child again, act like parent in this world, super responsible, over responsible, taking on all the troubles of the world, that kind of thing.
- 12:35Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: But the other thing is when parents come to me about their children, I can't do anything for their children, but I can work with the parents so that energy somehow yeah, it's opened up, the love opens up, so that the parent can either see the child differently, can be different with the child, can accept the right order, like I am the parent.
- 13:03Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Right, I am the parent.
- 13:05Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I can't have my kid parenting me.
- 13:08Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I am the parent and I have to set boundaries.
- 13:11Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I had one woman say after her session with a very challenging teen I was able to set boundaries that I wasn't able to set before.
- 13:19Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Just that will change the dynamic with children, right?
- 13:23Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, so the premise is that when we do the work, like when I do my work, it affects my mother and father and those behind me, and it affects those in front of me too, because it just opens up the line.
- 13:39Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It opens up the love that wants to flow naturally and organically through all the way through.
- 13:45Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, I don't know if that answers what you're trying to say, but I notice it's fascinating when I do meet with I'm not a parent myself, which is fascinating to me, but for the last year I've been getting parents of young children, teens, that have issues that the parents child, because the truth is, the child has their own, as I have spoken to you about their own fate in this world, right Like we can't interfere with our children's fate we can't interfere with.
- 14:28Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That's the problem when we try to parent our parents.
- 14:31Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: We can't.
- 14:32Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: We can't interfere with their fate either.
- 14:35Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They have to live through what they need to live through.
- 14:37Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: We have to live through what we need to live through, and our children need to live through what they need to live through.
- 14:43Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: We can guide them, we can support them, we can model something different for them that we didn't get, but that's all we can do but that's all we can do.
- 15:00Carrie Lingenfelter: That's all we can do.
- 15:01Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, I love that so much.
- 15:01Carrie Lingenfelter: I've been sharing it on other podcasts and I've been sharing it with guests that come on too, to heart, to heart, parents, because I think it takes off so much pressure as a parent when we're trying to line up all these ducks in a row and then keep them in a row for what we think will help our kids the most.
- 15:20Carrie Lingenfelter: But really, we can facilitate and we can help guide, but and we can we can give them, we can give them some of the knowledge that we we've learned along the way, and if they accept it, they accept it.
- 15:33Carrie Lingenfelter: If they don't, if they don't, it takes off pressure for me to have to make sure that it's stamped in there for them.
- 15:40Carrie Lingenfelter: I guess.
- 15:42Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I remember when you shared that with me and I don't mention your name, but I still say that to people it's like imagine what it would feel like to have a little bit of the weight lifted off of you as a parent regarding raising your children, that it's not like you go, a little bit of the weight lifted off of you as a parent regarding raising your children, that it's not like you go, you're on your own out the door, but it is a little bit of weight is lifted when you understand that you can't control what happens.
- 16:11Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You can't control and that, and that could be really painful, and I get that it's not easy to watch anybody we love suffer or anybody we love make poor choices.
- 16:22Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And I will say the other thing that parents can do is they can do their own work, no matter how old their child is.
- 16:29Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I have clients coming to me now that have 30 and 40 year old children that they're worried about.
- 16:36Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They can't do anything for these people.
- 16:38Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They're adults, right, they're out living their lives, but they're committed to doing their own piece of work that might free up their kids in some way so that the child, the adult child, the teenager, the preteen, the young child can have a different experience in life.
- 16:56Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And it does work.
- 16:58Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's an energetic thing.
- 16:59Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Not everybody understands that, but it's it's true.
- 17:03Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I see it happen over and, over and over again.
- 17:06Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so important to, if you feel called to do it, to at any age, to do it.
- 17:14Carrie Lingenfelter: I know when I did it with you, there were some things that came up from from my parent age, my parents age group, not getting into specifics but and I remember thinking, well, my mom or my parents wouldn't, they've already dealt with this.
- 17:27Carrie Lingenfelter: They wouldn't, but it was still coming into my life and affecting my kids too.
- 17:32Carrie Lingenfelter: So even if you're in your 60ies and you think is this necessary, like it's so helpful to work through it because it's going to come up as as your 40 something year old child adult goes through their parenting experience, it's going to come up.
- 17:51Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Right, right, and and I so honor people, parents that are willing to step forward and do what they need to do, to release, open up, have a different experience of what they're caring so that they can show up differently for their kids, no matter what that looks like and no matter how old the kids are.
- 18:12Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I really honor people for that.
- 18:14Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You know what we might want to talk about.
- 18:16Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It just dawned on me we never said how this all works, and that's really interesting, right, like there's so many ways that this can work.
- 18:25Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You got to experience my favorite way of doing constellation work, which is with animals, with horses, and I'm sure listeners are going to go well, how does that work?
- 18:35Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Well, let me tell you.
- 18:45Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: The first thing I'll say about that is that we all carry stories, conscious and unconscious, about what a mother's supposed to be like, what a father's supposed to be like, what a child is supposed to be like, and no matter what happens in a session.
- 18:55Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: When there's humans there, that can seep in those stories, our own personal stories can seep in, but when we work with animals, especially horses right now I've got the two dogs, now that I'm talking about animals they're starting to play All of a sudden they're playing because they know I'm talking about the animals and the magic of the animals.
- 19:15Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: The horses have such a strong heart sense and they're studied that they can sense things like hundreds of feet away prey.
- 19:27Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And they have to be aware of what's around them all the time, which means they actually sense.
- 19:34Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: When we walk into arena, are we angry, are we fearful, are we sad?
- 19:41Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And they can respond to that.
- 19:44Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And there's certain horses that will show up and respond exactly like what the clients need.
- 19:51Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: If a client's sad, the horse might come over and lay their head on the shoulder until the person regulates themselves and they can continue on with the session, or they might represent.
- 20:05Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I remember one woman whose son was really troubled and spotty, the horse that I love to work with.
- 20:12Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: He came over and he stood in front of the woman and did not move for half an hour and I said to her I think he's coming as your son, I think he's representing your son, and so I would like you to say everything you need to say to your son that you're not able to say to him in this life and see what happens.
- 20:35Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And she said things that might've made her son angry, and Spotty just stood there and took it and showed how much he respected and loved her, so that she knows that there's a bond that she has with this son, no matter what happens in life.
- 20:52Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That's why the purity of working with animals is so powerful.
- 20:56Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They show us where we're not being aligned.
- 21:00Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They show us when there's been a release of energy.
- 21:04Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I think you might've experienced that Like horses go when they want to let go of something, when they want us to let go of something, to remind us to let go of what it is that we're feeling, so they can actually represent, take on energies and they can take on people in our lives that can help us work through whatever needs to be worked through.
- 21:29Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: But typically what happens in a session is we sit down, we talk.
- 21:34Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You, as the client, decide what it is you want to look at.
- 21:38Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I start to get a feel by listening deeply.
- 21:43Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Who is it in your world?
- 21:47Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I like to say, as Susie Tucker, a great teacher, says, who at the kitchen table?
- 21:53Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Who at your kitchen table has similar aspects to this issue that you want to work?
- 21:58Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Mom, dad, grandparent, does it go further back?
- 22:03Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And then, if we're with humans, we start to pick people in the group that can represent those people.
- 22:11Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And these people don't know anything about your story, right?
- 22:16Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I had someone come one time and after a session she said, well, all these people knew that woman's dad, right?
- 22:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And I said, no, they didn't know anything, they just.
- 22:27Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Everybody just shows up with an open heart and open mind and an open will and somehow or another, we start picking up on the what your mother was like, what your father was like, maybe some words that she might want to say to you, or some words that she did say to you, or some words that she didn't say to you.
- 22:51Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That will help you understand what actually happened in your relationship.
- 22:57Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's a potent experience.
- 22:59Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Experience I think I want to say this that there was early on.
- 23:06Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I was asked in a session.
- 23:08Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I did not facilitate.
- 23:17Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I was just there in support to represent a woman's mother and I stood up and I turned my back to the woman and I kept hearing these words and I didn't want to say these words.
- 23:28Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I kept hearing them and finally I called the facilitator over and I said this is what I'm hearing.
- 23:35Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Quietly, I said this to them this is what I'm hearing.
- 23:38Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Should I say it?
- 23:39Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And the words I heard were I never wanted to.
- 23:43Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That as a a person was hard for me to even think about saying.
- 23:47Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yet when I said it, it released something in the client that she had been holding for eons Trying understanding.
- 24:00Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Oh, I so understand more of who my mother is now.
- 24:04Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Compassion was able to start growing for her, for her mother, I mean.
- 24:10Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's things like this that happen and and it rang so true for her, even though her mother never said that to her right things like that happen so that a healing can occur.
- 24:25Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Either a healing occurs by a mother saying something or doing something that they never did in real life, or a client having an experience that they never had in real life.
- 24:37Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That helps them understand what was actually happening, instead of putting our stories to it Like oh, she was a horrible mother, and you know, yeah, I love that.
- 24:53Carrie Lingenfelter: It's focused on love.
- 24:54Carrie Lingenfelter: I don't know if I had understood that piece of it before I did it, but the flow of love and the disruption of the love that makes so much sense.
- 25:03Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I think that's what drew me into this too is I am a social worker by trade years ago and yet I don't know, as I grew, that stuff never worked for me anymore Like traditional therapy.
- 25:20Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I went to group therapy, I went to one on theone therapy, I did everything.
- 25:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: But as things started changing for me, I started wanting some other explanation for why I was the way.
- 25:33Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I was.
- 25:33Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Not blaming my parents, not blaming how I was raised, not trying to find compassion for a woman, my mother, who I didn't know her whole story right.
- 25:44Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So as I started doing constellation work, that started opening up for me that the story piece, the like, understanding.
- 25:52Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: This is where this came from, so I can accept it more.
- 25:56Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That is what love is acceptance, right, not wanting it to be any different than it is.
- 26:02Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And that's that's one of our issues in this world, I think, is we all want it to be different.
- 26:09Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I want, I want the world to be different.
- 26:12Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, I do, and there's a piece of that I want to continue to carry because that causes change.
- 26:16Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: But I can't live in that Because if I live in that, then I'm a victim and I don't want to be a victim.
- 26:23Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, I'm not a victim.
- 26:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah.
- 26:26Carrie Lingenfelter: I like that, that piece of carrying a little bit of it with us, to, to, to make the change, to be the change, yeah, yeah not digging your head in the sand, right, I'm full in love.
- 26:39Carrie Lingenfelter: I can't.
- 26:40Carrie Lingenfelter: I can't see this challenge.
- 26:42Carrie Lingenfelter: I can't see this hard time.
- 26:43Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yep, Yep.
- 26:45Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Well, we see a lot of that around this area, in the Boulder area, like a lot of what I would call.
- 26:51Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: What do I call it?
- 26:52Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Spiritualized love, and I truly believe in spirituality and I truly believe in love.
- 26:58Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: But love is a like a verb.
- 27:00Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: For me, it's not a, it's not just a flighty feeling.
- 27:05Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's like how do I show up every day?
- 27:08Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Can I show up every day?
- 27:10Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Can I show up exactly how I am every day?
- 27:13Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And even on those days when I'm not feeling my best, if I can show up and not like push that onto someone else, that's, that's a good day.
- 27:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That's a good day.
- 27:26Carrie Lingenfelter: Definitely.
- 27:26Carrie Lingenfelter: Yep, yeah, I, I will say my Testament.
- 27:29Carrie Lingenfelter: Um, with family system, I can't have a hard time saying the word Thank you for a speech, therapist, that's good.
- 27:39Carrie Lingenfelter: So, yes, I, I, you know, I think, like you said, it opened up something in me that allowed myself to see my kiddo for who they were, but also this compassionate side that I was trying so hard to dive into myself, but I couldn't stay in it.
- 28:01Carrie Lingenfelter: Like I'd have pieces where I'd be in it, but during those hard, challenging moments it would be harder for me't stay in it.
- 28:04Carrie Lingenfelter: Like I'd have pieces where I'd be in it, but during those hard, challenging moments it would be harder for me to stay in it, whereas now it's easier to stay in that compassion, understanding and that love and to feel that flow of love.
- 28:15Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So that's it's that part is beautiful and you said the beautiful words like to accept.
- 28:20Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Accept your child for who he is right, that's such a, that's such a beautiful.
- 28:25Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I mean, think about what the world would be like if we all accepted people for exactly who they are, and and and and.
- 28:34Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Part of that is like.
- 28:35Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I work with women who, who, who did have mothers that were very, you know, not great, not great moms, and so to be able to say that's not something you usually can say to your mother I didn't get what I needed, and if you do say it, it's not really productive.
- 28:54Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: But if I can stand in your mother's representation and you can say that to me, so that you can let go of that, and then I can show up slightly different than how your mother is in real life, imagine what experience that.
- 29:11Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And a lot of times we also decide, we also say that this is a soul-based practice.
- 29:17Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: So a lot of times our parents are not body anymore, they're on the other side, and my belief is that when people cross over, they have a different view of life than they had when they were here, you know, trying to make the rent and the mortgage and the grocery bills and all that stuff that they might have, and your mom might show up loving and kind and sorry for how she was, except accepting her responsibility for what she created.
- 29:49Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That happens a lot in this work that people before us take the responsibility off our shoulders for what they did, and so it takes some of that energy away from us.
- 30:03Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, well, that's lovely.
- 30:04Carrie Lingenfelter: Do you have any things that you would say?
- 30:07Carrie Lingenfelter: Just a last thought for parents going through this right now, raising kids right now what would you leave us with?
- 30:16Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Well, I never had kids, but I'll tell you what I think the hardest thing to do in this world is to be a parent.
- 30:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You know, and every time I I have many friends that have children so I can watch how they are and see how they are, and I also honor that.
- 30:41Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Most people I know who are parenting right now are trying to be different than what they had as an experience of a child and I so honor that.
- 30:52Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That is very courageous and very loving and keep doing it.
- 30:58Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And if you feel called to do a family systemic constellation for yourself, feel called to do a family systemic constellation for yourself, then do it.
- 31:08Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Do it.
- 31:08Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: We have there's a few of us in the Boulder area as a that have formed a group called the Colorado Constellation Collective and we offer monthly sessions at Una Vida Niwot Meditation Center.
- 31:22Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Because this modality is not something that's used in the United States as frequently In Europe they use it all the time.
- 31:29Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: In Europe most therapists don't do marriage therapy anymore.
- 31:35Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They do constellation work if they know about it, and in South America it's very widely used.
- 31:42Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I know a woman that uses it in the judicial system another system, especially the system of.
- 31:48Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I think she works with family, family judicial system, which is huge.
- 31:52Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You know parenting, adoption.
- 31:55Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You know when there's a divorce who goes where she uses family constellation work with that Cause.
- 32:02Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: It's a system.
- 32:02Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You're working with a system.
- 32:04Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: When something's out of balance, you're trying to rebalance it yeah and sometimes our rebalancing causes issues for us, and so this is what it shows for us, so that we can right size and right order everything.
- 32:20Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, I love that, el Elizabeth.
- 32:22Carrie Lingenfelter: I'll make sure to include your website and your Facebook information on our show notes.
- 32:29Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I love that, thank you, thank you, thank you for this.
- 32:32Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: This is fun.
- 32:33Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah and oh, I forgot, you were just saying about how people do it instead of marriage counseling yeah.
- 32:40Carrie Lingenfelter: I did, my husband and I did family constellations before we got married.
- 32:45Carrie Lingenfelter: We each did it.
- 32:46Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah, oh.
- 32:47Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I remember that, I remember that and I love that about what you guys did.
- 32:51Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Yeah, I have a supervisor who's from Germany and she there's all.
- 32:56Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: There's so many ways that you can experience constellation work with horses, with people, and she does work with horses with people and she does work with mats what we call mats and so what she'll do with a couple is she'll um, just so she can see where everybody is, she'll have them pick up mat and she'll not tell them what it is, but it's usually the husband, like the wife will pick the husband.
- 33:23Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: The husband will pick the wife.
- 33:24Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They don't know what it is, but it's usually the husband, like the wife will pick the husband.
- 33:26Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: The husband will pick the wife.
- 33:27Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: They don't know what it is, and she asked them to put it down where it feels like it should be Right.
- 33:31Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And so if you've got a couple coming in for marriage therapy and the wife puts her husband over here and he puts the mat over here, well that tells you a lot right there as a therapist, right, that's where you get to start, rather than have to talk about all the stuff that goes on.
- 33:48Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: You know where you are right and it's a beautiful thing that, like we're just trying to find our way back.
- 33:58Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: And so what can move the mats closer together?
- 34:02Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: What can move the people closer together?
- 34:03Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: What can move the people closer together?
- 34:04Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: What can bring the love closer together?
- 34:06Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: That's the whole piece of work, yeah.
- 34:09Carrie Lingenfelter: Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
- 34:11Carrie Lingenfelter: It's been lovely to have you.
- 34:13Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: Thanks, Carrie.
- 34:14Elizabeth Lynn Rohr: I appreciate your support and I hope this has helped for people.
- 34:19Carrie Lingenfelter: Me too.
- 34:20Carrie Lingenfelter: Yeah Well, that's a wrap.
- 34:22Carrie Lingenfelter: Thanks so much for tuning in.
- 34:23Carrie Lingenfelter: Change makers.
- 34:24Carrie Lingenfelter: This is Carrie, and if you haven't done a review for us, five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes, we would really appreciate it.
- 34:34Carrie Lingenfelter: If you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback.
- 34:40Carrie Lingenfelter: At info at heart to heart lifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share it's hearttoheartlifecom.
- 34:50Carrie Lingenfelter: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times, change maker families.
- 34:55Carrie Lingenfelter: Bye.