Somatic Coherence
The foundation STONES of Systemic Coaching and Constellations
including your body
One of the major differences of working systemically is the emphasis given to our embodied, ‘felt-sense and the information it provides in service of the system and the client’s issue.
As Klaus Horn puts it there is an explicit intention to ‘dethrone the rational mind’; an intention that seems almost ‘counter-cultural’ in an era that increasingly prioritises the cognitive and relies on the left hemisphere with a corresponding disconnect from our right hemisphere and our body.
Creating a ‘republic’ of the head, body and feelings is far easier said than done. Rather than a ‘revolution’ coherence is simply joining what’s been wrongly separated and the impact is radical.
For some of us it might be that we are more separated from our right hemisphere, for others the disconnect is with our heart and for others the gut brain may be out of reach.
Given the inclusiveness of this work, the question becomes how do we access all the intelligences, information and resources beyond the rational? How would we and the systems we belong to, be different, if we were more able to access the rich information and resources from the system that is our body?
The Mind moves quickly…..
Bert Hellinger remarked that “The mind moves quickly and the soul moves slowly.” The mind, in moving quickly, often wants to ‘move on’ – we tell ourselves (left hemisphere) ‘it’s over, it’s in the past’. The body then ends up holding all that is unresolved. Crucially, as the body only lives in now, whatever is unresolved and unprocessed is felt in now, the present moment.
The body has the wisdom to know that it is about feeling into, by paying attention to the primary feelings, and not about ‘moving on’. The body is also our barometer for what’s true and strengthening, as well as being the place our genes reflect our ancestral and epigenetic past, the home of our systemic belonging.
Radically including your body
One of the major differences of working systemically is the emphasis given to our embodied, ‘felt-sense’ and the information it provides in service of the system and the client’s issue.
As Klaus Horn puts it there is an explicit intention to dethrone the rational mind; an intention that seems almost counter-cultural in an era that increasingly prioritises the cognitive, the specialised and a related excessive reliance on the left hemisphere with a corresponding disconnect from our right hemisphere and our body.
Creating a republic of the head, body and feelings is far easier said than done. Rather than a revolution, however, coherence is simply ‘joining what’s been wrongly separated’ and the impact is radical.
For some of us it might be that we are more separated from our right hemisphere, for others the disconnect is with our heart and for others the gut brain may be out of the equation.
Given the inclusiveness of the work, the question becomes how do we access all the intelligences, information and resources beyond the rational?
What are we missing out on and how would we and the systems we belong to, be different, if we consciously access the rich information and resources from the system that is our body?
The Mind moves quickly…..
Hellinger commented that “The mind moves quickly and the soul moves slowly.” The mind, in moving quickly, often wants to “move on” – we tell ourselves (left hemisphere) it’s over, it’s in the past. The body then ends up holding all that is unresolved. Crucially, as the body only lives in now, whatever is unresolved and unprocessed is felt in now, the present moment.
The body has the wisdom to know that “the only way through is through” and it is more about “feeling into”, paying attention to those “primary feelings”, and not about “moving on”. The body is also our barometer for “what’s true and strengthening” as well as being the place our genes reflect our ancestral and epigenetic past as well as the home of our systemic belonging.
Mapping the body –
what’s been wrongly separated?
When we are out of rapport with our body and locked in our left hemisphere we are out of coherence. Therefore when we present with an issue it is highly likely that we are out of alignment with the wisdom and resources of our body and looking for a psychological solution to a systemic issue.
The first system to explore is the body – what part of ourselves have we separated from? How are we relating to our body? How are we relating to our heart and our feelings? How does our thinking and feelings relate to one another? How are we relating to our gut and the qualities it brings to life?
Somatic coherence and accessing the wisdom of the whole system will be a crucial element of the solution. Systemically, we know that it’s not about taking away the rational mind; it’s about introducing everything else, a ‘radical inclusivity’.
The rational mind when working in service of the system brings clarity and a wonderful facility with language and concepts, which are essential to how we navigate the world. ‘Somatic coherence’ is the counterpoint to the over reliance on the rational mind and its tendency to supremacy and separateness – it includes all our brains and intelligences and through connecting with a place of knowing and what’s really true, allows for much better quality thinking.
The Right Size?
Somatic coherence describes an alignment of the two hemispheres and the heart and gut brains that communicate directly to the right hemisphere.
All these components need to be in the right place, the right size and performing the roles they are designed for. The ‘crowning’ of the rational mind suggests it is in the wrong place and the wrong size – we have given it too much authority and responsibility given its limitations. Going ‘head first’ into something is rarely a wise approach. What we know cognitively will always be much smaller than what our body, our feelings and especially what the field knows.
Coherence would suggest the rational mind be at least aligned with the heart and gut brains if not in service of the heart.
The heart brain is where our feelings and relatedness resides, the source of what is really true for us and what is important to us. The gut brain is where our boundaries lie, our sense of self and belonging and our capacity for action as we move into the world. These brains, when aligned, allow us to be present with uncertainty and ‘not knowing’ in a congruent way as we connect with the field.
This coherent connection also allows for the primary feelings to be in their right place and processed appropriately, not squeezed out by the secondary emotions of the story the left hemisphere has created and identifies with.
Coaching, representing and facilitating from this state and this space allows you to see and acknowledge what is and generates the new insights that restores the flow of energy in service of the system.
The client will be more fully present and connected with all their inner and outer resources from a place of coherence. Meeting them in this place of coherence creates a field of connection with new resources and new possibilities to support change.
Defining Coherence and its importance in systemic work
Somatic Coherence is therefore a key resource, allowing us to draw on the wisdom, information and insights of both hemispheres (clarity and creativity) and the heart (compassion and relatedness) and gut (courage and action) brains allowing us to be present and connected.
Some definitions of coherence include: –
- Coherence is the term used by scientists to describe a state of high physiological efficiency in which the nervous, cardiovascular, endocrine and immune systems are working efficiently and in harmony.
- Coherence is the basis of optimum performance and health in the human being.
- Coherence is the balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The greater our coherence the less stress we experience and the more likely we are to be in a state of ‘relaxed alertness’.
- Coherence is a state in which the left and right hemispheres are connected and we have alignment, through the vagus nerve, with the heart and gut brains.
Coherence is therefore a state – a state of being that allows us to access all of our intelligences and is also the foundation for connecting with the client and the field. The quickest way of changing state is to change our physiology; and the quickest way of changing our physiology is to change our breathing. Therefore, our breath is the pathway to coherence.
When breathing coherently, rather than ‘reacting’ to events we can ‘respond’ from a place of coherence – we have ‘response-ability’ as well as taking responsibility. The word respond has a pause in it, which is completely missing when we react.
The Two Hemispheres
In terms of the two hemispheres, McGilchrist contends the right hemisphere “can see but it cannot speak”, while the “left hemisphere can speak but cannot see”. If that is taken as true then we simply cannot see with the left hemisphere nor should we expect to. Given that systemic work is all about our capacity and willingness to see, then a state of coherence is profoundly useful in supporting the work.
In his writing Hellinger often makes the point that seeing is not the same as observing – it is seeing with a greater awareness using all of our internal and external senses for seeing. This enables us to tune into a bigger and wider sense of what is happening, allowing us access to the ‘knowing field.’ This awareness is also a key feature of the right hemisphere and so vital to the work.
This ability to see is absolutely essential for generating the insights and connections to create new possibilities and for the change to work and flow to be restored to the system.
Reflecting this, McGilchrist notes “The right hemisphere with its understanding of possibility, change and flow, is far better than the left hemisphere at incorporating new information into a schema, without necessarily having to abandon it, while the left hemisphere, with its attachment to the fixed and certain, sticks stubbornly to what it ‘knows’ at all costs, in the teeth of evidence to the contrary.”
Therefore, for the client to change and access new possibilities and ways of being, the right hemisphere has to be involved. Change, and flow, which is such an integral part of this work, will only occur from a place of coherence.
The Left hemisphere, The Rational Mind Takes Over – Being Out of Coherence
When we are out of coherence, we are not in being energy and not present.
Definitionally we do not have access to our heart or gut brains. Our breathing pattern is likely to be irregular and occurring high up in our chest. This restricts the amount of oxygen going to our brain.
Importantly when we are in this state and ‘locked-in’ to the left hemisphere it important to note that the left hemisphere believes it can ‘go it alone’ and does not need the right hemisphere. Conversely, the right hemisphere knows it needs the left.
When we are stressed, we are in sympathetic arousal with shallow and high breathing and the brain wave frequency tends to be beta. (13-24hz.) In this brain wave we are out of coherence.
The tell-tale signs of being out of coherence
When in our left hemisphere and out of connection with the right hemisphere and hence our body, we tend to find: –
- Our vision narrows (foveal vision), we literally and metaphorically lose perspective,
- We analyse things and take them apart, seeing things as objects and we see our own body as an object
- There is lots of internal dialogue and commentary, which is often very self-critical
- We over-identify with our thinking and form beliefs about ourselves and the world from this poor state and related negative thoughts
- We are not fully present
- We are very judgmental towards self and others
- There tends to be lots of pressure words like ‘shoulds’ and ‘have-tos’ or we oscillate between necessity and impossibility
- We experience a sense of separation, from ourselves, our body and others, and we are very much focused on ‘I’ – it is very ego based.
- We think very much in terms of either/or and dualities
- We think in a linear fashion with ’cause and effect’ in a sequential way to create a ‘story’ – even though that story is likely to be completely wrong
- We may become ‘stuck’ by being very attached to the story and want to be ‘right’. So much so that we would rather be right than healed.
- We are far more likely to be fight, flight or freeze mode and generating the chemicals that go with that
In flight mode we tend to be in the energy of knowing what we don’t want (‘away from”) than what we do (towards). There is little clarity on where we actually want to go.
The State of Decision-Making
The ‘either or thinking’ exacerbates the internal dialogue as we try to take a position. This state is clearly very poor for decision-making given the that we are not paying attention to new information. We may never ‘feel’ it’s the right decision (as we are not connected to our heart) and the ongoing either/or dynamic suggests we may always feel ‘split’ about the decision.
In this situation it is worth remembering that two’s a dilemma AND three’s choice (AND, being fundamentally inclusive and not binary, is the most important word in the English language!) However, the either/or thinking of the left hemisphere means we are unlikely to see the other possibilities.
Rather than ‘thinking’, when we are reliant on our left hemisphere and out of coherence, it could perhaps be, more accurately described as a circular, repetitive commentary. In effect we are trapped by a familiar story, if not a story of ‘family’. The capacity to breakthrough is further reduced by the fact that we are in secondary emotions’ – we are thinking about how we feel rather than being in touch with the primary feelings” that would be a source of energy, action and movement.
Coherence Creates Possibility and Options
Changing our state, by introducing coherence and all of its resources, is crucial before any decision is taken. This is why the tetra-lemma is so useful as it resolves the situation through getting a more embodied perspective, being beyond the trap of the left hemisphere’s dichotomous thinking style. It generates a more coherent state from which more options and possibilities become open to us.
The state we take a decision in is, in many ways, far more important than the decision itself, as it influences the quality and capacity of our thinking and our ability to receive new information. Being in a place of coherence allows for all the brains to be aligned with the decision and especially the heart, which is key to what’s really important to us and what really matters. This ensures the decision, the choice we make, is based on what’s important (our values, who we are (identity) and is in flow with life (our purpose.)
Problem or solution focused?
As well as the ‘either/or’ thinking that characterises being out of coherence, in this state we also tend to be focused on the problem rather than the solution. We extrapolate the problem into the future from this familiar past because it gives us certainty – even if it is uncomfortable.
In the problem state we lose connection with our resources and can experience the problem as being much bigger than we are. The 3 Ps of the Problem state apply; we view the problem, and create a related story as being i) Permanent ii) Pervasive and iii) Personal.
So we extrapolate the problem across multiple contexts and it is felt as personal, affecting the I constructed by the left hemisphere. We may also then identify with the problem and the stories we associate with it.
The other aspect of this is that in the problem state our left hemisphere is very much in ’cause and effect’ mode – we search for the ‘root cause’ of the problem and find it in all the wrong places. We are looking for the solution from the energy of the problem and that doesn’t work. As they say ‘energy goes where attention flows; being focused on the problem will give it even more energy.
Love Only Works…….
Hellinger refers to how dangerous it is to be ‘curious’ as we tend to delve deeper and deeper into the problem (and the related story.) Being ‘interested’ in the solution is far more useful.
He suggests “Intuition only works when we are concentrating on the solution, because then we are concentrating on love and respect. Then we don’t need any stories about anyone. As soon as we start to become curious and want to know more about the problems, intuition ends. It is dependent on love and respect.”
When we are in high beta and locked into our left hemisphere, it can feel that the problem is much bigger than we are and we don’t have the resources to deal with it. Of course the field is always much bigger than any problem and provided we can access the field from a place of coherence then we have a much healthier perspective on the problem and can see it more clearly in its right context. Love and respect then can then emerge in service of the solution.
Moving On Up
Information from the body travels up to the head brain – 90% of information from the body, including the heart and gut brains, goes up the vagus nerve, to the right hemisphere. In high beta, a state of being out of coherence, we are locked in our left hemisphere and don’t have access to the richness of our whole body intelligence and will in all likelihood remain in the familiar story of the problem, rather than lovingly creating a new way of being in the flow of the solution.
In Service of the Solution
Therefore the solution emerges out of a place of coherence, where love (heart brain) and creativity (RH), are working in service of the solution, a true step towards better. It also provides the foundation for our connection to the wider field, which brings further resources to bear in support of the solution.
High quality decision-making and the related desire of finding solutions, both require coherence. The heart brain given its role of knowing what’s important to us and what we care about is central to this shift. Moving from our thinking to our feelings is an integral part of “dethroning the rational mind” and connecting with love and compassion.
“When I lived in South Africa, someone told me what the longest road in Africa is. It’s not the road from Cairo to Capetown, it’s the way from your head to your heart, and from there to the here and now.”
Bert Hellinger
The Heart Brain – Making Loving Connections
Our heart brain is all about our feelings, our values and our connection and relatedness with others. How we relate to our own heart and our own feelings is the blueprint for how we relate to others.
The Relationship Between Feelings and Belonging
The quote from Hellinger elegantly captures how challenging it is to move from our rational mind and into our body and the world of feelings. We learn very early on from our parents that some feelings are acceptable and others threaten our belonging.
If our parents can’t deal with the emotions, there is no ‘window of tolerance’ for some of our feelings and we cannot express them. We automatically use strategies to maintain ‘attachment’ at the cost of ‘authenticity’. We might deflect with humour to lighten the mood in an attempt to please and appease so we can belong. It is often said that if we repress one feeling we repress them all.
As we join other systems it again becomes clear that some feelings are unacceptable and we are rewarded by not expressing them. Inevitably as we interact with successive groups of belonging, our own feelings may become unacceptable to us and become a source of shame. If we do express our authentic feelings and that jeopardizes our belonging, we then have to navigate the ensuing feelings of guilt and isolation.
A lot of pain and vulnerability may be associated with this world of feelings and so we close off our heart. We retreat into our left hemisphere and the accompanying dissociation is often a key strength; it creates safety and helps us navigate and make sense of what is happening around us.
This is the context in which the Left hemisphere becomes King. The rational mind is praised and is clear, sidestepping the mess and challenge of things that are emotional. As Iain McGilchrist’s work documents, the left hemisphere is also in charge of the much bigger societal systems we belong to.
In terms of coherence, it is the right hemisphere, physically bigger than the left, which connects with the heart brain through the vagus nerve. So love, primary emotions and the right hemisphere link together while the left hemisphere fosters separateness even from our own body.
Heart Opening
As a result we may ‘think’ our way through life whereas if we include also ‘feeling’ our way through life it’s the way to navigate the complexity of both the inner and outer worlds. Our body is the compass not our left hemisphere. What will make us stronger? This requires coherence; thinking and feelings having their rightful place and size in the system.
When listening to our hearts we are in touch with our primary feelings – the unspoken primordial language of human systems. Restoring the primary feelings, our connection with our heart, is a deeply compassionate process that guides us back into the natural state of connection and belonging to the whole. These feelings have a purpose and when we access them we find our way back to love and order is restored.
“Dethroning the rational mind” invites us to connect with our heart, and to open our heart to life. This is challenging given the years spent protecting it and the fear that the world may reject us. This is a profound shift in our identity and way of being in the world and why it’s the longest road for many of us. Click on the picture for more.
In a Heartbeat
The other related challenge Hellinger highlights is the movement into the present moment. In our minds we can be anywhere but ‘here’, maybe planning a better future or regretting something in the past. By contrast our body is fully present in every moment.
Our hearts and our heartbeat are central to this quality of presence, dictating the rhythm of our life especially in three key domains i) our emotional processing, our feelings, ii) our relations with others and iii) our values, what is truly important to us.
We can tune into what each moment feels like for us by literally listening to our hearts and what it is saying about these three key areas. The heart plays an important part in informing us moment by moment what we feel connected with, what do we long for, and what is going on right now.
Rapport and Resonance v Reassurance
Of course, as coaches we understand that rapport is the key to connection, yet we may have overlooked how crucial the heart is in mediating this. Indeed when our breathing and heartbeat are synchronized with the client there is a state of resonance which is beyond rapport.
By tuning into the heart rhythm patterns we have a true insight into the inner state of the other person and have the resources to be with them, and their feelings, without wanting to move on. As Robert Holden says “The over-riding objective of a feeling is to be felt.” If we avoid the feeling, its work and purpose are thwarted and get repressed, stuck in the body.
Listening to our heart means being with our feelings. Resonance allows us to connect with the feelings of others and witness them with compassion and without judgment. Staying with the discomfort, giving it its rightful place, is part of the systemic stance.
While being with the heart can connect us with our feelings, by contrast the left hemisphere will be reluctant to engage with the real feelings involved and will want to deny, fix, reframe or move on.
As a result, the left-brain will often try and provide ‘reassurance’ by saying “everything will be ok”. The left hemisphere takes us into analysis and judgment about our feelings and using language, all of which takes us out of our senses and out of the present moment. It takes us into our secondary emotions.
Reassurance in a systemic context is a deliberate undermining of what is by the left hemisphere.
The Heart of Constellations
The stories we tell ourselves, the secondary emotions and judgments are part of our defence mechanisms, carefully constructed over many years. During a constellation we are really exploring how fear and defensive strategies are employed in human systems and prevent the flow of trust, love, and creativity.
The open heart has the resources and capacity to deal with the challenges and it is through connecting with the primary emotion in this way that supports the restoration of flow. By adding heart, and listening, seeing and sensing from this place, you can shift in the moment into a state of balance and renewing feelings, such as appreciation, care, love and compassion for yourself and the system.
In this context it may in fact be that the longest road is not necessarily the journey to our heart but the journey into our primary emotions, wherever they may reside in the body. This is at the heart of belonging.
Resonant systemic sentences are heartfelt expressions that name our truth. “This is how I survived. I stopped feeling my feelings. Sometimes it was too much. I missed you. My heart feels that now”.
Acknowledging these truths, and the feelings beneath them, supports the system back to a state of coherence, connection and flow. The orchestra gets the lead violin back into its rightful place and the work that we do in the world starts embodying the heartfelt quality that we all secretly long for.
The Gut Brain – Well Being in Action
Our gut brain is all about our survival, our boundaries and our identity. As the seat of the immune system it reacts to what is safe and not safe and what is us and not us.
Survival and Safety
For millennia, the gut has had a vital job – to tell apart nourishing food from food that could potentially kill us. No wonder this brain still provides a warning function – rapidly sending signals to the head brain in simple messages: ‘Move towards’ or ‘Move away’; ‘Trust’ or ‘Don’t Trust’. The severity of the situation means our gut is not interested in finesse – it’s not touched by the shades of red in an evening sunset but activated by threats to our system. Its main function is survival.
Boundaries and Identity
Although naturally the whole human organism, prioritizes self-preservation, safety is not confined to that. Safety means to exercise the will to protect the integrity of who we are – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Safety is protecting our boundaries and it’s worth noting that the primary emotion of anger is often a function of boundary violations.
Throughout time, safety as perceived through our gut also corresponds with ‘congruency’ – at a visceral level we are searching for an alignment between what we give and what we get (reciprocity), between the relative size people have in groups and how they exercise their power (respect) and, of course, between what is said and what is done (reputation).
Cost of Incongruence and exclusion
Double standards, a lack of congruency, really take a toll on our gut. When organisations say they honour diversity, our gut knows whether that is true or not. Each of us has a finely tuned radar for congruency.
When we are in situations where people say one thing, but do another, we literally have to ‘swallow’ our frustration – those sensations emanating from the gut informing us of incongruence. And if we do not process that frustration we become “bitter”, another reference to what the gut brain knows is not right for our system.
Staying in situations where we are blocking the messages of congruency, our authenticity, to protect our belonging, can damage our health. You might even say that whistle blowers in companies are people who cannot longer tolerate the incongruency and the uncomfortable sensations in their gut.
With systemic facilitation coaches and leaders support the truth to be acknowledged and respectfully included in systems, so that we no longer spend vital energy ‘swallowing’ the frustration. Instead we occupy our full height (which gives us dignity) and authority from a grounded place of integrity, a place where we can agree to everything just as it is, without needing to agree with it. That distinction can really make our gut happy, balanced and grounded. We no longer tense our diaphragm to maintain the exclusion of a certain subject. We can feel the ease and warmth in our bellies.
Well Being
The science is increasingly showing that the gut bacteria are essential to hormonal balance and, hence, wellbeing. An important example is that 90% of the serotonin produced in our body, which is crucial for our mental health, is generated in the gut. That this drives our mental well-being highlights how these brains work as a system and how critical the communication, and relationship, between them is.
An Open Will
For any high-pressure situation, it is said that you need to ‘have the stomach for it’. In systemic facilitation, the more useful stance is that you need to exercise the ‘will power’ to stand in and say what is true beyond loyalties and ideas of right or wrong. As the old adage goes, “the truth shall set you free”. It will also make you feel better.
As systemic facilitators, when we invite clients to take one step towards better – we are essentially inviting them to take one step closer to integrity, to what’s true and to wholeness. These are the foundations of coherence as the integrity is the alignment of our brains and we experience what’s true through our body with appropriate boundaries. That movement, that step, is down to the gut brain being aligned.
Coherence and the Field
In this context it is worth considering the famous Rumi quote and its relation to coherence:
“Out beyond right or wrong there is a field: I’ll meet you there.”
This quote is, above all else, a beautiful invitation – an invitation to a place of a much bigger and deeper knowing than our rational thinking, and our egoic need to be right, allows for.
It’s an invitation to a place where we can meet all of someone and the systems they belong to, not just their thinking, not just their story. It’s an invitation to meet beyond a place of judgment (to move beyond our left hemisphere) – after all, we all want to be loved not judged.
Binary thinking and the need to be right
As we have seen the either/or of the left hemisphere, the preoccupation with right and wrong is a polarity, our mind made up and our opinion formed, we stop listening and accessing new information, new data. We are then not open to what else is emerging. We may rely on our expertise, where our status is bound up in being right. Wanting to be right suggests we think we already know.
This raises a central question that occurs when the mind and heart are not open – Do we want to be in our story (and of course our own story is right) or do we want to be healed? Of course our story is familiar, a story of family, and comfortable even if painful, and has a certainty that the left hemisphere, that produces binary thinking, craves.
It’s also worth noting that moving from right or wrong – which in many way reflects a psychological dynamic, a binary “thought” process – to meeting in the field is a shift from our “thinking” to the “knowing” field, a shift from the “psychological” to the “phenomenological” (what our embodied experience is of meeting in the field.)
Not Knowing
With an open mind we enter a field of uncertainty, which has more possibility and potential while carrying all of the potential discomfort of not knowing. The only way we can deal with this uncertainty is through coherence and the alignment of the resources of our whole body and its capacity to be present in now. The RH can deal with new information, paradox and uncertainty, which is vital for fresh insights and ways of seeing.
So to move beyond right or wrong we have to be prepared to “not know” and be comfortable with that – and to be prepared to not know long enough for something new to emerge from standing in our truth. It is a radical act moving from our thinking to standing in our truth; accepting the invitation to meet in the field and the rich information and “knowing” beyond the rational.
Letting The Field Know
A constellation is an invitation to see what the field knows and move beyond our limited story of what we “think” we know to what we feel in our bodies is true.
Our bodies are far more receptive to the knowing if all of the brain centers are open so we can energetically access the field to see what it knows and discover what’s true. This creates real insights rather than imagined stories and the very narrow thinking where we have to be right.
This is a key reason this work is so rich and effective – our thinking is too small and possibilities too restricted for the systemic forces that are rich, complex and full of healing possibility.
We expand out of our limited thinking into the energy, wisdom and possibilities of the field. It’s an invitation to see what the field knows and connect with all the energetic footprints that have gone before.
Coherence, Consciousness and Connecting with the Knowing Field
This connection with the field and the energetic footprints that have gone before, takes us to a source of information way beyond the limitations of the “rational mind” and is integral to its crown being usurped.
The state of consciousness that is coherence provides access to the information of the body and in turn what lies beyond as the boundaries erected by the left hemisphere are dissolved. This is summarised by Jeff Brown
“Out of the dark ages of a bifurcated, head-down consciousness, we arrive at an inclusive consciousness, one that unites the abstract intelligence of the head with the sensory intelligence of the body.”
Jeff Brown
Hellinger makes a distinction between the primary and secondary emotions as well as the “meta emotions”. One of these is ‘wisdom’ which is as Gregory Bateson puts it is “the intelligence of the system as a whole”.
The question then is how do we move in to a state of consciousness that allows us to accept the invitation issued by Rumi and meet up with all the information the field, the system as a whole, has to offer?
What trance are we in?
Milton Erickson, the famous hypnotherapist, said we are always in a trance and the key question is whether it’s a useful one or not. The story we are in is a trance and we may also be in a related trance of our personality and believing we cannot change. These trances are clearly limiting and not in service of our living a richer fuller life.
Related to this, It is often said that a constellation is a ‘light trance’ and trance itself is just an altered state and we need to be in a ‘state of awareness’ to create a connection with the field. This would be described as an ‘uptime trance’ where our attention can still be directed towards the outside with our eyes open. (In a ‘downtime trance’ we would be very deeply internal in our experience of what is happening and our eyes closed.)
Seeing, the constellation, the map of our unconscious mind, enables us to see what’s true and move beyond our story, freeing ourselves to embrace what wants to emerge. It is a shift in our consciousness as we move beyond the trance of our story and personality into our essence.
Vibrating with the Knowing Field
We also know that information in the field hangs out at different brain wave frequencies – so if we are not in the ‘right’ brain wave frequency the information from the ‘knowing field’ will be beyond us. This information exists as energy in space and we need to be in the same vibrational field to access it.
Essentially this involves a state of coherence of head, heart and gut AND a state of coherence with the field. Different states are accompanied with different brain wave patterns and the characteristics of these brain waves and how they relate both to coherence and the field are detailed below.
(They are based on the work of John Overdurf, Maxwell Cade and Anna Wise.)
Beta (13-27cps)
3-D experience. Newtonian – matter, solid, paying attention to objects, forms, people places and things. Sympathetic arousal: fight, flight or freeze. Strong sense of time. Noticing distinctions and separation. Thinking, analysis.
High likelihood of incoherence between head, heart and gut brains. States of stress will generate higher levels of beta and the cps will be at the higher end of the range.
Alpha (8-12 cps)
Expanded awareness of inner and outer experience. Paying attention to space and spaciousness (not objects.) Parasympathetic arousal: relaxed alertness. Loosening of time and greater inclusion. Sensing – more ergonomic movement.
Coherence among head, heart and gut.
Theta (4-7cps) into Delta (0.5 – 3.0 cps)
Spontaneous, expansive, inner experience. Increased parasympathetic arousal: deep peace.
The eternal now and vast wholeness. Only thought and energy – stillness.
Coherence with the field
Gamma (27-70 cps)
Inner experience and outer experience merge – “Oh Wow” Experiences. Sympathetic arousal – bliss and ecstasy.
“Flow” in time. A coherent and integrated experience. Clarity of senses, thinking and elegant action.
Coherence with field and 3-d reality.
The World as Objects…
While we have separated these frequencies out we are moving between them all the time as our state fluctuates. However, in high beta states we have less access to the other states.
In beta (13 to 27 hz) we are very much governed by our Left Hemisphere, we see things (and judge things) as separate “objects” – though remember the left hemisphere’s inability to actually ‘see’ and that ‘awareness’ is a feature of the right hemisphere. Importantly the left hemisphere will see our own body as an object.
This might explain how a left-hemispheric driven society and organisations can appear rather callous – we cannot ‘see’ in the way Hellinger is talking about it and we are then dealing with ‘objects’ which are in fact people’s lives. And of course love then becomes an object to be lost and found rather than a place, an energy, a vibrational frequency, a field.
We cannot be aware of love from our left hemisphere and “analyzing” it – though many of us have really tried. The left hemisphere may think ‘about’ love but that word ‘about’ immediately dissociates us from love or any direct experience of it.
…Or Energy?
It is interesting to see that as we move from a more Newtonian worldview associated with Beta to lower brain wave frequencies a more Quantum worldview emerges, paying more attention to space, spaciousness and energy. As Albert Einstein puts it
“There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, the field is the only reality.”
This connection with space and the field occurs when we are coherent and accessing the lower brain wave states. Being coherent allows us to relax and keep the “alpha pipeline” open, which allows for the other frequencies to become present. Being in alpha is associated with creativity.
In terms of accessing the information in the field, experiments have been done in the subject of “remote viewing” where someone in a completely different room (if not part of the world) is asked to describe something happening in another room, for example what someone is drawing.
When this has been done very accurately it has been observed that the brain wave frequency they are operating at to access this information is around 7hz.
This would correspond with the top end of “Theta” brain waves where we have an expansive inner experience, deep peace and connection with space and greater coherence with the field.
Meeting in Space…
In lower brain-wave frequencies Alpha and below, we experience things as SPACE (not objects) and that is what the field is in many ways – a place with all those energetic footprints converging – of what has gone before, what is happening now and what is wanting to emerge?
It’s all about energy meeting in space, certainly not objects. As Lynn McTaggart notes
“What matters is not the isolated entity, but the space between things, the relationship of things – the Bond…Every conflict that occurs – whether between husband and wife, social or racial groups – is resolved only when we can fully see and embrace the space – the Bond – between us.”
..In An Eternal Now?
And as we increasingly connect with space our experience of time (LH) dissolves. This seems a vital part of the work – we then are in an “Eternal Now” of past, present and future. Which is perhaps what a constellation does – through a ‘remote viewing’ of the system it brings all the field energy into the ‘eternal now’ into the room (space) so we can be with it and work with it.
That is how the whole system benefits, including our ancestors, as we are attending to everything in an ‘eternal now’ of which they are a part and in which field information is exchanged to restore balance and dignity to the system from a place of love.
Here we are meeting in that place beyond right and wrong and bringing ‘awareness’ and ‘love’ to what we see. Bringing these qualities is a vital part of the invitation. The clarity of the rational mind is included but not given the first position it often assumes and the correct order is restored.
This article was written by Michael Cahill and Oana Tanase members of the Coaching Constellations teaching team.
