April 11, 2022 • 50 mins
In this episode we train our awareness on systems. Like individuals, systems have an unconscious reality. Constellation theory is a tool for helping us to understand that unconscious space.
Our guest is Rev. Leslie Nipps, MDiv, is the founder of Convivium Constellations. She is a Systemic Constellations and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner and trainer. She has also been an Episcopal minister for over twenty years. She is a regular contributor to the professional journal of Constellations, The Knowing Field.
Daniel Goleman talks about his Emotional Intelligence Courses, available at danielgolemanemotionalintelligence.com
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
What do you know about yourself? I like to make new
friends. I like to be kind toothers. I can read pretty well.
I like to be playful, I'm smart
Elizabeth Solomon (00:26):
Welcome to first person plural, emotional
intelligence and beyond. I'mElizabeth Solomon.
Daniel Goleman (00:32):
And I'm Daniel Goleman. Our third host, Hanuman
Goleman is way on a retreat.
Elizabeth Solomon (00:37):
The fact that Hanuman isn't with us today, Dan
is a perfect segue into ourtopic today, which is on self
awareness. And that's exactlywhat Hanuman is doing right now
on retreat is expanding his ownself awareness and taking a
little bit of time to reflect, Ihope so well, no soon. This
season, we're diving deep intowhat we call the building blocks
(00:59):
of emotional intelligence,breaking down the key skills or
competencies that make for anemotionally intelligent person.
Daniel Goleman (01:06):
Our first three episodes Focused on emotional
self awareness. In Episode One,Dan Harris talked about the
theory of self awareness. Andour guest today talks about
awareness of systems. What doesthat mean?
Elizabeth Solomon (01:20):
Yes, I spoke with Lesley nips, who lives in
northern New Mexico andfacilitates and teaches on
systemic constellations, with aspecial focus on family systems,
and constellations is at itscore, a way of creating
awareness on the level ofsystems.
Daniel Goleman (01:39):
I really like how this method encourages us to
be aware of systems, not justourselves, I'm thinking of a
very well known global companythat was founded by a man who
was widely hated. And I thinkthat he brought that style to
leadership in that company. Thatwas in the 1930s. Now, almost a
(02:04):
century later, the CEO of thatcompany has become what you
might say, is rebellious sonagainst that. He's become
someone who espouses veryvirtuous, for example,
environmental goals. And I cansee as a kind of through line
(02:24):
that I hadn't thought of before,from the founder to the CEO,
being such a leader in this way.
Does that make sense from aconstellation through?
Elizabeth Solomon (02:38):
It does.
Systemic constellations has itsroots in a variety of
modalities, including familysystems, therapy, existential
phenomenology, and Zulu beliefsabout healing and ancestry. It
was developed by a German mannamed Bert Hellinger, who has
really amazing life story. Hegrew up in Nazi Germany and was
recruited into the army butended up becoming a missionary
(03:02):
and moving to South Africa,where he lived among the Zulu
people for close to two decades.
And what he learned there weretwo things one, the presence of
ancestors, right thinking in amuch sort of longer timeline
about those who predate us. Andhe also picked up this idea that
(03:23):
cultivating awareness or doingany sort of healing work is not
just an individual endeavor thatit actually happens best in
community.
Daniel Goleman (03:31):
Let's dive into our conversation with Leslie
nips.
Leslie Nipps (03:44):
Well, I want to start out by honoring our
founder that's always good,healthy systemic practice, which
is a gentleman by the name ofBert Hal Unger, German, who died
a couple of years ago. And hebasically came from the
psychotherapeutic world. But hiscontext was postwar Germany. It
is a tool we become very used toin our culture of assuming that
(04:09):
we have a personal unconscious,right? There's all that stuff
that we know about ourselves.
And then there's the thing thatmade us eat the third piece of
cake even when we didn't plan towrite what's going on in me that
I did that or that we access indreams and symbol and ritual.
But most organizational peoplethese days also understand that
systems have an unconscious, wehave all the conscious material,
(04:31):
the rules, the agreements, themembers of systems, but that
there's an unconscious reality.
Also running systems, the kindof thing that say in a business,
you fire the CEO who's analcoholic, thinking this will
solve our problem. And then ayear later you realize your new
(04:55):
CEO is also an alcoholic.
Something else is running theshow. Fear. And so this is a
tool for helping us tounderstand that unconscious
space. What is actuallyunderneath the tip of the
iceberg that's running what'sgoing on in the first very
fruitful context for this forBert Hellinger was the family.
(05:15):
So if I am depressed, I have myown personal depression that I'm
managing and various kinds ofways I'm maybe I'm not making
much headwind on, I'm not reallygetting anywhere with it, I'm
still depressed. And then westart to examine what is the
history of my family in whichthat grief or depression makes
absolute sense. And then alsotools for what to do about that
(05:40):
in a nice way, we're not stuckwith it now, once we can honor
and include and see the originalsources of grief. Again, in
helicopters context, thenightmare of World War Two, but
we may have slavery, or genocideor more personal losses, the
three babies who died in a rowin the cholera epidemic, two
(06:02):
generations back, that there wasno time to honor or give a place
for once we can bring that toawareness, we can actually honor
it, respect it, give it a place.
And when we do that, somethinglifts. And it's not my
depression anymore.
Elizabeth Solomon (06:22):
Yeah, I think you're pointing to a couple of
things. One, I think, you know,in the context of organizations,
you just said that which isconscious, right? I mean, I
think about the values, we writedown the norms that we sort of
explicitly agree to, right. Andthen this reality that we can
have all these things that arewritten, right, all these codes
of conduct all these employeehandbooks, right. And we can
still feel that something isn'ttotally in alignment with what
(06:45):
we've written down. And I alsohear you talking about this
piece of like these things thatwe kind of circle the wagon on
again, and again, and again,right, and we might go to many
different modalities to helpresolve an issue like
depression, and nothing's quiteworking. But the words you use
is see you just use the wordsee, you can actually see it.
(07:07):
And so I just want to invite youto share with our listeners, how
do constellations work, right,because I think this gift of
being able to, quote unquote,see is one of the beautiful
things about this work.
Leslie Nipps (07:17):
Yeah, and this is a bit of the tricky bit, because
it can sound like a lot of otherthings that it is not, it is not
roleplay, it is not acting,there's some overlap with both
of those little overlap withwhat some people might call
psychic phenomena, you'reperfectly free to be agnostic
about that. But it's not any ofthose things. And at this point,
(07:39):
I like to appeal to some basicbiology, mammalian level
biology, which is the capacityof the herd to feel the
emotional quality of the herd.
Very important survival tool.
Yeah. So if you're the meerkatwho ignores the group's fear
(08:00):
about the hawk warning, you'regonna be hock lunch, right?
Yeah. So it's very important tobe aware of the group's
emotional tone, its sense ofsafety, its sense of fear,
whatever might be going on. Andwe are like that, too. We are
mammals in that regard, all thislimbic structure in our brain,
we can feel when a group isstressed, we can feel when a
(08:22):
group is comfortable and safe.
We all have experiences we canmatch to that. So what we do in
constellations, we use thatcapacity that we have to feel
and know the emotional tone of asystem. And we crank up the gain
on that, so that we can reallyfeel it. And we bring to
(08:44):
presence. So if we're looking ata family, mom, dad,
grandparents, World War Two,whatever it might be, we bring
those two presents. And Ipromise you when we do that, we
will feel the emotional tone ofthat system. Its fear, its
guilt, its rage, its joy, ifthat's what it was like for
(09:08):
them. Yeah. And this is anuncanny thing. The moment we
bring into presence, anyelements of a system, we will
feel inside our limbic systemwill pick up that emotional
sense. And everyone who'slistening right now can do it.
Think about one of yourgrandparents who had a hard life
(09:28):
and your heart will shift.
You'll feel something, you'llfeel some grief, or some fear,
or some confusion, somethingwill arise. We bring to presence
in our mind. The moment we thinkof something, it's it's somewhat
present. Yeah. And we start tonotice the system. And then in
(09:51):
terms of concrete tools, there'sa lot of ways we do it.
Sometimes we do it just the wayI did it. Sometimes we do it by
looking at objects on a table.
So trance, we do it in groupsand have individuals step into
the roles, but again, not playacting, it's an order to bring
to presents the emotionalmeaning of the system. Once we
do that, we can see it and startworking with it.
Elizabeth Solomon (10:13):
Yeah, I'd love to have you just explain
that a little bit more aboutthis piece that in the
constellations World War Two,you would call a representing
right, where you actually haveeither objects or people sort of
stand in to represent usuallyindividuals within the system,
although obviously, they canrepresent concepts, they can
represent kind of unknownelements, but they just I want
(10:35):
to touch on that a little bit.
I'll just say briefly that Ithink, you know, one of the
powerful things for me with thiswork, I am a very visual person,
right. So there's one level ofunderstanding things mentally.
So for example, you know, in myown family system, thinking
about my own dad, right? I'mlike, Okay, I know, my dad has
anxiety, something I've known mywhole life, and that there is an
impact on me in the familysystem as a result of that
(10:57):
anxiety. And yet, when I haveseen someone represent my dad in
a constellation, and show upwith that anxiety, someone who
doesn't know my dad at all, hasno has never met him doesn't
have a backstory. Somehow thevisual imprinting of that, for
me, has allowed me to not justunderstand it mentally. But
(11:20):
again, to sink into that placeof empathy that you're talking
about, and really feel it andsay, oh, cool, that's really
true for my dad. And I can havea different understanding about
that. So there's a piece here, Ithink about the representing
that feels unique to this work,
Leslie Nipps (11:38):
if someone is mourning, a recent loss, so your
parent has died, a sibling hasdied. They know they're sad. And
they know that they're grieving.
And they know that they rememberthe person in ways that might be
useful, or unuseful, dependingupon how it's showing up for
them. Yeah, and they know all ofthat is important. And then they
(11:58):
go to a funeral for the person.
And they sit by other people whoare grieving. And they bring to
presence in a different kind ofway. And the rituals of whatever
the funeral are, yeah, representthe person's presence. And if we
don't have the funeral, itmatters. This is what Family
(12:22):
Constellations, notices, andthen uses far more intentionally
to therapeutic effect for bothindividuals who have a problem
like depression, or fororganizations, other kinds of
systems that are wanting tounderstand what's going on here.
We bring to presents the actualMrs. White really glad you
(12:45):
invited me, the actual emotionalsystem, not our idea about it,
not our memories of it. Aspowerful as memories are. It's
actually not about memories.
It's the truth of the actualsystem, but with a certain frame
of consciousness and awareness,so that we can actually work
with it a bit. Yeah. So now thatwe have brought your father and
(13:09):
all of his anxiety intopresence, we can we can bring in
some tools for the daughter ofthis father, and already just
naming that we've done somethingthat wasn't a big move. We
didn't do very much. But we justnamed something now, and we
honored a little tiny dyadicsystem. Just it's a twosome.
(13:31):
It's not a big system. But it'svery important to move into the
space. Oh, I am my father'sdaughter, and he wrestled with a
great fear. Now we've moved itout of the technical language of
anxiety. And then we can takethe next move and and bring in
what he was afraid of whether wehave a guess about what that is,
(13:52):
or we don't know. And then youcan honor what he feared. Oh, he
feared that. And then we havesome other moves. Things like, I
honor my father wrestled withthat I leave that with him.
Thank you for my life. It'snever about dismissing emotions.
It's actually about bringingthem fully present, so that we
(14:15):
can honor them, and then releasethem to whom they appropriately
belong. Oh, that's my father'sfear. It's so
Elizabeth Solomon (14:26):
beautiful.
You know, it's so much I hear inthis. It's a piece about slowing
down. Right. And I think in thecontext of thinking about self
awareness on the individuallevel, we would categorize this
as mindfulness, right, justtaking a moment to slow down and
actually name the experience.
And so what we're really talkingabout in constellations is doing
that on the systemic level. Andthen there's also this piece
(14:48):
that you're bringing to lightaround process ritual, this
piece around honoring and thatyou were an Episcopal Minister
before you were a constantlater. and have been thinking a
lot about, you know what it wasfor you to get up in front of a
congregation to participate inso many rituals, births, deaths,
(15:11):
marriages, right? And how thatwork in ministry of being
present to sort of rites ofpassage has translated into your
work as a systemic constantleader.
Leslie Nipps (15:22):
Yeah, I mean, one of the things in Christianity,
the more sacramental versions ofit is something called the
communion of saints. It's theidea that there is some reality
to the existence of the dead.
This is not new to Christianity,traditional indigenous cultures
around the world. Honor theancestors in ways that
(15:43):
culturally we've lost contactwith. And I do think there's a
great yearning for this, thiswhole ancestry.com Looking for
our roots. genealogical stuff, Ithink we're responding or
reacting to our lack ofconnection with all of that. So
in certain forms ofChristianity, it's called the
communion of saints, which Ialways thought was a lovely
(16:05):
idea. The first time I did aconstellation I went, Oh, it's
real. It's not just a nice idea.
But the way I like to put it isthe dead are not completely dead
to us. They're kind of alive.
Now, they're the fact thatpeople die matters. Death and
life are different. But theyremain in the system, as as
(16:29):
meanings as presences asinfluences, and their traumas
and losses are relevant to us.
Because we are their children,or their children's children or
their descendants. Yeah, we arepart of their system. And if
(16:50):
their great traumas and losseswere never acknowledged, or
dealt with, or they were busysurviving, or whatever it was,
we're going to still bewrestling with that. And this is
something we're becoming veryaware of in the racial justice
space. Yeah, the post slaverytrauma syndrome, the awareness
(17:11):
to the degree that we have notreally wrestled with these
things, as a nation really, isstill affecting all of us very
much. So from my Christianworld, my priestly world, I feel
this deep connection with theselarger influences, and creating
ritual spaces for us to find ourgood place amongst them, so that
(17:35):
we can receive good life fromour ancestors, and then do the
job that we've all got, which isvery simple, which was to live
really fully,
Elizabeth Solomon (17:43):
I think, you know, especially in a Western
culture, right? We have a sortof very kind of truncated sense
of time, right? There's a lot offast movement, right. And I
think what you're talking about,too, I almost think of it as
like, elongating the timeline.
And I'm wondering, thinkingabout your focus is often on
family systems, but thinkingabout how this idea of ancestors
translates to organizationalsystems, that organizations also
(18:07):
have these long histories thatimpact the systemic realities in
the present.
Leslie Nipps (18:16):
I'm going to come back to that question. But I
want to connect this ratherexplicitly with with the thought
we were just sharing, which isin the West, and maybe
specifically in the WesternHemisphere, maybe specifically
the United States, I won't speakfor the world, we've got a very
forward facing culture. Andthat's by the very nature of
(18:37):
being, you know, colonistspioneers. When are many of our
ancestors left their originatingcountries, there was often a lot
of trauma around that movement,whether it was voluntary or
forced. And so we as a cultureremain very forward facing, you
(18:58):
know, don't look to the past,you know, grab for what you
want. It's wrapped up a lot inour individualism as well. Yeah.
The individual making their wayforward. And these larger
cultural, systemic threadsimpact all of us, including our
organizations, so that historyis part of the land. It's part
(19:22):
of the culture, historicaltraumas, like, you know, the
Civil War and slavery and theNative American genocide are
relevant to all of us. Manyorganizations have more local
history, either super localwould be having a founder who
was themselves a perpetrator,then it's going to be part of
(19:45):
the DNA of the organization.
Right? Or it's been around longenough that one of the CEOs
almost drove the organizationinto the ground. That kind of
thing is going to continue to beproud isn't to the the
organization, if the business ororganization got their original
capital, their money, theirland, their property, and
(20:10):
unethical ways, this is going toremain part of the system. And
this race is a reallyinteresting and useful
conversation about reparations.
But before we get to anythinglike reparations, something like
constellations can actually helpus understand what is going on
(20:31):
what is going on in this system,you know, that our profits keep
on failing, or that we have suchhigh turnover in our employees,
these are the kinds of thingsthat a constellation can start
to reveal, because we hit thelimits of what we consciously
remember or know in the group,and can explain for, and even
(20:51):
the stuff that we mayconsciously know, we may not
consider relevant. And so yes,the history of organizations or
the the system that theorganization is embedded in, is
often extremely relevant to whythe organization is or is not
functioning well. So
Elizabeth Solomon (21:09):
I think the the line of questioning that we
often pursue when there's anissue or a pain point is kind of
what's wrong with me, or what'swrong with them. Right. And I
think the gift of constellationsis toward is to ask the question
of like, what's happening in thesystemic field or what's
happening in the system. And I'mwondering if you could give us a
maybe even a more specificexample of some of the ways that
(21:31):
you reframe questions for yourclients, to be asking questions
that are systemic, instead offraught with placing blame or
onus on a single person orpersons.
Leslie Nipps (21:43):
One of the frames of constellations is that we
have strong loyalty bonds to thegroups that we belong to. So the
stories we have about who's toblame are extremely powerful.
They are really strong. And forreally understandable reasons
now, and trying to get into aconscious conversation about
(22:05):
that, that will loosen up thatframe of who's to blame often
doesn't go very far. And I wantto say, particularly when they
start to touch on events of ourown childhood, right, because
our own childhoods, were sodefenseless, we were so
vulnerable to everything thatwas going on. And so changing
(22:28):
the questioning, I often try todo that and find myself kind of
not making a whole lot ofprogress. What I do really
prefer to do is start to bringthe system to presence, whether
it is in a sort of a formalconstellation the way I've
already described to you, oreven in their mind's eye, so so
(22:48):
let's just say for a moment,we're in a dilemma with our mom.
And we still really fight and Idon't know how much it's my
fault, or how much it's herfault. This is really common,
right? And so I'm curious aboutthat. But then I say, Okay,
let's stop for a moment. Justjust bring to your mind for a
(23:10):
moment. And the listeners, ifyou don't have this problem with
your mom bringing anyrelationship into your mind side
that seems to have this quality,we've all got at least one
right? Could be your best friendcould be your spouse could be
your adult child. So bring bringit to mind, bring in your mind's
eye, an image of you and yourmother, who are enduring this
(23:34):
difficult dilemma. And when Ilook at them, I notice how stuck
they are and how painful it isthat the two of them can't
figure out whose fault it is. Sothat's one move right there
something shifted or changedalready. Yeah, that is hard for
(23:57):
them. I would like them to beable to get out of that, you
know, that question? So I'mcurious. on whose behalf are
they holding this question ofwho's to blame? That is so
strong? Now, I don't know theanswer that question. Oh, if I
(24:18):
do a longer interview, we mightfind out. Oh, yeah. Her father
actually went to jail formurdering somebody. These kinds
of things show up. Yeah. Andthat guilt is lingering in the
system. And now me and my motherare working it up between the
two of us. Yeah. on whose behalfAre we having this experience?
Elizabeth Solomon (24:37):
This to me, I've sort of in my mind, I'm
calling it almost like the level2.0 of awareness right? I
helping people really have theawareness to kind of name their
trigger and then modulate theirresponse to that trigger. Right.
And we've talked about thisoften is just the amygdala
hijack what happens whensomething occurs and we get
totally flooded with emotion andwhat can we do to create some
(24:58):
space and I think The gift ofsystemic thinking is that we go
to the next level of saying, Whyis it this thing that's actually
always triggering me? Right? Soonce I know how to sort of
modulate my response to it,still, that thing sometimes
continues to Ignite Within me astrong emotional reaction that
(25:18):
seems kind of out of context orout of place for what I
intellectually understand aboutthe situation. Right. And so I
love what you just said, becausethe question is, if it goes from
being who's to blame, whosefault is it? Who's doing what
to? Why are we looking to blamesomeone in the first place?
Leslie Nipps (25:37):
Yeah, this is a real gift. I'm a big fan of self
management around emotions.
Yeah. Because we can't alwaysknow what the heck's going on.
And we need a way to turn downthe dial, and, you know, not
hurt ourselves or anybody else,right? Step away. Yeah. And
there's a whole nother level ofrelief. This is another example
that was coming to my mind thismorning. And this is something
(26:00):
that many of us have been ableto do at a conscious level. But
constellations allows it anotherlevel, let's imagine, I'm still
carrying anger at my mother, forall the weird ways that she put
me down when I was starting tobecome a sexual person. You
can't go out late at night,don't look at those boys, it's
(26:21):
dangerous for you a commonenough story. You know, don't
you know what's going to happento you? Don't be dirty minded,
and whatever it might have been.
Yeah. And I'm still angry aboutthat all these years later said
of probably influences my sexuallife, that that happened. Yeah,
so I'm still mad about it. Andthen I find out from a cousin,
(26:44):
that my mother was sexuallyabused by her father. Ah, it
doesn't change that when I was12. It hurt that my mother
treated me that way. Butsomething very significant
releases immediately. It's,it's, again, I think of it as
(27:05):
very biologically based. It's aparasympathetic reset, it's,
it's not self management. It'snot making myself think
differently or morecompassionately about my mother,
or taking responsibility formyself, which is another move we
might make. It's like, oh, mymother was trying to keep me
(27:26):
safe from something she wasn'tsafe from. And so constellations
is a tool for helping us, evenif we never know what the heck
happened to your mom, we canbring in your mother and her
parents, and see her fear of herparents feel the fear of her
(27:47):
parents and go, Oh, wow, thisfear was present way before I
popped into the world hole. Soand again, something can shift,
and it's just a release. And nowwe can function more congruently
in our in our system without, atleast with a lessening of the
triggers around all that. Andthis will have cascading
(28:08):
effects. I've seen over and overagain, once that kind of
awareness, embodied somaticlevel ritual awareness, not
merely intellectual, I starthaving a different experience
with my sexuality. Because I'mnot carrying this thing with my
mother quite as fiercely into mysexual relationships.
Elizabeth Solomon (28:26):
Yeah, and also just want to focus for a
second and talk about the giftof constellations to also put us
in touch with with that, whichis positive, which has come down
through our lineage, right. Andjust to say a little bit about
that as well.
Leslie Nipps (28:40):
At one level, if we reduce it terribly, it's all
positive. And this is what Imean by it. You and I are here.
All of our ancestors endured andsurvived everything they faced.
Yeah, there are lineages thatstop. Right? They don't pass on
(29:04):
life. And one of the things Ioften say is that constellations
is the overdue funeral, or theoverdue reckoning or the overdue
honoring or the overdue takingresponsibility if it was a great
violation, or perpetration, orthe overdue honoring of the
spectacular loss, that sort ofthing. Once we do that, there's
(29:25):
some ritual phrases here we usevery frequently, which is, dear
ancestors, parents,grandparents, whoever it is,
yeah. I honor the dignity ofyour fate. I leave it with you.
Thank you for my life. Pleasebless me as I put it all to
good. And so that place we canland congruently not in a
(29:49):
Pollyanna pretty. Make yourselfthink positive kind of a way,
but in a true heart opening kindof way is wow, I have a place in
my heart for this suffering ofmy ancestors. And I'm so
grateful for the life that theygave me. Now this is often a big
shift, I have clients who arenot sure being alive is such a
(30:09):
good deal. That that's somethingthat's worth being grateful for.
So one needs to be very tender.
And careful with this process,particularly when there's like a
lot of abuse or generations ofoppression. Yeah, but that that
is the landing place. And themore we're able to land in that
place, the more the releasehappens, and we congruently
(30:32):
receive that, that ancestraljuice, that gives us the, the
capacity to be lively, whichmeans to love, to build, to
create, to work for justice, todo all the things that only the
living get to do until we'redone, and we join the dead
(30:52):
ourselves. So in some sense,it's all a positive frame, with
a lot of room necessary room forhonoring what we can
conventionally call thenegative. But it really is the
sweetness of honoring things asthey have been. So going to a
funeral and leaving and going. Iknow, this is a weird thing to
(31:16):
say. But that was a goodfuneral. We all cried our eyes
out. And we laughed a bit. Andwe, we talked about this person
in a real way, not a pretendway. And I'm glad we did that.
And I can feel them smiling onus now.
Elizabeth Solomon (31:37):
We've used the word somatic a couple times
in our in our conversation, andI just want to back up and just
define what we're talking aboutwhen we're saying somatic,
Leslie Nipps (31:45):
acute coming back to this limbic system that we
have, which is of courseconnected to the whole body skin
sensing, you know, visual,hearing, smelling, tasting,
feeling, or guts capacities, areour mental capacities as well.
Our whole body is is highlyattuned to the emotional quality
(32:07):
of systems. Is the system well,is the system scared? Is the
system angry now. And we knowthe biology of fight flight of
the sympathetic system comingonline to tell us it's time to
run or fight. And then when it'sover the person pathetic system
coming online to tell us we cango back to grazing, you know,
(32:31):
everything's okay. All right. Ibelieve that's in systems when
the whole system is in fightflight, we feel it in our
bodies. Again, it's a goodsurvival move, except for when
it isn't. But in its originalform, it's to make sure we're
not hock lunch. And we can feelwhen the system is at peace. And
(32:53):
okay, yeah. And we process thisall through our bodies, all of
it through our bodies. Now, someof us, you know, have different
strengths. Some of us are morekinesthetic, some of us are more
verbal, some of us feel ourheads more some of us feel, you
know, down in our pelvis ismore. So will will process this
(33:14):
in different parts of our body.
But it is all being experiencedthrough the body one way or
another. I feel my father, Ifeel my ancestors, I feel grief,
I feel peace.
Elizabeth Solomon (33:29):
You know, we're talking a lot about family
systems, because obviously,that's where your work is
centered, it's a beautiful placeto start, because we're all part
of a family system, right. Andwe're born into a family system
without the language to evendescribe what we're
experiencing. And so in manyways, everything is is a somatic
experience, right, which istaking in all this information.
(33:50):
This work is used a lot inorganizational systems, and that
these two systems have differentrules of belonging. So, and
you've said this many times, wealways belong to our family
system, whereas organizationsare human created systems that
we opt into opt out of, andwhere I'm going with this is I
want to talk a little bit about,you know, when I was doing a lot
(34:12):
of work, evaluatingorganizational culture, I
noticed that organizations haveused a lot of family metaphors
to describe their culture,right. So we're a family here,
welcome to the family. And yetfamily systems and
organizational systems aregoverned by very different
systemic laws, so to speak. AndI'm just wondering if you can
(34:35):
speak to that a little bit.
Leslie Nipps (34:37):
So yeah, the rules of belonging vary from system to
system. I want to say thatthere's one very important role
that is the same in pretty muchevery system, which is the
necessity of honoring what isand what goes crazy and systems
when we don't do that. And sothat's true in a business as it
(34:57):
is in a family. There's also aand similar rules around
honoring precedents andseniority and role. Yeah. So the
uncle is the uncle, thejanitors, the janitor, the
sisters, the sister, the CEO isthe CEO. When roles and
(35:17):
seniority are honored properly,both family and organizational
systems will struggle. Yeah.
Belonging as you're quite rightit is, is a bit different. And,
and it's, it makes it tricky.
And I want to honor this.
Because the degree that we sayin a business, we want it to
feel like a family. We're tryingto bring in the the kind of
(35:41):
respect and honor for each otherthat we hope families have for
each other. We spent so muchtime at work, we would like our
workplaces to feel respectful,fair, usefully structured,
warmth, that we're up tosomething that matters, that
were congruent, all things wehope from a healthy family. The
dilemma is with organizations,of course, is that people,
(36:04):
mostly with some exceptions, docome and go, yeah, so you get
hired, and then you leave and goto another organization, you no
longer have any say, and that inthat organization that you used
to belong to. Yeah. And sothat's one of the great
differences. Having said that,most of the insights of Family
(36:27):
Constellations work are relevantand useful in organizational
systems. And I'm going to usejust a really simple example
that we've all experienced. Yougo into work meeting, you're a
few minutes late, you walk in,and you're like, something's a
little tense here. Okay, so thelimbic system is already going,
(36:47):
you're aware, it's tense,something's a little off. And
then you look around, and youtry to explain it to yourself,
well, we're horrible at puttingagendas together here, I really
frustrated with the way we puttogether agendas, or Oh, Joe's
running the meeting. That's whyJoe's terrible at running
meetings, or it's too cold inhere, or whatever it might be,
you come up with your consciousreasoning. And then at the end
(37:10):
of the meeting, Juan says, Guys,I'm really sorry. But that's
something to share. I just got abad biopsy. And I don't know how
to tell the kids. And the wholeroom goes, Oh, now, this is
classic elephant in the roomstuff we've all experienced that
we all know about it. And thiskind of stuff is running the
(37:34):
show so much. In organizations,we are trying to fix a problem
with the conscious material wehave accessible. And it's not
the problem, or it's not theissue, or it's not what's going
on. And we work it really hard.
(37:55):
And we don't get anywhere. Andif we have a good framework for
it, we'll get really frustrated,you know, we're supposed to do
taking minutes this way, guys,and they don't fix everything if
we do minutes this way. Andstill it resists solution,
because the pattern is lodgedsomewhere else if something else
(38:15):
not being acknowledged or seen.
And again, this is whereconstellations can be a really
useful tool, when all theleadership had brought all their
best efforts, and they stillcan't figure it out. What's
clogging up the gears here? Idon't know.
Elizabeth Solomon (38:30):
But that brought me to one of my
questions, which is just justhaving you speak about why a
leader or someone stepping intoleadership should care about
this approach to systemicthinking.
Leslie Nipps (38:42):
Exactly. Yeah.
Again, we all come equipped withthe best of, you know,
Leadership Theory,organizational theory, you know,
are we a top down organization?
Are we a horizontalorganization, whatever versions
of this that we have. And wewant to bring the best of those
(39:03):
tools to support organizationsthat do work that matters. Yeah.
And when we run into thesewalls, and those really
appropriate structures and fixesare not fixing it, then it may
be time to ask for your localorganizational constellation
consultant to come out on in andhelp you think about this. This
(39:26):
is very personal to me. My lastwork as an Episcopal minister
was in a very conflicted parish.
It had been conflicted a longtime and eventually the conflict
landed on me. And I had accessto most of sort of the systemic
thinking, you know, non anxiouspresence, understanding
triangulation, all these things.
(39:49):
And I couldn't manage being in anon anxious presence for about a
half hour at a time at best. Itwas a gnarly situation and
Nothing I had available to me,gave me the chance to kind of
open up the hood and go, what'sactually running this conflict?
(40:12):
Yeah, because this is the thing,we cannot blame ourselves. We
talked about triggers. But whatis a trigger? It's when we
experience ourselves underthreat. And if the system is
running threat signals all thetime, or a lot of the time, and
some of them are accidentallyhitting us, or if we're the
leader, they're being thrown atus all the time. It's really
(40:35):
hard not to feel threatened. Ireally want to give us a break
around this a little bit. Yeah.
And I so wish I had this tool,so that I could could see what
was the larger, inheritedsystemic threat that was going
on this system that was landingon me. And I couldn't find it
(40:56):
because I was too much in it.
That's the thing as leader, soyou got to be part of your
system. And you're representingsomething in it. Now, if that
happens to be your experience.
Yeah. So this really is the toolto allow us to see the larger
system, and to make realadjustments together, maybe
honor that our business, got ourland. By I just moved to New
(41:20):
Mexico, a lot of the businesseshave their land by shuttling the
original peoples, whether theywere Spanish or before them, the
indigenous Americans is some ofthat lingering in the system.
And then we can honor it andgive it a good place. And then
(41:41):
maybe do some reparation work aswell might be part of the follow
through. But if we're trying tofix the conflict, by me be doing
better with conflict. For manyof us, we have found that this
only gets us so far. I'mwondering
Elizabeth Solomon (41:57):
if you could tell a story about a
particularly impactfulconstellation that you've
experienced that somehow really,like acutely and immediately
attuned due to the power andpotential of this work.
Leslie Nipps (42:10):
So the very first constellation I participated in,
I actually had a very low key, Iwas given a very low key role in
someone else's constellation.
She was a lovely woman, who wasthe daughter of a single mom,
and had been the result ofessentially a one night stand.
So she didn't know anythingabout her father, or that whole
(42:32):
side of her family, except sheknew he was Cuban. That's all
she knew. Yeah, I want you allto put yourself in the in the
shoes of that. And some of youmay actually know this
experience, what what that mightbe like to have no connection
with the Father, or the lineageand to be the only child of this
(42:53):
man and this woman in this way.
Yeah. There's a hole there.
You're never invited toThanksgiving dinner at the
cousin's house on that side,because there's just no
connection with any of them. Andof course, the loss of the
Father. So the facilitator ofthat constellation just asked
for a bunch of people torepresent people. No, no
(43:15):
identify are people on that sideof the family? And could you
please surround her and welcomeher to the family. So I was one
of them. We stood around her.
And we said, Welcome, we're gladyou're here. You belong to us.
And I experienced thisremarkable feeling of genuinely
(43:38):
welcoming, like being anancestor, who knows,
grandmother, great grandparents,I don't know. But speaking so
glad this life had come into it,even in the painful way it had
come into the world. And soyou're one of us, you belong to
us. And then seen in the clientsface what it meant to finally
(43:59):
hear and feel that from half oftheir, you know, genetic
inheritance. It's extremelypowerful experience. Very
simple, very beautiful. And Iwas hooked.
Elizabeth Solomon (44:12):
The last thing I just want to touch into
here is that, again, the rulesof constellations are is that if
it's a system, you canconstellate it, right? So again,
we've been talking aboutfamilies, and we've been talking
about organizations, but thereare natural systems, right? The
organs of the body are a system,it's kind of a fun modality
because you can get a lot ofinsight into a lot of different
(44:33):
complexities. One of the thingsI know that some practitioners
do is to attempt at constellatedin kind of large, societal,
systemic issues,
Leslie Nipps (44:44):
they will definitely find it as kind of
all of our cultural awareness ofsocial issues, continues to grow
in really positive ways thatwe're all really glad for
looking at things like climatechange, or What's going on in
Ukraine right now? racialinjustice, all kinds of larger
(45:05):
social issues. You can set upaspects of various larger
cultural situations and see whatare the invisible influences?
What is the history? I mean,we've had many commentators on
the radio saying, Where is thisconflict in Ukraine coming from?
(45:26):
Right? It's not just the resultof one crazy person. There's a
lot more going into this thanjust what we can see on the
surface. And so you can set upthese constellations to find
out, you know, what, what isinfluencing what is sourcing
some of this, and what might bepotentially much more powerful
(45:47):
interventions than the oneswe've been attempting to make?
Yeah. Usually, this is done bypeople who have a stake in the
issue, a group of people whoidentify with a particular
marginal group, or a particularadvocacy group, will set up
these constellations in order toget more understanding, like,
(46:09):
oh, that's what's going on. Itshifts how we think about them a
bit in ways that can be veryuseful, and then might give them
more leverage and how tocontribute in a useful way.
Because often the ways in whichwe try to contribute to change,
as we all know, can often becounterproductive. And so what
(46:30):
are the ways that we canactually be helpful, that would
be useful for the situation? Soyes, people are using it for
that as well. Any system we canlook at it?
Elizabeth Solomon (46:40):
Mostly, I want to thank you so much. I
think this is such a powerfultool for our listeners to have
in their toolkit to sort ofexplore like you're saying the
different leverage points inorder to make some change in a
system. And also just tounderstand what we are often
sensing but have not had anopportunity to give voice to.
(47:00):
I've said
Leslie Nipps (47:01):
it a few different ways. But I do want to bring us
back to our original context,which is self awareness and
emotional intelligence. We arenaturally biologically emotional
creatures, and this is a goodthing. And our emotions often
baffle us and make life trickyfor us. And my hope is that
constellations work helps uscome into friendlier
(47:24):
relationship with these waves ofemotional experiences that we
can often have an honor whattheir roots in an actual context
is, because they're trying tosay something to us. That's
really, really important thatsomething knocking on the door.
And so finding a way to honorwho's knocking or what's
(47:46):
knocking so that we can, inessence, love all of these
emotions, and find some relief.
If in any way that's beenbothersome to us is something
I've really enjoyed doing andinvite people to explore.
Elizabeth Solomon (48:01):
Thank you so much. That was the perfect
ending.
Kerry Seed (48:14):
Thanks for listening to first person plural EI and
beyond. Subscribe now and signup for our newsletter to get
notified as new episodes arereleased. This show is brought
to you by our CO hosts DanielGoleman, Hanuman Goleman and
Elizabeth Solomon. It'ssponsored by Keystep media, your
source for personal andprofessional development
materials focused onmindfulness, leadership and
(48:36):
emotional intelligence. Specialthanks to Sujata, whose voice
you heard at the top of theshow, and to today's guest,
Leslie nips. For guest bios,transcripts and resources
mentioned in today's episode,check out our episode notes on
our website first personplural.com This episode was
written and produced byElizabeth Solomon and me Carrie
(48:59):
seed. audio production was byMichelle Zipkin. Episode art and
production support by BrianJohnson. Music in this episode
includes tiny footsteps in thesnow by bio unit and our theme
music is by Amber O'Hara. Untilnext time, be well
What do you know about yourself? I like to make new
friends. I like to be kind toothers. I can read pretty well.
I like to be playful, I'm smart
Elizabeth Solomon (00:26):
Welcome to first person plural, emotional
intelligence and beyond. I'mElizabeth Solomon.
Daniel Goleman (00:32):
And I'm Daniel Goleman. Our third host, Hanuman
Goleman is way on a retreat.
Elizabeth Solomon (00:37):
The fact that Hanuman isn't with us today, Dan
is a perfect segue into ourtopic today, which is on self
awareness. And that's exactlywhat Hanuman is doing right now
on retreat is expanding his ownself awareness and taking a
little bit of time to reflect, Ihope so well, no soon. This
season, we're diving deep intowhat we call the building blocks
(00:59):
of emotional intelligence,breaking down the key skills or
competencies that make for anemotionally intelligent person.
Daniel Goleman (01:06):
Our first three episodes Focused on emotional
self awareness. In Episode One,Dan Harris talked about the
theory of self awareness. Andour guest today talks about
awareness of systems. What doesthat mean?
Elizabeth Solomon (01:20):
Yes, I spoke with Lesley nips, who lives in
northern New Mexico andfacilitates and teaches on
systemic constellations, with aspecial focus on family systems,
and constellations is at itscore, a way of creating
awareness on the level ofsystems.
Daniel Goleman (01:39):
I really like how this method encourages us to
be aware of systems, not justourselves, I'm thinking of a
very well known global companythat was founded by a man who
was widely hated. And I thinkthat he brought that style to
leadership in that company. Thatwas in the 1930s. Now, almost a
(02:04):
century later, the CEO of thatcompany has become what you
might say, is rebellious sonagainst that. He's become
someone who espouses veryvirtuous, for example,
environmental goals. And I cansee as a kind of through line
(02:24):
that I hadn't thought of before,from the founder to the CEO,
being such a leader in this way.
Does that make sense from aconstellation through?
Elizabeth Solomon (02:38):
It does.
Systemic constellations has itsroots in a variety of
modalities, including familysystems, therapy, existential
phenomenology, and Zulu beliefsabout healing and ancestry. It
was developed by a German mannamed Bert Hellinger, who has
really amazing life story. Hegrew up in Nazi Germany and was
recruited into the army butended up becoming a missionary
(03:02):
and moving to South Africa,where he lived among the Zulu
people for close to two decades.
And what he learned there weretwo things one, the presence of
ancestors, right thinking in amuch sort of longer timeline
about those who predate us. Andhe also picked up this idea that
(03:23):
cultivating awareness or doingany sort of healing work is not
just an individual endeavor thatit actually happens best in
community.
Daniel Goleman (03:31):
Let's dive into our conversation with Leslie
nips.
Leslie Nipps (03:44):
Well, I want to start out by honoring our
founder that's always good,healthy systemic practice, which
is a gentleman by the name ofBert Hal Unger, German, who died
a couple of years ago. And hebasically came from the
psychotherapeutic world. But hiscontext was postwar Germany. It
is a tool we become very used toin our culture of assuming that
(04:09):
we have a personal unconscious,right? There's all that stuff
that we know about ourselves.
And then there's the thing thatmade us eat the third piece of
cake even when we didn't plan towrite what's going on in me that
I did that or that we access indreams and symbol and ritual.
But most organizational peoplethese days also understand that
systems have an unconscious, wehave all the conscious material,
(04:31):
the rules, the agreements, themembers of systems, but that
there's an unconscious reality.
Also running systems, the kindof thing that say in a business,
you fire the CEO who's analcoholic, thinking this will
solve our problem. And then ayear later you realize your new
(04:55):
CEO is also an alcoholic.
Something else is running theshow. Fear. And so this is a
tool for helping us tounderstand that unconscious
space. What is actuallyunderneath the tip of the
iceberg that's running what'sgoing on in the first very
fruitful context for this forBert Hellinger was the family.
(05:15):
So if I am depressed, I have myown personal depression that I'm
managing and various kinds ofways I'm maybe I'm not making
much headwind on, I'm not reallygetting anywhere with it, I'm
still depressed. And then westart to examine what is the
history of my family in whichthat grief or depression makes
absolute sense. And then alsotools for what to do about that
(05:40):
in a nice way, we're not stuckwith it now, once we can honor
and include and see the originalsources of grief. Again, in
helicopters context, thenightmare of World War Two, but
we may have slavery, or genocideor more personal losses, the
three babies who died in a rowin the cholera epidemic, two
(06:02):
generations back, that there wasno time to honor or give a place
for once we can bring that toawareness, we can actually honor
it, respect it, give it a place.
And when we do that, somethinglifts. And it's not my
depression anymore.
Elizabeth Solomon (06:22):
Yeah, I think you're pointing to a couple of
things. One, I think, you know,in the context of organizations,
you just said that which isconscious, right? I mean, I
think about the values, we writedown the norms that we sort of
explicitly agree to, right. Andthen this reality that we can
have all these things that arewritten, right, all these codes
of conduct all these employeehandbooks, right. And we can
still feel that something isn'ttotally in alignment with what
(06:45):
we've written down. And I alsohear you talking about this
piece of like these things thatwe kind of circle the wagon on
again, and again, and again,right, and we might go to many
different modalities to helpresolve an issue like
depression, and nothing's quiteworking. But the words you use
is see you just use the wordsee, you can actually see it.
(07:07):
And so I just want to invite youto share with our listeners, how
do constellations work, right,because I think this gift of
being able to, quote unquote,see is one of the beautiful
things about this work.
Leslie Nipps (07:17):
Yeah, and this is a bit of the tricky bit, because
it can sound like a lot of otherthings that it is not, it is not
roleplay, it is not acting,there's some overlap with both
of those little overlap withwhat some people might call
psychic phenomena, you'reperfectly free to be agnostic
about that. But it's not any ofthose things. And at this point,
(07:39):
I like to appeal to some basicbiology, mammalian level
biology, which is the capacityof the herd to feel the
emotional quality of the herd.
Very important survival tool.
Yeah. So if you're the meerkatwho ignores the group's fear
(08:00):
about the hawk warning, you'regonna be hock lunch, right?
Yeah. So it's very important tobe aware of the group's
emotional tone, its sense ofsafety, its sense of fear,
whatever might be going on. Andwe are like that, too. We are
mammals in that regard, all thislimbic structure in our brain,
we can feel when a group isstressed, we can feel when a
(08:22):
group is comfortable and safe.
We all have experiences we canmatch to that. So what we do in
constellations, we use thatcapacity that we have to feel
and know the emotional tone of asystem. And we crank up the gain
on that, so that we can reallyfeel it. And we bring to
(08:44):
presence. So if we're looking ata family, mom, dad,
grandparents, World War Two,whatever it might be, we bring
those two presents. And Ipromise you when we do that, we
will feel the emotional tone ofthat system. Its fear, its
guilt, its rage, its joy, ifthat's what it was like for
(09:08):
them. Yeah. And this is anuncanny thing. The moment we
bring into presence, anyelements of a system, we will
feel inside our limbic systemwill pick up that emotional
sense. And everyone who'slistening right now can do it.
Think about one of yourgrandparents who had a hard life
(09:28):
and your heart will shift.
You'll feel something, you'llfeel some grief, or some fear,
or some confusion, somethingwill arise. We bring to presence
in our mind. The moment we thinkof something, it's it's somewhat
present. Yeah. And we start tonotice the system. And then in
(09:51):
terms of concrete tools, there'sa lot of ways we do it.
Sometimes we do it just the wayI did it. Sometimes we do it by
looking at objects on a table.
So trance, we do it in groupsand have individuals step into
the roles, but again, not playacting, it's an order to bring
to presents the emotionalmeaning of the system. Once we
do that, we can see it and startworking with it.
Elizabeth Solomon (10:13):
Yeah, I'd love to have you just explain
that a little bit more aboutthis piece that in the
constellations World War Two,you would call a representing
right, where you actually haveeither objects or people sort of
stand in to represent usuallyindividuals within the system,
although obviously, they canrepresent concepts, they can
represent kind of unknownelements, but they just I want
(10:35):
to touch on that a little bit.
I'll just say briefly that Ithink, you know, one of the
powerful things for me with thiswork, I am a very visual person,
right. So there's one level ofunderstanding things mentally.
So for example, you know, in myown family system, thinking
about my own dad, right? I'mlike, Okay, I know, my dad has
anxiety, something I've known mywhole life, and that there is an
impact on me in the familysystem as a result of that
(10:57):
anxiety. And yet, when I haveseen someone represent my dad in
a constellation, and show upwith that anxiety, someone who
doesn't know my dad at all, hasno has never met him doesn't
have a backstory. Somehow thevisual imprinting of that, for
me, has allowed me to not justunderstand it mentally. But
(11:20):
again, to sink into that placeof empathy that you're talking
about, and really feel it andsay, oh, cool, that's really
true for my dad. And I can havea different understanding about
that. So there's a piece here, Ithink about the representing
that feels unique to this work,
Leslie Nipps (11:38):
if someone is mourning, a recent loss, so your
parent has died, a sibling hasdied. They know they're sad. And
they know that they're grieving.
And they know that they rememberthe person in ways that might be
useful, or unuseful, dependingupon how it's showing up for
them. Yeah, and they know all ofthat is important. And then they
(11:58):
go to a funeral for the person.
And they sit by other people whoare grieving. And they bring to
presence in a different kind ofway. And the rituals of whatever
the funeral are, yeah, representthe person's presence. And if we
don't have the funeral, itmatters. This is what Family
(12:22):
Constellations, notices, andthen uses far more intentionally
to therapeutic effect for bothindividuals who have a problem
like depression, or fororganizations, other kinds of
systems that are wanting tounderstand what's going on here.
We bring to presents the actualMrs. White really glad you
(12:45):
invited me, the actual emotionalsystem, not our idea about it,
not our memories of it. Aspowerful as memories are. It's
actually not about memories.
It's the truth of the actualsystem, but with a certain frame
of consciousness and awareness,so that we can actually work
with it a bit. Yeah. So now thatwe have brought your father and
(13:09):
all of his anxiety intopresence, we can we can bring in
some tools for the daughter ofthis father, and already just
naming that we've done somethingthat wasn't a big move. We
didn't do very much. But we justnamed something now, and we
honored a little tiny dyadicsystem. Just it's a twosome.
(13:31):
It's not a big system. But it'svery important to move into the
space. Oh, I am my father'sdaughter, and he wrestled with a
great fear. Now we've moved itout of the technical language of
anxiety. And then we can takethe next move and and bring in
what he was afraid of whether wehave a guess about what that is,
(13:52):
or we don't know. And then youcan honor what he feared. Oh, he
feared that. And then we havesome other moves. Things like, I
honor my father wrestled withthat I leave that with him.
Thank you for my life. It'snever about dismissing emotions.
It's actually about bringingthem fully present, so that we
(14:15):
can honor them, and then releasethem to whom they appropriately
belong. Oh, that's my father'sfear. It's so
Elizabeth Solomon (14:26):
beautiful.
You know, it's so much I hear inthis. It's a piece about slowing
down. Right. And I think in thecontext of thinking about self
awareness on the individuallevel, we would categorize this
as mindfulness, right, justtaking a moment to slow down and
actually name the experience.
And so what we're really talkingabout in constellations is doing
that on the systemic level. Andthen there's also this piece
(14:48):
that you're bringing to lightaround process ritual, this
piece around honoring and thatyou were an Episcopal Minister
before you were a constantlater. and have been thinking a
lot about, you know what it wasfor you to get up in front of a
congregation to participate inso many rituals, births, deaths,
(15:11):
marriages, right? And how thatwork in ministry of being
present to sort of rites ofpassage has translated into your
work as a systemic constantleader.
Leslie Nipps (15:22):
Yeah, I mean, one of the things in Christianity,
the more sacramental versions ofit is something called the
communion of saints. It's theidea that there is some reality
to the existence of the dead.
This is not new to Christianity,traditional indigenous cultures
around the world. Honor theancestors in ways that
(15:43):
culturally we've lost contactwith. And I do think there's a
great yearning for this, thiswhole ancestry.com Looking for
our roots. genealogical stuff, Ithink we're responding or
reacting to our lack ofconnection with all of that. So
in certain forms ofChristianity, it's called the
communion of saints, which Ialways thought was a lovely
(16:05):
idea. The first time I did aconstellation I went, Oh, it's
real. It's not just a nice idea.
But the way I like to put it isthe dead are not completely dead
to us. They're kind of alive.
Now, they're the fact thatpeople die matters. Death and
life are different. But theyremain in the system, as as
(16:29):
meanings as presences asinfluences, and their traumas
and losses are relevant to us.
Because we are their children,or their children's children or
their descendants. Yeah, we arepart of their system. And if
(16:50):
their great traumas and losseswere never acknowledged, or
dealt with, or they were busysurviving, or whatever it was,
we're going to still bewrestling with that. And this is
something we're becoming veryaware of in the racial justice
space. Yeah, the post slaverytrauma syndrome, the awareness
(17:11):
to the degree that we have notreally wrestled with these
things, as a nation really, isstill affecting all of us very
much. So from my Christianworld, my priestly world, I feel
this deep connection with theselarger influences, and creating
ritual spaces for us to find ourgood place amongst them, so that
(17:35):
we can receive good life fromour ancestors, and then do the
job that we've all got, which isvery simple, which was to live
really fully,
Elizabeth Solomon (17:43):
I think, you know, especially in a Western
culture, right? We have a sortof very kind of truncated sense
of time, right? There's a lot offast movement, right. And I
think what you're talking about,too, I almost think of it as
like, elongating the timeline.
And I'm wondering, thinkingabout your focus is often on
family systems, but thinkingabout how this idea of ancestors
translates to organizationalsystems, that organizations also
(18:07):
have these long histories thatimpact the systemic realities in
the present.
Leslie Nipps (18:16):
I'm going to come back to that question. But I
want to connect this ratherexplicitly with with the thought
we were just sharing, which isin the West, and maybe
specifically in the WesternHemisphere, maybe specifically
the United States, I won't speakfor the world, we've got a very
forward facing culture. Andthat's by the very nature of
(18:37):
being, you know, colonistspioneers. When are many of our
ancestors left their originatingcountries, there was often a lot
of trauma around that movement,whether it was voluntary or
forced. And so we as a cultureremain very forward facing, you
(18:58):
know, don't look to the past,you know, grab for what you
want. It's wrapped up a lot inour individualism as well. Yeah.
The individual making their wayforward. And these larger
cultural, systemic threadsimpact all of us, including our
organizations, so that historyis part of the land. It's part
(19:22):
of the culture, historicaltraumas, like, you know, the
Civil War and slavery and theNative American genocide are
relevant to all of us. Manyorganizations have more local
history, either super localwould be having a founder who
was themselves a perpetrator,then it's going to be part of
(19:45):
the DNA of the organization.
Right? Or it's been around longenough that one of the CEOs
almost drove the organizationinto the ground. That kind of
thing is going to continue to beproud isn't to the the
organization, if the business ororganization got their original
capital, their money, theirland, their property, and
(20:10):
unethical ways, this is going toremain part of the system. And
this race is a reallyinteresting and useful
conversation about reparations.
But before we get to anythinglike reparations, something like
constellations can actually helpus understand what is going on
(20:31):
what is going on in this system,you know, that our profits keep
on failing, or that we have suchhigh turnover in our employees,
these are the kinds of thingsthat a constellation can start
to reveal, because we hit thelimits of what we consciously
remember or know in the group,and can explain for, and even
(20:51):
the stuff that we mayconsciously know, we may not
consider relevant. And so yes,the history of organizations or
the the system that theorganization is embedded in, is
often extremely relevant to whythe organization is or is not
functioning well. So
Elizabeth Solomon (21:09):
I think the the line of questioning that we
often pursue when there's anissue or a pain point is kind of
what's wrong with me, or what'swrong with them. Right. And I
think the gift of constellationsis toward is to ask the question
of like, what's happening in thesystemic field or what's
happening in the system. And I'mwondering if you could give us a
maybe even a more specificexample of some of the ways that
(21:31):
you reframe questions for yourclients, to be asking questions
that are systemic, instead offraught with placing blame or
onus on a single person orpersons.
Leslie Nipps (21:43):
One of the frames of constellations is that we
have strong loyalty bonds to thegroups that we belong to. So the
stories we have about who's toblame are extremely powerful.
They are really strong. And forreally understandable reasons
now, and trying to get into aconscious conversation about
(22:05):
that, that will loosen up thatframe of who's to blame often
doesn't go very far. And I wantto say, particularly when they
start to touch on events of ourown childhood, right, because
our own childhoods, were sodefenseless, we were so
vulnerable to everything thatwas going on. And so changing
(22:28):
the questioning, I often try todo that and find myself kind of
not making a whole lot ofprogress. What I do really
prefer to do is start to bringthe system to presence, whether
it is in a sort of a formalconstellation the way I've
already described to you, oreven in their mind's eye, so so
(22:48):
let's just say for a moment,we're in a dilemma with our mom.
And we still really fight and Idon't know how much it's my
fault, or how much it's herfault. This is really common,
right? And so I'm curious aboutthat. But then I say, Okay,
let's stop for a moment. Justjust bring to your mind for a
(23:10):
moment. And the listeners, ifyou don't have this problem with
your mom bringing anyrelationship into your mind side
that seems to have this quality,we've all got at least one
right? Could be your best friendcould be your spouse could be
your adult child. So bring bringit to mind, bring in your mind's
eye, an image of you and yourmother, who are enduring this
(23:34):
difficult dilemma. And when Ilook at them, I notice how stuck
they are and how painful it isthat the two of them can't
figure out whose fault it is. Sothat's one move right there
something shifted or changedalready. Yeah, that is hard for
(23:57):
them. I would like them to beable to get out of that, you
know, that question? So I'mcurious. on whose behalf are
they holding this question ofwho's to blame? That is so
strong? Now, I don't know theanswer that question. Oh, if I
(24:18):
do a longer interview, we mightfind out. Oh, yeah. Her father
actually went to jail formurdering somebody. These kinds
of things show up. Yeah. Andthat guilt is lingering in the
system. And now me and my motherare working it up between the
two of us. Yeah. on whose behalfAre we having this experience?
Elizabeth Solomon (24:37):
This to me, I've sort of in my mind, I'm
calling it almost like the level2.0 of awareness right? I
helping people really have theawareness to kind of name their
trigger and then modulate theirresponse to that trigger. Right.
And we've talked about thisoften is just the amygdala
hijack what happens whensomething occurs and we get
totally flooded with emotion andwhat can we do to create some
(24:58):
space and I think The gift ofsystemic thinking is that we go
to the next level of saying, Whyis it this thing that's actually
always triggering me? Right? Soonce I know how to sort of
modulate my response to it,still, that thing sometimes
continues to Ignite Within me astrong emotional reaction that
(25:18):
seems kind of out of context orout of place for what I
intellectually understand aboutthe situation. Right. And so I
love what you just said, becausethe question is, if it goes from
being who's to blame, whosefault is it? Who's doing what
to? Why are we looking to blamesomeone in the first place?
Leslie Nipps (25:37):
Yeah, this is a real gift. I'm a big fan of self
management around emotions.
Yeah. Because we can't alwaysknow what the heck's going on.
And we need a way to turn downthe dial, and, you know, not
hurt ourselves or anybody else,right? Step away. Yeah. And
there's a whole nother level ofrelief. This is another example
that was coming to my mind thismorning. And this is something
(26:00):
that many of us have been ableto do at a conscious level. But
constellations allows it anotherlevel, let's imagine, I'm still
carrying anger at my mother, forall the weird ways that she put
me down when I was starting tobecome a sexual person. You
can't go out late at night,don't look at those boys, it's
(26:21):
dangerous for you a commonenough story. You know, don't
you know what's going to happento you? Don't be dirty minded,
and whatever it might have been.
Yeah. And I'm still angry aboutthat all these years later said
of probably influences my sexuallife, that that happened. Yeah,
so I'm still mad about it. Andthen I find out from a cousin,
(26:44):
that my mother was sexuallyabused by her father. Ah, it
doesn't change that when I was12. It hurt that my mother
treated me that way. Butsomething very significant
releases immediately. It's,it's, again, I think of it as
(27:05):
very biologically based. It's aparasympathetic reset, it's,
it's not self management. It'snot making myself think
differently or morecompassionately about my mother,
or taking responsibility formyself, which is another move we
might make. It's like, oh, mymother was trying to keep me
(27:26):
safe from something she wasn'tsafe from. And so constellations
is a tool for helping us, evenif we never know what the heck
happened to your mom, we canbring in your mother and her
parents, and see her fear of herparents feel the fear of her
(27:47):
parents and go, Oh, wow, thisfear was present way before I
popped into the world hole. Soand again, something can shift,
and it's just a release. And nowwe can function more congruently
in our in our system without, atleast with a lessening of the
triggers around all that. Andthis will have cascading
(28:08):
effects. I've seen over and overagain, once that kind of
awareness, embodied somaticlevel ritual awareness, not
merely intellectual, I starthaving a different experience
with my sexuality. Because I'mnot carrying this thing with my
mother quite as fiercely into mysexual relationships.
Elizabeth Solomon (28:26):
Yeah, and also just want to focus for a
second and talk about the giftof constellations to also put us
in touch with with that, whichis positive, which has come down
through our lineage, right. Andjust to say a little bit about
that as well.
Leslie Nipps (28:40):
At one level, if we reduce it terribly, it's all
positive. And this is what Imean by it. You and I are here.
All of our ancestors endured andsurvived everything they faced.
Yeah, there are lineages thatstop. Right? They don't pass on
(29:04):
life. And one of the things Ioften say is that constellations
is the overdue funeral, or theoverdue reckoning or the overdue
honoring or the overdue takingresponsibility if it was a great
violation, or perpetration, orthe overdue honoring of the
spectacular loss, that sort ofthing. Once we do that, there's
(29:25):
some ritual phrases here we usevery frequently, which is, dear
ancestors, parents,grandparents, whoever it is,
yeah. I honor the dignity ofyour fate. I leave it with you.
Thank you for my life. Pleasebless me as I put it all to
good. And so that place we canland congruently not in a
(29:49):
Pollyanna pretty. Make yourselfthink positive kind of a way,
but in a true heart opening kindof way is wow, I have a place in
my heart for this suffering ofmy ancestors. And I'm so
grateful for the life that theygave me. Now this is often a big
shift, I have clients who arenot sure being alive is such a
(30:09):
good deal. That that's somethingthat's worth being grateful for.
So one needs to be very tender.
And careful with this process,particularly when there's like a
lot of abuse or generations ofoppression. Yeah, but that that
is the landing place. And themore we're able to land in that
place, the more the releasehappens, and we congruently
(30:32):
receive that, that ancestraljuice, that gives us the, the
capacity to be lively, whichmeans to love, to build, to
create, to work for justice, todo all the things that only the
living get to do until we'redone, and we join the dead
(30:52):
ourselves. So in some sense,it's all a positive frame, with
a lot of room necessary room forhonoring what we can
conventionally call thenegative. But it really is the
sweetness of honoring things asthey have been. So going to a
funeral and leaving and going. Iknow, this is a weird thing to
(31:16):
say. But that was a goodfuneral. We all cried our eyes
out. And we laughed a bit. Andwe, we talked about this person
in a real way, not a pretendway. And I'm glad we did that.
And I can feel them smiling onus now.
Elizabeth Solomon (31:37):
We've used the word somatic a couple times
in our in our conversation, andI just want to back up and just
define what we're talking aboutwhen we're saying somatic,
Leslie Nipps (31:45):
acute coming back to this limbic system that we
have, which is of courseconnected to the whole body skin
sensing, you know, visual,hearing, smelling, tasting,
feeling, or guts capacities, areour mental capacities as well.
Our whole body is is highlyattuned to the emotional quality
(32:07):
of systems. Is the system well,is the system scared? Is the
system angry now. And we knowthe biology of fight flight of
the sympathetic system comingonline to tell us it's time to
run or fight. And then when it'sover the person pathetic system
coming online to tell us we cango back to grazing, you know,
(32:31):
everything's okay. All right. Ibelieve that's in systems when
the whole system is in fightflight, we feel it in our
bodies. Again, it's a goodsurvival move, except for when
it isn't. But in its originalform, it's to make sure we're
not hock lunch. And we can feelwhen the system is at peace. And
(32:53):
okay, yeah. And we process thisall through our bodies, all of
it through our bodies. Now, someof us, you know, have different
strengths. Some of us are morekinesthetic, some of us are more
verbal, some of us feel ourheads more some of us feel, you
know, down in our pelvis ismore. So will will process this
(33:14):
in different parts of our body.
But it is all being experiencedthrough the body one way or
another. I feel my father, Ifeel my ancestors, I feel grief,
I feel peace.
Elizabeth Solomon (33:29):
You know, we're talking a lot about family
systems, because obviously,that's where your work is
centered, it's a beautiful placeto start, because we're all part
of a family system, right. Andwe're born into a family system
without the language to evendescribe what we're
experiencing. And so in manyways, everything is is a somatic
experience, right, which istaking in all this information.
(33:50):
This work is used a lot inorganizational systems, and that
these two systems have differentrules of belonging. So, and
you've said this many times, wealways belong to our family
system, whereas organizationsare human created systems that
we opt into opt out of, andwhere I'm going with this is I
want to talk a little bit about,you know, when I was doing a lot
(34:12):
of work, evaluatingorganizational culture, I
noticed that organizations haveused a lot of family metaphors
to describe their culture,right. So we're a family here,
welcome to the family. And yetfamily systems and
organizational systems aregoverned by very different
systemic laws, so to speak. AndI'm just wondering if you can
(34:35):
speak to that a little bit.
Leslie Nipps (34:37):
So yeah, the rules of belonging vary from system to
system. I want to say thatthere's one very important role
that is the same in pretty muchevery system, which is the
necessity of honoring what isand what goes crazy and systems
when we don't do that. And sothat's true in a business as it
(34:57):
is in a family. There's also aand similar rules around
honoring precedents andseniority and role. Yeah. So the
uncle is the uncle, thejanitors, the janitor, the
sisters, the sister, the CEO isthe CEO. When roles and
(35:17):
seniority are honored properly,both family and organizational
systems will struggle. Yeah.
Belonging as you're quite rightit is, is a bit different. And,
and it's, it makes it tricky.
And I want to honor this.
Because the degree that we sayin a business, we want it to
feel like a family. We're tryingto bring in the the kind of
(35:41):
respect and honor for each otherthat we hope families have for
each other. We spent so muchtime at work, we would like our
workplaces to feel respectful,fair, usefully structured,
warmth, that we're up tosomething that matters, that
were congruent, all things wehope from a healthy family. The
dilemma is with organizations,of course, is that people,
(36:04):
mostly with some exceptions, docome and go, yeah, so you get
hired, and then you leave and goto another organization, you no
longer have any say, and that inthat organization that you used
to belong to. Yeah. And sothat's one of the great
differences. Having said that,most of the insights of Family
(36:27):
Constellations work are relevantand useful in organizational
systems. And I'm going to usejust a really simple example
that we've all experienced. Yougo into work meeting, you're a
few minutes late, you walk in,and you're like, something's a
little tense here. Okay, so thelimbic system is already going,
(36:47):
you're aware, it's tense,something's a little off. And
then you look around, and youtry to explain it to yourself,
well, we're horrible at puttingagendas together here, I really
frustrated with the way we puttogether agendas, or Oh, Joe's
running the meeting. That's whyJoe's terrible at running
meetings, or it's too cold inhere, or whatever it might be,
you come up with your consciousreasoning. And then at the end
(37:10):
of the meeting, Juan says, Guys,I'm really sorry. But that's
something to share. I just got abad biopsy. And I don't know how
to tell the kids. And the wholeroom goes, Oh, now, this is
classic elephant in the roomstuff we've all experienced that
we all know about it. And thiskind of stuff is running the
(37:34):
show so much. In organizations,we are trying to fix a problem
with the conscious material wehave accessible. And it's not
the problem, or it's not theissue, or it's not what's going
on. And we work it really hard.
(37:55):
And we don't get anywhere. Andif we have a good framework for
it, we'll get really frustrated,you know, we're supposed to do
taking minutes this way, guys,and they don't fix everything if
we do minutes this way. Andstill it resists solution,
because the pattern is lodgedsomewhere else if something else
(38:15):
not being acknowledged or seen.
And again, this is whereconstellations can be a really
useful tool, when all theleadership had brought all their
best efforts, and they stillcan't figure it out. What's
clogging up the gears here? Idon't know.
Elizabeth Solomon (38:30):
But that brought me to one of my
questions, which is just justhaving you speak about why a
leader or someone stepping intoleadership should care about
this approach to systemicthinking.
Leslie Nipps (38:42):
Exactly. Yeah.
Again, we all come equipped withthe best of, you know,
Leadership Theory,organizational theory, you know,
are we a top down organization?
Are we a horizontalorganization, whatever versions
of this that we have. And wewant to bring the best of those
(39:03):
tools to support organizationsthat do work that matters. Yeah.
And when we run into thesewalls, and those really
appropriate structures and fixesare not fixing it, then it may
be time to ask for your localorganizational constellation
consultant to come out on in andhelp you think about this. This
(39:26):
is very personal to me. My lastwork as an Episcopal minister
was in a very conflicted parish.
It had been conflicted a longtime and eventually the conflict
landed on me. And I had accessto most of sort of the systemic
thinking, you know, non anxiouspresence, understanding
triangulation, all these things.
(39:49):
And I couldn't manage being in anon anxious presence for about a
half hour at a time at best. Itwas a gnarly situation and
Nothing I had available to me,gave me the chance to kind of
open up the hood and go, what'sactually running this conflict?
(40:12):
Yeah, because this is the thing,we cannot blame ourselves. We
talked about triggers. But whatis a trigger? It's when we
experience ourselves underthreat. And if the system is
running threat signals all thetime, or a lot of the time, and
some of them are accidentallyhitting us, or if we're the
leader, they're being thrown atus all the time. It's really
(40:35):
hard not to feel threatened. Ireally want to give us a break
around this a little bit. Yeah.
And I so wish I had this tool,so that I could could see what
was the larger, inheritedsystemic threat that was going
on this system that was landingon me. And I couldn't find it
(40:56):
because I was too much in it.
That's the thing as leader, soyou got to be part of your
system. And you're representingsomething in it. Now, if that
happens to be your experience.
Yeah. So this really is the toolto allow us to see the larger
system, and to make realadjustments together, maybe
honor that our business, got ourland. By I just moved to New
(41:20):
Mexico, a lot of the businesseshave their land by shuttling the
original peoples, whether theywere Spanish or before them, the
indigenous Americans is some ofthat lingering in the system.
And then we can honor it andgive it a good place. And then
(41:41):
maybe do some reparation work aswell might be part of the follow
through. But if we're trying tofix the conflict, by me be doing
better with conflict. For manyof us, we have found that this
only gets us so far. I'mwondering
Elizabeth Solomon (41:57):
if you could tell a story about a
particularly impactfulconstellation that you've
experienced that somehow really,like acutely and immediately
attuned due to the power andpotential of this work.
Leslie Nipps (42:10):
So the very first constellation I participated in,
I actually had a very low key, Iwas given a very low key role in
someone else's constellation.
She was a lovely woman, who wasthe daughter of a single mom,
and had been the result ofessentially a one night stand.
So she didn't know anythingabout her father, or that whole
(42:32):
side of her family, except sheknew he was Cuban. That's all
she knew. Yeah, I want you allto put yourself in the in the
shoes of that. And some of youmay actually know this
experience, what what that mightbe like to have no connection
with the Father, or the lineageand to be the only child of this
(42:53):
man and this woman in this way.
Yeah. There's a hole there.
You're never invited toThanksgiving dinner at the
cousin's house on that side,because there's just no
connection with any of them. Andof course, the loss of the
Father. So the facilitator ofthat constellation just asked
for a bunch of people torepresent people. No, no
(43:15):
identify are people on that sideof the family? And could you
please surround her and welcomeher to the family. So I was one
of them. We stood around her.
And we said, Welcome, we're gladyou're here. You belong to us.
And I experienced thisremarkable feeling of genuinely
(43:38):
welcoming, like being anancestor, who knows,
grandmother, great grandparents,I don't know. But speaking so
glad this life had come into it,even in the painful way it had
come into the world. And soyou're one of us, you belong to
us. And then seen in the clientsface what it meant to finally
(43:59):
hear and feel that from half oftheir, you know, genetic
inheritance. It's extremelypowerful experience. Very
simple, very beautiful. And Iwas hooked.
Elizabeth Solomon (44:12):
The last thing I just want to touch into
here is that, again, the rulesof constellations are is that if
it's a system, you canconstellate it, right? So again,
we've been talking aboutfamilies, and we've been talking
about organizations, but thereare natural systems, right? The
organs of the body are a system,it's kind of a fun modality
because you can get a lot ofinsight into a lot of different
(44:33):
complexities. One of the thingsI know that some practitioners
do is to attempt at constellatedin kind of large, societal,
systemic issues,
Leslie Nipps (44:44):
they will definitely find it as kind of
all of our cultural awareness ofsocial issues, continues to grow
in really positive ways thatwe're all really glad for
looking at things like climatechange, or What's going on in
Ukraine right now? racialinjustice, all kinds of larger
(45:05):
social issues. You can set upaspects of various larger
cultural situations and see whatare the invisible influences?
What is the history? I mean,we've had many commentators on
the radio saying, Where is thisconflict in Ukraine coming from?
(45:26):
Right? It's not just the resultof one crazy person. There's a
lot more going into this thanjust what we can see on the
surface. And so you can set upthese constellations to find
out, you know, what, what isinfluencing what is sourcing
some of this, and what might bepotentially much more powerful
(45:47):
interventions than the oneswe've been attempting to make?
Yeah. Usually, this is done bypeople who have a stake in the
issue, a group of people whoidentify with a particular
marginal group, or a particularadvocacy group, will set up
these constellations in order toget more understanding, like,
(46:09):
oh, that's what's going on. Itshifts how we think about them a
bit in ways that can be veryuseful, and then might give them
more leverage and how tocontribute in a useful way.
Because often the ways in whichwe try to contribute to change,
as we all know, can often becounterproductive. And so what
(46:30):
are the ways that we canactually be helpful, that would
be useful for the situation? Soyes, people are using it for
that as well. Any system we canlook at it?
Elizabeth Solomon (46:40):
Mostly, I want to thank you so much. I
think this is such a powerfultool for our listeners to have
in their toolkit to sort ofexplore like you're saying the
different leverage points inorder to make some change in a
system. And also just tounderstand what we are often
sensing but have not had anopportunity to give voice to.
(47:00):
I've said
Leslie Nipps (47:01):
it a few different ways. But I do want to bring us
back to our original context,which is self awareness and
emotional intelligence. We arenaturally biologically emotional
creatures, and this is a goodthing. And our emotions often
baffle us and make life trickyfor us. And my hope is that
constellations work helps uscome into friendlier
(47:24):
relationship with these waves ofemotional experiences that we
can often have an honor whattheir roots in an actual context
is, because they're trying tosay something to us. That's
really, really important thatsomething knocking on the door.
And so finding a way to honorwho's knocking or what's
(47:46):
knocking so that we can, inessence, love all of these
emotions, and find some relief.
If in any way that's beenbothersome to us is something
I've really enjoyed doing andinvite people to explore.
Elizabeth Solomon (48:01):
Thank you so much. That was the perfect
ending.
Kerry Seed (48:14):
Thanks for listening to first person plural EI and
beyond. Subscribe now and signup for our newsletter to get
notified as new episodes arereleased. This show is brought
to you by our CO hosts DanielGoleman, Hanuman Goleman and
Elizabeth Solomon. It'ssponsored by Keystep media, your
source for personal andprofessional development
materials focused onmindfulness, leadership and
(48:36):
emotional intelligence. Specialthanks to Sujata, whose voice
you heard at the top of theshow, and to today's guest,
Leslie nips. For guest bios,transcripts and resources
mentioned in today's episode,check out our episode notes on
our website first personplural.com This episode was
written and produced byElizabeth Solomon and me Carrie
(48:59):
seed. audio production was byMichelle Zipkin. Episode art and
production support by BrianJohnson. Music in this episode
includes tiny footsteps in thesnow by bio unit and our theme
music is by Amber O'Hara. Untilnext time, be well
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