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reconciliation

Reconciliation is central to the purpose of Bert's work.

This may be within one person or a family, between warring parties,

and finally with our relationship to life and divinity.

"Reconciliation only comes about through the pain,

not through any commemorations and admonitions and accusations."
Bert's talk about peace at the Wrzburg conference 2003

If you find this statement difficult, ponder on it.

It is well worth allowing it to touch you.
Deep down, we may find the parts in us that set a limit to what we are willing to embrace.
Are we able to apply "for they know not what they are doing" in all situations?
Where we feel we can't, what is still unredeemed inside us?
Which pain do we still carry, and what are our motives for doing so?

Who is asking to be acknowledged through us?

In "exercises" you'll find a few of Bert's images that further deep reconciliation, and so, open the way for
peace.
As Bert works in many countries, war- and conflict- torn, the problems of the people show a background of the
most painful wrongs that human beings have inflicted upon others.

In these situations, the client may be a descendant of a perpetrator or of a victim, or even both.
What they often have in common is a problem to even live. Some of their siblings or children may be dead
already, very prematurely, or their lives may be in danger. They carry immense sadness and often nearly a
sense of guilt even to be alive.
There is a longing to be with the victims, in both the victims' and the perpetrators' children. These children
need to turn to the dead. They need to feel the sadness again whilst looking at them, honouring them. Then
they can feel the support of the dead and come to an acceptance of the will of fate. With the goodwill of the
dead, life can go on doing something good as well. The dead often share with their descendants the
most heartfelt expression of their mutual love. Amazingly, they also open their hearts to the
perpetrators' children. To both they have the same message: "Thank you for thinking of us,
thank you for acting as reminders, but what we really need now is peace with the true

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perpetrators. We need them to come here and to regret what they have done. They need to
feel the pain that you are feeling. And concerning you we want you to go and live- happily."
The children of either perpetrators or victims may find this hard to accept at first. They may
feel the guilt feelings of disloyalty. But the dead say: "The greater loyalty to us is to carry life
on and to lead a good life." These children can now do something good, in honour of the dead.
The dead are glad when they that life has gone on.
It can be seen that the real victims are further burdened by the suffering of those who come
after them. The real victims only want to be seen by the offspring, to be honoured and
included.
The real victims cannot be redeemed through the suffering of people who were not the
perpetrators. These can only serve to remind others about the victims' fate. Only the real
perpetrators can redeem the suffering of the victims, together with their own. When the perpetrators look at
the victims, face what they have done and feel the deepest sadness and regret, then reconciliation
is on the way.In these constellations, when the entanglements become visible, Bert brings in representatives
for the victims and for the perpetrators. Often, children of victims as well as children of perpetrators break
down and cry (remember, all these people are only the representatives) and want to be with the dead.
When the dead see this grief in the living they are touched by their love, but then saddened by their suffering
which does not make their own less, but rather burdens them. What helps the children on either side to let go
is when in the constellation the perpetrator begins to show regret and can move closer to the dead. When the
perpetrators actually lie down beside the dead with their hearts open again, there is often gentle touching and
embracing, and the victims may then close their eyes to be at peace.
Then the children can say: " I leave this with you now, and now I will turn towards my life. I'll do something
good with it, giving you a place in my heart and honouring you."
The weight is much reduced, the love flows, and strength and goodwill pours forth from the honoured
ancestors.
In many situations, to get to the phase of reconciliation,
a number of obstacles need to be overcome. Out there, on the personality level of humanity, they appear
huge. The entanglements are so dense, the suffering is reinforced so strongly that there is only little space to
get out.
In this context, we will need to grasp Bert's understandings of the different aspects and functions of
conscience (see also in "topics").

The understanding of the role of "conscience" is crucial in this.

Reconciliation requires a shift in the conscience
to which we give allegiance, a difficult process.
Clarity on this is essential for Bert's work.

For deep reconciliation to occur, the perpetrators need to feel the pain about what they

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did and grieve for the victim.

This allows the victim to also return to the grief, and now they stand, not so far apart.
Feeling the pain allows the perpetrator to return into his heart. When he does this, the
victim no longer perceives him as a feared and abhorred perpetrator, but as someone
who also suffered.
When a perpetrator cannot feel pain about his actions, his heart is still too closed. The
help that he needs is simple: it is love.

For the perpetrators honouring the victims means fully facing the responsibility for
their actions. Wrong remains with the perpetrators, they have to live and die with it.
But now he is no longer isolated.

In constellation work we can often witness the overcoming of the obstacles to reconciliation.
Political perpetrators see themselves as agents of a greater whole, as delivering a task that
was requested of them, and as having done something that, according to the conscience of
their group, was no wrong, but was demanded of them. They may claim obedience as their
motive.
The obedience of a child can be detected in many political perpetrators.
The task, the mission may be carried out even with a religious-like dedication, as we witness it again in the
present world conflict.
So, their way of coping with their actions was not owning them personally, not feeling them. Perpetrators of
this type mostly need to deaden themselves, even before their actions, and certainly in the process of it.
Otherwise, how could wars proceed?

As a Russian soldier put it in one of Guido Knopp's documentaries: " I said to my mother, to be part
of this, you need to be insane, you have to become insane first, mother."

In a workshop a woman protested, when she saw the reconciliation of victim and perpetrator in a constellation.
She said, she holds her dead uncle in her heart and will never forget what happened to him, and in his
memory, the fighting has to go on. The workshop was held in her country, the situation concerned political
murders, so one could expect that she expressed the feelings that others felt s well. So for her constellation
people from her country were chosen, one for her, one for the perpetrator, one for the victim. They were told to
follow the movements of their soul, silently. After an expression of grief and affection between the woman and
her uncle, the two men, perpetrator and victim, moved closer to each other and embraced for a long time. The
two had not known each other personally.

If the living, instead of allowing their feelings of grief and loss, focus their attention on their anger towards the
perpetrators, a situation ensues where nothing can move, or only a repetition of retaliation. In this stagnation,

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people do not really turn towards the dead. The bereaved are elsewhere, not facing their grief fully, either, busy
with other emotions. In this way, the dead find no peace, and neither do the living.

For resolution to occur, the perpetrators, too, need to be given a space where they, too, can mourn.
Mourning together heals. Mourning is a real emotion, not a secondary one (you can read up on Bert's
description of different types of emotions in "topics"). The deep real emotions bring together, (re-)create unity.
Years ago a story went through the newspapers. A man had killed a little girl. The father wanted to get to
know the man, wanted to know how someone could do such a thing. There was an uproar. Many people
abused him, for not expressing hatred towards the man.

For the perpetrators honouring the victims means fully facing the responsibility for their actions.
Severe wrong remains with the perpetrators, they have to live and die with it.
If they can come to allow their feelings to return to them, they will feel their close connection to the dead.

With this, they pay true homage to the victims, and they release their children from having to carry the guilt,
leaving their hearts free to embrace life again and to trust that reconciliation can come.

If we can ask the dead for advice as how to best love them, best serve their dignity, best meet their
needs, the answer comes: "Love for us, and life and love for you."

Blind love or healing love, which one rules us? Great trauma makes it very hard to keep the hearts open.
Keeping the hearts closed towards the perpetrators and those in any way related to them may be felt like a
survival necessity by the victims, and as the highest moral duty of the victims' children, and even of the
perpetrators' children.

A German goes to a holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. There, he is overcome by grief. If someone says: "You
are German", he can't cry any more. He feels he has no right to grieve. It takes much courage for the
perpetrators' children to allow the softness of their hearts, and gently accept such a response as most
understandable. The perseverance of love will work towards unity, and overcoming the obstacles has to be
seen as part of the healing process. Much of it can be done internally, on the level of the souls. The souls are
love, they favour unity, and they know what the deepest feelings are.
Or Americans go to a Hiroshima memorial. Of cause, they cry. They came to pay homage to the dead and
express that they are pained by what happened. If their sadness is not accepted, they cannot cry, and the
freezing remains.

For as long as our sense of guilt over what fellow countrymen have done, keeps us frozen, our hearts' longing
for reconciliation cannot be met, it cannot even be fully owned inside, and it certainly cannot be expressed.
The dejection of the aggressors' children mirrors the dejection of the sufferers' children.

And it is in this situation where war memorials, commemorations, and polite moral speeches are simply not

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enough. They may even support the secondary feelings , those that prevent the real grief from arising. When
the two sides remain in frozen accusations and in frozen guilt, political declarations cannot melt the hearts.
The focus is on the evil deeds, with eyes closed towards those who suffered.

Where feelings, real feelings, not defence feelings, can be embraced publicly, we can move
forward.

Reconciliation between warring parties

Bert talked about this after a constellation of Republicans and Nationalists in Spain.
Experiences show that there is an interchange between the living and the dead. Sometimes
the dead need something from the living so that something can be resolved. And sometimes
the living need something from the dead, their blessings, so that they can live. The dead
amongst these warring parties complete their dying when they all come together again. When
this is accomplished amongst the dead, the living can accomplish peace amongst themselves,
too.
The descendants of the warring parties often try to resolve things, but often one lot thinks
they are better than the other lot. So, they may not be successful. When there has been
reconciliation amongst the dead, the living can leave them in peace and turn towards life. In
constellation work the perpetrators are brought face to face with their victims. For many of the perpetrators,
this is enough to go through a melting process.
At first, they stand there, not wanting to look, then as they look, not wanting to feel, not wanting to take
responsibility. Sometimes, the more severe the atrocity, the greater the resistance. And while their
descendants carried the feeling part for them, they could maintain an air of composure, even.
But then, the pleading looks of those who feel for the victims, together with an atmosphere that is, in a deep
human sense, accepting even towards the predicament of the perpetrator, too, often help to encourage the
melting process.
Perpetrators with very strong emotional "deadness" may need more help to melt. It is touching indeed to see
in constellations how sometimes the perpetrator can only face the unbearable weight of his actions when he
feels loved.

There is a constellation video, where the perpetrator remained stoic. The people who felt for the victims could
not move him. But, in his past, before he became a perpetrator, there was one person for whom he felt love, a
woman. In the constellation other representatives tried to keep this woman away from the perpetrator, and
tried to make him face up to his action. Nothing moved until the woman managed to get close to him. At that
moment the perpetrator looked at her and said: "She was the only one for whom I had human feelings".
Then he looked at the victims again, broke down sobbing and remained there, lying down with them.
So, for many perhaps an uncomfortable suggestion, or at least an unexpected one.
We may feel we only have a choice of condoning or condemning. In fact, neither of them bring us

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closer to peace. Condoning does not return the guilt to the perpetrator, and neither does premature
"forgiving". The guilt must fully return to the perpetrator.
Yet condemning, and its lighter forms, indignation, admonition, and only formal commemoration
simply do not bring reconciliation of heart. They point at the perpetrators, not allowing a change of
heart in them. They do not help the deep pain to emerge. And only there, in the shared grief, with
all its consequences, does the abyss shrink.

Those who identify with the side of the victim alone, without being one, feel superior. But they have not paid
the price that the victims paid, not looked into the abyss of their own being. They have not been in the
situation, for example, of the perpetrator, in his real situation as it was then and as it is now.
The indignant become angry, and they believe, they know better, understand better. Sometimes they can
come close to mirroring perpetrators. Additionally, this attitude only hardens the perpetrators and does not
allow their hearts to change. An approach to peace that expects perpetrators to remain perpetrators can
hardly be successful.

Only for the victims themselves, and their close ones is it appropriate that they go through the range of all
their feelings. For those who want to be helpful it would be good to already be in those feelings that can bring
resolve. People who can do this are the ones we instinctively recognize as great, even though they may have
a hard time amongst the keen co- warriors.

If the friends of the victims could first honestly grieve with them, and then, from the victims' perspective, try to
find out how the victims feel they would best be served, more helpful attitudes of heart might result.

Reconciliation can flow in what Bert describes as the "primary feelings" (see in "topics"). There is the primary
grief, that flows from an open heart that is lovingly turned to the victim, and strong enough to handle the
immense pain.
This primary feeling, like all of them, has some amazing qualities. Like here, this primary grief is disarmed,
and also disarming. It is so real that it cannot be far from peace. Others can feel empathy without feeling
drawn into something. They can feel, and yet remain centred. Nobody feels threatened or pushed or violated.
Primary feelings are feelings that go with freedom and clarity.

Secondary feelings serve the function of defence against the primary feelings. Because the
pain may be so strong, people fear being totally overwhelmed by them, even dying if they felt
them. So a whole array of avoidance feelings exist, probably as old as humanity, and who
knows, aspects can be seen in animals as well. No wonder we struggle with it. The secondary
feelings are all feelings that somehow seem more bearable- while in truth perpetuating the
disaster.
The secondary feelings have something like a thought pattern attached to them, they have an
element of "I should", "I owe it". They are not just feelings, they are culturally sanctioned

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response patterns.
Spontaneous anger when under attack is a primary feeling. Primary feelings are intense, but don't go on for
ever. Afterwards, some emotional balance is restored, and a degree of thinking and decision making, based
on direct relationship, rather than on churning feelings.
Hatred is not a primary feeling. It has at its core a primary feeling that has never been fully expressed, never
resolved. Hatred perpetuates itself. It makes the bullets that fly back and forth.

Anger, even hatred towards the aggressor, supported by action like revenge are so deeply engrained that in
most cultures they still have a certain moral value.
This even occurs in a culture that officially pays allegiance to Christ's command of love, of loving one's enemy.
It is difficult to get this love right. The love for the victim seems to dictate hatred for the aggressor as an
expression of loyalty.
So, we are also expecting the victim to hate the aggressor, and then we either hate the aggressor vicariously
for, or supportively with the victim. Doing this, we may feel we have formed a powerful alliance, one that will
make sure the brutal acts won't happen again. Alas, revenge is not far, and revenge of cause need to be
revenged. And so, in the end, the sufferings of the victims are used to perpetuate suffering.

We think we help the victims upholding indignation. But only the victims themselves can have the truthful
feeling if indignation. It belongs to them.

For the others, it is an assumed feeling, serving ulterior motives, along with the presumed loyalty. Identifying
with the victim's cause- or the culturally permitted interpretation of it- helps the identified person to feel morally
better and superior, without having paid any price, without having experienced the pain, the temptation, the
failure.

The indignant ones see themselves as the righteous ones. If they are indignant in a culturally permitted way,
siding with the culturally appropriate subjects, they can assume aspects of vengeance as well, even publicly.
So, the secondary feelings of the indignant ones have found an outlet. In it, they can cover and avoid their own
primal pain.
Had they faced it, re-owned it, they may respond differently. They might try to make time and space for them
to find the answer from their hearts.
And together, each one shouldering their own real pain, they might look at one another from their deepest
feelings, and the path to a shared peace may open before them.

In old stories the wise man lifts his eyes up to the mountain from which help
cometh.
He may even go up the mountain himself.
The air is fresh and clear, and so is the view.

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From here, he can see it all, everything.

He sees the love of humans in its many forms,
many of them sad, and dark, and confused, and ignorant,
unsuccessful in the great task of letting love grow.
Knowing it is all love, he takes heart and asks
for blind love to be turned into the love of the seer.
He knows he has to leave behind all lesser allegiances
when he is requesting to be taken into service by the Great Soul.
And with a heart full of awe and trembling,
he asks the Great Soul for help.
The answer comes: "Remain in the Great Love!"
And the gift comes as he knows the full meaning of surrender.

Bert Hellinger talks about peace at the Wrzburg conference in 2003

The most important topics addressed here:

Peace means:
Pe ace be gins in the individual soul

Pe ace continue s on in the fam ily

that which stood on opposition, finds one anothe r;
How can we support pe ace in othe r fie lds?
that which e x clude d one anothe r, re cognize s one anothe r
pe ace doe s not avoid conflict
that which fought, injure d, was at war, and pe rhaps e ve n
Pe ace is ne ve r com ple te d
wante d to de stroy e ach othe r, unite s in grie f about the
Pe ace is thre ate ne d e spe cially by groups
victim s on both side s and the suffe ring that was inflicte d on
Pe ace be twe e n pe ople s
all.
Pe ace be twe e n re ligions

This peace begins in the individual soul.

What does peace accomplish? That which we have thrown away inside us, de nie d and

Those who claim e d supe riority ove r othe rs, conside ring the m re gre tte d, m ay now tak e a place e qual to that which we

to be infe rior or hostile , ack nowle dge one anothe r as e qual. have be e n affirm ing. It will be ack nowle dge d in its

The y confirm the spe ciality that the y have for e ach othe r, im portance , in the conse que nce s that it had, in what

tak e from and give to one anothe r. contribute d to our growth, and it will e ve n be love d for it.

The pe ace be twe e n the m wide ns the ir pe rsonal bondarie s, This e x pe cts from us that we tak e le ave from the ide al if

within the se boundorie s it allows the m the dive rsity and the innoce nce , which ne ithe r de m ands nor im pose s, which

re spe ctive pe culiarity, and it pe rm its joint actions. rathe r suffe rs than acts, which pre fe rs in childhood to

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