"I want to work on the contracts between me and my wife," Ethan tells me, "she wants a divorce and I want to clear the baggage between us, so that she will come back to me if possible."
I explain to him that in working on contracts in karmic constellation, when the other persons is not present - you can only work on your side of the contract.
I gave him an example: let’s say we are married and I choose to abuse you, then the contract between us is that I abuse you and you allow me to abuse you.
"An aggressor-victim dynamic" he tells me, and for a moment, the whole thing takes on a completely different perspective.
In a soul contract there is consent, moreover – there is a choice: I choose to be the abuser or I choose to be the one being abused.
Such choices are made for the soul to learn and develop.
The soul does not perceive this aggressor-victim concept.
My aggressor in earthly life could actually be my best friend in the world of souls, who came here as my abusive partner only to help me achieve a goal I set for myself, such as developing self-confidence or self-worth, and breaking the cycle of violence.
I tell Ethan that we will not work on soul contracts but will do karmic work.
We place representations for him, for his soul, for his wife and her soul, and a representation for what separates them.
The field reveals that what separates them acts as a resource for Ethan, but as a trigger for his wife.
Ethan is ready to give that thing up.
I tell him that he can't give it up, because in a relationship, when you give on things you need and like, this will eventually be even more detrimental to the relationship.
I realize that there are two lessons in this case – one for Ethan and one for his wife.
Since she is not there with us, we do not place a representation for her lesson, but only for his lesson - for what he can learn from this relationship.
Ethan places a representation for his soul’s lesson, which has to do with what separates them, and is the same color as his wife.
As a facilitator, this just reinforces my feeling that he chose his wife just to learn that lesson, and that there is a very big entanglement in this story.
He starts to represent and insights emerge - about vulnerability, about accepting his feminine side, and more.
It seems as if the session could end here, since the sheer amount of insights is enough for a century, but I get the sense that all the words that are spoken, and the acceptance of things so simply and quickly only indicate to something that wishes to remain concealed, more than actual healing.
Different people represent in different ways.
Some feel, some see and some speak.
I wait a bit, and let the field do what it knows best – let things emerge by themselves.
Ethan speaks about cosmic healing, which is not personal but very general, and I can hear a voice inside me shouting that he is ignoring the pain, so I stop the session.
I explain to him that when a person comes for constellation work, the pain and healing are first of all personal, and only then are they collective.
If you go straight away to the collective experience, without acknowledging anything personal, this means that you are not ready to acknowledge your pain.
I ask him to place representations for his pain and we continue to work, and eventually the pain returns to the past life in which it first happened.
It gained acknowledgement and now it can stop holding on to Ethan's life.
Ethan experienced a tremendous relief.
He realized that he is not in competition with his wife for who is hurting more because they are both hurting, and they both can’t really see each other.
He connected with his own vulnerability and understood that his lesson is to allow himself to be vulnerable - even in the presence of his wife.
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Ethan and his wife ended up divorcing. She was not interested in working it out.
Despite this - Ethan felt that the karmic work supported him and made him stronger in the process of separation.
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As a therapist and facilitator, I do not have the right, nor the desire to work with someone who did not ask for it.
I only work with the person who’s in the room with me, and I learned a lot from working with Ethan.
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