Constellation workshops, which can help detangle family dynamics, have found success with many folks I know on Whidbey Island. Join Medoc Perry for a series of Constellation Circles starting Saturday, Jan. 17 at the Soundview Center in Langley. For more information visit Medoc’s webpage at Starbird Healing Arts.
I met Medoc a few years ago while sharing a table with her at Pickles Deli. I instantly took a liking to the woman from Tauranga, New Zealand. As the daughter of an American-born mother and English-born father, Medoc developed an early interest in ancestors, and what it is that makes people happy.
“I grew up as a child of immigrant parents in New Zealand with limited connection to extended family, which may explain why ancestral work has appealed to me so much,” Medoc notes on her webpage. “I’ve been fascinated by human behavior, wellness and spirituality my whole life. Even as a young child I was deeply aware of others and curious about how to help people.”
Medoc was working in a Seattle Co-op natural foods grocery store, when she met a woman from Germany who conducted the Constellation workshops. Medoc enrolled. Family Constellations resonated deeply with Medoc, who later trained to become a facilitator.
She has now been facilitating Family Constellations for six years, with two decades’ work of international experience in the field of energy healing and well-being. With a background including a B.A. in Psychology, Medoc has “practiced and studied holistic healing, consciousness and well being practices since 2005. These modalities include BodyTalk, Systemic Constellations, Hakomi, Reiki, clutter clearing, clairvoyance, and plant medicine,” according to her web page.
She lived on Whidbey a while, running a successful practice. She now lives near Tucson AZ, and travels to Whidbey Island to facilitate the every-other-month Saturday sessions. She also does one-on-one consultation online and in person.
In a Sept. 11 podcast interview with fellow Kiwi, Tracy Cartwright, the pair of women talked of their interest in and success with facilitating constellation work. Tracy asked Medoc how she describes the process to someone who is unfamiliar with the practice.
“I usually say it’s an experimental process that maps out a system—whether it’s family, business, a piece of land, groups you belong to,” said Medoc. “We look at the underlying dynamics, the patterns we can’t seem to change. Everything in our life has its roots in our family field, in the ancestors. The importance of creating order, and giving back entanglements and burdens to family is a goal. That’s where I start. In America we believe we’re individuals, that we’re self-made. There’s little acknowledgment of who came before us.”
Constellation therapy or System Constellation views the family as a whole whose members’ actions and traumas ripple out to everyone, even across generations. During a Constellation, ‘representatives’ for the family members help map the family system, revealing hidden dynamics, returning burdens and re-establishing a healthy flow of love and support. Doing a constellation can bring a new found harmony to the family members, and can be helpful in breaking patterns, that, for example, cause one to feel the need to be a people pleaser, or another to attract unhealthy relationships.
Founded by German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger in the late 1970s, constellation work is now a worldwide approach for creating well being. Visit Family Constellation practitioner Brigitte Sztab’s site for an introduction to Constellation practices. Brigitte is Medoc’s teacher. Bert Hellinger died in 2019. Constellation work is based on principles Bert Hellinger calls the Orders of Love.
AI neatly sums up the Orders of Love in this way: “Bert Hellinger’s ‘Orders of Love’ are fundamental systemic principles–Belonging, Order, and Balance–that govern healthy family and relationship dynamics, revealing that love flows best when these innate laws are respected, often through recognizing priorities (first in, first served), acknowledging all members (belonging), and finding balance in giving/taking, preventing entanglements where later generations unconsciously carry the burdens (trauma, grief) of earlier ones. These principles, discovered through Family Constellations, guide individuals to find their rightful place, allowing love and energy to move freely within the family system.”
Among those who have benefitted from Family Constellation work is Dana MacInnis, a realtor on South Whidbey. At one point she was so passionate about Constellations, that she considered becoming a facilitator. She helped organize this year’s series of Saturday circles.
“It’s such beautiful work. My first experience with Constellation work was in 2007,” said Dana over coffee at the Commons Cafe & Books earlier this week. “What I appreciate about the work is that there’s a privacy aspect. It is not a place to come and continue narratives about oneself or one’s family. The facilitator is skilled in the way they work with the group without hearing a lot of ‘story.’ The modality creates an avenue for the re-establishment of love. It has been one of the most transformational and healing modalities that I have experienced.”
As one of the more positive people I know, Dana said that with her busy year in 2025 in the real estate world, she felt that attending Constellation workshops on Whidbey this year would help cultivate the sense of well-being she’ had experienced from previous Constellation sessions.
“This past year I’ve witnessed a lot of pain in our country. I knew I needed to focus on my own well-being to stay heart-centered in these heavy times,” said Dana. “I need these touchstones. Experiencing the Knowing Field in Constellations reminds me that there is always the possibility for restoring the flow of love.”
The fields mentioned are the universal fields of consciousness, written about by popular author Dan Brown in his latest novel, Secret of Secrets, and Lynne McTaggart’s 2001 book, The Field.
Another way to understand the dynamics of constellation work, would be by watching The Netflix series Another Self, set in Turkey. It tells the story of three friends who meet for a vacation and attend a constellation circle. They find connection with their spiritual selves and face unresolved trauma from generations ago. Part of the work involves tapping into the collective field of consciousness, which some believe connects us all.
“I love being part of a collective of people showing up and wanting to heal,” said Dana. “Medoc is a deeply intuitive, compassionate healer and impeccable facilitator of this work, whom I trust. I am so curious about what can shift within me, and what can shift in our collective by being in Constellation Circles together with Medoc, and those who choose to dive in with us.”
For those curious about exploring healing fields, collective consciousness and perhaps lightening a burden that’s been weighing heavily, Medoc’s every other month Saturday workshops help cultivate a greater sense of well-being, embodied intuition and connection to the ancestors.
Visit her website at Starbird Healing Arts.