The watchful eye

In our training programs, we naturally spend a great deal of time practicing. Participants also guide a constellation in a group setting, in the presence of the other participants and the trainer. The invitation is always that it is practice, that you may ask for a time-out, that it is okay not to know for a moment, and that you are also allowed to get stuck. There is learning in everything that happens, it is as simple as that. At least from my perspective as a trainer.

And yes, practicing while being observed is of course exciting. That can be helpful (the well-known healthy tension), but it can also block someone’s natural potential.

Recently, this happened as well: a participant and facilitator of the constellation, let’s fictitiously call her Sabine, had a good opening conversation and the constellation was underway. After some time, however, she could no longer access her own capacity for perception and decided, in a vulnerable yet powerful way, to stop the constellation.

In the reflection afterward, she shared: “I was affected by the observing gaze of the group, of you. And I recognize this, it also happens to me in other situations. In my mother’s family, there was a strong sense of being watched and having to meet the standards of the outside world.”

We decide to set it up in a constellation: her mother and her mother’s father (her grandfather). The image immediately shows that the grandfather is looking at the mother with a strict observing gaze, and that the mother turns away from him and shields herself with her hands from being watched.

I ask Sabine to say to her mother: “I see you.” It resonates in several places, also among the observers. We give it time.

And then it occurs to me: someone who watches over you does not truly see you. An observing eye does not see the unique qualities of the other person; it looks through its own framework of what is right and wrong. The observing eye does not look with genuine interest; it is not curious about who someone truly is. Someone who watches over others needs things to stay within the rules.

Of course, that is very useful in certain roles, for example people supervising a written exam. But when parents watch over their children in this way, what are they actually doing? When a manager watches over employees like this, what effect does that have? And if people watched over you in this way in the past, what has that done to your own potential?

Let us look at one another with openness and genuine interest, and truly see each other for who the other person is. So that we can sincerely say to one another: “I see you.”