about ancestral constellations
the founder Sonya aka Makhosi Nyoni
a Diaspora community
greetings to you all
Welcome to Ancestral Constellations, a centre for Diaspora Transgenerational Practice. I am Sonya Welch-Moring also known as Makhosi Nyoni. My therapeutic transgenerational practice began over 12 years ago when I walked into my first family constellations circle. Since then Ancestral Constellations has evolved into a practice that is both a process and a call from our ancestors. It is a place of ancestral learning and therapeutic healing, a safe space to unite and be inspired to REmember and REconnect to ‘other ways of knowing’, older more traditional healing practices.
Over the past 10 years I have been developing Ancestral Constellations as a transgenerational healing approach after I noticed that there was a gap in therapeutic learning for Diaspora communities of colour. I believe that ‘We’ as Black people and communities of colour, are best placed to find and create approaches to care, emotional wellbeing and positive mental and physical health for our transgenerational and ancestral line.
The centre offers courses and workshops in the UK and retreats in South Africa. The aim is to disseminate the learning, integrate appropriate Western modalities and highlight ancestral knowledge, to create a distinctive Diaspora therapeutic practice. Currently BAATN (Black, African and Asian Therapy Network) is hosting the first Ancestral Constellation Foundation Training in Systemic Constellations & Transgenerational Healing.
the way that we work
Ancestral Constellations are a brief, solution focused, therapeutic and ancestral practice exploring the Transgenerational Lineage of Diaspora communities. This is a therapeutic practice that focuses on the remembering of older lineage and knowledge systems by integrating a divinatory perspective. And a solutions focus does not always mean resolution, it can just be a step forward in making sense of a current family dynamic.
The ‘ancestral’ is a focus on RE-Membering and RE-Connecting cultural markers and cosmologies and integrating them into a therapeutic process that acknowledges ancestors as being central to family life, past, present and future. In honouring those who have gone before us, you can view ancestral linage as a living process of inter-related relationships that influence us, not just as past act, but also within our current family system.
In many African and indigenous communities, the individual is indivisible from the community. In Diaspora communities we have ancestral legacies, patterns and recurring relationship dynamics that are still very present in family life and often the result of unresolved past traumas. Therefore it makes sense to widen the approach to include a community orientation and a framework of ancestral traditions and practices.
I have adapted the Ancestral Constellations process and integrated several key principles into my practice, these include ……….
- Integrating an African, indigenous and ancestral overlay into the Ancestral Constellations process.
- Naming the work as an ancestral practice for Diaspora communties of colour
- Reframing the process as a healing ritual with a therapeutic edge.
- Acknowledging the role of ancestors in the living family system
- Centreing the work as a relationship between the visible and invisible world of spirit.
the settings
We offer online one-to-one and small family group sessions and in-person short courses, personal development workshops and learning circles focused on family and community transgenerational lives. We offer a training in transgenerational healing in the UK and are expanding our work in South Africa and the Caribbean. Workshops and courses are experiential and participatory, with personal reflection as an essential aspect of the learning. There is more focus on applied practice and less on academic knowing, this is part of a process of decolonising therapeutic practice.
Most courses and training are aimed at Diaspora communities of colour, with a focus on the work being offered where it is most needed. This has led to a decision to offer services that take into account the majority of clients who use the practice. In order to set a context for payment, we have developed a value system of give and take on a sliding scale. Our intention is that there has to be, as much as possible, a balance between the giving of services and the receiving of financial payment for…………
Workshops
Short courses
Foundation Training
Circles and Gatherings
Retreats and Immersions
Small Group Consultations and 1-to-1 Sessions
who we work with
.
Ancestral Constellations primarily work with Diaspora communities of colour, in recognition of the need for an applied transgenerational model that offers therapeutic practitioners an alternative approach. Many of our clients are of mixed European, African or Asian heritage. We work with people who self-identify as Black or have a heritage background in Africa, Caribbean, India, East Asia or another Diaspora community of colour.
We often get asked why we are not open to people of European descent or White people in general. We are a small organisation and we cannot attend to the needs of all groups, all communities, all ethnicities and all cultural backgrounds. Some workshops are open to everyone and this will be indicated in the marketing. All one-to-one consultations are open to different identities, faiths, cultures, abilities, ethnicities and genders.
