Life Integration Process (LIP)
LIP is a constellation format based on a model of the evolution of consciousness – represented by the numbers from 1 to 7. These numbers stand for the particular stages through which the individual (and collective) evolution unfolds. In other words, it represents levels in which the reality unfolds into our awareness, into the conscious aspect of ours and thus initiates our growth:

 

Stage	Individual evolution	Collective evolution
1	Unborn child consciousness	Symbiotic unity consciousness
2	Child consciousness	Group consciousness
3	Adolescent (or “I”) consciousness	Self-awareness
4	Adult consciousness	Self-consciousness
5	Mature adult consciousness	Spirit-consciousness
6	Elderly consciousness	Knowing unity consciousness
7	Death	Non- or All-consciousness

 

During the LIP constellation, the client is placed in the position of the Adult consciousness, where he is looking at his life up to now, from a distance.

Unlike in the classical family constellations, the representatives in LIP do not move within the constellation field but remain in their original positions. As the past can also stay only where it was. All we can really do for the past is to acknowledge it – and accept it exactly as it was. Nothing else. We can neither hug the past nor can we get back to it. At least definitely not physically.

LIP or „Life Integration Process“ is a new approach to the constellation work, brought by the German therapist Wilfried Nelles. It methodically evolved from the classical family constellations but unlike family constellations, it is not dealing with the client´s position in a closed system – a family, work group, partner relationship or a society. It deals explicitly with the approach of an individual towards himself and his own life.

Because if we dare to look closer, we would see that in truth we all actually have only one relationship. And that is the relationship to ourselves. All other relationships, “affairs” or belongings to other people are nothing but a reflection of this primal one. As such they only manifest the state of our relationship to ourselves. The “outer world” is only the manifestation of our “inner world”. That being said, actually whatever issue we have, deep down, goes back to the relationship to ourselves.

For me, the most important difference is that LIP does not deal with our past, in terms that it doesn’t want to change anything about it. On the contrary – regarding our past, the only intention of LIP is just to see everything that happened in the past and then accept it exactly as it was. Not to “cut off”, “cleanup” or “erase” (anything from) the past. But to accept it exactly as it happened – hence leave it where it was. Without any intention to deal with the “entanglements” of the individual in the fate of his family (or to deal with the relationship between the individual and his family) or in his own past. In other words, to see, acknowledge and accept everything as it was. And so accept “that which appears” without any conditions. Which is, in essence, the phenomenological approach. This approach simultaneously casts doubt on every concept which considers the origin of our problems lie in the past – and presence to be only the causal effect of the past.

As a matter of fact, there is no entanglement. Because there is no past either. How could there be any? The past doesn’t have any space in the presence, it is gone. It simply passed away. All that remained in presence from the past is our relationship to the past. The relationship which is made of the unconscious, unintegrated energetical imprints. Of the oppressed physical, emotional and mental memories. The ancestral cellular memory and old, repeating thoughts (the mind’s memory).

To me, it seems that the background of this approach could be quite apparent: past is away, it does not exist in reality. No past exists in the present moment. Are we able to change the past? Can we touch the past? Are we able to bring the past back? Apparently, we can’t. But that subsequently means that in reality – in the dimension in which we all live, where you can touch your body or talk to people – so where everything happens – it does not exist. Of course, it had happened. And it exists in the form of mainly oppressed, unintegrated memories. The whole body and mind are overloaded with the past memories (also called “afterthoughts” in English). But actually, we can do nothing with it. Within the presence, past is a pure illusion. Any effort to change the past is clearly a mental illusion of ours. Therefore any engagement in the past (apart from its full acceptance) does not make any sense and leads nowhere.

So do we need to resolve any “entanglements” to be able to move forward? In my opinion, we don’t. On the contrary, it is counter-productive and at the end we will only find ourselves in a dead end, constantly spinning in a vicious circle from which there is no escape – we will stand still. Thus all that is needed is awareness, understanding, seeing the reality. The ability to unconditionally accept it and be with it – which is so very rare.

What we need is an insight – a perspective of the present moment. The view from the presence. To understand what is actually happening in that space of “here and now”. Because we don’t know this “space” – we don’t live in it, we live in the space of the past (or the future). We are constantly engaged in what was (or what will be). We continuously groan on account of something that we can never change and that nobody can ever bring back. And as our attention is constantly focused on something that already was – and does not exist anymore, we cannot see or feel what is here and now at all. We are actually “blind” and physically numb.

LIP allows the client to look at his actual life from the perspective of an adult consciousness. Since the client is a part of the constellation, what allows him to experience all the emotions and thoughts, but at the same time, he is only watching– one takes part in the constellation as an “active witness” who is able to perceive – to experience the felt aspect of the emotions and thoughts. It actually allows him to see the objective reality. Simultaneously it allows him to see what lies hidden in the unconscious, without identifying himself with emotions or thoughts.

What often comes into the light during the LIP constellation, what is revealed, does not only have a huge practical significance and it helps us to understand our own life – exactly as it happened, with everything involved. But, because the client is looking at his life from a distance, it allows and invites the opportunity of integration…