In the vast panorama of holistic disciplines, Original Hellinger Family Constellations represent a powerful tool for understanding oneself and one’s inner dynamics. Valentina Delise, family constellator and creator of an innovative method, is a “dispenser of happiness” whom I had the pleasure of interviewing. During our chat, she explained in particular how her approach combines work on constellations with a journey that involves mind, body, and soul. “If you really want to transform yourself, you can’t work on just one level: you must integrate the soul, physical, and mental levels”: from this vision, her experiential events are born, such as “The Circle”, which combines meditation, dance, and visualization techniques, and “Butterfly Journeys”, wellness weekends designed to accompany people on a journey of deep awareness.
But the path that led her to where she is now was not without challenges. Valentina had to go through moments of great difficulty, including family losses, personal and economic crises, until finding her own path. A path made of research, study, and a deep desire to help others achieve awareness and inner peace.
Since you are a “dispenser of happiness”, what is your first happy memory?
You know, as a child, I couldn’t understand why adult people were never happy, but rather always sad and angry. I have parents who are quite well-known in Rome, in the “nightlife” world, the glossy one, and so growing up I created an image that could fit into that world, namely that of a super cool woman, who in reality had a huge inner void. This void made me go lower and lower, until my mother’s illness came: at that point, I started to wake up. I was spoiled, I had everything, I did what I wanted, and when my mother got sick, it was as if I had woken up from a dream to pass into a nightmare. After my mother’s death, I fell even more into the abyss: within two years, I found myself losing all the money I had due to a second company I had started with a dear friend who was robbing me, and I also had a toxic relationship with a narcissist. At that point, I stopped and started looking for something that could help me get out of the abyss. Perhaps the first smile, my first hint of happiness, was the day I did my first Circle. It was the time I saw a glimmer of light in the situation I was in.
You discovered some “amazing ingredients” for a more joyful life. What are these ingredients and how can they transform the lives of those who rely on you?
There are three important ingredients: first of all, the courage to stop and recognize that you have a problem; the second ingredient is humility, necessary to bow your head and ask for help in a difficult context; the third is desire. People no longer desire, they no longer know what it means. When they come to me for the first time, I ask people a question: “What do you want?” Most people don’t know, and here comes “ikigai“, a Japanese word that expresses the concept of why we are in the world, our life mission. Perhaps today we should stop and ask ourselves if our work can be our mission, if we really like what we are doing. Once discovered, you open the doors to hope, and here comes another ingredient, namely faith. If you start to have faith that after the journey you are making there is something bigger waiting for you, then everything becomes much more fluid.
And what is lasting happiness?
Lasting happiness is when you manage to balance two frequencies: one octave higher and one octave lower. Imagine being told that you won the Pulitzer Prize and you start expressing the happiness you feel, calling everyone, etc.: by a law of compensation, the higher you go, the more you will have to come down. But what is the movement to follow when you are happy? It is an inner movement: the explosion must be internal, instead we live in exteriority. When you start asking yourself different questions, you will have different answers. I believe that words create your reality: if you start changing the words, you start changing your reality, if you start observing during the day which words you use, you will realize how much you may speak negatively about certain things, which then come back to you. I created a specific Diary for this journey, because when you come to me you don’t just work with me, but also with yourself: I give you “homework,” that is, preparatory exercises that make you understand where the problem is, and there you begin to know yourself. Every day for six months you fill out a sheet where you will have to answer the same questions, until then you will find other exercises later where you unhininge some salient points of your inner self, perhaps listing things you are grateful for, the opposite of what you think looking at yourself in the mirror, etc.
In this way, with these exercises, you learn to open up and also to accept yourself.
“I believe that words create your reality: if you start changing the words, you start changing your reality”
Even forcing yourself to write things you don’t think? Like the opposite of what you see looking at yourself in the mirror?
Exactly. I also work on the theme of “powerful affirmations” to unhininge false beliefs. By doing this exercise, you realize how much some phrases you pronounce actually clash, what you say and what you can’t say because you don’t allow yourself to say it, perhaps because your father and mother told you that you couldn’t afford it. Let’s not forget that in Italy we live in a Catholic state, where “sacrifice” equals “happiness” and if you sacrifice yourself it means you will be happy… But who said that?
Indeed, I often find myself thinking that I have to deserve happiness.
Exactly, and instead it’s not true. If we unhininge those kinds of beliefs, it’s already a big step forward.
But in your opinion, can personal change influence collective change? How can greater individual awareness lead to a more harmonious and positive world?
A beautiful question, it moves me very much. I answer starting with something that Bert Hellinger told us. Hellinger was a great theologian and one day he wrote an article entitled “Hitler was also a child,” for which he was then expelled from Berlin. The question was: who creates wars? Wars are created by people, obviously born within a family system. Peace, therefore, can only be born within the family system itself. How can we talk about peace if we feel hatred for our family, for our parents who gave us life? We are in this world thanks to them, regardless of what they did, and just for this we should thank them and find that push of forgiveness and gratitude. So let’s imagine a world where there is peace in families: wars would not exist, there would be no way to create a war, because war is internal to each of us.
Have you discovered something new about yourself through your work?
Absolutely. I lived a life as a victim, I never valued myself, I had no self-esteem, I was the child they said “she’s so good but applies herself little”, I was dyslexic, I was dyscalculic. Over time, I changed and got to know many aspects of myself, I started writing blogs, I rediscovered some of my passions, dance for example. My confidence was one of the greatest gifts I gave myself in my journey: I was the one who was afraid to speak in public, while today I make videos, speak in front of audiences of 70/80 people, in short, I brought out what I already had inside and didn’t know I had. You know, we are made of energy, we have very powerful energy points in our body called chakras that are often blocked; when you start doing spiritual work, it’s as if the energy flow starts flowing throughout the body again, and this is what generates creativity, mental purity, courage, visions.
And what is your greatest source of inspiration, both in work and in everyday life?
It helped me a lot to observe Bert Hellinger’s wife, Sofia Hellinger: she is the one who opened the school, because Bert was the scientist of love, but had no intention of creating any school and there would have been no Constellator if it weren’t for Sofia. Being next to a man of such stature is not an easy thing, because you are always put in second place, but she managed very well not to be overshadowed. For this reason, she has been a source of great inspiration for me.
What was your greatest act of courage?
Leaving the man I was with for ten years. I still care for him, we continue to keep in touch, but it was one of the most difficult things for me to do.
And your greatest act of rebellion?
There have been several. First of all, going against my father and his thinking, feeling quite alone but at the same time in the right. Then, also getting out of a group of friends with various forms of dependency, including substances, which I think saved my life.
What is your biggest fear?
Once I would have answered the fear of being alone, but two years ago something very important happened to me, a relationship. In my opinion, the relationship is one of the fastest ways to evolve, because the other person shows you exactly what you don’t want. Today I would tell you I’m not afraid of anything: everything that comes I welcome. Today things are happening to me that once would have scared me, but that today slide off me.
Instead, what is the meaning of being comfortable in your own skin for you?
Beautiful phrase. The first thing that comes to mind is that the skin represents our first layer, and I see myself as beautiful regardless of wrinkles, and this is also an important passage I’m going through. I’m almost 50 years old and I recognize that every year there is something about me that changes, also at a hormonal level, which for us women is something very powerful that can drive you crazy if you are not well rooted. I feel good in my skin because I am welcoming everything that comes to me with benevolence and not with anxiety or fear or feeling “different.”
And what is the last thing or person that made you smile?
My current partner, he makes me smile, he is funny. Also a dear friend, a client of mine, whom I’ve only known for a short time, and who has entered my life and makes me laugh a lot. She reminds me a lot of how I was, a “great court jester“. You know, when I was younger my nickname was Sally, I was always everywhere, I made everyone laugh, because that’s my nature and today it hasn’t changed, but it has merged with a more mature version of me. When I see that kind of euphoria in others, I understand that there can be a lot of pain behind it.
What is your happy place?
I am Sagittarius, I have difficulty staying in one place. But I would say that my happy place is the place where I decide to be at a certain moment. Until a few years ago, I lived with my father in his villa in Fregene; for two years, in winter I move to a house on the beach, which at this moment is my den, the habitat where I feel good.
My happy place is the place where I choose to be.
Thanks to Maicol Zambotti.
What do you think?