The mystery and power of Fate in systemic work

Why facing reality can be the beginning of real freedom

You can know all the psychological patterns in the world and still feel stuck. You might have spent years in therapy, journaling, inner work, self-help books, and honest self-reflection — and yet find yourself returning to the same emotional dead ends.

Maybe you recognise a pattern in relationships that never quite shifts, or a persistent sense of responsibility that never lets you fully enjoy life. Perhaps you have moments of progress, only to find yourself slipping back into old ways of trying harder, thinking more, or self-correcting.

That’s where fate steps in — not as a mystical or fatalistic idea, but as a very real systemic reality that influences life far below the level of conscious choice.

In systemic work, especially in family constellations, fate does not mean that you have no choice or that your life is predestined in a rigid, unchangeable way. Instead, it points to everything in life that is already given and cannot be undone — both in your family history and in your own biography.

This distinction matters. Fate is not limited to what happened before you were born. It also includes what happened to you that you had no control over: being born with an illness or disability; losing a parent at a very young age; growing up with a severely ill mother; or living through a family collapse that radically altered your childhood. These are not psychological patterns you created — they are realities you were thrown into.

So many people expend enormous energy resisting what already is — either trying to rewrite the family past, hoping for different parents, or internally fighting the irrevocable events of their own life. What that resistance does is lock life force in what cannot be changed, rather than allowing it to flow into the present.

In other words, your insight is real, your self-work is real, but if the systemic roots of certain struggles — including your personal fate — are not seen and acknowledged, genuine movement remains elusive. This is the heart of the mystery and the power of fate in systemic work.

 

What Fate means in systemic work

When we talk about fate in systemic work, we are not talking about destiny in a mystical or fatalistic sense. We are talking about concrete realities that have already occurred — realities that cannot be changed, but can only be acknowledged, understood, and integrated.

Bert Hellinger — one of the founders of systemic work — observed that human beings are not isolated individuals, but members of larger systems. These systems operate as living relational fields, connecting us across generations and shaping how we experience events in our own lifetime. In his work with families, Hellinger noticed that suffering often arises not from what happened, but from the way people remain internally opposed to unavoidable realities.

In systemic terms, fate has two intertwined dimensions.

First, fate includes the events of the family history that are already fixed: losses, traumas, exclusions, births and deaths that shaped the lives of previous generations before you ever existed. These events form the historical ground of the system you were born into.

Second — and just as importantly — fate also includes the unchangeable events of your own life. Being born into a certain body. Losing a parent early. Growing up in a family altered by illness, addiction, or sudden loss. These experiences are part of your personal fate, not because they define you, but because they cannot be undone.

What makes fate fate is not its severity, but its irreversibility.

Three core elements that determine how Fate operates within a system

First, the facts: what actually happened, without interpretation or moral judgment. At this level, the task is acknowledgement of one’s own fate. Facts belong to the person and the generation in which they occurred. A death, an abandonment, an illness, a loss — these are realities that ask to be seen by those directly affected. When the people to whom these facts belong do not fully acknowledge them, the system does not forget. What is denied or minimised remains active beneath the surface and may later be carried by someone else. In that case, a child or descendant can become entangled, not because the facts are theirs, but because the original fate was not faced where it belonged.

Second, the order and hierarchy of the system: who came before whom, who belongs, and which roles are appropriate to which generation. Here, both acceptance of fate and the risk of entanglement come into play. When parents face their own fate — their limitations, losses, and responsibilities — order is naturally preserved. Children are free to remain children. When parents do not face their fate, the system compensates: children step into adult roles emotionally, psychologically, or energetically. In that moment, entanglement arises. The child becomes loyal to a fate that is not theirs, carrying responsibility, strength, or suffering that belongs to an earlier generation.

Third, the unfinished business: grief never fully felt, trauma never integrated, people or truths excluded from the family narrative. This level most clearly shows the mechanism of entanglement. Unfinished business always points to a fate that was not acknowledged by the one who lived it.

When grief was not mourned, when trauma was silenced, when a person was excluded because their fate was too painful to face, the system seeks completion elsewhere. Descendants may then carry emotions, symptoms, or life themes that do not originate in their own biography. Their task is not to resolve the original fate, but to recognise that they are entangled with it — and to return it, with respect, to where it belongs.

For example, a child may grow up carrying a deep sadness that does not originate in their own story, but in a loss that was never mourned generations earlier. Or a woman may unconsciously identify with a sick parent, not because illness is her fate, but because loyalty has bound her to it.

Seen this way, these three elements describe a single systemic movement: Fate is what cannot be changed and must be acknowledged by the one to whom it belongs. Entanglement arises when someone else carries that fate because the original bearer could not or would not. 

Fate versus entanglement: a crucial distinction

One of the most important — and most misunderstood — aspects of systemic work is the difference between accepting one’s own fate and releasing entanglements with the fate of others.

Accepting fate means fully facing the realities that belong to your own life: the parents you had, the circumstances you were born into, the losses or limitations that shaped your path. This is the part of fate for which each person carries full responsibility. No one else can do this work for you.

When this does not happen — when a person turns away from their own fate — the systemic field does not simply let it go. According to Hellinger, the family conscience seeks balance. What was not acknowledged in one generation looks for recognition in the next.

This is where entanglements arise.

Entanglements occur when a child, grandchild, or later descendant is unconsciously claimed by the family conscience to look at a fate that someone earlier could not face. Out of blind love and loyalty, the younger one carries the burden: the grief, the guilt, the illness, the emotional weight that does not belong to them.

In that sense, entanglement is not fate. It is a systemic solution to an unresolved fate.

This is why clarity is essential:

• Your own fate must be accepted and integrated.

• The fate of others must be respectfully returned to them.

Both movements free enormous life energy — but they are not the same movement. Confusing them leads either to resignation (“this is just my fate”) or endless struggle (“I need to fix this”).

Systemic work insists on this precision:

You bow to your fate. You step out of carrying the fate of others.

What happens when we resist our Fate

When fate — personal or ancestral — is not acknowledged, it does not disappear. It continues to operate — quietly, persistently — beneath the surface of conscious life.

Bert Hellinger observed that much of human suffering does not arise from what happened, but from the inner opposition to what happened. This opposition can take many forms. It can appear as the ongoing hope that a parent will one day become someone else. It can show up as a lifelong effort to compensate for a loss that was never mourned. Or it can live quietly in the body, as chronic tension, fatigue, or a sense of being permanently “on guard.”

On an individual level, resisting fate often leads to an invisible depletion of life energy. People may feel that they are constantly working on themselves, yet never arriving. They may experience a sense of inner pressure — the feeling that something still needs to be fixed, repaired, or resolved before life can truly begin. In many cases, this results in perfectionism, emotional over-responsibility, or a compulsive need to make things better for others.

On a systemic level, unacknowledged fate does something else: it creates entanglements. What a parent does not face may appear in a child. What one generation avoids may burden the next. This is not punishment; it is the system’s attempt to restore balance and truth.

Relationships then become the stage where unresolved fate is replayed and where entanglements are created: resistance to fate leads to repetition. Hellinger repeatedly pointed out that what is not acknowledged in one generation tends to reappear in the next — not as punishment, but as an unconscious attempt of the system to bring excluded or unresolved elements back into awareness.

Relationships turn into the playground where unfinished business wants to be settled. Partners are unconsciously asked to fill parental gaps. Children are burdened with emotional roles that do not belong to them.

On a collective or group level, resistance to fate can even create systems that are organised around compensation rather than flow. Families may unconsciously revolve around an unspoken loss. Organisations may repeat conflicts that originate in unacknowledged ruptures. In all these cases, energy moves in circles instead of forward.

What makes this resistance particularly painful is that it often coexists with high levels of insight and self-awareness. People know why they struggle — but knowing does not dissolve the systemic bind. As Hellinger emphasised, insight alone does not restore order when the deeper relational field remains unaddressed.

The most life-giving position: aligning with reality instead of fighting it

If resisting fate consumes life energy, the most life-giving position is alignment with reality.

This alignment means two things at once: fully owning your own fate — and releasing what does not belong to you (releasing entanglements).

Hellinger spoke often about the healing power of acknowledging “what is.” This acknowledgment is not a mental exercise. It is an inner movement in which a person stops opposing the facts of their life and family history. When this happens, something in the system settles.

The most life-giving position a person can take is one that respects three systemic laws simultaneously: belonging, order, and balance.

Belonging means recognising that everyone who is part of the system — including those who were excluded, forgotten, or judged — has a place. Order means respecting the sequence of generations: parents are the big ones, children are the small ones; those who came earlier carry their own fate. Balance means allowing love to flow without compensation through suffering.

In practical terms, this position often sounds like: “These were my parents. This was their capacity. This is what they could give — and what they could not.” (Acknowledging your own fate)

And: “This loss belongs to my family history. I can honour it without feeling it is my task to carry the burden of it.” (Releasing the entanglement)

This stance does not diminish compassion; it deepens it. When people stop trying to correct the past and give back to their family system what is not theirs to carry or resolve, they often discover a quieter, steadier connection to those who came before them. Love no longer needs to express itself through loyalty to suffering.

Hellinger observed that when people take their rightful place in their family system and take on only the responsibilities and obligations tied to that position, symptoms often soften without being directly targeted. The system no longer needs to speak through distress, because its reality has been acknowledged.

Facing and embracing Fate: concrete inner steps

Facing fate is not an act of willpower. It unfolds through a series of inner movements that cannot be forced, only invited.

The first step is seeing the facts. This means allowing the concrete realities of your family history and personal life to exist without interpretation or justification. Who died? Who was absent? Who carried illness, addiction, or grief? What events irrevocably shaped your early life? Seeing is not analysing; it is acknowledging.

The second step is distinguishing fate from entanglement. This is crucial. Some realities must be accepted because they cannot be changed. Others must be released because they were never yours to carry.

The third step is inner consent. Consent means stopping the inner argument with reality. It is the moment where someone says — often quietly, sometimes with grief — “This is how it was.” and “I lovingly give this back to you for it was never mine to carry.” Hellinger described this as bowing to reality, not as submission, but as alignment. Once the fight against one’s own fate and the loyalty towards another’s fate ends, energy returns.

The fourth step is integration. When fate is accepted and entanglements loosen, what once felt like a burden often reveals its hidden contribution. Sensitivity, strength, discernment, and resilience emerge — not as virtues to be claimed, but as natural by-products of lived experience.

This is where systemic work and family constellations become essential. Many of these movements cannot be completed through reflection alone. They require a setting in which the relational field itself can show what the individual psyche cannot yet grasp. Constellations make visible where fate asks for acceptance and where loyalty asks to be released.

A compassionate invitation

If something in this article touches you, it may be because part of your life energy is still bound to an unacknowledged fate — yours or someone else’s. This is not a personal failure. It is a systemic signal.

If you would like clear insight into the dynamics you are entangled in within your family system — and support in distinguishing what is yours to accept from what you are ready to release — I warmly invite you to book a free, no-obligation introductory meeting with me.

Together, we can explore whether a 1:1 systemic coaching trajectory or systemic work can support you in reclaiming your rightful place — and with it, your life energy.

You do not become free by overcoming your fate. You become free by meeting it — honestly, respectfully, and from your own place.

When you are ready, I’m here.

hello@unlockyourbestself.today