Honoring & accepting my ‘father wound’ in a way that was new for me,
Seeing for the first time what my children need from me, the “3 A’s”, and this is what I was looking for from my father, my whole life!
Forgiveness, sweet forgiveness, going through what I had to go through to forgive my father was a complete transformation for me. I realized after I forgave him, I had never forgiven anyone in my life – before that moment. I had forgiveness wrapped up in a way that just didn’t work. This shift to a new way of thinking about forgiveness was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, the 2 weeks, cumulating in 3 days before I forgave him where the darkest in my life. I wrote, “I just have to hang on, there is a way out of this…” I was so stuck, I didn’t know the way, but I just declared I just trusted that there was away.
My father didn’t give me what I wanted in life, this was NOT okay, but because I was able to forgive him and in forgiving him, I was able to give to myself something – peace – a place inside of me calmed down, a feeling that I’d never known before my life, I say a miracle!
I truly see a miracle – what forgiveness is done for me. I could not have imagined this change.
There was so much we can give our children, but it was not given to us we are blind to it.
What you got from your father to what you didn’t get from your father is a framework on what you will give to your children.
What my father gave to me was what he got from his father, which wasn’t that much, because his father died when he was five.
My father didn’t have any role model, someone to give him what a boy needs, my father hurt his whole life, looking for something to fill the hole, and I looked towards him to fill what we both were looking for.
In forgiving I have been able to make a shift, it doesn’t look like a life changer it is subtle yet profound. I accept what I missed from him and I accept living with this, somehow it has taken energy off it.
He did the best he could with what he had, he did great. He did great for what he had, and I see that now – but never thought @ 55 I would be learning this for the ‘first time again.’
But what I’m missing from my father – the ‘father wound’ I can heal. Keith teaches us what to give to our children and in the giving to them, we actually give to ourselves. Another miracle.
We can heal the wounds dealt with us by our fathers, from their best intentions to ‘grow us up’, to ‘make us ready for life’ to being preoccupied surviving life…by giving to our children what they need – and that way we actually give it to ourselves! Another miracle.
Many of us did not get what we needed from our fathers, that we have been going through life without it doesn’t mean our children don’t have to go without, and it doesn’t mean we have to go without either.
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