Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Jennifer Hoffman: Fathers Day and Father Energy
Father’s Day was June 17 in U.S., a day when we celebrate our relationship with our fathers. Some of us don’t have a lot to celebrate, as our fathers may have been absent, unknown, or so emotionally distant that we cannot find a reason to celebrate our relationship with them. My father has been dead for nearly 30 years and while I spent much of my life being angry with him and wondering whether he cared about me at all, I now understand so much more about him and can actually be grateful for the gifts he gave me instead of focusing on how he ignored so many opportunities to show how much he loved and cared about me. (the photo is of my father and me, taken quite a few years ago!)
Fathers mirror our lessons in power and love, often through their limitations instead of their abilities. My father was, as were many of the men of his generation, emotionally damaged. Orphaned during WWII at age 4 and adopted by strangers at age 7, much of his life was lived with the question of what happened to his family and why he wasn’t worthy of being with them. He was quiet, withdrawn, and emotionally disconnected. Yet, there were a few times, like the first time I was rejected by a boy I liked, and he comforted me, told me that I was beautiful and would one day find someone who loved and appreciated me, that he was loving and supportive.
I wanted him to be strong and powerful, to protect me and to show me that he loved me so I could know that I was lovable. But he didn’t love himself or feel worthy of love, based on his life experiences, so he could not give that kind of love to me.
My father, like so many men of his generation, was consumed by grief, anger, sadness, powerlessness, and had no idea how to express his emotions. For their generation, emotions were for women, and ‘big boys don’t cry’. What I now know is that he couldn’t give me what he didn’t have and although he may have wanted to, and I think he did, he simply did not have the skills or knowledge to be emotionally present for himself, so he couldn’t be there for me either.
I feel that I know my father better now than I ever did before, and I am at peace with the person he was, instead of being angry at the person he was not or, as I have learned to accept, could never be. It took me a very long time to figure that out. I had many expectations of my father and was very angry because he did not meet them. I could not appreciate his pain because I wanted him to fix mine, to show me that I was powerful and worthy of love.
He lived with me during the last few months of his life and that gave me an opportunity to see the depth of his emotional suffering, the feelings of unworthiness, the deep hurt at having been separated from his family, the grief he held within him, and how closed his heart was. In the moments before he died he told me he loved me, that he was proud of me, and apologized for not being a better father. It had taken him over 30 years to say that to me and it was the healing and proof of love that I needed.
It was also a choice point for me and I could accept it and move on or be angry and reject this gift because it was too little, too late. I chose to accept it (not right away though), grateful that he loved me enough to find the courage to say it, even if it was in the last moments of his life. I now know, with the understanding that comes from experience, wisdom that comes with age, and compassion from being a parent, that my father’s emotional limitations were his gift to me. I could choose to be like him, or I could choose to be as emotionally open as possible and to end the legacy of grief, hurt, anger, powerlessness, and emotional distance that was the legacy of that generation.
We choose our parents, even our distant, hurtful, absent, or wounded fathers, so that we can heal ourselves. The belief that fathers should be or should have been ____________ (fill in the blank) puts the burden of our healing on them and limits our ability to learn and heal from our shared journey.
Whether they were horribly abusive or lovingly kind, there was a reason we chose them and when we can be compassionate and forgiving with them and ourselves, we can release lifetimes of anger and disappointment and accept them for who they are, human beings doing the best they can with what they were taught and know. Whether you were well or poorly fathered, your father is part of your soul group, an important aspect of your healing journey and another mirror of your healing.
Father’s Day usually happens in Solstice week, which is a celebration of the longest day of sunshine and the sun represents the father in astrology. It’s one more reason for us to re-align ourselves with a higher perspective in all of our relationships but especially, the ones which we struggle to understand or come to terms with because we feel that they were lacking in so many ways.
There is another aspect to consider as we decide whether we are going to spend our lives resenting our fathers for their poor parenting and emotional skills or move beyond those emotions and view them with compassionate kindness and understanding, and that is the awakening of the Divine Masculine energy. We celebrate the rise of the Divine Feminine, after eons of suppression, which was part of our Atlantis Legacy and which I write about in my book, The Atlantis Legacy, which you can purchase on Amazon at this link. The Divine Masculine energy represents the rejoining of the masculine to its heart center, which it has been disconnected from for as long as the Divine Feminine has been disconnected from its power.
Through countless centuries of war, death, domination, and control, the masculine energy has had its heart broken and is consumed by the grief which is a by-product of its trauma. It is now time for it to be reconnected on a heart level, so men can be whole and complete once more, reunited with the unconditional love that is part of their divine blueprint. We see it in today’s younger generation of fathers who are caretakers and providers to their children in ways that fathers in my generation never were.
By forgiving our fathers, we release this old energy and can open the portals for a profound energetic rebirth to occur to bless future generations with parents who are equally loving, compassionate, supportive, and aware of their power in ways that allow them to express all of the love in their hearts to everyone in their life. And in doing so we can end the masculine paradigm’s legacy of grief which has been such a powerful limitation to the reconnection of ourselves to our own divine center, and to each other.
Here is a Father’s Day exercise for you — What one thing do you wish you could have received from your father? Is it acceptance, praise, approval, love, validation, respect? Write it down as a sentence – – The one thing I wanted from my father was _______________________
Now give yourself that energy for the next 7 days. Whatever you wanted from your father (that he did not give you) is something you need to give to yourself. Be gentle with yourself as you give yourself that energy that you have waited your whole life to receive, often from someone who could not give it to you. This is one of the lessons of our soul groups, what we most want from them is what we must learn to give to ourselves.
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Daily OM ~ Fathers: Providing Support
ReplyDeleteby Madisyn Taylor
http://dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/articledisplay.cgi?aid=63840
In a time when mothers and female energy are being honored, it is important not to forget the importance of fathers
The idea of fatherhood is both personal and universal. We all have ideal concepts surrounding fatherhood, and we also have our real fathers. Fathers who were there or not there for us, fathers who provided financial support for our families or failed to do so, fathers who loved or neglected us, fathers who were our role models or gave us someone to rebel against. Our father may have been there for us sometimes and not there for us at other times. The process of reconciling the ideal father that resides in our minds with the father that we actually have is a fertile one that can teach us a great deal about ourselves.
Our relationship with our father will often affect our relationships with the other men who will come into our lives. You may have learned to behave and think in certain ways because those were the ways that your father acted and thought. Certain talents that you possess may have been passed down to you by your father. There also may be personal issues that you inherited by virtue of who your father is. Understanding how your relationship with your father has influenced you can help you better understand yourself and the life that you have created.
In a time when mothers, the sacred feminine, and female energy are being honored, it is important not to forget the importance of fathers. Father energy and mother energy are the two complementary energies necessary to bring a healthy human being to fruition in the world. Many of the ideas surrounding fathers are changing in the wake of more modern parenting styles and the more egalitarian roles that are evolving between the sexes. More men are embodying the mother energy these days, and a woman can provide father energy for her children. Either way, we can all benefit from thinking about our fathers and how they have influenced who we've become and the ways that we walk through this world. Let us remember to honor our fathers.
For the Failed Father’s
ReplyDelete17 Sunday Jun 2018
Posted by Charlie Riverman Bergeron in Heartbeams, Inspirational Posts, Morning 1st Glance, Presence Of Light, Reflection Tags Blessings, Inspiration, Meditations, Poetry, Prayers, Reflection, Writing
This picture is of my own father holding me in his lap in the Boston Public Gardens when I was obviously not very old at all.
We can clearly feel a sense of love in his smile that has bypassed the pain and suffering of his own childhood and maturation into maledom.
Obviously I was not a year old and now I’m working on completing my 70th.
He was 41 and not expecting to have children nor did he want them as he was the oldest of 10 children in a time when the world crashed around him.
There was a love/hate energy between he and his father because he had to leave school before entering the 8th grade to help his mother take care of his younger siblings.
A very brilliant child whose dreams of the future were shattered and he never overcame the pain of that wound no matter how many successes and knowledge he achieved.
His story is in many different forms the background for what I have called the Failed Fathers of which I am one.
So I am writing on this Father’s Day as I think about my own daughter who has not spoken to me in over 20 years, who will turn 50 years old in August.
Many men are reflecting inward today thinking about their own fathers and their children. Questioning in so many ways what they could have done better or why situations failed in spite of how much they loved their children.
This is not something new but has been ongoing for thousands of years in thousands of cultures. However today the Fathers of this world are being asked to heal their wounds.
Heal their wounds not only so that they may be free of their own pain and suffering but to change the Collective Patriarchal Insanity which is willing to sacrifice its future generations because of their inner misunderstandings.
Yes, I wrote it as misunderstandings because I’m not seeking to place blame on anyone. The blaming is only an outburst of that destructive fire which burns in the hearts of so many men. Partly in trying to find relief from our own pain.
WE see and feel when it arises and attacks those we love
WE feel more pain and suffering when it has scorched and burned
WE are tortured between two worlds that both seem to want to devour us
WE place blame on things outside of us which are mere circumstances
WE fail to look too far within ourselves because it is like facing Hell
A Hell that began when we were very young, perhaps even in infancy before WE could even recognize words or meanings.
So I share this today in hope that some who may read these words will be triggered to open that Pandora’s Box within them and begin to allow healing to flow into their hearts.
Allow that healing to flow from them firstly to those with whom amends can be made, in order to establish a pattern of gratitude and recognition that being a Male is not about conquering and accumulation at any cost.
The cost is always paid by the children who are born innocent.
And so I feel my energy shifting to Bless my daughter and offer her Divine Healing Grace. For she like all of us is a prisoner of thoughts that torture her and create hateful moments of pain.
Sometimes directed only in thought to herself but also in form to others and I have to accept some responsibility for all of it.
I AM the Divine Masculine who has not understood my True Meaning because it was perverted thousands of generations ago.
So GENTLEmen it is now time to reinvest in Our Sacred Self and heal first our own wounds and then bring forth the amazing True Power of the Divine Father we have never not been.
Love is not the enemy
May you each be Blessed on your journeys
I send you Peace, Light and Love
Charlie Riverman Bergeron
https://charlierivermanbergeron.blog/2018/06/17/for-the-failed-fathers/