Healing the Father Wound for Personal and Professional Fulfillment
November 24, 2020
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March 11, 2021
What does it mean to “take our parents” and why is it important?
In Family Constellations we use this term to mean an inner embracing, a deep integration of our parents within us, just as they are and were. This taking goes beyond “accepting” our parents, which is a mental attitude that actually makes us feel superior to those we accept. Since life flowed through our parents and onto us, when we succeed in this healing movement, we become aligned with life itself.
For some people taking their parents is easy to imagine and for others this may seem like an impossible task. After all, some people think, how can I possibly embrace the people that hurt me so much?
Improving Your Bond and Relationship With Your Parents
There is a part in ourselves, a wounded child, that may have felt ignored, neglected, abused, smothered, abandoned etc. and wants to protect itself from the pain by rejecting our parents. The healing process can begin when, in spite of the wounds, our desire to heal is stronger than our anger, when we are open to the possibility of seeing our parents through a different, softer, wider gaze. At the same time, we ourselves can become the inner parent for that part of ourselves, we can be the adult that lovingly nurtures and takes care of our inner child and his/her needs.
In Family Constellations we go into another realm, the realm of the soul. In that level, we are presented with the subconscious dynamics that we are not able to perceive in everyday life. I have often seen that even though it appears that a client may be angry and want nothing to do with his/her parents, at this deeper level something completely different comes to light. Sometimes there is a deep longing for them, or a desire to save them and take on their burdens, or repeat their destiny, or many other entanglements that can emerge. As a result of not taking our parents, we are not fully present for our life, our present family, projects, etc. because part of our energy is fixated on the entanglement.
Some of the consequences of rejecting our parents:
- Not being able to be satisfied with our life, no matter what
- Feeling unsupported and alone
- Constantly seeking for something on the outside (and getting dissatisfied with it after a while)
- Depression and dysthymia
- Lack of self-esteem, feeling unworthy, inability to love ourselves just as we are
- Missing the strength to navigate the difficulties that come our way
- Inability to manifest our projects
- Feeling of emptiness, an existential void within
- Addictive behaviours
- Unfulfilling relationships (subconsciously seeking that the partner gives us what we did not receive from the parents)
- Feeling disconnected from life, from others
- Feeling unsafe
- Difficulty in trusting (life, others)
- Inability to create long-lasting, nurturing, connected bonds with others
“No matter how far away you go, you will always be connected to your parents, either in a way that strengthens you or in a way that weakens you.”
– Marina Toledo
Say to yourself: I am the son/daughter of . What comes up when you say that or when you imagine your parents in front of you?
Transforming the inner image of your parents and the emotions that come up when you think of them is one of the most life affirming processes you can do in your healing journey.
What is involved in taking your parents:
- Assenting to them as they are
- Feeling that they are the right ones for you
- Acknowledging their greatness because of the mere fact that they brought you into life
- Seeing yourself as the child, the small one in comparison
- Respecting them and their destiny
- Taking what came to you from them
- Letting go of the expectation that they should have given you more than what they could give
- Seeing them together in you
- Leaving what belongs to them with them and not taking it on to want to save them
- Feeling that you have their blessing and permission to live your own life and do it in a way that may be different from the way they lived theirs
Are you ready to begin the journey to take your parents into your heart?
Join us for my upcoming Family Constellations Online Workshop or go deeper in my Family Constellations Training Modules where two are dedicated specifically to the parents: Healing the Mother Wound and Healing the Father Wound.
