Do you grant your father his place?

How do your mother and father's places in the fountain differ? You are 50% your father and 50% your mother. It is essential that a child inwardly “accepts” both parents (and you always remain your parents’ child). If you inwardly reject your parents, you establish a pattern of rejecting them out of an unconscious loyalty to yourself. There is a song by Stef Bos, a Dutch artist, titled “Papa, Ik Lijk Steeds Meer Op Jou” (“Daddy, I’m More and More Like You”) in which he sings about how he never really wanted to become like his father and yet that is exactly what happened. That is precisely what this law is about. The more your parents are allowed to be who they are, the greater the likelihood that you will not turn out like them.

Imagine a beautiful fountain consisting of several tiers filled with water. At the top are your ancestors, below them are your grandparents, and then comes the tier with your biological parents. Below them is a tier with you and your siblings in order of conception, and below that are your own children, miscarriages, abortions, and so on. You are always in the child tier, below your parents. No one place is better than the other. To feel whole and complete, you have to stand in your place in the fountain while granting both of your parents their places in the tier above you. Only when you are standing in your rightful place can you tap into the invisible flow of the fountain that is so essential to your well-being. You can deduce that if someone is having trouble figuring out their place in life, they are not standing in the right place in their fountain. Stepparents are not found in this fountain, nor are foster parents or adoptive parents. They have their own fountains, from which much good can flow. It is the fountain of the system of origin, however, that has the greatest influence on you. This system has laws, and they are inescapable. What you can do, though, is allow those invisible laws to work for you.

COULD YOU GIVE SOME EXAMPLES OF THESE LAWS?

You can only bear responsibility for what is yours. When you assume undue responsibility, you weaken both yourself and the other. Temporarily assuming responsibility is not a problem, but in the end you will lose it, because you cannot solve what is not yours. Take, for example, your mother’s insecurities after her marriage ended, your father’s addictive tendencies, or your parents not being able to deal with the emotions these issues brought up. Another immutable law is that you cannot break free of your family system of origin. If you fail to acknowledge where you come from, the patterns in your family system will haunt you even more intensely, even if you move to the other side of the world.

WHAT IS YOUR FATHER’S ROLE IN THE FAMILY SYSTEM, AND WHEN IS YOUR FATHER IN A HEALTHY PLACE IN THE FOUNTAIN?

If you grant your father his place, you will have natural drive and ambition. If you deny him his place, you will feel the need to prove yourself. You will seek validation. For a small percentage of people, however, the opposite is true, and they become completely powerless. They are unmotivated and show a complete lack of initiative. For some reason, your father is essential to the feeling of being “seen.” If you accuse your father of not seeing you, you will feel a desire to prove yourself in society and seek recognition. What makes this especially difficult is that the successes you achieve do not outweigh the empty feeling you experience inside when you do not grant your father his place. Suppose, however, that you do manage to “accept” your father; then that urge to prove yourself miraculously transforms into a natural drive to accomplish things. And that is a vastly different motivation than laboring under the desire to be seen. Your natural drive to achieve makes you much less sensitive to what the outside world thinks of you, and that brings inner peace. Another common pattern when you reject your father is that you become spiritual and will tend to seek out a father figure (a guru). It appears that when a father is inwardly rejected, people look elsewhere for guidance. Having your father inwardly with you makes you more “earthly.”

ACCORDING TO THE SYSTEM, WHEN COULD IT BE SAID THAT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A CHILD AND THEIR FATHER IS “HINDERED?”

If you are unable to place your father in the tier above you in the fountain, the relationship becomes “hindered” and you will feel the need to prove yourself. So how do you place your father above you in the fountain? The reason you are not standing in your rightful place in the fountain is because you sometimes “ascend” to higher tiers. This means you are no longer standing in your place (which forces you to do everything in life under your own steam because you are not tapping into the flow of the fountain) but instead have ascended to your parents’ tiers or even above them. You do this by, for example, assuming undue responsibility. Perhaps you take care of things your father should be doing, or you unburden him by not sharing the complexities of your life. Either way, you deny him his place.

Another form of ascension happens when you pass judgment on your father about what he gives, does, or fails to do. While you may be right, the trouble is that when you ascend above him in the fountain, you will not fare well (yet another law of nature). The people around you will likely confirm that your father acts “silly” or “strange,” which will only serve to strengthen your urge to ascend.

Your parents, and therefore your father, are a “package deal.” That means he is a bundle of all his beautiful and less-beautiful aspects, and everything you long for. You ascend when you refuse to accept any of these parts. If you only see the good in your father, you do not truly see him, because he is so much more than that. You idealize him. If you only see the not-so-good in him, you do not fully see him either. Only once you have said yes to the complete package will your father stand in his rightful place and the connection between the two of you be restored.

BUT SURELY YOU SHOULD NOT ACCEPT EVERYTHING—THINGS SUCH AS AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, ADDICTION, AND INSULTS?

That is correct. The tricky part is that you are dealing with a principle whereby you unconsciously adopt whatever behavior you reject in him. The more you insist that you do not want to be like your (for example) aggressive father, the greater the likelihood that you will also exhibit (passive-) aggressive behavior. The same goes for addictions, but perhaps you will develop a sugar, gambling, or sports addiction instead of a drinking problem. How can you work through this? By recognizing what is his and looking at what is yours. What is his is the aggressive behavior, the addiction, or the hurtful remark. Those you let go of. The behavior he engages in is his responsibility—it is nearly impossible to change that. What you can do, though, is give your father feedback on his behavior and how it affects you. You can also set boundaries. Perhaps you only allow him to visit when he is sober. That way, you can stay in your tier, and he can stay in his. Then you need to work out what is yours. Maybe you, too, tend to be hot-tempered and to raise your voice. Or it could be that you withdraw. Besides that, you are also bound to experience uncomfortable feelings: powerlessness, loneliness, rejection, and shame, to name a few. Your behavior and the feelings that accompany it are your own. You alone are responsible for them. Evaluate your behavior for its effectiveness and formulate concrete behavioral intentions for how you can react the next time. You can locate any uncomfortable feelings in your body and breathe to that place. This will immediately help you feel calmer.

WHAT DIFFICULTIES DO CHILDREN MOST OFTEN EXPERIENCE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR FATHERS?

Your father, too, has his own history. He may have taken care of his parents, or he may (also) have strong opinions about them. As a result, your father has experienced some flow deficits in the fountain. He may have gone through some traumatic experiences. Nor was there as much open discussion of feelings in the past as there is today. Some cultures also have tacit group norms whereby they would rather bite their tongue than express what is on their minds. So you never know what fate your father has suffered. A father’s children may be confronted with all kinds of behavior on his part. He may be inwardly absent. While he might be physically present, he may not be emotionally available. If your father rejected his mother (your grandmother) or cared for her to an extreme degree, he will lack the ability to connect with others. He will have insecure attachments. This also means that he cannot see you for who you are. You often experience this as rejection and harbor the false hope that if you had been nicer, kinder, smarter, more beautiful, etc., he would have noticed you. No, that is a lost cause. In most cases, it has nothing at all to do with you.

Sometimes a survival mechanism has hardened the father or, conversely, caused him to have narcissistic tendencies. Everything then has to revolve around him. An overly large ego was once the answer to something that happened in the past. It is also possible that he decided to do things differently than his parents, causing him to feel an enormous need to do a better job of raising his children, which, in turn, causes him to feel an extreme urge to give of himself. This often results in affectionate children, because the children then fulfill the father’s need to give (too) much love, which can be suffocating. The children then effectively take care of the father.

HOW CAN THE FOUNTAIN HELP YOU TO HEAL AND GRANT YOUR FATHER HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE?

It does not matter whether your father sees you or not. The question is whether you see him. You often blame your father for not being able to see you or for doing strange things or for neglecting something you consider essential. My counter question is then, “Can you see him as the whole package deal he is?” Sometimes a father simply cannot see you or give you what you so deeply long for. That is simply reality, however unfortunate, but in my opinion, reality is the most healing thing of all. In my experience, people who deal well with reality are better off, although I am not saying that it is easy. Yet pursuing false hope tends to be disastrous to the healing process. In my book The Fountain: Find Your Place, I describe in detail how you can let go, leaving with your father what is his and looking at what is yours. By doing this, you remain connected. And that will allow you to assume your rightful place in the fountain and prevent you from ascending. Because your children will always feel it whenever you have ascended. Initially, they will try to take care of you (which is impossible because they cannot bear a burden that is not theirs to bear), and then they will realize that they cannot solve it for you and will judge you. Gosh, are you not just like your parent? This is how patterns get passed on from generation to generation.

An important step in granting your father his place is to drop your claim. Children often think they are entitled to what they feel they have been deprived of, even if it is nothing more than an apology. Unfortunately, the fountain does not work that way. You then start making demands of your parents. And as an (adult) child, you have no right to make demands. You can ask questions and give feedback, but if you “demand” anything, you are actually saying that the parent is not a good parent. And if you do that, you will ascend and things will not go well for you. So the key is to let go of your claim. The fact is that, in almost all cases, you have received a great deal, and if you have not, then that is your fate. It is up to you to find an answer to your fate. Doing so will imbue you with strength and dignity.

HOW MIGHT YOUR LIFE TURN AROUND WHEN YOU START TO DEAL WITH THE “FATHER ISSUE?”

It is a very pleasant feeling to approach life with the thought: “I am fundamentally okay.” If you grant your father his place, you will no longer reject yourself. After all, you are 50% your father and 50% your mother. If you are able to fully embrace your father’s package deal, you will also become much less critical of others. You will learn to look at things in a more nuanced way because you understand that people are simply a package deal. This will make you milder and more compassionate toward others, including yourself. You will also notice that you need less validation from others. And you will probably get less caught up in conflicts with authority figures. If you are unable to grant your father his place above you in the fountain, that pattern will keep repeating itself throughout your life, including your professional life. It often manifests itself in antagonism toward your superiors or other people in positions of authority. If you can place your father above you in the fountain, it shows on your face. You will notice that you develop more powerful features. That is very attractive. If you are a man, it is even more important to inwardly accept your father. If you reject him, you reject your own masculine power. And little boys can only learn what it means to be a man from their father. A mother can never fulfill that role.

Finally, I am convinced that if people have less of a need to prove themselves, we will create a better world in which we are more willing to give each other our due. When “alpha males” (this can also apply to women) compete with one another, we are left with envy, aggression, and less tolerance for one another. Imagine how much energy we could harness to accomplish wonderful things if we realized we did not have to constantly prove ourselves or feel like we had to earn our place. No more energy leaks on turmoil and strife—just think of the good we could do!