This is how your relationship with your father impacts your life

This is how your relationship with your father impacts your life

19.04.2019
| Els van Steijn for holistik.nl

Your father is the person who gives you your natural vigour and ambition, as long as he’s in the correct place in the family system. Has your father given up his place as father? Then there will be a desire to prove yourself and an age-long search for recognition. What’s tricky though, is that the successes you achieve will never outweigh the empty feeling you experience if you don’t allow your father his place. 

What's so important about fathers?
Your father is the person who gives you your natural vigour and ambition, as long as he’s in the correct place in the family system. Has your father given up his place as father? Then there will be a desire to prove yourself and an age-long search for recognition. What’s tricky though, is that the successes you achieve will never outweigh the empty feeling you experience if you don’t allow your father his place. 
 
You are 50% your father and 50% your mother. ‘Accepting’ both parents inwardly is essential for a child. Because you are always your parents’ child. When you reject your parents inwardly, you install the very pattern that you reject in them out of unconscious loyalty to yourself. Do you know the beautiful song by Stef Bos about his father (in Dutch), ‘Papa, I look more and more like you’, in which he sings about not wanting to become like his father, but it happening nonetheless? That is what this law is about. The more your parents are allowed to be who they are, the greater the chance you won’t become like them. Imagine a beautiful fountain made up of multiple trays of water. At the top are your forefathers, under them your grandfathers and grandmothers, then the tray with your biological parents, and beneath that you with your brothers and sisters in order of birth, and then underneath again, your children, miscarriages, abortions etc. You are always in the child tray beneath your parents. One place is not better than the other. In order to feel inner fulfilment, you have to stand in your place in the fountain, allowing both parents to stand in the tray above you. Only when you’re in your place can you capture the invisible flow of the fountain, a flow that is so essential for your wellbeing. You can be sure that if someone has trouble finding their place in daily life, he or she is not in the right place in the fountain. Step parents are not in this fountain, neither are foster parents and adoptive parents. They form another fountain, which often provides a lot of good. The fountain of the system of origin is the system with the biggest influence on you. This system has laws, which are unavoidable. What you can do however, is make these invisible laws work for you.
 
What other examples of these laws exist?
You can only carry what is yours. When you take over responsibility that isn’t yours, you weaken  both yourself and the other person. Temporarily taking over responsibility is not a problem, but ultimately you lose it, as you can’t solve what isn’t yours. For example, the insecurity your mother has following the end of her marriage, your father’s tendency for addiction or their inability to deal with the accompanying emotions. Another law, is that you cannot leave your system of origin. If you don’t acknowledge where you come from, the patterns from your family system will only follow you even more; even if you move to the other side of the world.
 
What is the role of your father, according to the family system? 
By allowing your father his place, you get your natural vigour and ambition. If you deny your father his place, there will an urge to prove yourself. You will go in search of acknowledgement. A small portion of people however do the complete opposite, which is become totally complacent. They are unable to move forward and show absolutely no initiative at all. For some reason, your father is essential for your feeling of ‘being seen’. When you blame your father for not ‘seeing’ you, the desire surfaces to prove yourself socially and seek recognition. What’s tricky, is that the successes you achieve will never outweigh the inner emptiness you experience if you don’t allow your father his place. Suppose you do manage to 'accept' your father, then the need to prove yourself is miraculously converted into your natural urge to act. And that is a very different motive to working based on a desire to be seen. With your natural urge to act, you are much less sensitive to what the outside world thinks of you, which creates calm. Another known pattern that emerges if you reject your father, is turning to spirituality and often seeking a father figure (guru). It seems that in the absence of your father in you, you will seek guidance elsewhere. With your father at your side inwardly, you become 'more grounded'.
 
When is there a 'disrupted bond' between you and your father? 
If you are not able to put your father in the tray above you in the fountain, then the bond becomes ‘disrupted’ and an urge to prove yourself emerges. How do you put your father above you in the fountain? The reason you’re not in your right place in the fountain is because sometimes you move upwards in the fountain. And so you no longer stand in your place (meaning you have to do everything on your own in life, because you’re not able to capture the flow of the fountain). You’ve ‘ascended’ to your parents’ tray, or even higher. You do this, for example, by taking over responsibility from your father that’s not yours. Organising things, for instance, that he should actually be taking care of, or sheltering him by not sharing the difficulties you’re facing in life. By doing so, you are denying him his place. Another way of ascending is having a judgement about your father. What’s challenging, is that you could indeed be right, but if you ascend above him in the fountain things won’t go well for you (again, a law). Often, your surroundings also reaffirm that your father is behaving ‘unusual’ or ‘strange’, making you feel more empowered to ascend… Your parents, and so also your father, are a ‘package deal’. Which means that he is a ‘package’ of all the good, the less good and also everything you so long for. You ascend if you don’t accept certain parts. If you only see the good you don’t see your father, because he brings so much more. You idealise him. If you only see the less positive, you’re not seeing him either. Only when you say yes to the complete picture, will your father be able to take his place and the bond be restored.
 
But surely you don't want to accept everything? What about agression, an addiction of insulting behaviour?
Correct. What’s difficult, is that you’re dealing with the law whereby you unconsciously install in yourself what you reject in him. The louder you shout that you don’t want to resemble your aggressive father (for example), the more likely it is that you will also display (passive) aggressive behaviour. The same with addiction. Perhaps you’ll get a sugar, gambling or exercise addiction instead of an alcohol addiction. How can you deal with this? You leave what is his with him and face what is yours. What belongs to him, is the aggressive behaviour, the addiction or the ugly remarks.  You let these go. What behaviour he displays is his responsibility, something you can nearly never change. What you always can do, is give your father feedback about his behaviour and what it does to you.
 
You can also set boundaries. For instance, that he can only visit you if he’s sober. By doing this, you stay in your tray and he in his. You then seek out what is yours. Perhaps that you are unkind and start shouting. Or that you withdraw. In addition, you will always experience unpleasant feelings: powerlessness, loneliness, feeling rejected or shame etc. Your behaviour, and the feelings that go with it, belong to you. You are responsible for them and nobody else. Evaluate your behaviour on effectiveness and formulate concrete behavioural intentions for how you can react the next time. You can track down the unwelcome feelings in your body and focus your breathing on them. You will immediately feel calmer. 
 
What are the most voiced difficulties that children experience in the contact with their father?
Your father also has a history. Maybe he’s cared for his parents or (also) has a marked opinion about his parents. Which means your father has missed out on things in the fountain. Perhaps he’s been through traumatic experiences. In the ‘olden days’ feelings weren’t so openly discussed as they are today. Some cultures also have an unwritten group norm that they’d rather rip out their tongues than express what’s actually going on (in Indonesia, among others). And so, you never know your father’s destiny. The children of this father may encounter all kinds of behaviour from their father. Possibly, the father is inwardly absent. Although he is physically in the space, he’s emotionally unreachable. If your father has rejected his mother (your grandmother) or has taken on a high level of care for her, he lacks the ability to connect with other people. He’s attached insecurely. (See the article, ‘What the connection with your mother tells you about your love life). This also means that in essence, he cannot see you either. You often experience this as rejection and maintain the false hope that had you been kinder, nicer, smarter, prettier etc., that he would have seen you. Absolutely not. In most cases, it’s got nothing to do with you. Sometimes the survival mechanism has hardened the father, or even caused him to have narcistic tendencies. Everything needs to be about him. Too big an ego was once an answer to something that happened in the past. It can also be possible that he has decided to do things differently to his parents, meaning he has an enormous need to raise the children impossibly well, resulting in him having extreme care needs. This behaviour often creates dependent children, because the children then provide for the father's need to give (too) much love, which is suffocating. The children are then actually taking care of the father.
 
How can the fountain help in the healing process, to allow your father his rightfull place?
It doesn’t matter whether your father sees you or not. The question is whether you see him. Often you blame your father for not seeing you or doing inappropriate things, or perhaps even neglecting something essential for you. My response then is ‘can you see him as part of the total package deal?’. Sometimes a father simply cannot see you and cannot give you what you want. That is reality. And in my opinion, reality is healing. Experience has taught me that people are able to handle reality. Even though it may not be easy. False hope is a disaster for the healing process. In my book, ‘The Fountain, find your place’, I describe in detail how to let go: leaving your father what is his and facing what is yours. By doing so, you stay connected. You get to your place in the fountain and avoid ascending. Because if you’ve ascended, your children will always feel it.
 
How do children react to a parent who as ascended in the fountain?
Initially, they will start taking care of you (something that’s not possible as they cannot carry what isn’t theirs). Children will usually then realise that they cannot solve it for you and start making judgements about you. Goodness me, you’re just like your parent… And this is how patterns are passed on from generation to generation. An important step in allowing your father his place is letting go of your claim. Children often think they have the right to what they believe to have missed out on, even it was only an apology. Unfortunately, this is not how the fountain works. You will start demanding things of your parents. And as a (grown up) child, you have no right to make demands. You can ask questions and give feedback, but if you ‘demand’, you are actually saying that the parent is not a good parent. You will ascend and things won’t go well for you. The art is to let go of your claim. In nearly all cases, you have received a lot, and if not, then this is your destiny. You need to find an answer to your fate. This gives strength and self-worth.
 
What positive things can happen when you allow your father his place? 
It’s a really nice feeling to go through life with the thought ‘fundamentally, I’m okay’. By allowing your father his place, you therefore no longer reject yourself. After all, you are 50% your father and 50% your mother. If you are able to embrace the package deal of your father at a deep level, you’ll also become less critical of other people. You learn to take a more nuanced view, because you understand that people are a package deal. Which makes you softer and more compassionate about others, including yourself. You will also notice that you need less validation from other people. And you’ll also probably get less involved in conflicts with authority. If you cannot put your father above you in the fountain, that pattern will repeat itself in your further life. So also, in your professional life. This often expresses itself in the form of arguments with superiors or with other authorities. If you can place your father above you in the fountain, you can literally see this reflected in your face. You will find you start to get more powerful traits. Which is very attractive. If you’re a man, it’s all the more important to accept your father inwardly. Reject him, and you’re rejecting your male strength. And boys can only learn from their father what it means to be a man. A mother can never achieve this. 
 
How does all the explanation above work if your father is absent? 
That’s a good question. Because indeed, many people live in the knowledge that the father was an anonymous sperm donor, a one-night stand, a young man that couldn’t take on the responsibility or an adult man that left after a fight with your mother. And an important group lack their father because he died too young. The fact remains, how wonderful it is that all these men were (briefly) in your mother’s life. You are important proof of this, despite the sense of missing out. To heal the pain, you can start by seeing your father. So no longer push him away, but truly see him. You then connect to the total ‘package deal’ that parents are, and not only the less positive of him not being there (anymore). Who is he, or would he have been and what are the positives that you recognise in yourself? After all, you are 50% your father and 50% your mother. Do you have a photo? Do you have family members who could help you? If your father died when you were 14-years-old, you could also say that you had a gift for 14 years instead of absence for 20. A family constellation, a method in which your family system is mapped out, including your father, can help you take your place relative to your father in the fountain in the family system.
 
Anything else to share?
I’m convinced that if people had less of a desire to prove themselves, we would have a better world in which we are more generous. When ‘alpha males’ (which women can be too) compete with each other, we get envy, aggression and less space for each other. If you don’t feel the constant need to prove yourself or don’t have the idea that you constantly have to earn your place, we could use all the energy no longer being lost to conflicts and hassle for something good. Imagine all the great things we could achieve!