Sometimes peace with our father begins when we stop waiting for him to become the father we needed.
Father’s Day can be a beautiful day of celebration. For some, it is filled with laughter, memories and gratitude. For others, it can bring up something much more complicated: sadness, disappointment, anger, longing, or simply the sense that something was missing.
Not everyone had the father they wished for:
Some fathers were loving and present.
Some were distant.
Some were unable to express their feelings.
Some left.
Some died too soon.
Some were overwhelmed by their own lives and histories.
And some caused wounds that are not easily forgotten.
So what do the Orders of Love have to say about our fathers? Perhaps something surprisingly simple:
Your father is Your father.
Not the father you wanted.
Not the father you imagined he could have been.
Not the father you believe he should have been.
But the father through whom your life came to you.
The father behind the role
We often see our parents only through the role they played in our lives. For example, we have a repeating mantra in our heads for all our lives that goes:
He wasn’t there.
He didn’t protect me.
He never understood me.
He worked all the time.
He was too strict.
He was emotionally unavailable.
And these may have been the real experience. Yet, Family Constellation invites us to look beyond the personal story and ask a different question:
Who was this man before he became our father?
He too was once a child.
He had parents.
He had his own longing and disappointments.
He carried his own family history.
Perhaps he experienced loss, war, poverty, rejection, displacement or circumstances we know little about.
Seeing this does not excuse harmful behaviour and certainly does not mean pretending that something painful did not happen. And it does not require us to have a close relationship with our father. It simply allows us to see him as a whole human being rather than only through the lens of what we needed from him.
The freedom in accepting what was
There is a subtle difference between acceptance and approval.
Acceptance says:
This is what happened.
This was my father.
This is what he was able to give.
And this is what he was not able to give.
When we stop fighting with reality, something inside us can begin to settle. Sometimes our deepest struggle is not only with what happened. It is with the fact that we wish it had been different.
We may spend years internally asking:
Why couldn’t he have loved me more?
Why couldn’t he have been there?
Why couldn’t he have been the father I needed?
And perhaps one day there is another possibility:
What if I no longer need him to have been different in order for me to live my life fully?
Taking the father with us — without carrying his burden
In Family Constellation, the father can also represent something larger than the personal relationship.
He represents a movement outward: from the family into the world. The movement goes toward life, independence, action, direction and our own path. When we remain entangled in the struggle with our father, part of our energy can remain turned backwards.
We are still trying to prove something. Still waiting for recognition. Still hoping to finally be seen. Still trying to receive what was missing. But there can come a moment when we turn around and no longer aim away from our father, but aim
Towards our own life.
Perhaps with a simple inner movement:
You are my father.
I am your child.
You gave me life.
I will take what came from you and make something good of it.
We don’t need to carry everything that belongs to him and we don’t need to repeat his life. We definitely don’t need to repair his past. We can leave what belongs to him with him, and take what belongs to us.
YOUR life, as it was intended to be.
And what about the fathers who are no longer here?
Father’s Day can be particularly poignant when a father has died. There may be words that were never spoken. Questions that were never answered. Perhaps there was love. Perhaps there was conflict. Perhaps there was very little relationship at all. Yet even when the relationship was complicated, there is still something profound about acknowledging:
This man was my father.
And from that place, rather than trying to rewrite the past, you can allow the past to take its place.
Not perfect – Not ideal – Simply YOURS.
A different kind of Father’s Day
Perhaps this Father’s Day doesn’t have to be about having the perfect relationship with our father. Rather, it can simply be about making peace with the father we actually had. And perhaps that peace begins with turning our gaze away from what was missing and towards what is possible now.
Our father belongs to our story. But he does not have to determine our future. We can honour what was. We can acknowledge what wasn’t. And then we can turn towards our own life.
This Father’s Day, perhaps ask yourself:
What am I still waiting for my father to give me?
What would happen if I stopped waiting?
What could I take from my father—and from life itself—and use to create something meaningful of my own?
Sometimes the most profound movement is not towards our father.
It is the movement from our father into our own life.
Here at familyconstellationVIRTUAL, we can support you in finding your way into your own life, with the support of your father, whatever the relationship might be or has been. With our workshops, one-on-one sessions and trainings, we decipher the underlying cause of a difficult relationship with your father and find what mends it. In return, you walk with more freedom and happiness on your own path.
Happy Father’s Day.
Maia