Healing the father Wound

Healing the absent father wound,

 5 week mindfulness course 

Categories:  Mindfulness, Positive masculinity, therapy group. 

An absent father can leave a long last impact over the course of a lifetime for both men and women. This can be catechized by either emotional or physical absence and is both damaging and treatable. Large-scale studies over the last twenty years have demonstrated that ACEsincluding the loss of a father through death, divorce, or distancing, can cause a number of effects on those experiencing ACEs including:

• Smoking, substance abuse,  overeating, and hypersexuality in adolescence.
• Anxiety, depression, and hypersensitivity to loss as adults.
• Difficulty finding and maintaining  healthy adult love relationships.
• Increased risk of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
• Working long hours is a  subconscious attempt to withdraw from relationships.

Some statistics

In the UK, nearly one million children are growing up without any meaningful contact with their fathers. The proportion of single-parent households has tripled in the past 30 years.

• Around 5% of men have a      non-resident dependent child – around 1 million fathers.
• Family breakdown costs the UK some      £50 billion a year – more than the defense budget.
• Black Caribbean fathers are the      most likely to report not living with their children (32%), followed by mixed-race      fathers (21%) and Black African fathers (19%) Of fathers who don’t live      with their children, 13% have no contact
• In the US - Nearly   25 million children live without their biological father

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Crime

• 70% of adolescents in youth custody come from fatherless homes
• 60% of rapists are raised i fatherless homes
• Fatherless children are 11 times more likely to show violent behavior
• And are 20 times more likely to go to prison

Educational achievement

• Fatherless children are more  likely to score lower than the norm in reading and maths
• They are 9 times more likely to  drop out of school
• They are less likely to attain academic and professional qualifications in adulthood.

Physical & emotional health

• 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from fatherless homes
• Fatherless children are 2 times more likely to commit suicide
• They experience more accidents and a higher rate of chronic asthma, headaches and speech defects
• Sexual activity and teen pregnancy
• Children are 9 times more likely to be raped or sexually abused in a home without a biological father
• 70% of teen pregnancies happen in  fatherless homes

Stage 1 - Realization :

You can’t address a problem you don’t know exists. I had a moment of realization in one of my mentoring sessions when I realized I’d never defined what I expected of my father. When I finally met him at 25, part of me still felt let down and disappointed. I spent so much time focusing on meeting and confronting him, that I’d never given thought to what things would look like after the fact. I had an end in mind, but not an end defined after I met him.

I still tend to “analyze” right through my feelings, but if you’re more in touch with your emotions, you may be able to skip the realization step and start straight on with step two.

Stage 2 - Confrontation :

For years, my process was a realization, followed immediately by suppression. Even when you suppress your emotions, they still go somewhere. It’s like deleting a bunch of storage on your computer, but never emptying the trash. Just because it’s not on the desktop anymore doesn’t mean it isn’t taking up space.

Confrontation is just what it sounds like — confronting the issue. This step is done in a significantly healthier way after you’ve had time to realize and process your emotions, emptying the trash bin of your emotions.

It isn’t exactly the most fun part, because you never know how much it’s going to cost, or how painful it’s going to feel once it happens. Confrontation can be as simple as finally making a phone call to the estranged person in your life, even if you’re not sure about what you’re going to say. When I finally confronted my father, it was during a phone call when I was 25. I decided to raise capital, hire a crew, and film a documentary about my journey of finding and meeting him. Confrontation — especially when done publicly — isn’t easy, but it’s the only way to get to the root of the problem and begin fixing it.

Stage 3 - Forgiveness :

At this point, you’ve identified and confronted the issue and brought it to the right person. But forgiveness is a necessary step that bridges the gap between confrontation and reconciliation.

Since I had time to process, meditate, and get some insight from people, I was able to forgive my father by the time I confronted him. He didn’t owe me anything. I told him that I chose to believe that he did the best he could with the tools he had. But I also made sure he knew that it wasn’t enough and that I had some tough things to overcome as a kid because he wasn’t there. It can seem harsh, but sometimes people must know exactly why you’ve chosen to forgive them.

Stage 4- Reconciliation:

Sure, it’s easy to “take the high road” and tell someone you forgive them, but it needs to make the thousand-mile journey from your head to your heart. Don’t lead someone to believe you’ve forgiven them, but secretly hold a grudge. Reconciliation is a heart connection to the point where you expect nothing in return. After you’ve given the gift of forgiveness, you don’t hold your past pain against them.

Calling my father for the first time was tough. It was scary. It was emotional. But I did it. I forgave him, and not by just saying the words “I forgive you.” I had to forgive him in my heart first. Now, I can call him up and know that there isn’t any tension between us because we’ve reconciled. We’ve cleared the air. Our relationship isn’t perfect by any means, but we’re working on it, and he knows I’m not holding a grudge against him.

Stage 5 - Restoration:

If you’ve taken steps to realize, confront, forgive, and reconcile, and you’ve made peace in your heart about the situation, then you’ve done all you can do. People say time heals all wounds. But sometimes, if left untreated, time will only make it worse. It took me a while to understand this while healing my father's wound. Don’t suppress and cut yourself off from feeling. Living your life in a bubble won’t strengthen your emotional immune system; it will only make you even less prepared for when something finally gets in. You need light and air.

Many people have and will grow up fatherless just like I did, but that doesn’t mean we can’t end the cycle of fatherlessness in our families. I used to be a little afraid that I would be an absentee father because that’s what I experienced. To get over that fear, I chose to seek out some of the great fathers around me, and learn from them. I don’t have kids of my own, but I know I’m still influencing those around me as role models.