That’s my dad and me before we started triggering each other.
My father wasn’t able to speak to me in the language of his heart while he was alive.
I found it quite healing to write myself a letter as if my Dad wrote to me from Heaven.
Did I make it up, or channel him from a soul level?
It doesn’t matter.
Here’s the letter:
Dear Scott,
I want to acknowledge that although I loved you dearly, I did not know how to offer you the empathy, acceptance, and breathing room you needed to feel safe, to grow, and to flourish.
Scott, I’m very sorry. I can now understand your hurt feelings.
You didn’t get the kind of loving you needed from me.
I didn’t get it from my parents either, and I vowed to do better as a parent and not repeat their mistakes.
And I did my very best with you. I put my heart and soul into it, but often my own unresolved pain prevented me from attending to your feelings and needs with love and compassion.
Instead of listening with my heart to the feelings you were expressing by acting out in school, I joined your teachers in believing you were a ‘problem child’.
I was so concerned with keeping you in line that I didn’t hear the cries of anguish and calls for help that were being voiced by your behavior.
My father controlled and intimidated me and I never was able to really speak up to him about it.
Having not forgiven him, when you were born I unconsciously started to do to you what my father did to me.
I was controlling, and I wanted you to follow in my footsteps with a traditional education and a ‘respectable’ career.
How hard this was for you, how stifling, how suffocating.
I’m so proud of you for surviving the wounds and trauma I passed on to you and going on to help others with their journey.
Yes, you’ve had your addictions, but drugs didn’t destroy you and you’ve risen out of the tomb of numbness to uncover your deep feelings, both the painful and the joyous ones.
I may have set a huge obstacle course for you, but the great news is that you are jumping over the hurdles, finding your way, sourcing your inner strength and learning to give to yourself the emotional nourishment that neither I nor your mother could give you.
I wish I could have honored your sensitivity and the tenderness of your feelings.
As a child I had my own vulnerability squashed enough times that I began to judge myself for having any emotions, with the exception of anger.
I felt some power in my anger, and so I held onto it as the central weapon in my defense system.
I hid my vulnerability deep inside myself, where eventually even I couldn’t find it. Till now.
In both childhood and adulthood, the world never seemed a safe enough place to allow my softer feelings expression.
I toughened up to survive, and thus was uncomfortable with your sensitivity. I tried to toughen you up like me. Loving intention. Prepare my son for a harsh cruel world.
Well, watching you live your life I’ve gotten to see that the world is neither harsh or cruel. It’s what you make of it, and I’m proud you’ve made your world loving and safe.
And I’m glad you’ve found the courage to resurrect your own vulnerability and learn to love yourself enough to feel your feelings so deeply. I respect you for that immeasurably.
Scott, I ask you to forgive me for my trespasses. I sense that you already have. Your daughter will probably need much less therapy than you did. Or I, for that matter.
I’m glad you are having the buck stop here and will not pass the legacy of these wounds on to the next generation.
I love you, Scott, as a soul and as a son. You’ve given me many gifts, and helped me grow and learn. I’m proud that others have been blessed by your journey as well.
I wish you much success and great rewards as you continue to become a compassionate human being, capable of loving and being loved.
From the spiritual sidelines and angelic vantage points, I’m watching you on the playing field and have been cheering non-stop.
Go out there and give ’em Heaven!
