Father’s Day - Embrace Yourself 

With Father’s Day this week, I wanted to post some observations about the parent child bond. As a child, one is vulnerable and dependent on the parents for mental, emotional and physical survival needs. Our psyches develop healthily or unhealthily based on how we are protected and taught to frame and hold our experiences primarily by our parents or caregivers.

Some parents are evolved enough to create constructive context for their children’s experiences. They see their children clearly and provide protection, nurturing, love, and support for their children’s psyches and bodies. They provide boundaries and structure for mental, emotional and physical safety while still allowing the children freedom to explore who they are. The biggest gift a child can get from their parents is a clean and clear consciousness which has been fostered by the things mentioned above. If you are one of these parents, thank you for helping restore balance by fostering functioning, healthy, and whole children. If you are a child of such parents, thank them.

If the child had dysfunctional parents who injured them and were too injured themselves to provide protection and a stable, healthy framework, the child can be deeply wounded on all levels- spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. For these children, days like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be deeply emotionally complex and conflicted. Society teaches us that we are to seek love, validation and approval from our parents and to love and honor them even when they provide none of those things. This is anathema to the soul. The title of Mother or Father does not mean we automatically have to be in relationships with them when it is toxic for us. This conflict between the call for health and safety and society’s toxic expectations creates a dichotomy which can lead to feelings of anger, guilt, shame, sorrow, abandonment, hurt, mourning, and confusion alongside a love that doesn’t function healthily.

If you are one of these children, learning to reparent yourself is an essential step toward healing. Embracing activities that nurture you is key, anything from taking a bath, going on a walk, connecting with a friend or lover can become a sacred act of self love and validation. When painful thoughts, emotions or memories arise, meet them with loving compassion and do something to care for yourself. Allow yourself to mourn the parents you never had. Over time, you will begin to experience yourself as the best caregiver you will ever have, and that will be a healthy caregiver. How you do or don’t stay in relationship with your parents becomes about what is most nurturing for you. Extricate yourself from societal expectations and keep moving toward freedom. Embrace your inner beauty and allow it to bloom. On days like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, consider a ritual for celebrating yourself as your true caregiver and validater. You are your ultimate responsibility and freedom fighter!