I am fighting to find the right words. What to say, how to say it, what to write…? I hate being this stunted in my writing and sharing. I hate it because usually there is so much I want to say but can’t seem to get the words out. This time is not so different. This time, I want to write about my own healing experience that I began when I started with the Healing the Father Wound Workshop. Healing for me started there. It began when I opened my eyes and my heart to myself through my experience of father. I remember sitting there, among complete strangers, sharing about who my daddy was, and is. Sharing that I just couldn’t talk to him…Sharing how hard it was sometimes for me to even be around him cuz the air felt so stifling.

I remember, on the last day of the workshop going home and trying to have an important conversation with him. “Daddy you know, this workshop that I did, I think I really needed it.” As he looked up at me, slightly confused, because he wasn’t sure what workshop I did or what exactly I was talking about, I continued, “I think for a long time I couldn’t understand you a lot, and I didn’t know how to talk to you very well…Daddy…I love you. Sometimes you said some things that really hurt me, and made me question things about myself…that hurt. I know you love me, but sometimes I wish we could talk more.” I needed to say those things out loud, out of my head, and I needed to tell them to my daddy. I didn’t think I wanted to tell him so that he could miraculously change into someone else. I don’t even think I said it to ask him to apologise. I said it because I knew I really needed to say it, and to him.
He stared blankly at me for a little while. And then he hugged me. And I think that was all I really needed in that moment. To this day, the words we share are not that much, but they are more and I think more meaningful as well. Our relationship isn’t perfect but I like where we are right now. Daddy values my opinion, he asks me a lot of hard questions and sometimes we can share very deeply on social and political issues. But I think one of the best experiences I’ve had with daddy since the workshop is actually getting to go with him to his chemo treatment. I suppose it sounds kind of weird, but it was like…daddy is letting me see him be vulnerable. He is letting me be there for him. He is letting me spend time with him, talking during his new treatment about life and his plans for my sister and I and what he wants from us and things that concern him, and on and on.

I think when I look back on my life, and I look back on the experiences of the workshop and the experiences after the workshop, that the best thing about everything I’ve experienced with my father, is the opportunity to go back and say, you know what daddy, I know you’re not perfect but some things really hurt me in our relationship and I’d like to tell you that. It’s a bit daunting, but it feels so good to just let things go.

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to go back, and to retrieve my relationship with daddy. Sometimes when people ask me about my experience, that’s one of the things I’m excited to share about. Our relationship hasn’t become this sterling pillar of excellence, but I think that I’ve been changed in a way and I think that daddy and I are in a better place.

What if daddy isn’t around, or he isn’t someone you can talk to? What if daddy is gone? I think that healing is still possible then. It just comes a little differently. I have a friend who’s written a letter to her deceased dad, and she poured her entire self out, no animosity…She was honest with her feelings, which I think is very important. She was true to her experiences. And at the end of her letter writing, she sat up, wiped her face from the tears that had been streaming down, and just let it all go. In a long breath she let go of everything about her father that she felt had been chaining her to a host of bad choices and decisions and unhealthy patterns of thinking. It certainly wasn’t a one and done thing, but it was a first step in the right direction.

A lot of us, in one way or another have been hurt by a father who was either there, but not in the way we needed him, or a father who was never present to us. A lot of us carry that baggage around. It weighs us down. It weighs our relationships down. It even fosters some unhealthy patterns, in both men and women. But it is always important to remember hope. That healing is possible. And I think it is possible through self-care and self-love, the kind that tells us we don’t have all the answers and we need support from others. The kind that allows us to be vulnerable about it with someone we really trust.

For each of us, healing is possible. The question is, what step will I take to get there? What will be the decision I will make to help in the healing process? For me, it began with doing the workshop. It continued there with my own internal work, with rebuilding my relationship with daddy, and also in finding the support from second-chance fathers. Action, on our part, is always a necessary first step on the path to healing and wholeness. May you have the courage to take the first step.