Healing the Father Wound
I am not ashamed to admit that sometimes I still find myself searching for my dad.
Sometimes, I am so angry at him that he’s not in my life.
Sometimes, I am so angry at myself that I miss him.
Sometimes, I am heartbroken and wish that he was close.
Sometimes, I accept that he cannot be a father to me and I am okay not having a relationship with him.
Sometimes, I can recognize his own wounds and I feel a tremendous amount of compassion.
Sometimes, I fantasize about what life could look like if he was in my life.
Sometimes, I feel ungrateful that I can’t just be happy with the parents I do have.
Sometimes, I find myself looking for him in my marriage. Unconsciously, wanting my husband to be more like him, even if that means being less loving and attentive.
Sometimes, I wonder if he thinks about me and wishes he had a healthy relationship with me.
Sometimes, I think maybe it would have been easier if my mom had never met him.
Sometimes, I think about what if my mom had me with my step-dad. Would I be more adjusted? Healthier? Happier?
What I am describing is grief.
I have been grieving the loss of my father since the moment I knew he existed. But my father isn’t dead. He’s very much alive and very much absent.
You see, the experience of grief isn’t just for the non-living. As humans, we are constantly grieving the loss of people that are still alive.
The father wound is all about experiencing grief and loss. It is about yearning to feel love but instead feeling absence.
It’s the absence of love that makes the wound so profound.
The absence of love doesn’t just come from physical or emotional absence either. It can come from abuse (physical, emotional, or sexual), substance abuse (alcohol or drugs), excessive lying, cheating/ living a double life, manipulation, or obsessive control.
And no matter how you experience the father wound and this absence of love, it can leave you feeling conflicted.
There are so many questions and wondering that are attached to the wound. There also is a lot of shame, embarrassment, and hiding. It can be very difficult to admit the gravity of the wound and confront it. It is much easier to pretend it doesn’t exist and convince yourself you don’t care.
It is especially difficult to experience the wound as a Christian. As Christians, we are taught to honor our father and mother. We are taught to forgive. It can be very confusing to know how to navigate a relationship with our father or what is okay and not okay to feel.
Many people have told me in so many different words that they have felt ashamed for many years because they have been angry with their father. They believe they are supposed to honor him and forgive him but feel conflicted because they have so much resentment.
I know this feeling well and I understand the conflict in these sentiments. Most people are earnestly seeking to have a healthy relationship with their fathers and heal their wound so they can experience more joy and peace. We all want to be free from pain.
But the reality is the wound exists because there is a deep pain that we cannot fully free from. At least not in this life.
The pain exists to remind us of what we have experienced with our father and our father’s limitations and imperfections. It reminds us how much we desire a father, a good father, and how much we need a good father.
If the pain wasn’t there and if we truly were “over it,” we’d be disconnected from the deepest parts of ourselves. We wouldn’t see our need for fatherly, tender, love.
As Christians that yearning for fatherly tender love brings us closer to God the Father.
And sometimes our woundedness blocks us from drawing closer to God the Father. We tend to retreat from God, or any person that shows us something that is very different from the kind of “love” we are used to.
In my own life, it took me many years to have a relationship with God the Father. It was easy for me to believe in Jesus and draw closer to a human savior, but a divine Father who desired a relationship with me seemed far-fetched. When I thought about God as being a Loving Father, I couldn’t help but think of him more as tyrannical or absent. My human relationships with men had colored the way I saw God, and my woundedness kept me from the love that God was trying to pour into my heart. So instead of receiving God’s fatherly love, I allowed myself to receive a counterfeit version of love. A kind of “love” that was familiar and all too painful. This kept me in a cycle of falling deeper into my woundedness and feeling more and more distrust of God.
The feeling of distrust is far too common when experiencing the father wound. It is difficult to trust that God or just about anyone has your best interest in mind. This mistrust leaves us with the tendency to grasp for control and since life is mostly out of our control, we tend to be anxious about many things.
We might also discover that we tend to push people away when they get too close or chase them to make sure they stay close. We might even discover that we tend to be very insecure in relationships and have difficulty trusting in our own selves.
The fear of loss and the absence of love is always at the root.
So what can we do if we have a father wound? How are we supposed to heal?
Well, similar to my “Healing the Mother Wound” post.
We first need to identify the wound.
Identify the wound: looks like accepting that we have been hurt by our father and naming how the wound has hurt us.
The next thing we have to do is validate the feelings.
Validate the feelings: looks like allowing ourselves to feel whatever emotions come from the father wound- anger, fear, mistrust, frustration, shame, etc. We have to remind ourselves that it makes sense why we feel this way and that it is okay that we feel this way. There is no wrong or bad emotion. Emotions are just natural responses to experiences. They are not something that we can fully control. They are meant to be experienced fully and they offer us a lot of wisdom. For example, your anger might be telling you that you still need to forgive your father. Your shame may be telling you that you need to talk to someone about your wound whom you can trust and who you know won’t judge you.
After we validate our feelings, we then want to practice mirroring a “good father.”
Mirroring a “good father:” looks like imagining what a “good father” would say and do, and then trying to live our life accordingly. Sometimes we forget that we have the power to offer ourselves the things we so desperately desire. So if you imagine a “good father” to be attentive to your emotional world and be curious about what’s happening in your life, then practice being more attentive to your emotional world. Journal about what’s happening in your life or practice mindfulness techniques to help you stay more present.
After mirroring the “good father” we also want to make sure that we allow ourselves to grieve.
Grieving the loss of your father: looks like allowing ourselves to feel different experiences of grief- anger, sadness/ depression, denial, bargaining, and acceptance without judgment. In order to properly grieve we have to allow ourselves to naturally go in and out of these different experiences, and trust that over time, we will begin to accept the absence of him (or absence of love, presence, connection) and live with more healing.
Then lastly and most importantly we want to take this wound to our Heavenly Father.
Taking the wound to our Heavenly Father: looks like first examining if we have any projections of our earthly father onto our Heavenly Father and then working through those projections in daily prayer. We need to be honest with God about how we are feeling and how the wound impacts us.
It can be helpful to imagine God The Father holding you tenderly and taking the pain that your father has caused you, and putting it in His own heart. It may also be helpful to pray with an image of God that provides you comfort. This could also look like praying in front of the beach, or the sunset, or whatever will help you to better connect with God. It’s also important that we ask God to help us forgive our earthly father.
And we have to be willing to forgive: Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting about the wound or the pain your father has caused, but it’s about letting go of the resentment or frustration that steals your freedom and peace. Another way to think about it is by imagining yourself going into surgery. Forgiveness will take a lot of work and it will be painful, but when you let go and let the doctor perform the surgery of removing what’s impacting your health and well-being, you can come out more whole and healed.
Other practical tips:
Journal often- allow yourself to express the loss of love and the feelings associated
Write letters to your father and practice expressing yourself (you do not need to send these letters)
Write a letter of gratitude for the good things you can appreciate about him
Explore your boundaries with your father and practice exercising healthy boundaries
Talk to a trained professional therapist and use their support to help you heal
Go to Confession. Try to stay in the state of grace so that you can have more clarity and avoid making decisions or responding to your father with pride, your own woundedness, or sin
Write down a list of lies that you began to believe about yourself since you started feeling the father wound and then write a list of what you want to believe about yourself or what God The Father says about you
Develop a healthy relationship with a parish priest or attend regular spiritual direction with a priest (priests are our spiritual fathers)
Think about the “father figures” who have blessed your life and thank God for the ways He provides for you
Pray with scripture that reflects the “Good Father” and helps you to get to know who the “Good Father” is
Psalm 68:5
Isaiah 64:8
Malachi 2:10
James 1:17
Psalm 103:13
John 14: 9-11
1 John 3:1
Proverbs 3:11-12
2 Corinth. 1:3-4
Hebrews 12:7
Deut. 1: 29-31
Matthew 10:29-31
Luke 15:11-32
1 John 3:1
May our Heavenly Father richly bless you and fill you with all the love and peace your heart needs.