Last year on Father’s Day I put out a few thoughts on fatherhood on my Facebook feed. I have more to share this year with those men and in some cases women that are growing into the father role.
I am going to focus on men in this post, it is Father’s Day after all.
I’m going to begin and end with this quote, I received this from Rhett Smith as he quotes the original author Richard Rohr – this quote is originally from Rhett’s book ‘What it Means to be a Man‘ (which I have not yet read):
“When a father tells a child that he can do something, he can do it. I don’t know why that is, except to say that there is some mysterious energy that passes from the male to his children. It is some sort of creative energy that can make things be when they are not, and without which things cannot come to be. When male energy is absent, creation does not happen, either in the human soul or in the world. Nurturance happens, support and love perhaps, but not that new ‘creation out of nothing,” that is the unique prerogative associated with the masculine side of God…Without the father’s energy, there is a void, an emptiness in the soul which nothing but that kind of energy can fill. I have seen it in too many people, men especially. It is a hollow yearning that feeds on praise incessantly and is never satisfied. It is a black hole that sucks in reward after reward and is never brightened by it. It becomes a nesting place of demons–of self-doubt, fear, mistrust, cynicism, and rage. And it becomes the places from which those demons fly out to devour others.”
I’ll come back to this quote, and the power it has had in my journey – a little later this post.
Only recently did I truly come to understand that there is multigenerational responsibilties when it comes to fatherhood and parenting in general. Many times I heard the cliches along the lines of ‘you are your father’s son’ and the ‘apple doesn’t fall far – blah blah blah.’
I did not really understand this until I had sons of my own.
I believe there is an entire post of what the process of becoming a parent does in terms of your understanding and various emotional reactions such as: appreciation, apprehension, disgust, recognition, love, and ultimately acceptance of everything your parents brought to bear in raising you up.
I truly find it fascinating that there are people out there that claim that their childhood was perfect, and that their parents were the best ever. I believe that everyone has a flaw or two or many more, and as children we invariably are affected by varying degrees as a result. If you are one of those people reading this that react to this with ‘not my parents’ – you are lying to yourself and likely have never examined deeply what has brought you to today.
I am convinced of this, as I used to say my childhood was ‘great and with no issues’ about my upbringing until very recently. Ironically, I thought I was just incredible as a father for a few years too – maybe I was in some ways. However, I know now what it takes to be a man first before being a father.
Well, all of that self congratulating ‘as an incredible Dad’ has been torn down, and I can point to things that I need to work on. I can point to challenges from my upbringing as well my own self inflicted challenges. I can point to the gifts that I have been given so many times over by my parents, by extension their parents, and of course the gifts I have uncovered on my own. The process of dissolving these default beliefs started back in 2015, and really accelerated in January of 2016. As I journeyed through the dissolution and the rebuilding of myself, I found myself recasting my role as a son and as a father – among other roles I own.
Upon taking a hard look at being a son and a father a very surprising thing happened.
I finally began to understand myself and in many ways – my father too. This deepening understanding of myself and greater connection with my old man were erupting together. Unexpected benefit here – getting to know my father in a better way by studying myself.
I also discovered that I was exactly what I was supposed to be at the time of all of this self examination.
I had been informed by the culture I operated within that self esteem and outward signs of success were great marks of value and of self worth. I am a child of the 80’s and 90’s after all…
I had been led to believe that I had a number of problems and fundamental things that were just wrong and broken about my make up.
I was beginning to crack open the magic of self acceptance, and that none of this outward stuff mattered. That many of the inbound stories were also of limited use that I had let creep into my self narrative. I began to believe that the deck of cards I had was exactly what I needed to have, and that I needed to truly value the stacked hand I had been dealt.
With bloody knuckles – the level of self acceptance I had operated with over the years was completely in the shitter. The self resentment and in many ways insecurity was fueling so much of the habits in my life that were giving me exactly what I did not want in my life.
- My stress levels were through the roof.
- My marriage was consistently on the rocks.
- My kids were acting out.
- My attention span was limited and many times distracted.
- My career was seemingly going great.
- My health was unknown as I did not have time to visit the doctor for over five years.
- My body was the classic dad bod – soft, a little extra fat, and many times hunched over due to my shitty posture from my desk job.
The only person to blame in all of this – is myself. I have had others in my life tell me that I’m being too hard on myself, and that it is not accurate. Here is what I believe – by taking ownership of it all, good, bad, true, untrue – I’m moving forward way faster than trying to parse the fairness of my assessment. Instead, I’m bulldozing all sorts of garbage over the last few years. I’ve moved past the blame, that does not matter either.
As I learned over the course of 2016 and especially in 2017 – many of the things I had been led to believe as being ‘bad’ by some of those closest (including myself in this statement too) in my life – turned out to be my innate nature. I learned that I am of a certain personality type, and that I handle such things as emotions and uncertain situations in a largely predictable way. I learned a ton of things about my makeup that were just simply part of my wiring. No need to judge. All of this was just information, new information about a longstanding subject – myself.
I also learned that there were tons of opportunities to change my wiring if I wanted. I have set out to deliberately rewire a bunch within myself and within my life. I am doing so from a posture of strength and of self acceptance.
So as I learned that I had undeniable traits that were immutable, that I had the opportunity to change things, and that all of it was worthy of my acceptance – things shifted. I began to own all of my breakdowns, and set to alter the course of my life – with my chief role and mission becoming the absolutely best father possible.
That lasted about a week.
No seriously, that last paragraph is in many ways laughable. Let me tell you why it was such a silly notion that being the best father possible was my number one mission.
You cannot be the best father possible unless you are a man first.
If you are a damaged man, you are probably at the right place to be a father. It means you are being real with yourself.
If you are an aspiring man, own it and continue to build yourself up. This likely means you have some self awareness of your limitations as a man, and you are building.
If you are convinced you are a man, yet you have any of the traits that I used to have – I’d say that you are not a man at all. You are likely still harboring latent issues from your own upbringing, and unable to function fully as a man. Sure there are zones of your life where you are kicking ass, but if you are languishing with your most important relationships and have a nagging lack of fulfillment – you got some work to do. If you are the guy that hangs in his ‘man cave’ or garage all weekend to avoid your wife or family commitments – you got some work to do. The point in this is to identify your areas of improvement and begin to own improving yourself.
I am by no means perfect, far from it, and every day I’m the hardest critic on myself. However, I have reached a point going back months now of true self acceptance – in spite of my screw ups in the past, my current challenges (and I have some big ones I’m working on), and the results have been unreal.
You know what else?
I am much more like my father as a result.
Maybe this is all I ever needed?
Self acceptance and becoming a true man.
A tough lesson learned that took me over 3 decades, but damn I’m here now.
I take none of it back either, as I did everything along the way believing that I was doing the right thing each step of the away. I now realize that the script I was reading from was largely a template that too many pickup blindly and fill in the blanks…
A few notes about my father – he’s an inspiration and by all means, my mother too – they are quite the pair if you have not met them. If you have ever met my father – you likely will recognize a few of these points:
- He’s always had this calmness about him.
- He has seen some shit, and it is literally classified.
- He has been clinically pronounced dead for over two minutes.
- He has used at least a half dozen of his nine lives, and that’s only counting Vietnam as one of ‘those times.’
- He does not brag.
- He projects an exceptional energy when he wants, and he can magnetize a room.
- I’ve personally seen him corral senators and standing White House Chief of Staffs with a knowing look.
- He continues to be in incredible shape, and he is literally building a house single handedly at his age of nearly 72.
- He would never tell you all of this, likely none of it. He’s a mysterious guy.
- He really has nothing to prove, and in many ways does not give a shit what you think.
- He loves my mom and the rest of my family in a way that continues to humble and amaze me.
- He has withstood many of life’s hardest hits, and he still stands taller than most people.
- He has truly demonstrated what it means to be a man first, a husband second, and a father third.
- He would tell you that God is Number One in his life, and this is why he’s where he is at today.
So all of these statements are applicable to me, and to the way I’m aspiring in my living now. I am pursuit of being the best man possible for a variety of reasons, and among the most important is to give this world at least three more men that share my last name. As someone very close to me has said, ‘the world needs more of us.’
I was given the following quote by a coach and counselor – Rhett Smith – over two years ago, and I offer this to each of us on this Father’s Day.
“When a father tells a child that he can do something, he can do it. I don’t know why that is, except to say that there is some mysterious energy that passes from the male to his children. It is some sort of creative energy that can make things be when they are not, and without which things cannot come to be. When male energy is absent, creation does not happen, either in the human soul or in the world. Nurturance happens, support and love perhaps, but not that new ‘creation out of nothing,” that is the unique prerogative associated with the masculine side of God…Without the father’s energy, there is a void, an emptiness in the soul which nothing but that kind of energy can fill. I have seen it in too many people, men especially. It is a hollow yearning that feeds on praise incessantly and is never satisfied. It is a black hole that sucks in reward after reward and is never brightened by it. It becomes a nesting place of demons–of self-doubt, fear, mistrust, cynicism, and rage. And it becomes the places from which those demons fly out to devour others.”
This quote lit a fire within me to dig into many of the most painful places, not so much for myself, but for my sons. Frankly I lacked the courage originally to self examine, it was too hard and there was too much going on. This shifted when another coach at the time pointed out – that if I did not address my own issues and areas of pain, that I was likely cursing my sons with similar limiting beliefs.
Wow.
So I set to dig into these painful areas originally in spite of myself, and on behalf of my sons. Eventually this shifted towards a full on assault fueled by my personal self realization – likely around the time of finally accepting myself.
I offer this post and this twice referenced quote – to all of the guys out there that aspire to be fathers – second to their aspiration of being fully realized men. I offer this to the women that are in a position of having to be the father to their children, it is an incredibly hard position to be in as a single parent, coparent, or married – yet single parent. Some of you know what I mean…
I say that this quote was useful for me as a motivator to move beyond my personal reluctance/fears and attack some tightly gripped beliefs in support of my sons and of their eventual families.
I can now say that I am the best father and man as a result of this work, and as a result of the continued model and ongoing support from my father too. Tomorrow, I’ll likely be a little bit better as both too.