Yoga In DeMun

What My Father Gave Me Without Meaning To
- A Father's Day Reflection

Even though I have been lucky enough to know and work with many people closely in my life, there is one person I never really got to know. And I believe my deep desire to know people from the heart comes from exactly that; I never got to know my own father.


I know he is my father, but I don't know much about him as a person. Whenever I think about my father; as a little girl, as a teenager, even now, he feels like a wall. Like those ancient walls in Rome : here in the present, and yet distant in time. Distant physically, emotionally, energetically. Not because he was drinking or under any influence , he had simply blocked his own heart from connecting with life. He could be sitting right across from me, still and silent, and I couldn't feel him at all. It took me years to realize that the reason I couldn't feel him was because he didn't want to be felt by anyone. His presence could make a room turn cold, or leave me quietly afraid, because the consequence of making too much sound around him was unthinkable. He made a statement simply with his cold silent, and everyone in my family felt it and know how to translate.


It is hard to admit this, but he usually looked through me when he spoke to me. Being around him, I often felt more like the air than a person. And many times, he made sure I knew he hadn't wanted me in the first place, that my existence was a cost to him. I remember one time he handed me a pen and a piece of paper and asked me to count how much I cost him each day, and he wanted me to give him a good reason why he should let me to go to school? I remember thinking that is good question, and I take it seriously. I was around five years old.

Before we continue, I want to make two things clear.


First, I don't share this to make you think my father as a bad person, or to ask for compassion on Father’s Day, but it is quite the opposite. I have come to full acceptance of my life experience over many years now. No every relationship is perfect and beautiful. He was not perfect, but I have done enough of my own work to embrace myself, and to also see him with compassion, knowing that he was suffering too. In other words, I no longer need him, or anyone, to make me feel whole. I am whole.


Second, I feel more fair to share my story, not as a teacher, but as a person, and for many of you have shared your own rough experiences with me when it comes to some childhood to adulthood experience. So when I say I understand, I really, really do. I know darkness. And I have learned how to live alongside it without losing my own light, and want to emphasizing we are not here to be perfect, but to find our own way of living forward. Sometimes that means meeting a look or a silence that feels painfully familiar, and choosing not to take it straight to heart. We so often see ourselves through other people's eyes, but what if they have only known darkness, and choose to stay in the dark? Don't let someone else's judgment become your self-doubt. My father simply didn't know another way. He couldn't give me what he himself had never been given. We don't have time to wait around in the corner to asking for their two cents of love.

Looking back, as I’m thinking about him today, what he gave me without meaning to is learn to find light in the darkness by being himself. By being the way he is, he left me to figure out how I wanted to think, feel and create in my own life. What kind of person I would choose to become, to hate, or not.

If you have a loving father and mother who makes you feel loved, valued, and always supported — I am so happy for you, truly and whole heartedly, you are so blessed, and I know most people didn’t get both.


And if you are a parent who had a rough childhood of your own, I encourage you to make breathing space in your life and find time for joy and peace for yourself, so that you don’t get stress build up that cause pain in the body or in relationship. Because trust me — no matter how old your children are now, all they really want is a parent who remembers to smile, a parent they feel at ease being around with. As they grow older and think back on you, what they will remember most is your presence. Make smile and ease within you, your children would always want to spend every Christmas with you.

Life has no meaning. It is up to us to give it a meaning,
and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.'

I'm grateful to share my story with you!
Have a lovely Happy Father’s Day!

Christy