Part II – The Shadow Father (also read Part I)
With Pluto in Capricorn we are collectively challenged to let go of our limited agreements with the Old Father. On a collective level this means that all the systems, institutions, and structures of culture are breaking down. We are losing faith in Father Culture. We depended on Him, we believed in Him and now he’s drinking champagne on his yacht while his children can’t afford to go to the doctor!
However, seeing Father Culture for who he really is, evokes a level of disappointment and betrayal that forces us to claim our own inner Father – our responsibility for our lives and for the future of our human family. We each have an individual road to take to grieve the ways our Father failed us and claim our own authority.
On an individual level our relationship to the Father principle impacts how we move out into the world, external security, identity as an authentic and effective bridge, engaging in life’s initiations, feeling wanted and valued by culture and having a healthy relationship to power, responsibility and discipline. Our relationship to the Old Father mediates our relationship to accessing these good qualities of the inner Father.
Now, I’m well aware that in these times, gender roles are fluid and flexible – men are responsible for instilling the Mother principle and mother’s are responsible for modeling a healthy inner Father principle. Whether you are in a heterosexual or same-sex relationship, learning how to access BOTH the Good Mother and Good Father is essential, as we are driven to evolve towards greater integration of both principles.
So here is the archetypal story, regardless of gender:
In the first years of life we are held in the matrix of the Mother – ideally that bubble of yummy, warm, attentive attunement gives us a sense of a separate cherished self, held within an encompassing and cohering presence of Mother love.
Eventually, the child hears a new voice, something that lives outside of the mother bubble – the child’s first Other – the Father. This new energy outside the field of Mother evokes interest and excitement, the psyche’s desire to learn about itself urges us to explore the world outside of the bubble, bringing the warmth and the safety of the Mother with us.
The Father
How that Father calls us out from the mother bubble, how he greets us when we move out, and how we are seen and blessed by this external world presence greatly impacts the following:
Do we feel safe to follow our calling?
Do we feel wanted and supported by the outer world?
Do we feel there is a place for us in culture?
Do we know the language of the culture?
Do we feel we will be protected and provided for by the world if we take risks?
Do we let our excitement and interest guide us onto our path of discovery?
Identifying the internalized negative Father allows you to acknowledge the unmet needs of the soul. When we learn how to see, encourage, excite, challenge, support and bless our own souls – aspects of the good father – monumental shifts occur in how you experience your self and your world.
Here are some of the archetypal Shadow Fathers that may be lurking in your psyche. Notice which one’s you feel drawn to:
1) The Absent/Remote Father
This is the father who is always at work, left in the divorce or is physically present but emotionally detached. He may be addicted to drugs or avoidant behavior, or have no interest or facility in relating to children. You may have lots of memories of this father but no idea who he really is.
Here the child is never seen or received by the father. Nobody is there to help the child develop their professional, outer world identity. You may try to contort yourself in every way possible to attract the beam of your father’s attention, but he can’t see you or acknowledge you.
With no father to actively draw you out of the mother bubble you might struggle to leave the familiar and strike out in search of yourself. With the imprint of an absent father, the outer world of culture might seem alien, unknown, unreachable and totally uninterested in you. You may have no relationship to the father within you – no sense of being responsible or engaging self-discipline.
Healing Tip: If there was no outer father you may not have a very developed inner father either. If you could create your dream father what would he look like, feel like and how would he feel towards you? Make a collage of him, or let him write through your pen and give you the fathering you never got.
2) The Externally Approving (Internally Denying) Father
I’d like to clarify that our father is not the patriarch. In fact, the father was as abused by the patriarchy as the mother was. The patriarchy cut our fathers off from their own feeling nature – vulnerability and empathy were major taboos. This lead to the formation of this Shadow Father who has no relationship with the irrational, changing, mysterious, internal feminine principle. He operates only in the rational, external world of order.
Here the child is only seen for what you can achieve or how you present externally. You feel overpowered by the father’s version of you – there is no support to find your true, creative essence. You feel the only way to be in the world and make your way in culture is by creating a false self – the kind of person that your father would approve of.
This creates an enormous gap between your authentic, inner world and your outer self.
With this father, the only way to move out of the mother bubble is by forming yourself into your father’s image. If you are unsuccessful you may feel trapped in the bubble and never step onto your own path. Or you may have succeeded in creating a false self your father approved of and you now find yourself having created a job and an outer life that doesn’t represent you.
Healing Tip: Differentiate yourself from your father’s expectations. This is an ongoing process but something worth pulling apart so your own natural path can emerge. What do you know about yourself that your father could never see? Make a collage of that aspect or create a ritual that blesses and authorizes that aspect of who you are.
3) The Rigid/Authoritarian/Controlling Father
When the gaze of your father’s attention fell on you, it felt you were being judged through a narrow lens of right or wrong. There was very little room for expression or exploration. You lived in fear of incurring the sharp, disapproving criticism of the father.
The child feels that they are never enough. You lose any sense of your own guidance system and are always looking externally for the right and wrong way of doing things. You vigilantly track the rules of the world and don’t dare break them. You never live your own life.
On the other hand, you may have rebelled against the rigid father by saying a loud F**K YOU! to authority and withdrawing from culture all together. Whether in compliance or rebellion the old father still has power over you.
Healing Tip: If you are stuck in the rigid confinement of this father, what inner rules can you dare to break? I promise you won’t die. If you are rebellious against all rules, ask yourself where you are denying the life-supporting aspects of discipline and being a part of culture?
4) The Empty/Taking Father
The patriarch caused our father’s to be removed from the nourishment and ground of their own inner world. Devoid of feeling and vitality this father feeds off the approval, attention and expression of their children. Feeding off the child energetically is like stealing from your child’s bank account because your resources are low. Additionally, this father may have sold their children out as caretakers of their mother, as the father had no capacities to emotionally be present with his wife’s feelings.
These children feel used and confused. The warm, gaze of approval and safety the child needs from their father, is instead something the father needs from his child. You feel you must always give away your energy to receive anything from the world. You may be afraid to shine your light into the world because you are afraid the world will take it away from you. You don’t trust the world can hold you.
Healing Tip: Imagine you are sitting under Father Sun, let his warm, loving gaze surround you, let the attention and love of that heat fill your body. Soak up the attention.
5) The Erratic/Terrorizing Father
The different faces of the father often pair up with each other. Often when the father is rigid, authoritarian, or remote, he is also out of relationship with his emotions causing the disconnected emotions to fly out in terrifying, violent ways. The rage of the father evokes shame and terror in his children leading to a fear, or a sense of paralysis when facing the outer world. Never knowing when the father will explode the outer world is perceived as an unpredictable, unsafe landscape.
Healing Tip: Seek out body-based healing to release the terror from your nervous system. Feeling more peace in your body will help you feel safer in the world.
6) The Eternal Boy Father
This is the father that never grew up. He might have been fun to play with, always trying to hang out with you and your friends, never enforcing the rules or playing by the rules of society. This father doesn’t teach you anything about how the world works, nor does he model for you expression of your power in the world, being responsible, or having discipline. This father is unreliable and unstructured, he has no relationship to limits, he is indulgent and easy-going but never really succeeds at anything – he is a romantic dreamer, an eternal child.
This child never really feels there is a grown up that is providing for him/her and holding the responsibilities of life. This may create feelings of great insecurity and anxiety. This child may grow up really fast, in the void his father leaves for him/her, or this child may feel quite lost when life asks him to show up in the world in responsible ways.
Healing Tip: Did you have to be the grown up because your father wasn’t? Then where in your life are you ready to let go and be a little more easy going and child-like? Or are you afraid to grow up and face the limits and challenges of life? Where are you ready in your life to engage more, to not be afraid of climbing the mountain or showing up?
Read Part I – The Unconscious Mother
References
1) Linda Schierse Leonard, The Wounded Woman:Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship
2) Aftab Omer, Imaginal Psychology theories, Meridian University
3) Caroline Casey, Making the Gods Work for You
Image: Protection, by Laura Tabet 2006, watercolor