Book Title:
For the Love of My Father: A Spiritual Guide for Women Healing from the Absence of a Father in the age of Spiritual Evolution
Author:
Olivia S. Benson
Publishing Information:
Planet Earth University, 2012
Link to Buy Book:
Synopsis:
For the Love of My Father explores the deep emotional void that can exist inside girls and women who yearn for the love and connection they missed from a father. Benson thoughtfully guides them (and the men who love them) through the spiritual ways they can give themselves the validation and acceptance they seek from outside sources by finding it wholly within themselves.
Author Bio:
Olivia S. Benson has been a student and practitioner of New Thought and metaphysics for over thirty years. She grew up in various religious teachings and eventually sought to find real answers to life’s challenges. In her books, she shares her struggles and the road she traveled to overcome them. She is also the author of the award-winning book For the Love of my Father—A Spiritual Guide for Women Healing from the Absence of a Father in the Age of Spiritual Evolution, and Answers From Within—A Spiritual Guide to Finding Issues to Work Life Issues. She has been a practicing attorney in Florida for over thirty years.
Book Excerpt:
Chapter IV: The Desire and Willingness to Heal
Several years ago, I met Soledad, an older woman who had garnered certain successes in life. She had adult children and grandchildren. She had worked in corporate America and had made her way up the corporate ladder. She had a husband of many years and had owned multiple. She had successfully retired into what appeared to be a dream home and was very active during retirement. For me, success in life is measured by what you are able to accomplish based on where you started. It is a matter of personal best, not comparison.
We spoke about life from time to time. I like speaking to people who have been on the Planet longer because they usually know some things I don’t. There is no guarantee of this because some humans learn very little in their lifetimes, but our elders are normally Good resources. We don’t have to learn everything in life by blows; we can learn from others without having to suffer through every experience.
My conversations with Soledad definitely bore fruit. My father died a few years after I met her, so I was working my way through that. Soledad told me stories about the challenges she faced growing up without her father. Usually when she told the stories, her posture became rigid and the tone of her voice became very stern. These were characteristics of her regular personality, but they were accentuated during those conversations.
One day, since I was working on myself, forgiveness, and all that, I asked if she had or would forgive her father. To my surprise, way into her seventies, she explosively and angrily responded she would never forgive him.
This happens all the time. Many humans live and die with issues and traumas stuck in their craws, but I was surprised to see it so raw and alive in her. Of course, there is no perfection in life, but she was a very intelligent woman who seemingly had done well for herself despite her humble and difficult beginnings, yet just beneath the surface was rage.
It appeared this had been her position for a while. Not only that; she also gave me the impression that if she had anything to with it, she would maintain it. Clearly this was all about her; she was the one who had everything to do with it and could maintain her position for as long as she wished. No one could liberate her but herself.
Her position was likely a solution to the experiences she suffered early in life. She had perhaps unconsciously developed the rigidity in her body and the sternness in her voice to protect herself and keep her guard up. She had set up mental and emotional barriers, excluded her father, and determined she would never allow him to come back into her life again. We all do things like this in different ways; it is a matter of survival.
There had been much drama between Soledad’s parents. Although our discussions here are about fathers, frequently, both parents can behave like idiots. Like most little girls, she Loved her father deeply for no reason other than the fact he was her father. She even mentioned how handsome he was. Yet he had made many negative deposits into her bank account.
Soledad’s pain seemed to be around the many times he disappointed her. With her youthful resilience, she had remained hopeful and bright-eyed for a long time and always wanted to go see him. But eventually, I could see how that smart, witty girl would have been deeply hurt and taken action to protect herself. Up went the fences, and he would never walk into her heart again if she had anything to do with it.
It could have easily been fifty years of expending energy maintaining the fences, keeping up her guard, and managing the fear, anger, and frustration this can generate. One of the most amazing things about this is that we can live our entire lives without consciously realizing all this belowdecks drama is happening. We usually think this is just life …
Just as we discuss the situation here, doesn’t it sound exhausting? Unpleasant? Even if we don’t exactly know what is happening, aside from the weightiness it could create, there is likely a general underlying feeling of malaise or unease. Most of us walk around with all this but without knowing this is not the way we are supposed to live. As sophisticated and successful as Soledad appeared, the girl within was carrying a lot of pain around and all the tools she used to cope with it. That is a lot, isn’t it? All this even though she had long outgrown the need for that protection; her father had died so long ago.
The Theater of Life
Doesn’t it seem unusual to protect ourselves against an enemy who no longer exists or no longer has power over us? Doesn’t it seem like a lot of energy to stay in battle mode when the war is over? Isn’t this like standing with your fist clenched all the time just in case you have to fight? How are we like Soledad? What coping mechanisms are we holding onto long past the time we need them? We are so well designed for survival that we create defenses to protect against our enemies. Because of our natural childhood innocence, purity, and resilience, sometimes, it takes a long time for us to conclude that our fathers are enemies. But after a certain amount of suffering, we usually figure out something to protect ourselves even from a father. It is counterintuitive, but when we have to do it, the mechanisms are usually carried deep in us because they arose to help us stay alive, a strong instinct.
What happens next? Of course, many of us expand our survival strategy to include all those who look like our fathers—all men. Some use the same strategy with everyone. These strategies likely scare or push some people away. Since we are created so amazingly, as young children, many of us consciously or unconsciously devise elaborate schemes to hide our coping mechanisms. The schemes allow us to appear somewhat normal, and this way, everyone is not immediately scared away. Only those who come close would know the truth about us. What a distorted way to exist in the world. Can this really be the way we were intended to live?
Coping mechanisms normally have benefits. If for example our coping mechanism is a poor-me personality, it would always garner some level of empathy from some people for at least some time. If we are intense and rigid, we might attract employment where this kind of personality might be productive. This is why the masters say that we maintain certain behaviors because they serve us, but once they no longer serve us and the suffering becomes unbearable, we may be ready to consider change.
The same coping mechanisms we develop to survive early in life could be hurtful later in life. Everything has a proper time and place, and we have to be awake to understand when it is time to let go of our coping mechanisms.
When our fathers made negative deposits into our accounts and we created coping mechanisms to deal with them, they bound us to them by those negative experiences. If we are seventy and are still using the same coping mechanisms to manage our lives, though our fathers may be dead, we remain bound to them by those negative experiences. Forgiveness is the tool that cuts those ties …
Adapt and Bear
This is a lot of energy and a lot of unnecessary suffering belowdecks. Imagine lots of dusty boxes to manage. In addition to the negative childhood deposits, by adulthood, we have attracted and accumulated other deposits. It is a subconscious mental and emotional juggle. Since some of us don’t even recognize what is happening, we just adapt and bear the chaos. We believe this is just the way life is supposed to be.
Soledad had survived beyond the age of seventy; she had figured out how to live in the world fraught with all its challenges, married and had children, and moved lightyears beyond where she had started. Whatever coping mechanisms she created were worthy of respect, and it was her right to decide whether if ever to forgive her father. GEFS is such genius that even though the plan seems harsh, it includes the ability to develop coping mechanisms. Whatever the challenge or trauma we faced as children, we have this amazing ability to create coping mechanisms. We often create very elaborate coping schemes and build our entire existence around them.
This is to be respected. It is why people can heal only when they are ready. When we are ready to heal, we have to look at everything. This may require undoing the entire world we built on a false premise. Anything we undo or release has to be replaced with something positive. It takes some doing …
We have to be prepared to rebuild a new existence based on new realizations of the truth about life; no one can do this for us. Think about it, and let’s look at just one thought. What would you do if you lived believing your father and by extension maybe all men and maybe even all humans can or will disappoint you and then you realize and accept this is not true? Depending on how long you have held the belief and how strong it is, you might have to spend some time to undo that belief. Following or right along with this, you would have to create a new belief. What would replace it? Somewhere along the road, you would have to release all the accompanying schemes. This is why the great masters always require us to be desperately seeking Truth before they even answer questions. It seems that only when we are really ready and desire it deeply will we do what is required to recreate our existence.
Unexpected Good at the End of the Road
Aside from being startled by Soledad’s response, I was also surprised she said she didn’t want to forgive him. To me, it seemed she would want to forgive him because of what this could mean for her, but that was my understanding, not hers. So perhaps if we can’t see or don’t understand this, it may appear there is no reason to let go of the longheld positions to heal ourselves.
When I began to catch a glimpse of how this all worked and what was possible for my life if I was willing to do the work, I was willing. That was the best news ever. The idea there was even a possibility this could all be healed was exciting, and my hopefulness bore fruit. It didn’t matter what anyone else had done.
Someone once asked me why I was so hopeful, and I couldn’t give a specific answer. Despite all my challenges and the doom and gloom in the world, I knew there was much Good in the world. I didn’t know why I was hopeful, but I felt there was always some Good at the end of every road even if unknown to me. I also had a clear realization I had been suffering even if it was belowdecks, low-grade, tolerable suffering. Now, I knew I didn’t have to suffer anymore.
Sometimes, my friends laugh at how often and easily I use the word suffer; I use it as a teaching aid for myself. I developed it after I read Michael Ryces’s book Why Is This Happening to Me Again? It is a very good book, a sort of a workbook. I walked away with a phrase he used often: “If you are in pain, you are in error.” Error thinking meaning you are not thinking correctly. Correct thinking being thinking in line with GEFS. I understood error thinking causes pain, which causes suffering. I had been in error thinking for many years. Now I would work with myself to align my thinking with GEFS and thus avoid suffering as much as possible. I didn’t have to suffer and was willing to stop resisting and begin to heal.
Daddy Dearest
Soledad’s resentment toward her father precluded her giving him the benefit or pleasure of her forgiveness though he had been deceased for decades. She on the other hand was continuing to carry all of this around. This is error thinking, which often snags us and keeps us suffering; it says we will not let others harm us and let them off the hook. Forgiving someone never lets them off the hook; what happens to them is an issue separate from what happens to us. We all have to deal with the consequences of our actions whether others see it or not. Every action in the Universe has an accompanying reaction even if unseen. We usually want to see the consequences we think should occur, and we want them now. That’s not how it goes …
Since there is no time in GEFS, it takes as long as it takes. One of the characteristics of GEFS is that it doesn’t vary. Despite all appearances, anything true for one human is true for every human. It’s like the law of gravity; it doesn’t change. Of course, it seems to bring us more pleasure when we see others pay for their negative actions, but if we understand that we live in a cause-and-effect Universe and everything is energy, we might be able to do our healing work more easily.
A part of us always knows when we have done something out of order whether big or small. It takes some work to silence it. Depending on what it is, we may have to lie to ourselves to get some peace. We may have to tell ourselves a story and do whatever we have to do to live with what we have done, but we know …
Male or female, when we bring a child into the world, it’s a big deal. Some men may have to wonder whether they fathered a particular child; it may be in back of their minds, but it is in there. Some men may be able to live through their youth without thinking about children they have fathered or how they fathered them, but at some point, there will be opportunities for mental replays. If our fathers were less than real fathers to us, they know that. They will, however, do whatever is necessary to live with themselves because this is how humans are built.