The Father Wound

Picture Credit: Lakshmi Ambady

Sailing down behind the sun Waiting for my prince to come Praying for the heklaling rain To restore my soul again Just a toerag on the run How did I get here? What have I done? When will all my hopes arise? How will I know him? When I look in my father's eyes Then the light begins to shine And I hear those ancient lullabies And as I watch this seedling grow Feel my heart start to overflow Where do I find the words to say?

How do I teach him? What do we play? Bit by bit, I've realized That's when I need them That's when I need my father's eyes

Then the jagged edge appears Through the distant clouds of tears I'm like a bridge that was washed away My foundations were made of clay As my soul slides down to die How could I lose him? What did I try? Bit by bit, I've realized That he was here with me I look into my father's eyes

“My Father’s eyes”- Song by Eric Clapton released in 1998

The Father wound. A deep emotional and bodily imprint left in the fascia and nervous system when the early relationship with the father or father energy is marked by absence, criticism, control, neglect, anger and rage or lack of emotional attunement. It is the void left where guidance, stability and protection were meant to be. The father wound runs deep in the body because it shapes not just our psychology but also the posture of the body, our energy and our capacity to move forward in life.

If the mother represents love, nourishment and safety, the father represents action, structure and direction. The father gives the human chassis a “vertical axis”- the sense of strength in the spine and moving forward in life. When this aspect in a person is wounded, the person feels lost, lacks direction or purpose, is afraid to take decisive actions, chronically seeks external validation, is overly self-critical, emotionally shut down and disconnected from ambition and strength. The core of the father wound is then the question of self-worthiness and validation. Because as children we turn to our fathers faces and body language to feel that we exist, we matter and whether we are approved by him. If we are faced with silence, criticism, anger or indifference, the child grows into an adult whose self-worth is fragile, has a hard time trusting others, seeks perfection and is hypervigilant. The father wound lives in the body as shoulders hunched forward, a clenched jaw, tight shoulders, restlessness, head hanging down and fear in the torso.

The father wound lives at the intersection of biology, psychology, culture, lineage and archetype. In early infantile development, the baby’s nervous system needs love along with safety and orientation. If the mother regulates the child’s emotional state by soothing and bonding, the father then provides relational and environmental safety. But if the father himself is frightening, unpredictable or emotionally immature the child’s body receives the message that protection is absent. This message gets stored in the fascia of the growing child as freeze, collapse and self- doubt. While the wound is emotional, the first imprint is purely somatic. Culturally the father wound is systemic. Our world is shaped by generations who have seen war, are patriarchal by nature, repress emotions leading to fathers being disconnected from their own parents. All this leading to a survival-based masculinity. The wound is hence mostly inherited. For, before a father becomes distant from his own child, he was first a distant son to his own parents.

Across generations, trauma travels when it is not processed. The father wound like the mother wound is ancestral, civilizational and somatic. Healing the father wound is not about fixing the father but restoring what he was meant to awaken inside you. To heal this wound, you need a different relationship with yourself, to realize your own power, voice and strength. The father wound does not heal when you forgive him, but when you no longer need him to be different for you to live fully.

Our mother and father exist in our cells, in our patterns, in our postures, our emotional responses, our unconscious loyalties and the way our nervous systems move through life. We are a continuation of the genetic make- up of our parents. Everything from their stress and resilience, their emotions and their relationship to life itself is coded into our biology. As children of our parents, we represent their unlived life, their fears and hopes and their unresolved story. But we can also be their fulfilled potential. They may exist in us as somatic identity, but we can choose to be the ones to complete the story. They live in us- but we can choose to not be limited by who they were. Parents have given us everything by simply giving us the biggest gift ever- the gift of life. Somatic Experiencing® is an art to live this life fully. To become something beyond the restriction of our DNA. Because with this awareness, we can change the quantum reality for our own children. For our children should never be us.

“The body has been designed to renew itself through continuous self-correction. These same principles also apply to the healing of psyche, spirit, and soul.” ― Peter A. Levine, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma