For the last 4 weeks I have been struggling with a particular parenting issue. One of my boys wanted some space from me. I can’t give more details, but I did not take it well. While a part of me was clear that this is normal, and it’s ok for kids to create distance. Another part of me was freaked out, anxious, and desperately trying to come up with a way to restore the status quo.
I did not act on the scared part (mostly), but I felt how much it shook me up and that bothered me. Even worse, I was not present with my other boys, who were with me and wanted closeness, because I was worrying about the one that needed space. Which seemed spectacularly maladaptive.
As I dug into the issue with my therapist and then my men’s group, it became an opening to a lot of good internal work. I explored where I learned to love with fear, and considered alternatives to loving in a different way. While also explored my fears to loving differently, which seemed to stem from my own fears of rejection, and old wounds with my father.
I got more clarity on the problem – but I did not feel the shift to a new mode of relating with my kids. More work was needed. So in my last therapy session I specially focused on shifting to a new way of loving, that allowed for space and connection without fear.
We started by connecting me with my current loving modality. Although on the surface I was a calm easy going dad, underneath it was a stressful, anxious, fearful way of loving – that I learned from my grandmother and mother. Where you showed love through worry and self-sacrifice, while the anxiety you felt about your children showed the strength of the bond between you.
Next we visualized the way I wanted to love. What I wanted to move towards. My imagery for this was loving the way the sun shines. Emanating rays of connection, care and calm. Not a hot summer sun, that can be dangerous and overwhelming. But a warm spring sun that gently warms you up in the cold but never gets too hot and oppressive.
The warm spring sun keeps shining even if we hide from it, or walk into the shade. It does not want to give to you less, if you need some darkness. In the same way, I want to emanate love towards my kids. While giving them the space and freedom to seek shade if they wanted it. I would have have the confidence that they would seek me out when they needed me. This is what I wanted – to emanate support, respect, and love towards my kids. Calmly and without fear about our level of connection. Because they are my boys, and I am their dad. We are forever linked, even if our relationship may take many forms and grow through many ups and downs.
The therapist asked me what was stopping me from switching to this new way of loving. To not worry about our level of connection, but just to emanate love. I did feel a resistance, and as we explored it deeper I saw that my older fearful way of loving was also connecting me to my grandmother and mother. Continuing in their way of loving was a thread weaving us together through time, a link that I was afraid to sever as I did not want to lose my connection to them. Even if I saw that their way of loving was often unhealthy, stepping away from it into something new felt like a betrayal, a disconnection.
The therapist had a powerful metaphor for me on this. Sometimes when we feed a loved one, we may give them spoiled food, because that is all we have to give. And even though the food is spoiled, when nothing else is available, it allows the one we feed to survive. The food is still given with care and affection. The food may be spoiled, but the desire to give behind it is not.
My grandmother lived through WW2, my mother through antisemitic soviet Russia. They both loved me deeply, but sometimes, all they had to give me was spoiled food, a fearful anxious love born of hard and terrible times and their own upbringings. But they gave it to me fully. They gave it to me from the bottom of their hearts. And I took it, and I love them for it.
What I needed to separate was the form of the love they gave me, and their desire to give to me. Their expression of love may have been anxious, but the desire and care behind it was not. And so I could keep the connection to their deep love, and change the format of how I express it with my own children, without stepping away from them.
There were tears as I went through this process. I love these women that raised me. I am alike them in many ways, in our worries and anxiety, perhaps more than my father. They were not perfect, but what they gave to me allowed me to survive. And with the therapist’s suggestion I honored them for it. Thanked them for the love they gave me. For giving me what they had. At this, I felt more calm at the idea of moving away from the way they loved, while still being deeply linked to them.
We were ready to move forwards. The therapist asked me if I had an example of this warm spring love anywhere in my life already. Letting the question sink in, I knew that I did. I was getting this calm, supportive, non-overwhelming love from a lot of people in my life. The men in my men’s group, my close friends, even some of my therapy connections. People who dont need me, or anything from me – but are happy that I exist. It was a warm, steady, appreciation for me, for who I was and what I did, that gave me all the space I needed and was there to fill me up. I already had a lot of this love in my life.
The feeling was especially strong with the men in my men’s group. It was a group of older men, mostly retired, with grandkids in college. As the youngest man there – I sometimes feel that I have the most turbulence to share: a young family that is still expanding, work on a new company, a divorce and a new relationship, big shifts with medication and therapy. Yes these men have seen me, witnessed me, supported me, and accepted me through all of it. The good, the bad, the messy and the intense. They were friends, sometimes mentors, but always elders – noticing my growth and my struggles – but letting me make my own way.
Tears again, and I had to pause for a moment of intense gratitude. I had these 8 grandfathers in my life already. Giving me the type of love I wanted to give to my children. How rich I am with the connections I have. How lucky I am with where God has led me in life. What I needed, I already had. I just needed to see it.
Feeling that I was ready, the therapist asked me what I could do to start building a bridge from the way I was loving currently, to the way I wanted to love. I closed my eyes and asked inside for a solution. A visual came to me: I am in the center, surrounded by men from my group, close friends, my fiance, my mom; all shining light into me, filling me up with golden warm light. I glow internally from the love I receive, processing it, imbuing it with more personal hues, and then shining it out to my 4 boys, filling them up with light in turn.
It was very simple. I give the light I receive. I share the love I am already getting.
Here I needed a habit. Something to do simply but daily, to start integrating this new framework into how I related with my kids. To feel and receive the love that I get, and to shine it on to my kids. Even when they are not with me. And to make this form of loving, as opposed to chasing and worrying, my primary mode of relating to my kids.
So as with all new habits. I set a reminder alarm. And now I take the time to feel the love that I get, and then to emanate this calm, warm spring sun love towards each of my boys every day. It’s not drastic or dramatic. But it’s a shift, and a reminder for the direction I am working towards. And it’s easy enough that I can always do it. So it’s a start. And I am excited to see as to where it will lead me.
