My father, dairy farming and wholeness.
Little Chris (in his beloved He-Man pajamas) hoping to impress his father with a creation.
Wholeness: Inner-Parent Work.
Let me share more about this work. I find it so transformative; it helps me see the people around me with more compassion.
My story:
I was born into a dairy-farming family in rural central Iowa. My paternal Great-grandfather started the farm, and I was lucky enough to be raised on the same plot of land as my Grandpa, Jack, and my Dad, Mike. Functionally, adult/parental influence was all around me--My Great-grandma, “Mom Boots”, my paternal grandparents Jack and Margaret, my Mom and Dad, and even a farm hand now and then. Even still, an emotion I am in daily conversation with is loneliness.
Loneliness?! How? Around me were hundreds of holsteins (the best type of cow- fact); at one count 47 cats; my older brother, my twin brother; for a short time, my sweet sister; my grandparents, my parents, my great grandma. I was firmly planted into a tight-knit protestant community with events nearly every other day. I had love, nourishment, happiness, and connection for all intents and purposes.
My father was a brilliant man. He studied Analytical Chemistry, developed several patents for hybridized soybeans, and voraciously read horrifically dense history books that he would sometimes mail to me as an attempt to connect. He was an intellectual with a charming, warm heart that I rarely got to feel. He was often away, prioritizing work or isolation over time with us. We all have our reasons for the choices we make. His choices hurt me and created a dialog of not-enoughness and worthlessness in my mind.
Now, I've done a lot of work around this—a lot. I've seen psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. I've been an avid men's group participant. I've done guided shamanic and solo journeys. I've met my younger self and cried and screamed and cried and screamed. And I have cried. I've done significant integration work. I've found it all valuable.
It wasn't until I investigated how my father (and mother, grandparents, and great-grandma...) lived in me that I let go of the tight grip of worthlessness. Not only that, but I started taking my father's story (his biography and the story I made about him) less personally. I relaxed the "he did this" and "I had this done to me" story and started a different journey—one of compassion. I'm far from perfect (if that is even a destination). I am feeling much more integrated and whole.
I have helped others find this. I want this for you, too.
Why we do this work?
We do this unpacking and integration to move ourselves forward, not just for ourselves, though. Our relationships, our families, our communities, and our planet need us to get through our own work so that we can get into the business of propelling the world forward. There is no more time left. We enrich ourselves to enrich our family, community, and world.
Clarification!
We are NOT revisiting or reactivating our victimization. Nor are we creating a place to shame/blame/berate our parents. We ARE acknowledging familiar patterns in our lives and honing our present-moment awareness skills to champion more profound compassion in ourselves.
Inner-parent integration is not work you do on your parents' behalf. That remains firmly in their court. What a blessing if your parents are aware enough to unpack their history with their own support system. No, this work concerns the voices and mindsets living rent-free in your thoughts, beliefs, and ideas. Let's keep our fingers out of our parent's process and stay on our side of the street. It is not our work to do for them anyway.