Healing the Father-Daughter Story
A Journey of Forgiveness and Learning The Art of Empowered Anger
I wept into my hands on my Dad’s couch, my entire body shaking and convulsing - releasing years of tension in my body.
He’d apologized for being so angry and hard on me as a kid in a way that was too intense for my sensitive nervous system.
Tears streamed down my face as I received it.
I was in my early thirties, and I missed our relationship so much.
This was the culmination of hundreds of hours of therapy, coaching, and difficult conversations with him over the last eight years of healing my relationship with my Dad. Because of all the healing we’ve done, it feels very vulnerable to write this. I feel protective over the relationship we’ve rebuilt and so I haven’t shared much about my childhood.
Growing up, he was my hero.
I admired him in every way.
I’d sit in the garage while he fixed cars and gadgets.
We’d ride horses, and progress through martial arts together.
I’d dance with my siblings in the living room while he played piano.
We’d all cuddle and play-wrestle as a family on the living room floor.
Every basketball game on TV was my chance to listen to his heartbeat and nap on his lap for hours of uninterrupted quality time - until the game would have him yell “OOOOH!” and I’d wake up and nuzzle back to sleep.
In my 20’s my therapist pointed out to me that he was an imperfect human. And I had to be willing to see the whole picture of the truth.
The reality was…
I grew up in a house with explosive anger.
Yelling was common.
Threat and punishment were the mechanisms to tame 5 rowdy kids.
The outcome of “bad behavior” was pretty intense spankings, just as the christian church instructed, which were sometimes with a belt on a bare bottom.
Mostly every day in my childhood, I was sent to my parents room to await corporal punishment.
But I’d been spending most of my therapy sessions defending or justifying his behavior.
My therapist used words like, “emotional and physical abuse”.
”WHAT! No. I was NOT abused.” would be my initial response.
I resisted being “psychoanalyzed” and continued to justify for my Dad.
He was raising FIVE children.
He was trying to live on $35k a year, and hustling to make ends meet.
He didn’t have therapy or anger management resources at the time.
And he had Mercury poisoning which impacted his temper.
He loved us so much.
And he’d hug us and tell us he loved us after every punishment.
There couldn’t have been abuse.
It shattered my identity of growing up in a happy home.
As it turns out, parents are human.
And I still believe they did the best they could with the resources available.
At the same time, childhood trauma is real.
And so is the reality that I was deeply impacted by his parenting style.
The Impact of Suppressing My Anger
I’d spent most of my adult life suppressing anger, so I didn’t end up like him.
I remember clenching my fists in my lap when I was upset, and tightening my shoulders in every effort to keep the anger inside of me.
I was living as a “good girl” who followed the rules, got mostly straight-A’s, and was saving my sexual purity for marriage.
I was terrified to trigger anyone else, so I abandoned what was true for me to make everyone else around me happy.
Then, I would project my needs onto other people around me, in hopes they’d notice my needs in return. (cue: do you need a hug? When I’m the one who actually does.)
The result of suppressing my anger was that it would come out sideways.
I couldn’t control it.
It would control me.
And it would always negatively impact someone I loved.
My mom said to me a few years ago, “It’s such a delight to have you home now baby! You used to have a blow up every time you stayed with me, and now things are very different for you.”
My heart broke hearing this. “I used to blow up at you every time I was home? I’m so sorry mamma.” I responded.
This is what happens when we don’t own our anger in a healthy way.
It’s always going to be there.
But when we don’t learn how to move WITH ANGER, and consciously chose how we’d like to respond - we end up controlled BY ANGER and it comes out in unconscious ways that hurt people we love.
I knew I had to own my anger, otherwise I’d just repeat the SAME pattern my Dad and his alcoholic Grandfather before him had struggled with.
And I am determined to create conscious relationship with my anger, to result in a different reality for my future child (who arrives this October!).
Then, when I joined Joe Hudson’s, Masterclass “Art of Accomplishment”, it was the first time a teacher pointed to anger as a path to freedom.
He pointed directly at my passive aggression, and told me “you've been repressing anger your whole life”. And I remember feeling shocked, “what? I'm not passive aggressive.” He pointed to the thing that I didn't even know I was doing, and labeled it was my path back into empowerment.
While his online course was not focused on how to “move anger”, it did propel me into an exploration of who could teach me how to wield the “flaming sword” within me.
Though Joe Hudson’s podcast “The wisdom of anger: part 1” & “The wisdom of anger: part 2” were very helpful in my journey!
My eyes were opened to the wisdom in my anger.
And my relationship to anger was forever changed.
Learning The Art of Empowered Anger
My quest over these last eight years has brought me through powerful initiations learning to be skillful with anger - including being taught by:
Ethan Henson, Holographic Flow, which teaches moving anger in connection. So in partnership between two bodies, it’s about moving and transmuting anger and then resolving and refilling the nervous system “tank”.
ISTA, International School of Temple Arts, through the lens of sacred sexuality - that teaches emotional release tools to give your nervous system the release that it never had as a kid.
EMRES, emotional resolution with Cedric Bertelli, which is a stillness oriented path. Cedric had history with explosive anger that ran in his family too. He's French, and I have French, as well as Scottish. Two fiery cultures, historically both permission a lot of yelling. So, I really resonated with the approach of going inwards and being still let the sensations move on the inside of the body.
And ISHTARA with Kathi Hendrick, a movement meditation through dance. Where I learned to own and integrate the “Killer” and “Warrioress” archetypes through my body, it was life changing. This was the key. Processing emotion through breath, sound, and movement was my missing puzzle piece.
Today, I’ve blended together all these various modalities into my own unique tapestry of an approach to teaching embodied anger.
The Ultimate Lesson on Moving Anger
My ultimate learning on anger has been - the trifecta, which is:
Through breath, sound, and movement in the body.
Connecting it to the story and belief in the mind.
And allowing the heart to release whatever emotion it’s been holding.
This is how we heal.
And this is how we’ll be teaching “skillful anger” in our upcoming 3-week live course, Embrace The Fire. It’s starting in May! Click the link below for more details.
P.S. Personal Note: I read this edgy and truthful piece to my Dad today, and I cried as he reflected the love and honoring in my writing. He called it masterful. Before our call, I realized that no matter what his reaction (even if he was hurt) that we would repair. I suppose that means we’ve earned secure attachment. Sigh. We’re solid, and we both know it - but it took many years of investment.