When I was a little girl I was very close to my father.
My family tells me I was such a daddy’s girl – and I vaguely remember my excitement when I saw him. How much love I felt and joy.
In the manner of adults my parents broke up and went their separate ways and as is typical I went with my mother.
From the age of 4 to the age of 15 I did not see my father.
When I did finally go to see him I was in my teens – not the little girl he remembered. I had no real remembrance of him at all. Our relationship was stiff and stilted at best – in part because (rightly or wrongly) I felt the need to defend my mother and her choices – including the way she raised me.
Time passed with my seeing him 3 other times between the ages of 15 and 19.
More time passed.
Periodically I’d talk to him on the phone – but not often. I resented him wanting me to be the little girl he remembered so he could be the dad to her he wasn’t to me.
I was angry. I felt abandoned and disappointed and didn’t want to hear the excuses. The drama. What amounted to me to be a bunch of BS.
I got to a point where I forgave him. I didn’t want to be angry anymore. I released the disappointment and the desire to make him into someone else. I thought I was done
When I had my own daughter. I had many things that I felt I wanted her to have that I did not. But it was more than just hopes and dreams for my daughter. These were internally raging emotions of pains in my own life that I DEMANDED be “fixed” in hers.
I realized that there was something- some part of myself that I hadn’t really allowed to heal.
“Forgiveness is not the healing. Forgiveness is the cleansing that allows the healing to occur.”
So I went inside and touched that little girl. The little girl I was when my father broke my heart. The little girl sitting at her 3rd birthday looking through her cards for one from her dad – the card that never came.
I touched that little girl that felt disappointed when he didn’t show up. That felt left behind, cast aside.
I put her little hand in my palm and kissed her cheeks and said, “It’s okay – you are not forgotten…”
I went to the young mother looking for validation from her father- only to be met with disapproval.
I allowed myself to own those feelings of sadness, disappointment time and time again. I had to say “It’s okay to feel that.”
Then I took it a step further.
I found the little girl’s joy and gave it back to her. The excitement of seeing her father, jumping on his shoulders.
I allowed my present self to really FEEL that – instead of stuffing it down as too painful to remember.
I visualized myself walking up to my Father and saying to him “You hurt me Daddy… but I still love you – I choose to still love you.”
This was healing for me. And it took stages- from anger to releasing to forgiveness, to sadness, to acceptance to love.
Always back to love.
Many women reading this have their own story of pain and disappointment when it comes to their Father. The primary wound of Abandonment in women often first manifests in that Father/Daughter relationship.
It’s time to heal darlings. And healing is available to you if you’re ready and willing.
Go through your own process. Heal your inner Little Girl. You deserve it.
I love you.