Work on Unholy Hungers - the absence of the Good Father archetype case

[gotogo]

I can say I received natural mother's love but I don't know if I received something similar from my father.
He was there always but he never be able to relate with me as a father.
I understand now he himself is a result of 'narcissistic' family.

He was born in Manchuria before World War 2 but soon after he was born his parents divorced and came back with his mother to Japan. But Goto family was a such traditional 'samurai' family that he (still as a baby) was treated in 'narcissistic' way to register him as aunt's child for the reason his mother can marry other man soon after.

Devotion wan not accepted in such family at that time. In Asia, the family is a big concept that include all relatives and usually live physically closer. He was raised by his aunt in this family where everybody knows what happened to him. He should be belonging the main house but because of what happened he lived in a separated apartment with his aunt. He does not receive natural love from real mother nor father at all!

He starts talking about himself little by little recently but still does not want to talk about his childhood.
It is possible that he may not be able to remember them because of 'Dissociation'.
Thanks to 'Big 4', I now understand what is going on more objectively.

He was a very passive person, working for the same company from the age of 13 (it is common at that period in Japan after World War 2) until he retired as the age of 65. He simply does not know how to be a father. He just sit silently reading news papers at the table.

He may have a 'narcissistic wound' that prevents him to speak out his opinion strongly.
As a result, he never interfere with my free will by posing his opinions on me though.

But a factor I now recall and understand in my psychology resulted in my father's non-existent presence can be called missing a specific father/man model. I assume a child specially boy learns how to be a man or father through communicating with father in very practical situations.

To be honest, I had not thought about this factor was important until I read 'Big 4'.

With flashing back some memories in my child food, I now understand this factor is very important in order to understand myself and cleanse my Emotional center.

One of such memories was when I was around 10, I cried at home blaming my father why he can not play with me like my friend's fathers do. I was interested in playing baseball at that time and knew my friends do catch-ball with their father.

It turned out that he simply was not able to do such things nor even able to throw a ball straight.
Do you know what? He can not ride a bicycle either. Nobody ever taught him!
I now understand how miserable he felt when he heard such requests from his son. :(

Anyway, I think from this event I could not ask him again.
Instead, I started to learn whatever I need by myself.

I still feel emotional by thinking what if I had a father who navigate me to 'next step' in very practical situations.
A son brings a very practical problem such as "I can not hit a ball well...".
Then a healthy father comes like "Let's got to the park then. Bring a bat and ball, ok?".
"Show me how you swing."
"See your chine is up. Then you don't see the ball, right?"
"Grab the bat like this. ok?"
"Then swing! ... See you hit the ball!"
I can imagine how a boy trusts his father 100% and concentrate on his 'next step'.
I think that is why I needed to study Education at University to try to solve my 'next step' problems.

At puberty, I think what happened in my psychology was trying to look for a father model that was missed or not built in specific/practical base. The models I used were Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Alexander Grothendieck and some communist heroes... I read their biography to live through my puberty issues that are new and unknown at that time. I remember I felt strange to see my friends do not seem to have such strong needs to look for such models.

"Unholy Hunger" describes such case as the absence of the Good Father archetype (p154).
Later the model changed to Rudolf Steiner, Gurdjieff, Conscious Being (and now a STO candidate! ).
I do make tremendous efforts.
I do my best as a computer programmer at work also.
But I kind of knew there is an unnatural 'hunger' in my psychology behind these 'tremendous' efforts.
'Vampire' due to missing a specific father/man model, the absence of the Good Father archetype.

Are there someone who has smiler experiences?
If so, can I know how you Work with such 'Unholy Hungers' inside?

Thank you for reading a long post.

 

[gotogo]

(additional discovery)

I took a short summer vacation to focus on cleansing my emotional/karmic issues.
So I was practicing this morning both video and mediation in Eíriú-Eolas - Breathing Program.
What happened was unexpected. In the middle of meditation part, strong urge to cry arose and I cried. A lot. With a kind of moaning.

Mentally I had a question thinking about this thread, which was:
Why do I make 'tremendous' efforts? WHY?

With this urge to cry. the answer came from inside (curiously it was more from my belly) was:
"Because I want to be accepted!"

Theoretically, I know it is important to accept myself. So it was a kind of surprising because what came out seems too simple.

Another internal voice said:
"I just wanted to have someone who tells me 'you did a good job!' (at each development point)."

It is obvious Einstein, Steiner and Gurdjieff can not be an alternation of one's real father.
And it is exactly here a trap of Vampire exists. Feeding mechanism are waiting for a such 'hunger'.

I observe my 'hunger' in the following ways:
- How hard I make efforts, I still feel I am not enough.
- There is subtle uncertainty not knowing if I am doing right or not 'inside' however I appeared to be outwardly (My friends are surprised if I tell this).

I will continue Eíriú-Eolas - Breathing Program to see what comes next. :)

 

[anart]

Hi gotoGo,

I think you're making some interesting and useful self-discoveries. Often, those of us who were raised by narcissists or the narcissistically wounded (and that is a LOT of us) have to learn to be our own parents, in a way. We don't have someone at each point to tell us we're doing a good job, and we never did - so, an objective network can come in very handy to step in and do that when necessary, in the beginning.

We also learn to do it for ourselves, to get to the point of working to understand ourselves well enough that our own progress/change/growth/increase in knowledge is our own internal 'good job' - not in a subjective way, but in a tangible change way. This process continues to change and grow as one moves closer to Knowing Thyself, thus Accepting Thyself - at which time, the childhood neglect pulls less strongly on us since we've fulfilled these things through our own growth and learning. It is a long staircase, and one I've not yet seen the top of by any means, but the change is discernible along the way, to my understanding. at least.

 

[Buddy]

GotoGo, I was touched by your compassion and understanding of your father.

I know the hungers also. My father worked hard to raise 4 boys and 1 girl, mostly alone, with an 8th grade education and a willingness to stand outside a grocery store and beg for some money to buy groceries for us if necessary. He was very strong, very strict and very puritan with his family. He was also someone you did not want to disagree with, so it was very hard to get close to him and to get my needs met (as I perceived my needs to be).

I don't remember having anyone to play ball with me, hug me or teach me about anything. I had to learn everything myself, while carrying out most of the household duties. My role models were just about any adult or peer who seemed strong, knowledgable and capable of dealing with everything, and showed me some favorable attention - compassion, caring, teaching, or anything that would make me feel valuable, wanted, important and smart.

Knowing what I know about my father today, I would never intentionally say or do anything to hurt him mainly because, while he has some remarkable traits of strength, determination and perserverance, he is so emotionally sensitive, that he has to hide behind a hard shell. I know this because I've seen/heard him cry behind closed doors when he found out one of his kids was expressing bad feelings about him.

To make a long story short, for a long time, my narcicissim was expressed mostly as inner hostility but outwardly sacrificing...and I could use that as the reason for my wounding expressions. Today, I believe I've come a long way, but am not completely free of it.

The hungers that I may have left can not be satisfied by any 'role model' in the sense of 'role models' that are needed while growing up. I have to find/give myself what I need and I do my best to identify exactly what those needs are. I give to my children and grandchildren and godson those things/qualities of character I believe they need from me - anytime and every time that I can.

For me, the Good Father archetype has become the Universe in the sense of interacting with and trusting the 'All who is also the One' and trusting that my lessons won't be interrupted without my consent. Any hunger other than that, I guess I try to fill by learning from and enjoying the elegance and beauty that I can find everywhere I look.

 

[gotogo]

anart and Buddy, thank you for your feed backs.
Your replies made my heart warm. :)

For me, the Good Father archetype has become the Universe in the sense of interacting with and trusting the 'All who is also the One' and trusting that my lessons won't be interrupted without my consent. Any hunger other than that, I guess I try to fill by learning from and enjoying the elegance and beauty that I can find everywhere I look.

This 'clicked' my perception.
Right, the Universe never left me.
And there are lessons ('next step') just in front of myself right now (in the context of the Good Father archetype=the Universe).
With this thought, breathing naturally became deeper...

We don't have someone at each point to tell us we're doing a good job, and we never did - so, an objective network can come in very handy to step in and do that when necessary, in the beginning.

(I am assuming you are referring this 'networking') Yes, both of your feed backs are my verification that 'an objective network' worked!

 

[Jeremy F Kreuz]

GOtoGO,

yes, I can relate to what you wrote about your father.

He may have a 'narcissistic wound' that prevents him to speak out his opinion strongly.
As a result, he never interfere with my free will by posing his opinions on me though.

I recognise both aspects. My father would almost never interfere in the education that my mother was giving to my sisters and myself. And that eduction was though. Only in moments where my mother lost it completely and became very violent (sometimes to the point of lifethreatening), he would step in and stop it. He worked hard and long hours to support the family and I saw him rarely during the week. In the weekends he rehabilitated the house. Time for fun and his children was hardly existing.

My father would also not interfere with my free will and opposing any decision that I took. Every time I ran away from problems, he would let me run away. I missed his participation in my life and today he is still far away. Conversations with him are still limited to the weather and national politics. I can feel him suffering inside and struggling to keep his emotions under control. On the few occasions that I thanked him for all he has done for me, he managed hardly to keep from crying. Every time I tried to say something about my own emotions I can see him cringe and then he changes subject.

I realise now that it is still with much resistance that I write about him. The programs are strong. Too often I make myself believe that I have accepted my father as he is and that it is not up to me to change him, but I feel that there is still a lot of unresolved emotion towards him. The good father is missing and I still try to get his attention, his approval, his appreciation.

Theoretically, I know it is important to accept myself. So it was a kind of surprising because what came out seems too simple.
Another internal voice said: "I just wanted to have someone who tells me 'you did a good job!' (at each development point)."

I observe my 'hunger' in the following ways:
- How hard I make efforts, I still feel I am not enough.
- There is subtle uncertainty not knowing if I am doing right or not 'inside' however I appeared to be outwardly (My friends are surprised if I tell this).

Buddy wrote

my narcicissim was expressed mostly as inner hostility but outwardly sacrificing...

I can relate to that too. It is the main reason why I left with a humanitarian organisation to help others, to sacrifice myself for a good cause, for something I would get appraisal for, from my father and others. And at the same time I could loathe him and others, because they kept themselves busy with their petty worries instead of me doing the good work.

There is not so much advice I can give you for the moment. I realize I have a lot of work to do. I thank you for writing all this, it helped me to see something very pertinent in myself.

 

[gotogo]

Jeremy F Kreuz, thank you for your feed back. :)

The good father is missing and I still try to get his attention, his approval, his appreciation.

I would like to understand more about WHY they (traumas/wounds/hungers) 'still' remain, even after one starts seeing the world (include our parents) more objectively.
I think this is where 'pathological factors' (Devil) can enter in even one is sincerely working toward 'good' and trying very hard to avoid 'corruptions'.
He/She tries to act 'rationally' but suffers with 'irrational' motivations risen from his/her unconscious realm.

There seem to be a necessity to See (BE conscious) them completely through both intellectual center and emotional center.
It seems:
- They (traumas/wounds/hungers) react toward certain situations through emotional center 'irrationally'.
- But there are points in our memory their origin are 'rational'.
- Only at those points, BOTH emotional center and intellectual center can 'understand' (See).
- Only then a proper 'inner chemical change' can occur.

I refer 'inner chemical change' to the fallowing part in ISOTM.

He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self­ change, a means of awakening. By observing himself he throws, as it were, a ray of light onto his inner processes which have hitherto worked in complete darkness. And under the influence of this light the processes themselves begin to change. There are a great many chemical processes that can take place only in the absence of light. Exactly in the same way many psychic processes can take place only in the dark. Even a feeble light of consciousness is enough to change completely the character of a process, while it makes many of them altogether impossible. Our inner psychic processes (our inner alchemy) have much in common with those chemical processes in which light changes the character of the process and they are subject to analogous laws.

I will go for a short trip bringing books and audio files saved from Eíriú-Eolas - Breathing Program.

 

[Jeremy F Kreuz]

Gotogo,

you wrote:

They (traumas/wounds/hungers) react toward certain situations through emotional center 'irrationally'.

I can observe this in my reactions towards my own son. Too often I realize, after an emotional reaction from my side, (quicker then the intellectual conceptualisation of my reaction) that I reacted exactly as my father would have done in the same situation. What I also see is that my son is reacting the same way as I reacted when my father acted in that way. This three generations interaction seems to be a powerful example (in my case) of a 'certain situation'where 'they' react 'irrationally' 'through emotional center'.

As such what I wrote and you quoted

The good father is missing and I still try to get his attention, his approval, his appreciation.

I understand now means that 'the good father' is missing in myself and that I try to reach and get his attention in myself. OSIT.

 

[anart]

I can observe this in my reactions towards my own son. Too often I realize, after an emotional reaction from my side, (quicker then the intellectual conceptualisation of my reaction)

This is, actually, exactly the case. It might help to remember that the emotional center is 'faster' than the other centers. The emotions have already completed their reaction before the intellect is even aware of what happened! The intellect then moseys in and tries to make sense of the emotional cascade and its results, which are usually detrimental, especially for someone running a lot of programs. I personally think this is one of the reasons that emotional cleansing is so important in order to control and guide one's horses (emotions) and in order to 'uninstall' programs that have run since childhood.

 

[gotogo]

It might help to remember that the emotional center is 'faster' than the other centers. The emotions have already completed their reaction before the intellect is even aware of what happened!

A good point. I am developing a thought along this line to understand what "negative emotions" are in the context of rational/irrational perspective.

[quote author=anart]
I personally think this is one of the reasons that emotional cleansing is so important in order to control and guide one's horses (emotions) and in order to 'uninstall' programs that have run since childhood.
[/quote]
I agree with this. Also at this point in time, I intuitively feel emotional cleansing is extremely important.
Laura commented the connection to the Wave on this post, which makes me being excited for what can come by Eíriú-Eolas - Breathing Program.


Regarding the Good Father archetype=the Universe idea Buddy mentioned above,
I found what happened to me when I applied this can be explained by the fallowing part of the Ra material:
[quote author=Ra The Law of One Session 4]
One of the primal distortions of the Law of One is that of healing. Healing occurs when a mind/body/spirit complex realizes, deep within itself, the Law of One; that is, that there is no disharmony, no imperfection; that all is complete and whole and perfect. Thus, the intelligent infinity within this mind/body/spirit complex re-forms the illusion of body, mind, or spirit to a form congruent with the Law of One. The healer acts as energizer or catalyst for this completely individual process.
[/quote]

Buddy, also I would like to thank you for the suggestion on Session 20 June 2009.
The first approach gave me an interesting image of the Universe that moves my emotion and Chi. I am still in the process of the second approach little by little but while I am doing it I observed some release happens also. It was very smiler experience I had when I was reading "The Ending of Time (Dialogue)" by J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm one year ago. :)

 

[aragorn]

Thank you for this thread!

All my life I've been struggling to understand my strange relationship with my father, who's been dead for 19years now. I fooled myself for years convincing myself I was "like a rock" and "emotionally stable" only to realize later that I was totally messed up from my childhood. It is one of the toughest things to realize and see how alone and helpless one has been as a child, and how coping with traumas really "laid the path" for many years to come. Fortunately I got help and I'm at least starting to see things more clearly.

I don't have any great advice, especially with all those wonderful books on the subject, but I just thought I'd share a few things from my experiences, maybe as a reminder to myself.

- I always callled my father by his first name, e.g. 'John'. I NEVER used the word 'dad', in Finnish that is. For many years I thought this was quite normal! Gradually, visiting my friends families I realized how bizarre this was. And as an adult I have a REALLY hard time understanding how my mother still thinks this isn't strange. But she's in serious denial and I have no great hopes of her coming out of her shell, ever.

- My father could have WEEKS when he didn't speak, because he was angry or insulted (mostly by my mother, or that was the story). I can't imagine what kind of person (or nowdays I probably can!) could be so selfish as to not speak to his family for many weeks. Many times we, or at least us children, had no clue what he was angry about. And if he was "Really" angry he'd mess up with the car so it wouldn't start making it difficult for the rest of us to get to school, work etc.

- My father never addressed me personally, like in starting a conversation. The few times I remember him saying anything to me was when he was irritated, e.g.:"Don't stand in front of the television, you're not invisible you know!!!". And no way he would do anything, like playing with me, just the two of us. Reading the posts above, telling the same story makes my heart weep!

There's of course many more details I could tell, as could you guys. The important I guess thing is to see all of these behaviours as "proof" of the individuals (fathers) state of mind. I believe, for now, that my father could have been a "full scale" psychopath, but I've to investigate some more. I have this crazy idea of taking his writings (in hand) to a analyst (what do you call those?) to see if something shows.

But then again, I don't know if it matters if my father was this or that, maybe one should just concentrate on the "work on self"; but maybe finding the right "diagnose" is part of it, dunno. Sometimes I'm scared that I'm too "contaminated" to ever be free...maybe I just keep fooling myself that I'm getting somewhere.

 

[aragorn]

I've of course come to realize that me ending up in the music/singing business has a lot to do of me wanting to get approval and appraisal. And prove to my dad that "I can doit!"

But now, when I'm seriously starting to detach from this programming, I've begun to question my participating in this "performance" business. I'm currently seriously contemplating of getting out of singing opera and start to do something completely different. But at my age, 38, one tends to think that "an old dog can't learn any new tricks". But that's just my programming! Body therapy feels like my calling ;)

I feel that I have two options: change the line of work I do, or do my work from "another perspective" and not participate in the "games" the others play. But not participating in their games could get me "sacked", which would just prove that I don't belong there :P

 

[gotogo]

I'm currently seriously contemplating of getting out of singing opera and start to do something completely different.

Hello Aragorn,

In my case, as I wrote above, some "models I used were Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Alexander Grothendieck", genius mathematician and physicist. And then I am currently working as a computer programmer and do the high level architect design also. I have developed a quite intelligent Search Engine in my current Web application project and I am very proud of it. But if I 'identified' with it too much due to the project release periods pressure (currently working on version 2.3 :)), my life becomes 'hell'. And WHY I identified with it too much is because of the 'hunger'. I assume you observe the something similar in your psychology also. And in such 'hell' period, I do also wish to "start to do something completely different".

I think a useful Work idea in such situations can be the division of "Essence" and "False Personality" in oneself. I enjoy "thinking process" in "problem solving" and I concluded it is in my "essence" through a certain amount of self-observations. So programming is a suitable job for my essence. Debugging is fun and I see the "problem solving" mechanism is 'naturally' functioning as soon as I hear/find problems. But problems happen when something is concerned with "others" and 'i's like "My way of programming is better than him/her (other developer)." or "People should know how my code is beautiful." are produced with "negative emotions". Those 'i's are probably generated by the 'hunger' and are in my "false personality".

If you enjoy music/singing/performance from your "essence" then you WILL continue them anyway. Even you stop them now they will come back somehow. And that is what something is in one's essence means. And if they don't come back then you will verify they are not in your "essence" (natural talent) but in your "personality" (artificial talent so to speak).

Can you/your family survive for a while if you stop what you are doing?
Then it may be a good idea to stop it completely for a while.
It may bring a completely new relation to your music/singing/performance in the future as Gs said (in relation to 'sacrifice') in ISTOM:
[quote author=Ouspensky - In Search of the Miraculous p372]
Everything in him that was real in his understanding, in his sympathies, tastes, and desires, all comes back to him accompanied by new things which he did not have and could not have had before, together with a feeling of unity and will within him.
[/quote]


(edit: grammar)

 

[Buddy]

But then again, I don't know if it matters if my father was this or that, maybe one should just concentrate on the "work on self"; but maybe finding the right "diagnose" is part of it, dunno. Sometimes I'm scared that I'm too "contaminated" to ever be free...maybe I just keep fooling myself that I'm getting somewhere.

Hi Aragorn. For what it's worth, I would say that if you can do this kind of introspection, then you aren't too "contaminated" to ever be free.

Your father has passed away and I don't see how it's necessary to determine anything about him through some kind of best-guess analysis of his writings or whatever, but I could be wrong.

If you're concerned about having enough information for your recapitulation, I would say that when you recapitulate, you are looking for the lessons in your experiences, not necessarily the inner secrets of others. I've seen a few people ask how much recapitulation is enough and how much detail should they recapture, so, I suppose that could be a concern.
In The Myth of Sanity, Martha Stout addresses that and simply states that, essentially, you've recapped when you can recall enough about an experience to piece together the lesson involved and I have personally found that to be adequate for me. Someone else may be different, of course.

Body therapy feels like my calling ;)
I feel that I have two options: change the line of work I do, or do my work from "another perspective" and not participate in the "games" the others play. But not participating in their games could get me "sacked", which would just prove that I don't belong there :P

I don't know what, specifically, you're referring to by 'body therapy', but is there anyway you could do both...even for a short time?

At any rate, the best advice I've ever heard regarding this kind of issue is this:

If you enjoy music/singing/performance from your "essence" then you WILL continue them anyway. Even you stop them now they will come back somehow. And that is what something is in one's essence means. And if they don't come back then you will verify they are not in your "essence" (natural talent) but in your "personality" (artificial talent so to speak).

 

[aragorn]

But then again, I don't know if it matters if my father was this or that, maybe one should just concentrate on the "work on self"; but maybe finding the right "diagnose" is part of it, dunno. Sometimes I'm scared that I'm too "contaminated" to ever be free...maybe I just keep fooling myself that I'm getting somewhere.

Hi Aragorn. For what it's worth, I would say that if you can do this kind of introspection, then you aren't too "contaminated" to ever be free.

Your father has passed away and I don't see how it's necessary to determine anything about him through some kind of best-guess analysis of his writings or whatever, but I could be wrong.

If you're concerned about having enough information for your recapitulation, I would say that when you recapitulate, you are looking for the lessons in your experiences, not necessarily the inner secrets of others. I've seen a few people ask how much recapitulation is enough and how much detail should they recapture, so, I suppose that could be a concern.
In The Myth of Sanity, Martha Stout addresses that and simply states that, essentially, you've recapped when you can recall enough about an experience to piece together the lesson involved and I have personally found that to be adequate for me. Someone else may be different, of course.

That sounds like good advice, thanks, I've to read that passage in the book again. Can you give a page number?

One probelm for me is that there are "ghostlike feelings" of happenings in my earlier childhood that I don't remember, at all. That is, I have suppressed them totally. Now, this could be just a "false alarm", but I do feel that I have to keep "investigating" and recapitulating (e.g. going to my therapist, Eolas breathing program etc.) until I get to this MAIN traumatic happening of my childhood that haunts me. So that's why I'm partly trying to analyze my late father. Could be a fools job, I know. Having said that, I must confess, that this "main event" of trauma could actually have nothing to do with my father. At moments I'm quite sure it's a event of an "alien presence" in my room as a child. And that "they" messed with my fathers mind... Pretty wild theory, huh?

Body therapy feels like my calling ;)
I feel that I have two options: change the line of work I do, or do my work from "another perspective" and not participate in the "games" the others play. But not participating in their games could get me "sacked", which would just prove that I don't belong there :P

I don't know what, specifically, you're referring to by 'body therapy', but is there anyway you could do both...even for a short time?

Yes, sorry I wrote in a haste, since we have a toddler yanking the internet cable all the time

I meant that becoming a therapist specialized in bioenergetic therapy (body therapy) would suit me very well. I've also combined some basic concepts of BE in my singing teaching, maybe I'll pursue this some more. The last two months I've been staying home with our son (I get some money from the state) which has given me more time to think about my future. And ever since I've broken my relationship with my former agent, who I believe is a psychopath, I honestly haven't had that much work anyway.

At any rate, the best advice I've ever heard regarding this kind of issue is this:

If you enjoy music/singing/performance from your "essence" then you WILL continue them anyway. Even you stop them now they will come back somehow. And that is what something is in one's essence means. And if they don't come back then you will verify they are not in your "essence" (natural talent) but in your "personality" (artificial talent so to speak).

I agree, very wise words! Thank you GotoGo.