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I have a difficult relationship with my biological father. We barely know each other. I was adopted and I had another father figure who I consider to be my father. He died when I was younger and for me he was the best dad. My biological father certainly wasn't a bad man but he had a twisted idea of me that he's heard from other people and was not that interested about me or what I do. We never had meaninful conversations. We rarely talked and if we do, it's just me who keeps the conversation going until I ran out of questions and we eventually end up in an awkward silence. Last year I realized that I have a constant feeling of disappointment in my biological parents so I have freed myself from my own expectations and disowned them. There wasn't any legal disowning, it's just a realization. I realized that it was what's best for us, that if we free one another form the shackles of a familial relationship that isn't really there we will gain our sense of freedom back. Everyone in the funeral, the relatives and my biological mother, sends me messages and gives me a hint of their judgement of how ungrateful I am. I'd like to pay last respects but I have this feeling that I don't really have to. I am greatly overwhelmed by social situations and dealing with people who I know are judging me at the back of their mind is really a drain. My mother is also the most verbally abusive person I know so I'm even more reluctant to go. Deep inside I know he understands and that it's okay. I also can't fake my grief when deep inside what I felt is a sigh of relief not for his demise but for the end of his suffering and my letting go of this "family" relationship label and attachment that I have placed on both of us. I have no hate for my father. But everyone knows about what we both went through before he died and assumed that I'm driven by either pride or hate. I am now misunderstood and I feel the pressure of showing up just to prove that I care about this lost person. |
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No, you're not- you're a wonderful person. But you do have free will- you can think of yourself as a bad person and you will be. When others judge you, you can further chose whether to accept their feedback and use it to your advantage- or ignore it. You can set them straight and ask them to stop guilting you into anything, because you have very good reasons for your choices- or you can just ignore them and go about your business. When you're feeling uncertain, it's good to silently praise them for any good qualities they do have- that helps harmonize the energy. You can also send them clouds of pink light, and surround yourself with it, just to smooth things out a little. What's important is to know that you make that call. If anyone ever criticizes you, that person has a huge problem! |
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Last Saturday I went to the memorial service of a young relative who died unexpectedly. Because a week passed between their transition and the service, I was able to focus my awareness very consciously on the experience I was having. This is partially what I discovered, which may be of help in some way to you: The funeral or memorial service is in no way for your father...it's for everyone who is still in the physical. You can communicate anything you want with your father now without ever moving an inch. In many ways, with a relationship that is problematic in the physical, once that relationship is rooted in the non physical, and your communications with your father are purely vibrational, the relationship can actually become much, much better. You now get to ask your father anything you want, tell him anything you want, and listen to the answer that will come, without the resistance that was present in the physical. You just have to "find where he is" within you. So, since the funeral is neither for nor of your father, despite what people pretend, but is for everyone else, about your father, then you have no need to attend, unless you wish to offer emotional support via your presence for the other people who will attend. If your relatives get angry and try to shame you or manipulate you into attending, just know they are feeling some kind of powerlessness and projecting the solution onto you, meaning, they think they'll feel better if you come. But they won't, not in the way they think they will. But at least when you know why they're trying to shame or manipulate, you have a choice to not feel guilty or like you're doing something wrong for what you want to do. That pressure you feel isn't from what anyone else is doing or saying...it's your own conflict, cognitive dissonance, that you know you want to do what you want to do, but you also believe that what you want to do is maybe not the right thing, because other people are telling you this in various ways. If you align with your highest excitement the decision is easy: Is it more your highest excitement to skip the funeral and all that drama, or to go to the funeral? You will feel the right answer emotionally right away. :) |
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