Some of us have a relationship with our parents that can be filled with memories of shame and resentment. Some of these memories are deep wounds for us and subconsciously have held us back from living the life we want.
For most of my adult life, I held a lot of anger and resentment toward my Dad. The anger and resentment impacted how I saw myself and the world. I felt that no matter how hard I tried, I would never amount to anything significant. I wasn’t meant to impact the world on a larger scale.
That perception stood for the majority of my life. Deep down, I kept it hidden from my friends and loved ones. And that all changed at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The first couple of months of the pandemic forced me to take a long hard look in the mirror. I recognized moments of intense journaling and meditation during the shutdown that I was holding myself back because of how I let my feelings toward my dad dictate my value and self-worth.
I knew that if I was going to move forward in my life, take the next step, and create a life I constantly desired; I would have to do the one thing I dreaded the most.
I would have to forgive him.
I didn’t know how it would happen, nor did I know when. But I knew that the added weight of my ill-harbored feelings towards my Dad wasn’t doing me any good, and something had to change. When we desire in our hearts, minds, and souls for something to change in our life, funny things start to happen. We begin to notice out in the world that opportunities are coming to us. We notice small acts of kindness around us or to us. We get dropped windows of opportunities from God, Universe, Source, Spirit, or whatever belief you subscribe to. Life starts to turn a little bit in our favor.
My window of opportunity came in a phone call from my Dad asking me to go on a cross-country road trip with him in the middle of the pandemic. That call was not the exact answer I was looking for when changing my life. Little did I know that it was the answer I needed.
What started as an invite to join my dad for an eleven-day road trip to Sebring, FL turned into the life-changing moment I desperately desired. Our once rocky relationship turned into a relationship of acceptance and love. We were no longer adversaries, willing to die on the hills of our opinions. We became good friends and much closer as father and son.
It’s natural for many of us to hold our parents responsible for our outcomes in life. From money to love, many blame our parents because it’s easier to blame others than to take ownership. For me, the way I viewed myself was not because of my Dad. It was because of me. I didn’t recognize it until we were in the middle of the country. And the only way I could move forward in my life was to forgive him and accept him for who he is. Forgiving him meant he did his best with what he had at the time.
It meant that I had to release all responsibility towards him for the way my life was and how I viewed myself.
Forgiving him also revealed something incredibly powerful about myself.
Forgiving him meant forgiving myself first.
And I had never forgiven myself for the years of harboring resentment and anger towards him. I never told myself I was sorry for holding myself back, for short-changing myself when it came to my dreams. I didn’t give myself a chance because it was much easier to blame my Dad for how I was instead of taking responsibility.
Once I took responsibility and forgave him, my self-worth changed. That’s when it increased and contributed to growth in all areas of my life, from business to friendships and love.
Forgiveness is more than just accepting an apology or accepting the actions of someone else. It’s about letting go of the painful memories of the past and suffering. It’s removing the things that no longer serve you so you can make space for a more abundant future.
It means allowing yourself to move forward to a better you without looking back.
After that trip and two years later, my life is drastically different. I see myself as a contributor to helping society use forgiveness to create positive change in their lives and others. My physical appearance has changed. My faith has grown immensely, and my relationship with my Dad is what I always wanted.
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