I said I love you to my younger dad

The universe gives you exactly what you need when you need it

I just got back from a weekend workshop with a group of 10 amazing souls doing psychodrama work. This is known as Chapter 18 of Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score.

We were a group of people that have done the inner work (and a couple that haven’t yet). The common thread is you see a protective persona come out with everyone that wants to run out the door and run away.

Without getting into the methods and techniques (saving that for the later deep dive), a psychodrama is essentially acting out your trauma, or that void, or that pain in your body by creating it in three-dimensional space. People can play the actual characters in your life, or be replaced with ideal roles, the ideal father, the idea parent, even the ideal society.

I’m in a prison

I started my structures work with an image of a painting. The same one I shared in my last newsletter.

We take the two couches and form an enclosure. I sit in the corner and I look up toward the window. I ask a man to stand at the window facing me. He’s big. He’s tall. He’s backlight and I only see the outline of him.

This triggers a deep feeling.

I’m scared. This man is torturing me.

I cry. I cry for a long time.

I have trouble getting words out, because I’m so afraid of this man.

Then I move that feeling through and I feel a draw to want him closer.

He’s left me alone to die. I’m hungry, I’m starving.

I would rather have him hurt me, than to be left alone to die.

I feel ashamed of myself.

I am 10

The beauty of this work is you can use people to play the roles and imagery in your head. I ask a woman to replace me as my dad in the prison. I’m now floating out there seeing this scene from the third person.

I sit down on the floor in between my dad and this prison guard. I call him my oppressor.

I’m now 10.

My dad tells me that he’s weak. He’s not strong enough. He’s too emotional.

I want him to be soft. I want him to be tender. I want him to hold me.

He tells me he’s not strong enough.

And so I turn to his oppressor to mold a new persona. I call him Dan.

I’m crying again.

I don’t want to choose Dan.

I want my dad.

He ignores me. He neglects me. He leaves me to fend for myself. I’m alone. I’m left for dead.

I choose Dan.

I am Dan.

I move over to sit on the couch. I am Dan. He’s angry. He wants to win. He wants to destroy. He wants to hurt people.

I feel overwhelmed by the pain, and then I feel a blanket covering me. I am enveloped by Dan.

I ask someone to play Dan for me so I can step out of this.

Then again, I’m seeing this all play out.

Dan says he hates my dad. He hates my dad as the 24-year-old prisoner. He hates my dad as the 37-year-old father. He hates it all.

He’s so angry.

In this moment, I see the moment play out. I don’t hate my dad. Dan hates my dad. He hates how weak my dad is. He thinks my dad is pathetic. He wants to inflict that hate out in the world.

I love my dad.

Dan hates my dad.

I’m crying because Dan inflicted so much harm on my dad.

I grieve for the grief we never got to grieve

At this moment, I look at the facilitator and nodded several times. I’m good. I’ve cried three times. Box is checked. Let’s wrap this up.

She knows me.

She calls all the roles to surround me and put their hands on me.

She then asks me to look at my dad. What do you want to say to him.

I feel a surge of energy come up from my diaphragm. I eek out a tiny “we made it.”

The group repeats it louder, we made it.

I say it louder, we made it.

They repeat it, we made it.

The facilitator asks me to say it louder.

We made it!

We made it!

We made it!

…

Then a cry emerges deep from my body. It ripples out.

The group surrounds me. They hold me. They contain me.

Then I cry a cry I haven’t heard before. It’s my cry as a 10-year-old. It was my dad’s cry as I was in prison. It’s my grandfather’s cry as he fought in the war. It’s generations before me they never had a voice.

We made it

After my structure finished, I took a cosmic soul poop (not literally, but my soul and my ancestors released the pain that was held for so long).

I went out the deck.

I looked out to the Pacific Ocean.

I send out a whisper to my dad 45 years ago that “we made it.”

When I reflect on that painting of the prison, the man on the floor looking out the window. He feels the warmth of the sun. Deep in that warmth, he felt a presence.

It was his son, his adult son 45 years later sending good vibes back to him.

In that moment, the cycle completed itself.

The timeline completed what was always meant to be.

🍄

In the next newsletter, I’m going to be tie this back to my mushroom trip. That moment made no sense to be a year ago. This past weekend, it was revealed.

I wasn’t ready a year ago.

This past weekend, I was.

The universe revealed itself, and I was open to receiving it.

I am 80

Thank you for reading. If you’re reading this far, and you’re here, thank you.

The first several issues will be focused on getting this story written out. In the future, I’ll be shifting my focus toward bringing actionable things we can work on. I appreciate you being here with me.

If you think someone might benefit from this, please forward this along. We are 80.