What a man does is his son's history…
That doesn't mean I'm my dad's clone, or my ancestors reincarnated.
Rather, in order to grow into my destiny, I must root in my heritage. A tree without roots is a tree without fruits. Granted, confessing the father within is hard for most men today, who often feel wounded and emotionally abandoned by Dad. But as one eighty-two-year-old great-grandfather declared at one of my men's retreats, "Whatever you don't forgive your father for, you'll do to your son." To forget your father is therefore to forsake not only your past, but your future as well. That's why boys—and men—want so desperately to know Dad…
Confessing the heritage I bear has positioned me—like my father—to give thanks humbly for what my forefathers have given me, to build upon it responsibly in my own time, and to give even more to my son. My father's story is my story. Dad stands at the gateway to my history. As I engage his story in me, with all its pains and joys, disappointments and gifts, I am convicted in my destiny.
— Gordon Dalbey, Crocodile Hunting with Dad: Your Father’s Story is Your Story (www.abbafather.com/articles)
We live in a fatherless world.
Let me explain.
Once upon a time, a father’s role in a son’s life was far more obvious than it is today: the father needed to be present in his son’s life in order to teach him the skills he needs to have in order to survive and indeed thrive. To ensure that the son keeps the family farm or trade going, and can pass it onto the next generation, his father—and grandfathers, uncles, and mentors: in other words, men from his tribe—had to be next to him. Whether or not the father and the son loved—or even liked—each other, they needed one another and had to stick together in keeping with the ancient tradition of masculinity.
A boy could not become a man (outwardly, in the most primal way) without the closeness and guidance of his father and other older men. Centuries and even mere decades ago, this fact was evident to everyone; people didn’t need to talk or even think about it: it was the way of nature, the way things worked.
Those people lived too close to the raw heart of nature; unlike us, they did not have the option to ignore facts. It was, literally, a matter of survival.
Since the dawn of the modern age, however, a father’s role in his son’s life is no longer that obvious: men today don’t need each other to survive and ensure their families’ future. A father’s involvement in a boy’s life doesn’t appear to be as vitaly important as the mother’s. After all, what can be as immediately needed than food, comfort, and care? What can be as important as one’s physical needs, one’s very survival and well-being?
The spirit, of course. The child’s inner being: the God-given, unique, heart within him—his truest, deepest self.
In boys, this is the place from which masculinity is meant to flow. This is the place which is meant to be nourished, protected and trained, so that the boy grows up to become the man he has the potential to be—the man he, deep down, longs to be.
Yes, whether or not we can see this through our modern lens, the facts remain true: there is a hidden, ancient longing for masculinity in a boy’s soul; and no amount of progress and technological advancement can eradicate it…
A little boy longs for a father; the father is the one who gives him access to his own masculinity. He would also be needed later, to train, strengthen, and channel the vital masculine force, through love, yes, but also, discipline, accountability and rigor.
The Masculine Blueprint and Unique Potential
Unlike mothers, fathers need to love their sons with a love that is critical, task-oriented and based on deeper virtues. Unlike the playful, ‘softer’ love a father gives his baby boy, he must hold his adolescent son to higher standards; he must not allow the boy’s energies to either run wild or remain unexpressed. As boys grow, so does their masculine energy; and so does the need for the father’s strength. The older the boy grows, the more his father’s love needs to switch from unconditional to critical.
The unconditional father’s love, much like the mother’s, says to the boy: ‘I love you no matter what you do because you are my son’. Yet, the critical masculine love that comes a bit later, declares: ‘I won’t allow you to do anything that compromises your masculine design and the unique potential that I, as your father, see in you’. The design is what all men have in common—the blueprint that, though always assaulted and marred by this world, a man’s inner being is oriented around. The unique potential is the man’s soul—his gifts, talents, and abilities—which rests (or should do) upon the solid masculine blueprint. When a boy grows up with the former intact, he will be free to develop the latter without compromising his masculinity for the sake of gifting, without sacrificing masculine virtue on the altar of emotion.
How many boys have grown up with those two aspects of the soul fully operating? How many men do you know, who possess childlike tenderness, curiosity and openness, and the fierce, ready, brutal strength that enables a man to defend a child, a family, a nation?
Masculinity is multidimensional; when the masculine blueprint and the individual uniqueness are fully developed in a boy, he grows up being fully…himself. He is thus equipped to play the role that is uniquely his to play. This role, the man’s destiny, is an amalgamation of all the general masculine qualities pertaining to men, and the man’s personal gifts and characteristics and calling in life.
The more general qualities of ‘the blueprint’, if developed, will make a man able to:
feel at ease around all ‘types’ of other men;
be aggressive and competitive—able to confront others when he needs to and ‘hold his own’ in life, business and marriage
work hard in unpleasant conditions
have the perseverance needed to push through hardship for the sake of a higher goal
be sacrificially loyal to his family and ‘tribe’…
be a successful provider for his family’s, and his own, immediate needs
The development of a man’s ‘individual uniqueness’ will enable him to:
have a sense of purpose and mission
treat himself well: love himself and see himself as special and unique
be excited about life and see it as a journey towards the fulfilment of that purpose
be open spiritually and in touch with his inner life
be sensitive to others, their emotions and their own journeys
be imaginative and creative
be successful beyond mere financial and material prosperity
If a man has the qualities listed in the two categories above, developed within him at least to a degree, he will be able to operate in both ‘realms’. He will be able to face the immediate, more primal aspects of life and deal with it (the masculine blueprint which I would simply label ‘strength’). He will also be able to engage life’s ‘deeper’ realities: to discover and pursue his own mission, and help his children do the same (the unique potential, which I would place in the realm of ‘connection’).
These two categories are not simply connected to one another; they are dependent on each other. For example, if a man has not the fortitude to holds his own before others and persevere during hard times, would he be fully successful in his creative pursuits? We have all known good creators who have had the power to make the world a better place with the ‘products’ they create…if only they could deal with the shrewd men who manage the business-aspects of their world. This has been especially true in show-business; the ruthlessness of some (you might say, more ‘blueprint-oriented’) men in that world has left many innocent, creative hearts broken, their families hungry, and their communities spiritually impoverished. Think of Elvis Presley and his heartless, greedy manager Tom Parker—how much better both their lives would have been, not to mention Elvis’ impact and legacy in the world, if the old colonel had been simply more able to feel?
Conversely, if a man operates mostly on a ‘primal’ level—works hard, protects and provides for his loved ones, but is not in touch with his imaginative, creative side—he will be unable to fully connect to them, and may even try to repress their creativity and openness in the same way his own had been repressed. But what is repressed in the father is indeed revealed in the son, as Nietzsche said, and such fathers inflict much pain on the future generations, by not being able to deal with their own. Think of any ‘strong’ father who shames his son’s artistic expression for fear it might lead him to expressing something which had probably been undealt with, and repressed, in himself.
In my own life, the connection between these two aspects has been frighteningly clear: my primary mission and ‘work’ in the world is to speak to men, teach them about this journey, and—in the case of my close community and the clients of my private coaching practice online—even personally guide them through it. Now, I must mention here that my story with men and masculinity is one of deep wounding, debilitating trauma and a deep-seated alienation. Yet, I always had ‘eyes’ for the deep, the unseen. The gifts were there; this was what made my life so hard—the painful awareness of what went on within me while most others went about their lives not even giving it a thought! But my later use of those gifts would have been severely limited, and probably even made impossible, if I hadn’t gone through a long, and at times brutal, journey of developing qualities that were missing in each one of those aspects of the masculine being. I am far from being complete; and very much doubt I shall ever be—on this side of eternity—but let us think about something for a moment…
How would I have been able to talk to a man—let’s say, a potential client—who, perhaps, embodies to me a ‘type’ of a man I used to be very intimidated by? How indeed would I be able to help him guide him and be myself freely before him, if I was still as scared of him and intimidated by aspects of that which is indeed most superficial about him—his outward personality? How would I relate to men of more academic or creative nature, if I had never been close to their world, and as a result feared or mistrusted them? On the other hand, how would I relate to the men whose personalities are loud, dominant and aggressive—if I hadn’t spent some time in bars and boxing gyms?
As I began my pursuit of wholeness in my adulthood, I had to recover the broken, marred, fragmented masculine blueprint within me—and address those painful deficiencies which prevented me from feeling like a man and therefore, being able to relate to all men.
Because until I began that journey, a sense of true connection with most men was very rarely available to me.
In the past, I often felt inferior—somehow stupid, unsuccessful, undeveloped—around men who had well-developed academic, intellectual- and social skills.
In the same way, I was intimidated—sometimes to a socially-paralysing degree—around loud, boisterous, ‘tough’ men.
(This second type of experience had, admittedly, been a lot more difficult, due to the sheer terror that was locked within much of my being by past trauma.)
It is quite sobering to realise that, had I not sought the journey of addressing my inner deficiencies, I would not have been emotionally free to relate to a huge aspect of the people I feel called to serve. It is indeed frightening to think that my biggest relational challenges and ‘personal issues’ in life were all around men and masculinity—opposing the very mission I feel called to pursue! Had I not personally pursued a deeper, broader and multi-faceted fulfilment of my own inner- and outer self, I would have been unable—and probably quite unwilling—to genuinely connect to many, many of the people who play a very large part of my life today.
I do not consider myself to be whole—far from it—but have known such wholeness to be possible, in myself and others; this is why I consider this connection to be of vital importance.
The connection between those two aspects of the self means connection between that self and those same aspects of it in others. When a man is whole and has both the strong masculine blueprint and awareness of his emotional life operating well, at least to a degree, he is able to connect to others from both of those ‘places’: he can be tender with others when they need him to be, and firm when it is called for. He can both successfully engage in the journey of destiny and calling, and do his duties as a son, friend, husband and father. Such a man will not need to ‘overuse’ the only aspect of him that he feels is really developed, at the expense of the other. In other words, he will have a balanced personality; and that leads to a balanced life
This is what a father needs to help develop within his boy—a balanced masculine self, which he would need to serve the world.
The two aspects I outlined above can hopefully provide us with a rough outline of the fullness of the masculine being, and its according needs in the stages of masculine development. There is, however, one constant variable—one element that must be present in both—for the whole process to be successful. This element is love. This love, of course, is expressed differently through both aspects; but it must be what fuels both approaches. They must both be different expressions of that same love.
G.K.Stoimenov,
July 2024
Eastbourne, East Sussex
Great Britain
(from an upcoming new revision of 'The Father-Wound')
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