How to Deal with Impending Family Reunion?

[GabrielWallace]

I understand this is a long post. This is because there are many aspects to my dilemma and I trust the wisdom of the people of this forum to offer advice after penetrating the multiple layers of my situation, rather than merely scratching the surface. I've always been very skeptical of taking advice on such complex personal issues, because no one can know the nuances and layers of the matter as deeply as myself. I've tried here to give an account which is inclusive enough to give you some insights into the heart of the issue, while still (believe it or not) restraining myself from writing unnecessary details. Thank you in advance.

A little background:

I am a 32 year-old man and I've had 'father issues' my whole life. I'm half-American and half-English, and about six weeks ago I was forced to leave China (where I'd lived and worked for six years) because of visa issues.

My Chinese girlfriend of five years is still in Shanghai, so my solution has been to come to Thailand on a 3-month tourist visa to begin a journey making online passive income, and for the foreseeable future to go back and forth between China and Thailand on tourist visas (perhaps until marriage).

The last I saw my family was two Christmases ago, when I went to visit my parents where they lived in Dubai. It started off well and we even had a family LSD trip together on Christmas morning, but on Boxing Day, after my younger brother went back to his place in Turkey, my Dad threw one of his temper tantrums, told me how much of a disappointment I was, and kicked me out of the house for the third time in my adult life.

I told myself I'd never speak to him again after that.

Just before Christmas last year, I did ayahuasca for the first time (not in the rainforest, just in a controlled setting in Shanghai), and the plant actually made it VERY clear to me that the multitude of problems I was having in my life and in my relationship was a direct effect of my conflict with my father. So I listened to the experience the plant offered me, and I sent him a message of reconciliation.

I heard nothing back from him.

Now that I'm in this huge transition in my life, where it's critical for me to focus on getting this online business stuff right, my Mum has told me that they are coming to Thailand for my final month while they are on summer break, because they've had a tough year and it'll be good to see me.

They've booked their flights and they are coming - and apparently my Dad has tickets for a week earlier than my Mum. (My Mum is going to visit my Dad's aging mother for a little while first. They are a lot closer than my Dad is to his own mother… it's a running theme in his life.)

The problem for me is that I really need to deal with this issue I have with my Dad for my own well-being. It goes way beyond what happened in Dubai, but that just inflated the pre-existing issue. I can't cook a meal without hearing his voice yell criticisms at me. It seems almost all of my self-criticism takes the sound of his voice. I've started taking on a lot of his victim mentality and his anger issues. And that has overflowed into how I've handled my own intimate long-term relationship as well.

My whole life my Dad has dealt out a lot of heavy emotional and psychological abuse to me (and my Mum), though he would never admit to it.

The closer it gets to this time of my Dad coming to Thailand, the worse my meditation becomes as well. Every meditation session becomes a therapy session. I'm not meditating - I'm rehearsing what I am going to say to my Dad and all the built up rage I have for him just rushes through me while I am trying to meditate. It's terrible. And not only while I meditate - also while I am trying to work on my new online business. Any advice on how to deal with this aspect of the situation (which might be more related to directing my focus) either as a connected issue or a separate issue would be appreciated.

 

My main question is:

I find myself wanting more and more to have my Dad right where I want him so I can finally confront him about all the nasty ways he's manipulated me (and the family) over the years. The angry part of me wants more than ever to use all his demeaning tricks back on him (using a rhetoric riddled with logical fallacies just to come out on top, making him feel intellectually inferior, jump-scaring him in the middle of his sentences, etc). Partly because there's no other way to make him listen. In the past I've always, always held back out of compassion - because I knew that if he were ever faced with the truth of how much damage he's done, it might just hit him like a freight train. In fact, it would be so threatening to his ego that he would just deny it to himself anyway. And I knew that it was more than likely my Mum who would face the consequences after such an attack.

… But that has never ended positively for me. Being the compassionate one has always lead to him taking advantage, which has only ever given me more and more psychological barriers to deal with on a daily basis.

… Will it actually help to confront him in this way when I see him?

If I try to do it in a tempered, compassionate way, as I've tried in the past, he's going to use all his old tricks and do anything to 'come out on top'. That won't be good for my psyche and I'm concerned I might never get over these issues.

… But if I go all out, is that going to cause even more disturbance to my psyche for the rest of my life? I've even imagined myself physically beating the shit out of him, and feeling great about it. But I'm sure the 'feeling great about it' wouldn't last for very long. I'm very aware that even emotionally beating the shit out of him could lead to even further distress. And like I said, my Mum would be the one going back home with him.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on how I should approach this impending family reunion, I'd gladly appreciate it. 

 

Thanks again for reading this.

[Rebec]

 

@GabrielWallace Seem like you have a lot of things going for you right now; your move, girlfriend in a different country, new business. Is this the right time to also deal with 'complex' family issues and 'battle / confront' your dad? (you can't be juggling all, pick you battles)

About your dad; it feels to me that you want to express how you feel towards him, yet I think you haven't made peace with yourself about all this, like this comment;

1 hour ago, GabrielWallace said:

I find myself wanting more and more to have my Dad right where I want him so I can finally confront him about all the nasty ways he's manipulated me

Try 'the Work' by Byron Katie to work on these feelings, free worksheet; http://thework.com/sites/thework/downloads/worksheets/JudgeYourNeighbor_Worksheet.pdf

Allthough it is not easy to confront your dad, it requires a lot of more energy and time to work through all your feelings about him. Yet in my opinion the better option, because then you become a much more stronger and mature person. 

If you take time and take this 'innerwork' to the next level, you even can reconcile with your past and don't be bothered at all by his behavior.

Best of luck with your journey! ?

[nour-cha93]

 

Fighting with him is useless, let him go and ignore what he says. 

 

[Sempiternity]

Watch more of Leo's videos and do the self-inquiry work. You and everyone in your family are the same thing, which is consciousness, which is nothingness. You are you family and they are you. For you to hurt your family, is for you to hurt yourself, and vice versa. Coming from this perspective, there is nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. When you are with your family, think of it as like watching a movie. You are the observer, that has no stakes in what your watching. The objects and people on the screen are not real, they are just light projected on the screen. You (your ego) is also one of the characters up there on the screen. You too do not really exist and are the same thing as the other characters, which are all just light projected on the screen. You, the observer, wouldn't get angry, or offended, or hurt, by what the characters on the screen are doing and saying. So come with this perspective. Nothing anyone says or does in your family has any meaning. They're all just light projected on a screen, as are you, and it's all just light (consciousness), which is meaningless. Just sit back and enjoy the show you're watching

[GabrielWallace]

@Rebec @nour-cha93 @Jed Vassallo

Thank you all for reading and responding. Your comments have been helpful.

@Jed Vassallo You are right about how doing the consciousness work turns the issue is a non-issue, and that when I train my mind to perceive reality as a show full of characters then that will do much more than just shift my perception and handling of this particular problem, but it will also do wonders for how I am able to interact with the rest of life as well.

I've actually been able to disembody my ego very substantially in the past, though it's been almost a decade since I've held it like that for any great length of time. It was actually my Dad who was able to reignite it. I remember at one point around nine years ago I had gone for about a year without any real sense of anger - I was beginning to meditate and get into consciousness work - and it took just a couple of days being with my Dad before he was able to twist it out of me and flare it up.

For me, I have gone through many phases of partially embodying my true connection to what I call 'Total Boundlessness', but at this particularly unstable point in my life I'm a little further away from that connection on a deeply experiential level, though it's easy for me to remain intellectually aware of it. Just being aware of it, though, isn't enough to deal with the stuff I'm going through and the powerful emotions of anger I'm feeling towards my father.

@nour-cha93 Perhaps you are right that fighting with him is useless. It won't lead to peace of mind. But it's not possible for me to ignore him, because he is actually inside me, in a very real sense. It's difficult to describe, but I feel that a part of him - a part of his consciousness - has actually found its way into my psyche. Perhaps this is my overactive imagination, but I do have theories about how he transferred some of his consciousness into me when he initiated me into psychedelics when I turned 18. Anyway, whatever the case, and however crazy that sounds, the fact is that if I don't deal with him then he is here to stay, along with all the psychological baggage.

@Rebec In one sense you are right about having too much to deal with right now. But the fact is, as the ayahuasca experience showed me last November, dealing with this issue will make everything else I am dealing with so much easier. I can actually feel this problem in my body. It's built up in pressure points in my muscles. I feel like every day I am actually carrying this problem around with me and that it actually has a weight and physical form. (This is why I am interested in both Kriya yoga and Reichian therapy at the moment, though I haven't penetrated it as much as I'd like to yet.) So I really feel like this is the problem to deal with.

There is no question that I am not at peace with myself about this issue. To be honest, the main reason I want to deal with this issue is for my own well-being and to make peace within it myself. Perhaps that sounds selfish, but I figure that I can't help my father (or my mother, for that matter) to feel at peace with any of it until I become at peace with it myself. This definitely requires a lot of inner work and won't just be solved by an interaction with him. Though I do feel that a real interaction is necessary - not to repair the relationship but rather to help resolve my inner conflicts.

Thank you so much for recommending 'The Work' by Byron Katie.  I will definitely check it out. I am also going to check out a book that Leo just put on his book list on the last update - it's about shadow work and apparently has exercises. I believe I have quite a bit of shadow work to do, especially regarding the relationship I have with my father.

 

I'm still not sure how things are going to go with my father when I see him. One thing I know for sure this time is that I'm not going to let him dominate every interaction and speak down to me. In the past I've resisted confrontation with him, I've always tried to be the pacifier, but I've realized that I cannot simply do that this time, because the outcomes that have arisen out of that approach has damaged my psychological well-being. Sometimes a battle is necessary to be fought in order to destroy the psychological blockages the past has left - I am reminded of Arjuna's battle.

I just have to be very careful to clear the way, instead of creating mountains of spiritual and psychological rubble and a war-torn wasteland in my mind.

Thanks again to all of you. 

[Dan Arnautu]

@GabrielWallace Sounds like you are pretty self-aware. Great first step. Congrats.

Now, confronting him won't help in any way. You have to remember that the strongest negotiating position is walking away and meaning it.

If we keep this in mind, you should make a rule for yourself that your life is a "drama free zone". Anything that interferes with that doesn't serve you and can thus be discarded. Not as in discarding family members as that may push it to the extreme, but setting proper boundaries.

You can settle the whole situation in a non-reactive way. If your father starts to show bad behavior, you set your boundaries right then and there. "Dad, I care about you, but when you do x, I feel [insert emotion here], so I would appreciate if you would stop it. " 

If he says something that demeans you, you set another boundary. "Dad, I only want to keep positive vibes around me. If you don't have anything empowering or positive to say, I would appreciate if you would keep negative remarks to yourself." And don't say that in an angry way. Say it in a cold, rational, calm way. Like "Dad, I don't like X, so I would prefer not to have X around me. Thanks!". Simple as that.

If it goes even further, he is at the last strike and you say "Dad, I told you that such and such behavior bothers me already, so either you stop it or you can leave right now and we won't interfere with each other ever again."

The key is to actually mean it. People will treat you only the way you allow them to.

If you are willing to walk away and mean it, that shows self-respect. And it doesn't have to be in an angry way at all.

It all comes down to a certain level of assertiveness, and counter to what most people believe, assertiveness is not confrontational. Assertiveness mitigates conflict and defuses it. It doesn't let a situation come to a boiling point.

Hope this helped. Good luck! It will be fine!

Edited July 3, 2018 by Dan Arnautu

[purerogue]

That's very complex situation indeed, but to know how to deal with it you must look not at yourself, but at your fathers personality first, there can be many reasons why he acts as he does and if you know what is making him to be such a person, you can start to think of a ways how to interact with him to fix this situation, unfortunately I do not know anything about him  and each person needs different way of approach, there is no one way for all. 

[Samra]

Ram Dass had a lot of issues with his father and his family after he left his old life. Listen  to some of his recordings on YouTube. They are lovely. There is one that he has a family reunion right after a night of LSD. It's quite nice and funny.