29/01/2025 - In trying to help, we actually cause harm.

Hello readers,

Under this new moon, I've finally realized something major. Spending time with my family is as incredible as it is triggering because they shaped the person I am today, sometimes through their unconscious conditioning. I have to draw the line between what I see as a way of being that they offered me, and what I simply had to cope with from childhood.

When I say "they," I mostly mean my dad. My sister impacts me too, but it is so clear that my relationship with my dad has built me, brick by brick. And there is a reason. He is an incredible man, father, and human being in general. He had a pretty traumatic childhood, to say the least, and still found the strength to choose himself, to refuse a life that everything pushed him to believe was the only one he deserved. At eighteen, he left with only his bicycle and set off on a world tour.

He recorded all his adventures in several journals, which he gave me when I was younger. Funny how I'm doing the same now. "Sex, drugs, and rock and roll" was the title, and it was pretty accurate. From living in the basement of a nightclub in Ibiza, to visiting monks in Burma, to crossing the Indian Ocean on a sailboat, and so many more stories that made me travel to the far corners of the world, but in my head.

I saw him as a hero, the most fantastic person there was, to the extent of blaming my mother for letting him leave after their divorce. And while the admiration I hold for him still exists, I also see his "flaws" and how they have impacted me. The result of the wounds he carries to this day. We all do, but it is my responsibility to recognize the patterns before I keep repeating them.

Otherwise, I will just wake up one day and realize that my children feel the same way I did, simply because I never considered the possibility of doing things differently. And again, I repeat, knowing where my dad comes from and what he had to overcome, given the emotional baggage passed down from his parents, it is unbelievable. The father he has been for us makes me beyond proud.

But as he started breaking free from generational conditioning, it is my legacy to keep doing the same. For him, it was about limiting beliefs regarding the physical aspects of life, materially, professionally, and within the family. That allowed me to feel that nothing would ever stop me from achieving what I desired in those areas. For me, it is about the emotional aspects.

The realization that led me to write this article is that I have felt responsible for his emotional well-being since childhood. I took it to heart to make my father happy by becoming a free spirit, a rebel, an adventurous woman. As unconventional as it sounds, that is what my father values above all, which I am grateful for. But in my early twenties, I also realized how different we are and that I needed to follow my own path, which included much more grounding.

We had a lot of fights when I came back from Australia. He threw me out of the house many times, and we communicated only through emails. He is an IT engineer, of course. In those emails, we expressed everything we had ever felt about each other honestly, without sugarcoating. It even reached a point where I wondered if we would ever speak again.

To my biggest surprise, when everything was out in the open, we reached a place where we no longer held any resentment. It was all out. And we could rebuild our relationship on stable foundations. That is why I believe that the only way to maintain long-term relationships is sometimes to empty the bag, put everything on the table, and face the choice of whether we still want to keep this person in our life.

Burying resentment only creates distance and misunderstanding in the long run. Love can no longer reach the surface beneath the many layers of what could not be said. And that brings me back to this morning and the trigger. Yesterday, my dad had a bad day. It does not really matter why. The thing is, he was not feeling good, and we could all feel it.

As a child, he was unable to express his emotions, which led him to endure them rather than explore them. He coped through mechanisms like gambling,, sex, or alcohol. From restriction to indulgence, he liberated himself from most but alcohol still lingered. To escape his own emotional state, he would drown himself in the exhilaration of the substance and dissociate. Isn't that a common occurrence for so many people?

And it led me to want to care, to change things, to save him from his own despair. I would analyze, retrace, understand, and find meaning in his pain. I wanted to uncover the root causes of his suffering. At the same time, I was deeply affected by his presence, this big black cloud of negative energy that would drain me completely.

In the past few years, this has happened less and less thanks to all the introspection he has done. He wants to evolve and just feel better, I suppose. But since the beginning of the year, he has wanted to follow in my footsteps and stop using alcohol in massive doses. I can feel how much of a toll it is taking on him. He is on the verge of breaking free but still resists, which is absolutely normal.

It brings to the surface all the emotions he has pushed down for years. He becomes extra sensitive and irritable. But the only way out is through. I am proud of him for keeping on pushing, for wanting the best for himself, even through hardships. And by choosing himself, he allows me to do the same. We reflect each other. I realize that I am responsible for no one's emotional turmoil.

I have become dependent on it, wanting to help and feeling validated through that role. I believed that my worth as a woman was found in my ability to heal his pain. He never asked me to, but I found pleasure in it. Because by shifting his mindset toward a situation, I shifted his emotional state, which in turn alleviated my own well-being, since I was no longer impacted by his.

Who is to blame? My dad, for not knowing how to process his emotions, even though no one ever taught him and he had no example? Or me, for finding a way to help him that, in the end, also served me?I think no one is to blame here. This is just one of those familial entanglements.

But by recognizing it, I can detach myself from it. I do not have to save him from himself. I may even be preventing him from learning how to do it on his own. It is crazy how sometimes, in trying to help, we actually cause harm. I am really reaching a point where I understand there is nothing to do except to be.

And this leads me to the bigger realization of how it has unfolded in my life. The men I have been drawn to and loved wholeheartedly were usually men who made me feel the same way.

Repressed emotionally, unable to express themselves, unable to openly recognize their own wounds. I wanted to help them because I could see through the layers. I had analyzed it so thoroughly in my dad that I now had the tools.

But who am I to dictate what someone needs to do or how they need to do it? Maybe I even interfere with their own journey by doing so. It is not my duty. I was just unaware of it. And by becoming aware, I allow myself to change my perspective on the situation all together, which will therefore change me.

With love, Loune.