Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of Beyond Consciousness. This is your host, Racquel. So today is Father's Day and I was not expecting to record today. This is an impromptu episode. I just was journaling and listening to some of my mentor and spiritual teachers videos just because it helps me elevate my mood and my mindset and I get really motivated. But I just kept getting this weird nagging feeling of like, I need to do a show today and it needs to be about my relationship with my father. It's just going to be like a brief kind of description of my father and I's relationship and our background. I'm not going to get into every single example in detail of the issues that arose in my childhood and during my development and why we clashed. I can definitely give you examples later on. As the show goes on, I will be referring to certain things in my childhood and of course in present day. I just can't give you so many examples because the list would go on and this episode would probably never end. So it'll be a very brief, shortened version, but you will get the picture. Okay. And I also want to outright say this. I am not making this episode today to bash my father or bash any fathers out there who have caused any trauma or maybe just did something wrong. Nobody's perfect, but just especially because I will be talking about my relationship with my father. And although it's not the best it could be, it has come a long way from where it was, which was essentially a nonexistent relationship. And again, this is not about bashing my dad. Despite everything, I really do love my father. But I know there are a lot of people out there carrying a lot of trauma baggage that their family members, not even just their fathers, have created. So this episode is for everyone, but more specifically people like me whose fathers were present, like mine. But maybe there were things that they did during your development that caused some trauma. And it's also for people maybe whose fathers were absent. And it just doesn't have to be your biological father, by the way. It could be anybody that is a father figure to you. So there's that. And also this is a disclaimer if you feel like you're not in the right mindset to be listening to this currently or it's going to be triggering for you. I'm sorry and maybe skip this one for now, but I'm going to talk about it because like I told you guys, it's going to be about my life, my healing journey, and my everyday kind of healing and manifestation practices. For most of my life, I wasn't even able to talk about my upbringing and home life. And now that I've done the forgiveness and healing work around it, I can. And that's why I'm going to talk about it I know that what I've gone through is going to help someone else out there. So without further ado, here we go. So as I said in a previous episode, I grew up in a very chaotic household and went through different types of abuse, which then caused me to suffer mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and obviously physically. I'm going to start off by giving you a snippet of my father's upbringing so you can kind of see how this all trickled into my childhood. I will tie it all in at the end for you so it makes sense. And so you kind of see where I'm going with this. And again, I'm not going to get too graphic or give you too many details because we just don't have enough time in the world for that right now. My father was very present in my life. Excuse me. He is a very intelligent, hardworking man and has done well in his life despite his background. My dad did not have an easy life at all. He also grew up in a very chaotic and destructive environment. His mother, my grandmother, God bless her, she is schizophrenic. And I know she loves my father and his siblings very, very much. But she subjected them to various types of traumas, physical, emotional, mental abuse as well. My father also does not know his biological father. He had men. Unfortunately, supposed father figures come in and out of his life that only further added to the abuse and trauma that he and his siblings sustained. So they weren't very helpful at all and only added to the chaos. My father and his siblings were also in and out of the foster system and were often separated. There were a few times where maybe they were lucky and two of them would be put together, so two and two. But a lot of the times I do remember my father saying that there were times where they didn't know where each other were at, which is very sad. And on top of all of that, you guys, my father lived in extreme poverty, and I mean real poverty. I mean, not having any food in the home at all for maybe days at a time, maybe even a week at a time, and having to resort to stealing money or food to feed himself and his siblings. And mind you, this is like children having to do this. So he had to go through a lot in his early childhood. So I really do feel for my father. And like I said, he has done some amazing things in his life. He's accomplished everything he's ever set his mind to. He's a very smart, driven individual, very financially savvy. There's a lot of good qualities to my father, but there were certain aspects that unfortunately he took away from his childhood and he brought into his now adult life as a husband and as a father. And he did not let go a lot of the toxicity of his childhood, he kept it locked away inside. He did not get help for it, didn't learn how to deal with it on his own, and he became filled with rage, you guys. And like I said before, if you don't deal with your trauma, it will fester and manifest itself into your life in various ways because he did not deal with it, my mother brother and I suffered those repercussions. He essentially took all the data experienced in his childhood and brought it into his home that he has now built with us and passed on his transgenerational trauma, which by the way, you guys, if you have never heard of transgenerational trauma, it is a thing. I first learned about it in Undergrad and by that time I kind of knew it was a thing. I just didn't have the research for it and done my own research and looked up reports and statistics and books and stuff like that. By the time I got to Undergrad, I actually took a class. But for the life of me, I can't remember what the class is or what the name of the book was that I read, but it was, like, the first confirming thing that I could really, really find that had statistics and other people that aren't technically from a spiritual background but actually from a medical and doctoral background and a mathematical background and a science background that are confirming this. If I can find the book or find something like it, I'll let you guys know. I'll probably end up doing like a book series or something about different books that I've read that might help you guys or just interesting if you want to get into what it is that we'll be talking about on this podcast. But back to what I was saying. Now, my father, by all means, as I said, was a hardworking man and very intelligent, amazing provider. And there were days he was a very kind and fun living person. I'm not going to sit up here and lie and be like, oh, every memory I have was absolutely horrid because that is just not the case, not true at all. It's just unfortunately, the majority of my memories were not good. So he did keep a roof over our heads, clothes on our back, food on the table. He was very present. It was just the physical, emotional and mental abuse that he inflicted upon us and the chokehold of control that he had to have over all of our lives and the very real fear that I had to go through every day that kind of just spilled over into my childhood. And as I said before, because of these things I was subjected to, I had a very hard time with my self esteem, building platonic and romantic relationships, not even just as a young adult or a teenager. This goes back to my early childhood. My earliest memories of trauma and abuse start at five years old. And from five on, there's like a plethora of examples I could give you guys, which is why I'm not going to go into it. But just an example of the chokehold of control is not even being able to go out or do anything without him knowing your every single little move. And if you weren't back right on time or immediately, it was going to cause you some physical harm and some emotional mental trauma when you got back, for sure. And it got to the point even like I was afraid to even go anywhere. And something that I've struggled with as an example, when I know I said having issues with platonic and romantic relationships, I really do mean, like I wasn't even allowed to have other men haha. I wasn't even allowed to have men as friends growing up. So when you're a kid, you make friends with everybody, and when you're just a child, I mean, what harm is there having a boy as a friend, especially when you're five, six years old? It was a problem for my dad, and I remember getting so much backlash for it from my dad. And as I got older, the verbal abuse that I got from having guys as friends just got worse and worse and worse. And he just got more controlling. If he even saw me walking home with a boy, and mind you, I could even be in a group of friends with other females in it, but if there was a boy in that group, I would have to tell them to walk without me or I'd walk behind them or more ahead of them. Just so he didn't think that that guy was in my friend group. Because if he saw me with somebody, I would either get some physical abuse or verbal abuse, and he would go through my room and go through my phone. And some of that may be a little bit normal, especially when you get to teenage years. I don't know. I know some parents do that. I think that's overkill. But I mean, this is like a recurrent everyday thing. And there's definitely should not be getting physically abused for having a friend that's a guy just that you're talking to, like normal or just because someone says hi to you, you shouldn't be getting in trouble for that. That's just above and beyond and kind of wrong. So that's kind of like an example that I mean, and obviously that spilled over into my romantic relationships because guess what, guys? I wasn't ever allowed to date. I mean, by the time I even got to 18 and 19 years old, still was not allowed to date. Early 20s, still getting backlash for wanting to have a boyfriend and just so many other issues and things that came with it. So by the time I did get into some romantic relationships, I really didn't know how to navigate them, how to handle it. And there was just a lot of anxiety and gravitating kind of towards the wrong people. They obviously you gravitate towards what you know, and obviously that wasn't good. So as a young adult, I really suffered from that. I also suffered depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, which I told you guys before and you guys now. I can thank the Lord. I've overcome all of those things. But as you can imagine, my father and I had no relationship whatsoever. Obviously, growing up in the home, I still interacted with my father. I would still tell him, I love you, because I did. I did absolutely love my father. It was just not a good relationship. Now, I did just try to be like the best daughter that I could be, and I tried to get the best grades. It didn't matter what I did, though. It just never seemed like enough. And I suffered a lot from that. It didn't matter if I was top of a class. It didn't matter if I never got into any trouble in school or out of school. I just always did something wrong. And it was like always constant fear and always something that I was going to be punished for, which takes a toll on you. There was a time in my life, actually, when I was 19, that I cut off all communication with both my parents, especially my father. I literally left New Mexico, albuquerque, New Mexico, which is where I was going to college at the time. I packed a duffel bag and came back to California, and they did not know where I was living and did not have any contact with me at all because I was just so fed up. This was a time period while I was still in a relationship with my ex, and I decided to make a life for myself because I was not going to be controlled and live a life of fear anymore. And if you listen to my previous episode, there's a part where I mentioned that my fiancee left me and had to move back in with my parents for a time. This was before all of that. Excuse me. What I'm talking about is what led up to those moments before I had to move back into my parents home, but back to what I was saying. I did what I had to do to make sure I was not going to suffer anymore. And I didn't speak to them for well over a year now. You know, I'm an adult now, and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to make things work. So I get myself enrolled in school, I get a job, my life goes on, et cetera. Things are good for a while. For a while. Excuse me. I cannot talk today. But at the time, I did not know about healing and manifesting and transgenerational trauma. So I'm making the same stupid mistakes that my father made by letting it affect me and not getting help. So I was very angry. Anything that could possibly trigger me triggered me. I was very quick to want to fight and to start verbal arguments. Like, I wasn't a very confrontational person. Let me say that. It was just more like if you messed with me or somebody that I cared about, or if you did something that was like a pet peeve of mine, I would blow up and go over the top. And my best friends that have been with me again since third grade, shout out to them. They know exactly what I'm talking about, and they've seen my rage before, and they've seen where I've come from and how far I've gone. So again, shout out to them. But that's just an example. The rage that I had in me was exactly like my father's, and also I'd fall into a very deep depression. I was also extremely anxious all the time, as if I was in flight or flight mode for 24/7, because that's the mode I had to live in for 19 years. So that's the mode I stayed in. So if you fast forward and now a bunch of unfortunate events happened. It's led me now back into my parents home where things were very tense because although my dad was not abusive and ragefield anymore, he had become a changed man over the time that I cut them off. I guess that was a time period he learned that he really messed up because he lost his daughter and my mom. At the time, I didn't mention this, but when I was in New Mexico, my mother was living in Arizona, and she was living there because I had some family there at the time, her parents and some other relatives. And at that moment, her and my father had finally decided to split. So right when I went to college at the age of 18, her and my mom kind of dropped me off at college in my dorms, and they both went their separate ways. That was the first time my mom had actually officially left my father in all of the years that they'd been together. And the reason why I ran away at 19 was because they pulled me out of college. And my mom essentially called me one day and said, oh, I'm getting back with your father. He said, he's a changed man, blah, blah, blah, blah, and we're going to live together as a family. Now, my older brother, he's in the military, so he had gotten away from all of this, bless his heart. But me, I was still here, so I was still having to go through everything. And that is why I packed up my duffel bag and left. So I basically was like, you know what? I'm just going to run away. But of course, I didn't tell my mom that. I just went along with it. And then when I got to Arizona where she was at, I literally just packed up a duffel bag of as much clothes as I could fit, my social passport, all those things that I would possibly need and I got on a bus all the way from Arizona to California and I dipped. So after that when I came back and I stopped talking to my parents during that time frame, I guess he decided he was going to shape it up and he was going to be a changed man, which good on my mom. I'm glad that it did end up working out for her when she decided that she was going to make that decision. But at that time I was not willing to take that chance. So that's just a little snippet in case you're wondering what happened in between. But the damage was done. There was no relationship there at all because at 19 there's all those years of trauma and rage built up with no break in between besides of the year and some change that I was in New Mexico. So everything was very tense and the damage was definitely done. We would clash all the time because they would still try to have a little bit of control over my life and then on top of that, treat me like I was a child. And when I mean a child, I do mean like a teenager or younger, like a preteen even. And just being really in my business. And mind you, I'm not like this wild kid. I've always been very good. I've been about my future, my schoolwork, I've always had a good head on my shoulders, never got into any trouble, but it didn't matter. They treated me like I was one of those kids all the time, even when I was growing up. So there was just like no accountability for any of their actions. Especially on my father's part. Excuse me. Of all the things that he had done to us growing up and him not acknowledging all the trauma that he's inflicted on me and how he's affected my life now as an adult, and even my romantic relationship that unfortunately, did not work out for other reasons. But it was just too much. And there was a lot of clashing going on in the house. Arguing. Couldn't even speak to each other. There were times where we would want to put hands on each other. It was just horrible. A lot of crying, a lot of screaming, a lot of stress. I started getting graze you guys. And I was like in my early twenty s. I went back into really deep depression so no sleep. And mind you, I wasn't already getting sleep because I was working full time and going to school full time. So I would maybe get like five or 6 hours a night if I was lucky. Sometimes not even that. So it was just not an overall healthy environment. And the worst part was is that they wanted to force like this happy go lucky family relationship that was not there. That was, I think, the most annoying part and the part that I struggled with the most because they just thought like, oh, well, you move back in. We're this happy little family. Look at us, see, everything has changed. And it's kind of like, oh, that's great for you. I'm glad that you decided that you were going to change your ways and reconcile with my mother and everything, but what about my brother and I? All the trauma that we suffered? Can I get an apology? Are we going to talk about the stuff that's happened? No, of course not. Because if you guys know, if you've been in this position, most people that have inflicted that kind of pain on someone, they don't ever talk about it really, or they don't acknowledge it. And if they do, it's definitely not right away. But what did I know? I was hoping for too much at the time, I guess. So at this point, you guys are probably like, raquel. Where is the positivity and lesson and all of this because this just all sounds terrible. It all sounds bad. What's going on? Well, the answer to that is we were talking about forgiveness in the previous episodes, right? And different things to keep in mind when you're doing your forgiveness work and healing. That is my point of bringing all of this up. And this is where it all ties in. My father was the first person I had to forgive when I started my healing journey and forgiveness work. And this did not come quickly or easily because I had to do it under their roof while we were still clashing, still getting into arguments. Aside from the other techniques I used, which I will be talking about in other episodes, learning empathy, practicing empathy and stepping into the shoes of the other person is the hardest thing I had to do. But it's something I really had to learn to cultivate and it's something you should really learn to cultivate if you're going to start this forgiveness work. I know it's extremely hard. You might just want to quit and give up, but that's what happens when you start to create change and start to reprogram your mind and your character and try to progress in life. Your mind and your body is going to fight it, but trust me, it's worth it. Keep pushing through. I used to have a lot of hatred towards my father. It wasn't until I started doing the healing and forgiveness work that I learned that he was suffering just as much, if not more than I was. And that was a lot to take in and it's probably a lot to take in hearing it right now as I say it. But I want you to hear me out because I'm probably starting to lose some of you right now. Like I said before, I'm not condoning his behaviors or actions, but I definitely sympathized and empathized with him because now that I'd gone through it, I could understand the pain he was still feeling from his childhood and the new pain he had created in hurting his own family. When I finally understood that my father was just an unfortunate soul who went through terrible circumstances and who decided to repeat history, someone who never had anyone there to help him let go of his past and his pain, he never had a support group. He never had a good environment. He kind of just went from terrible situation to terrible situation, grew up, became an adult, and just, like, started and just kept going on with that. He didn't have any real positivity. And I know there's good in every aspect of your life, and there's always positive to look for. But when you're someone who's come from so much trauma, so much pain, so much abuse, so much poverty, so much anger, and that's all you get all the way up until you're an adult and all you know is struggle, struggle, struggle till I can make it, it's kind of hard to look at the positive. So, yes, he did make it. Yes, he did accomplish a lot of different, amazing things. Like so many amazing things in his life, that's not enough to take a step back and look at everything else that you're doing that's wrong. You kind of need something to either bring you into it there's normally some type of circumstance, or you trying to seek it out on your own that makes you kind of change your character or the way that you're living. So it just made me really sad for him. He didn't get a really good fighting chance. I definitely should not have had to deal with what I did. My mother shouldn't have had to. My brother should not have had to. And again, feeling sad for my father, thinking about everything that he'd gone through, he should not have had to go through everything he went through when he was growing up either. We both suffered but came out completely different people. Again, this is not making an excuse for him. It's simply understanding how he projected his pain. In a sense, I absolutely think things that he did were horrible, but I've been able to forgive him and understand where he was coming from, which has allowed me now, as an adult, be able to set boundaries with him. It has allowed me to talk about my relationship with my father. It has allowed me to talk about my feelings, my mental state in general. It has allowed me to become a fully functioning adult, the way I should be, and have actually healthy relationships, whether they're platonic or romantic. Forgiving my father. And really taking a step back and stepping into his shoes has allowed me to clear cancel and delete a lot of things, a lot of baggage that I could have definitely still been carrying on to. I still hold him accountable for his actions because of course, at some point you have to hold that person accountable or even yourself accountable. You have to make that choice. Are you going to repeat history or make your own path? And I did not want to repeat history. I now have a much better relationship with my father. It may not be the happy go lucky relationship that we both hoped for, but it's a good, functioning one and one that will continue to be worked on. He's a changed man, and I absolutely salute him for making changes. I absolutely salute myself for even coming this far. I'm going to give a shout out to myself, yes, because I deserve it. But you guys, this is the end of the Father's Day episode. It wasn't too lengthy, I hope. I judged, made it really short. I just wanted to give you guys a brief background of kind of who my father was and what he went through and kind of a little bit of how it trickled and our relationship just so. That way you guys can kind of reference it as we go along in the show and you kind of understand examples and stuff that I'm talking about. I was just trying to get in what I felt was important and what I felt you all needed to hear. Like I said, I woke up and I just felt like this super strong urge, like, I need to do this today. And I wasn't even thinking about doing this at all. But here I am. I hope that you all took away the lesson that I was trying to teach and the message I was trying to convey. I will eventually make an episode about my mother and how I learned to forgive her as well, which was both a similar and different process for various reasons. But that's for another day when I feel inspired to do so. I hope that for those of you who are seeking healing from having absent fathers or having little to no relationship with your fathers, for whatever reason, find the healing that you seek. I hope that my shortened version of my story brings you peace and hope, knowing that a relationship can be possible if that's what you wish, but most importantly, that you can heal, move forward, and still come out a stronger, better individual, full of love and light and happiness and just a bigger, brighter future. You don't have to repeat the cycle or let it bring you down. Also, if there are any comments, feedback, suggestions, anything you would like to give, topics of discussion, you can reach out to me via the contact section on the podcast website. I hope that everyone out there is having an amazing happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. Happy Father's Day to my father. I love you. So, as always, if you like what you've heard or know someone who might please share and subscribe, you can do so at beyondconsciousness.net. Thank you for listening. And as always, happy healing.
