Q: Three and a half years ago I decided not to see my father anymore. Sometimes it’s like you cannot say no to your father, but it also has given me a huge peace. What I’m a bit scared of when I get home is that I’ll start to give it another spin, this father/daughter story. I know I have to feel in my own heart whether it’s okay to see my father or not, but I still want to ask you.

John: Whether you see him or not, it needs to be warm. Then not seeing him or seeing him is not because of any kind of issue. See him or don’t see him, but either way let it be warmly issue-free.

Q: But to manage that I have to be somehow free from my past with him. I start spinning a bit when I’m with him and, when I don’t see him physically, it’s like I can be out of the spin, not bringing the past in.

John: Love seeing the difference between him and his self.

Q: Is that what sets me free…to recognize and see the difference?

John: When you see the difference, despite what’s taken place in the past, and despite what kind of self he’s had, and despite what kind of self he has, you love him. After you’ve both died, he won’t have the self he has and you won’t have the self you have. As soon as you meet, both of you will love.

Q: So it’s better to wait until then! (laughter)

John: Don’t wait until he dies for you to see the difference between him and his self.

Q: I do somehow see the difference but I can’t be around him physically because he’s so angry.

John: That’s fine. You don’t need to be around him; you don’t need to be with him. You do need to open.

Q: Towards him or just in general?

John: Concerning him, you need to open. You don’t need to do anything with him. When you think of him, open. If something triggers your past with him, open.

Q: You talked about resistance and it touched me. Even though I perceive myself quite open, I also saw that there’s a resistance where I kind of stop some places in me, which I was not totally aware of. And last meeting I could sit with it, not stop. I somehow went further. Is it a bit the same with my father?

John: Yes. With him you don’t need to do anything that you don’t know. If you don’t know to see him and to spend time with him, you don’t need to be in resistance to not spend time with him. You can just warmly not spend time with him.

You have a bond with him. The bond is real; it’s your real connection with him. Don’t use how he’s been with you to cover that bond. If you are warmly not spending time with him, it’s easy for you to see your bond with him, and seeing it, being in it doesn’t mean that you need to spend time with him. Being in your bond with him doesn’t mean that you need to be in relationship with him.

The goodness in him doesn’t deserve you closing your heart when you think of him. If you don’t spend any time with him, that doesn’t mean, on its own, that you’re closing your heart to him or that you’re forsaking any goodness that’s in him. You love him and you love what is there of your bond with him, and you love the goodness that you know in him, and all of that doesn’t mean that you need to spend time with him.

Q: There’s a gift in the bond which has been between us.

John: It’s the part that’s real and it doesn’t end. Put a mountain on top of it, and eventually the mountain will pass away; the bond won’t. This planet isn’t permanent. Your bond with him is permanent and it’s pure goodness.

Q: It’s still resonating in me what was not loving from him. That’s what I remember most strongly.

John: Don’t hold anything that he’s done to you against his being. Your openness doesn’t connect you to what he’s done. Your openness connects you to what he really is. Your openness connects you to his being. Don’t see him again without a single thread holding that together.

You don’t need to close to not see him. You need to completely open for you to genuinely not see him. That puts you into the bond. When you’re in the bond, your bond with him, it’s like a golden thread that goes through all of your past with him. It was there all the time. His treatment of you didn’t break it. It’s not breakable.

Q: I just feel I was his mother and he was my child. It’s very weird.

John: You were as his mother in some way because you loved him.

Q: I’m really trying to find my love to him. I can sense it a bit and on the other hand …

John: That’s enough.

Q: I remember it was there when I was a child. That whatever he did, I would still be totally open and loving. Thank you.