Q: A few years ago I decided not to see my father anymore. Sometimes I feel it’s not okay to say “no” to your father, but it has also given me huge peace. I’m scared of getting caught in this father/daughter story again when I go home, but I’ve also realized that I don’t need love from my parents. I don’t know whether to see him now, or not.
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: To manage that I’ve got to be free of my past with him. When I’m with him I start spinning again.
John: Love seeing the difference between him and his self.
Q: Is seeing the difference what sets me free?
John: When you see the difference, despite what’s taken place in the past, despite what kind of self he’s had in the past and despite what kind of self he has now, 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!
John: Don’t wait until he dies for you to see the difference between him and his self.
Q: I do 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. 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: I’ve thought of my self as open, but I can also see where that ends in me. In the meeting just now I noticed I opened further. Is it 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 it; 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. 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: So 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.
Q: I don’t understand.
John: This planet isn’t permanent. Your bond with him is permanent, and it’s pure goodness.
Q: That’s what is difficult for me because I remember most strongly what was not loving about him.
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 in order to not go to see him. You need to completely open for you to genuinely not go to see him. That puts you into the bond.
When you’re in the bond, your bond with him is 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 sometimes felt 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 can sense my love for him a little bit.
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.
