Wisdom From "The Divorced Dad"

 My final child support payment cleared the bank, and a “divorced dad” chapter that has spanned 23 years has come to a close.

Another chapter of “splitting time between California and Florida” that has been going on for the better part of three years now is also rapidly coming to an end.  Within the next 18 months, the move will be permanent.

Both of these transitions felt “way out there” until they were right up in front of me. And both offer their own opportunities for wisdom.

The very long “divorced dad paying child support” chapter was one where the lessons evolved as my inner truth emerged.  I spent a long time in a reactive state – some form of fear/accommodation/stress/frustration/anger pattern went on for years.  Those are all reactions coming from a place of weakness and lack of clarity about my inner truth.

Over time, I went through various stories – the “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” story.  This isn’t true.  Reacting in the same way to multiple negative events does not build strength, it just reinforces unhelpful patterns.

Fortunately I didn’t spend much time in “woe is me” or “I’m a victim” patterns, these are quicksand for the psyche and very hard to extract from.  One of my exes is still in victim status from an ordeal that happened over 26 years ago – all it did was invite more experiences in her life where she was the victim.  Who wants that kind of life?

I also didn’t get trapped in rage, though I spent far too much time in anger patterns at it was.  Very corrosive patterns that I would describe as similar to what I’d imagine stimulant addiction feels like.  The angry energy becomes a baseline and not having that energy feels like depression.  But then when a situation would actually call for me to stand up and fight, my system would be too exhausted from the pattern to put “good anger” to use.  Anger is a tool best used sparingly.  One should not avoid it or be afraid of it, but treat it as an ally to be used only on rare occasions when that energy is called for.

But just because I didn’t wallow in the “really bad places” doesn’t mean I had it figured out.  I was still allowing myself to be run by patterns that were not serving me.  Just because I found patterns that were comparatively better doesn’t mean I was much better off.  Ultimately we were still crabs in the bucket and, if nothing changed, we were cooked.

Ultimately, when I released those patterns and could see clearly, I came to realize my situation was neither good nor bad.  There was nothing inherent about my situation, it just was.  Getting to that point where I could simply accept “this is my life” was a significant turning point.  At that point, I stopped blaming, judging or getting upset or disappointed because things weren’t some way I imagined they should be.  I could look clearly at my life and simply accept “this is my life.”

Acceptance doesn’t mean collapsing into resignation and defeat.  It just means you’re no longer entertaining delusions, expectations or fantasies and looking at the world the way it is.  This is my life.  That takes some inner work, courage and wisdom to fully recognize and accept.

From there, the real challenge begins.  This is my life, and I genuinely don’t like a lot of things in it.  What is it that fuels that dislike? Is it external preferences and judgment or inner truth?

Well, if inner truth isn’t clear, that’s going to be a very difficult question to answer. If, however, inner truth is clear, the question answers itself and then it’s a matter of aligning with what is true and accepting this reality.

Finding that inner truth, that “Teal Flame,” this has been the real work.  It is the foundation on which all authentic architecture stands.  You cannot truly build a sovereign life without it, instead you’re at the mercy and whim of external realities.  Everything feels “not quite right” (or badly off course), and yet you have no means to correct course.

I can honestly say the challenges I experienced as “divorced dad” provided much of the incentive to discover and hone my inner truth.  The pain of feeling out of alignment and having “nothing work” was a strong motivator to get in and do the real cleansing and healing.

And that journey has taken on many aspects.  Much of this has been shared here, although the story of that journey goes much further back.  Along the way I learned many things and had all kinds of breakthroughs with either directly or (mostly) indirectly led me closer to finding that inner truth.

Once that inner truth, that Teal Flame, that Kaelen’Zur, began emerging, the truth about my life also came into focus.  The experiences in my past were never good nor bad, they were either in alignment or (more often) out of alignment.  An entire marriage that made no sense from any perspective suddenly makes sense from this perspective. 

And it also explains the seemingly sudden and complete end – my unconscious realignments have been strong, sudden and unrelenting.  And also concerning – why do these “returns to center” have to be so abrupt?  And what about all the time spent out of alignment?  Couldn’t there be a better way?  But without that foundation, this was the pattern:  wander, course correct; wander again, course correct again.

And for a while I could accept this imperfect pattern as “my way of being.”  But it’s not an easy way to life, and an even harder way for those around me to live.  It’s a lot of suffering for small wins in life.

My spiritual journey mirrored this pattern until more recently things came into awareness and major fundamental shifts began taking place.  Whole aspects burned away, revealing the strong, unrelenting, simple truth that was there all along – the Teal Flame.  And from there, the “good things” from other modalities could be brought into the new, sovereign architecture, no longer “backsliding,” but moving forward.

And that’s the point when “divorced dad” died (or the fake story, anyhow, since I’m still here).  That was always a story, a holding place for the real story.  Which is in fact no story at all.  There is no moral to the story, and there is no story.  It is my life and my truth.  That’s it.  And a process of aligning with that truth and staying on course. 

And that is “fatherly wisdom” that can be taught.  That is wisdom from experience that is worth keeping, worth refining, worth exploring and worth sharing.  It isn’t a story or a reaction or a “life lesson.”  It is a process and a truth, a consciousness and awareness that can exist and does in every one of us, though most of us are too clouded or distracted to be aware.  But we can learn to become aware.  And it can be taught.

And that’s something far more valuable than all the child support payments combined.  Though I still won’t miss them.