When Love and Pain are Both True

Sometimes healing begins with someone else's story.

On the anniversary of my father's death—a date I did not consciously register at the time—I held a session for a dear friend and client who was moving through grief connected to her own father.

Afterward, she shared an essay she had written about him and her childhood. It was raw and vivid, threaded with humor and ache. Her story held music, danger, tenderness, disappointment, survival, and love without trying to make any of it simple.

Her truth touched something in me and became a catalyst for the healing that followed.

That night, I had a powerful dream with my father in it. When I woke, I was extremely disoriented. For a few moments, I expected to find myself in my childhood home rather than the home I live in now. It felt as though something old had been stirred.

Later that morning, as I sat quietly with my coffee, I began to feel the familiar vibration I associate with Spirit being close. I closed my eyes and breathed.

Then two memories came rushing in.

In one, my dad was teaching me how to tie my shoes. In the other, he was putting a new pair of sneakers on me—ones he had just bought, with cartoon characters on them. They smelled like bubble gum. I adored them.

They were small, ordinary memories, but they opened into something much larger.

I could feel my father there. I could feel his love for me. Not in my mind, not because "of course he loved me," but in my heart and bones.

The experience did not erase the difficult parts of our relationship. It did not rewrite the past or turn my father into someone he had not been. But it allowed me to feel the love beneath the wound.

If you have complicated feelings about your own father, you may understand how meaningful that distinction can be.

Can you love your father and still feel hurt by him?

Yes.

You can love your father and miss him while also feeling angry, disappointed, frightened, or wounded by what happened in your family.

You can appreciate what he gave you and grieve what he could not.

You can understand the pain he carried without excusing the pain he caused.

You can feel gratitude and resentment, loyalty and distance, tenderness and grief. These feelings do not cancel one another out. They may simply reflect the truth that family relationships are rarely as simple as "good" or "bad."

For many people, healing begins when they stop trying to force the story into one category.

Love can be real.

Hurt can be real.

Both can belong to the same story.

What is a father wound?

"Father wound" is a phrase people often use to describe the lasting emotional impact of a painful, absent, inconsistent, frightening, or unmet relationship with a father or father figure.

A father wound may be connected to experiences such as:

• Emotional or physical absence
• Harshness, criticism, or unpredictable anger
• Addiction or instability
• Control disguised as protection
• Emotional unavailability
• A failure to protect or believe the child
• Love that was present but difficult to feel or safely receive

Not every difficult relationship is trauma, and not everyone who experiences trauma develops post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma is also not defined only by what happened. SAMHSA describes it in terms of experiences that are felt as harmful or threatening and have lasting effects on a person's functioning or well-being.^[1]

A child may adapt by becoming highly self-reliant, watchful, accommodating, emotionally guarded, or disconnected from certain needs. Those responses can be intelligent forms of protection at the time.

The difficulty is that an old form of protection may continue long after the original circumstances have changed.

How can childhood trauma show up in adulthood?

Trauma does not always announce itself through a clear memory or dramatic symptom. It can sometimes appear through patterns such as:

• Feeling tense or on guard even when nothing is obviously wrong
• Struggling to trust support or depend on others
• Overfunctioning and believing you must handle everything alone
• Feeling responsible for other people's emotions
• Shutting down during conflict
• Becoming highly reactive to criticism, anger, or withdrawal
• Having difficulty identifying or expressing your own needs
• Repeating familiar relationship patterns even when they hurt

These patterns do not prove that someone has trauma or PTSD. They can have many causes. But feeling chronically on edge, having trouble sleeping or concentrating, and experiencing persistent distress after trauma are among the reactions recognized by the National Institute of Mental Health.^[2]

Sometimes the body learned to protect us before the mind had language for what was happening.

Healing can involve noticing those protective responses with curiosity rather than shame.

Instead of asking, "What is wrong with me?" we might begin asking, "What did this part of me learn it needed to do to keep me safe?"

Does understanding your father's history excuse the harm?

No.

Understanding is not the same as absolution.

My father was deeply protective of me and my two brothers. He was also overprotective and could be harsh. When my mother confronted him, he would say he did not know how to be a father because he had never had one.

His father abandoned him when he was six years old. My grandmother was left with five children and little support. She was a complicated woman with wounds of her own, and the children had to work to help the family survive. My father shined shoes at a neighborhood park from the age of six.

A child forced into survival became a father who knew how to protect, but not always how to soften.

Knowing this helps me understand the lineage of the wound. It does not make every choice acceptable. It does not remove my sadness or anger. Context can help us see how pain traveled through a family, but it does not require us to minimize its effects.

Generational healing is not about declaring that everything was understandable and therefore okay.

It is about seeing more clearly what was passed down, deciding what we no longer want to carry, and creating the possibility of a different experience.

Do you have to forgive your father to heal?

No.

Healing does not require forced forgiveness, reconciliation, renewed contact, or the abandonment of necessary boundaries.

For one person, healing may include forgiveness. For another, it may mean finally naming what happened. It may mean grieving the relationship they needed but did not have. It may mean creating distance, feeling anger without shame, or learning to offer themselves the protection and care they once sought from someone else.

Forgiveness that is demanded before the pain has been acknowledged can become another way of silencing the wounded person.

You are allowed to heal honestly.

You are allowed to move at the pace your body and heart can tolerate.

You are allowed to love someone and still protect yourself.

Why can healing arrive so unexpectedly?

I do not believe these openings always happen randomly.

When we are ready to shift, life may bring us the people, stories, dreams, memories, and moments that help us open the door. We may not recognize the invitation at first, but something within us knows when it is time.

My friend's essay did not "fix" anything in me. She did not share it with the intention of healing my relationship with my father. Her honesty simply touched something that was ready.

A session led to an essay. The essay was followed by a dream. The dream was followed by two childhood memories. And those memories opened my heart to a love I had known intellectually but had never felt in that way.

From a trauma-informed perspective, safety matters. Support, trust, collaboration, and connection can help create conditions in which a person is more able to approach what once felt overwhelming.^[3]

From my spiritual perspective, the Universe also works through relationship. We help one another heal, often without knowing how far our honesty will travel.

When one person tells the truth, another person may feel permission to feel.

When one heart opens, another may soften in response.

Can grief change years after a parent dies?

It can.

My father had been dead for thirteen years when this happened. I already loved him. I already honored him. I had an altar for him in my home.

And still, there was more to feel.

Grief does not always follow a straight line. Our relationship with someone who has died may continue to change as we change. A memory may take on new meaning. Anger may surface after years of tenderness, or tenderness may become available after years of anger.

This does not mean we have gone backward.

It may mean we are finally able to approach another layer.

After feeling my father's love that morning, I asked him to be one of my guides. That felt significant—not because I had suddenly reached a perfect resolution, but because I felt closer to my dad.

I could allow his love and presence to support me without requiring his life, his choices, or our human relationship to have been perfect.

What can healing a father wound look like?

There is no single path, but healing may include:

• Telling the truth about what happened.

  Not exaggerating it, but not minimizing it either.

• Allowing mixed feelings.

  You do not have to choose between love and pain, gratitude and anger, or understanding and boundaries.

• Noticing how your body protects you.

  Pay attention to bracing, shutting down, overexplaining, people-pleasing, or feeling responsible for everyone else.

• Exploring the family lineage.

  Understanding what your father carried can provide context while leaving you free to name the impact on you.

• Receiving safe support.

  Healing is relational. A trusted therapist, coach, healer, spiritual teacher, support group, or loving community may help you feel less alone.

• Making room for a new experience.

  Healing is not only about analyzing the past. It can also involve experiencing support, protection, choice, tenderness, and love differently in the present.

Can energy healing support trauma recovery?

Energy healing, sound, meditation, and coaching may offer a supportive space for reflection, emotional awareness, and reconnection with the body. Some people experience these practices as meaningful complements to their healing process.

They are not substitutes for trauma-informed psychotherapy, psychiatric care, or medical treatment.

My role is not to diagnose or treat PTSD. In my work, I offer a grounded, nonjudgmental space where you can slow down, listen to what your body and energy may be communicating, and explore what feels ready to be witnessed or released.

When appropriate, this work can exist alongside licensed mental-health care.

If you are experiencing flashbacks, panic, persistent nightmares, severe anxiety, thoughts of self-harm, or symptoms that interfere with daily life, please seek support from a licensed mental-health professional or qualified healthcare provider.

You do not have to make your story simple

This experience left me with gratitude.

I feel grateful for my friend's courage. I feel grateful for my father. I feel grateful for the little girl in me who protected herself, and for the woman in me who can now feel closer to her dad.

Most of all, I feel grateful to the Universe, who continues to weave healing through ordinary moments in ways I could never plan.

Love is always present. It is the nature of the Universe, and it is what we are at our core. But as humans, we forget. We close. We protect. We learn to survive by guarding the very places where love wants to enter.

Sometimes love must move through layers of fear, grief, pain, and old stories before we can feel it.

And sometimes, through another person's honesty, a dream, a memory, or a quiet moment, the heart feels safe enough to soften its guard and let love in.

Last reviewed: June 2026