How I Transformed Dad’s Kryptonite Into My Most Amazing Superpower

He was my hero. But he was a crappy role model.

I liked my dad and I respected him. But mostly I was afraid of him.

Come, sit by my campfire and I’ll tell you a bit of my dad’s story. I have a spare chair just for you. Grab a drink!

My dad used pain, violence, and demeaning insults to get me to do what he wanted. It was how he was raised, and he was good at passing on the life skills. There was no praise. There was only consequences. If I ran, the consequences were more severe. Usually, a belt or switch was the agent of change that he used on me.

He was a highly skilled craftsman, a smart farmer, and a hard worker. He could have gone far. He was a blacksmith who made high quality knives. He invented his own tools. He could fix broken farm equipment with ingenuity and whatever he had lying around.

But he was taken down by a powerful force that he couldn’t defeat. My dad’s kryptonite was how he treated himself, and his self talk.

I didn’t know my grandfather on that side of the family, but I can imagine how he treated his son. I bet he swore at him, hit him and belittled him. I think my dad got a good dose of cruelty and not enough love. That left him with self esteem lower than his feet. When I came along, he didn’t have anything else to give me but what he knew from his dad.

My father was harder on himself than he ever was on me. He would sit in our kitchen and rant. Here’s a few examples of his thoughts, which he generously provided for us by speaking out loud in front of his family, in an exaggerated show of self pity.

“Well, I guess I’ll never get our house finished now. There’s no way I can ever get this built.” — deep sigh, forehead on his hands

“All that money, gone. You can’t trust anyone. Why do things like this always happen to me?” — drunken rant after he gets stiffed on a bill

“We can’t have that. We’re broke. Forget about it.” — sad shake of his head as he looks down

“None of my plans are ever going to happen, I guess.” — deep sigh — “ I don’t even know why I bother trying so hard. Might as well give up.” — opens bottle and pours a shot

This was all very depressing, upsetting and scary. We were a captive audience. My mom never argued with him. She just quietly kept on painting or drawing. Mostly to avoid listening, I think.

The No-fail Way To Sabotage Your Happiness

Convince yourself that you’re a loser who is too dumb, lazy or unlucky to get things done. Every time you hit an obstacle, stop and moan and complain and give up. And convince everyone around you that it’s hopeless while you’re at it.

Rant at yourself and the world, and make sure that you expect very little of yourself or your chances of finding success. Take your self esteem and punch it right below the belt over and over.

I took this example to heart and learned to hate myself too. Then I went out into the world and made a ton or really dumb mistakes, because I was working with the faulty programming I inherited. I was bitter about it too. I felt like a dumb, unlucky loser.

I had it pounded into my head that I wasn’t like other people. I didn’t deserve things. I couldn’t compare to anyone that went to secondary school. I shouldn’t expect to own fancy possessions like a new Ford car, let alone own my own house. I could never be considered a professional at anything. All I was good for was manual labor.

I Started Blaming My Parents For My Messed Up Life

I blamed my mom for never leaving my father, no matter how badly he treated her over the years. I blamed my dad for all the beatings and emotional pain. I blamed both of them for being poor and not trying harder.

I was angry at my father for 3 years straight, a simmering dark cloud of rage. But slowly, this fire burnt itself out. All I was left with were ashes. Then, I rebuilt.

After years of struggle and growth, I came to a place where I could see my dad more objectively. I had some big revelations about his life.

The first one was that he was a victim, and definitely had it worse than I did as a child. The second revelation was that he did the best he could with the tools the universe gave him.

But the final piece of the puzzle was that all I had to do is the opposite of his rant and I would see big changes in my life.

The Turning Point

I faced the facts. I had to be responsible for my own life and actions. That was the only way to break the chain that lead from the past to the future.

If all we ever do is operate on programming from our parents and pass on the flaws to our children, then nothing will ever change. We need to pick a new path. I volunteered for the job of Being A Responsible Adult and Taking Control. I owned it.

It hasn’t been easy. It took several years to get to the point where I thought I was fit to be part of society. The negative self talk I was programmed into using daily was strong. A frontal assault wouldn’t work on it. I had to get in the back door to program the computer for myself.

But that’s a tale for another day. Meet me around the fire some other night and I’ll tell you I learned to use self talk to get what I wanted into my life.

Until then, here is some of the rest of my story.

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash