Father Wounds: Can A Man Be Highly Motivated If He Had An Emotionally Unavailable Father?

If a man is highly driven, he could often be seen as someone that has high self-esteem. Along with all the things that he has achieved, then, can be all of the positive feedback that he receives from others.

However, although he may have high self-esteem, it doesn’t mean that he is being driven by a sense of wholeness. In fact, deep down, he could feel very empty and just about everything that he does can be a way for him to avoid the deep hole that is inside him.

Doing Mode

But, as he will spend so much time doing things and being elevated by what he achieves and the feedback that he receives, he will typically be able to keep what is actually going on for him at bay. If he was to take his foot off the gas, though, and his external world was to radically change, he might soon come into contact with what he is unconsciously trying to avoid.

Doing and achieving things, along with receiving positive feedback is then going to be essential. There is a chance that he has been this way for many, many years and could continue to be this way for many more years to come.

His Life

So, when it comes to his career, he might work for others or he might be self-employed. Also, he might spend a lot of time in the public eye or he might spend most of his time working behind the scenes, so to speak.

If he does do something that causes him to receive a lot of attention, this is unlikely to be something that just happened. Due to how important positive feedback will be, he may have unconsciously if not consciously chosen to go down this path for this very reason.

Another Area

Thanks to what he has achieved, he could be doing very well materially. He might live in a fairly big house, wear expensive clothes, and have a car that makes heads turn, for instance.  

If he is in this position, what he owns will support and strengthen how he sees himself – as someone who is successful and a winner. When the time comes for him to relax, that’s if this does take place, he might need to consume something.

Wired Up

The reason for this is that he could end up feeling deeply irritated and unable to settle down. It is for this reason that he might rarely go on holiday or, if he does, he will probably also need to consume something.

By drinking alcohol, for instance, he will be able to feel at ease and relax. But, as only a small part of him will be this way and another, bigger part of him will be tense, he won’t be able to truly relax.

A New Direction

After a while, he could arrive at the point where he is unable to behave in this way anymore. In the beginning, he could try to resist what is going on and do what he can to behave in the same way.

But, the drive and the desire that he had before might no longer be there. This could, in part, be a sign that his health is not at the level that it used to be and he has suffered a major setback in his career.

Stepping Back

Assuming that this is the case, he could wonder why he has been so driven and has acted more like a machine than a human being. If he has been this way for most of his life, it could show that he has been trying to receive what he missed out on during his formative years.

He will no longer be a child but his repressed unmet developmental needs will have continued to influence his life. This may have been a time in his life when he missed out on his father’s and perhaps his mother’s love.

One Side

To focus on the former, his father might have been around from time to time but rarely been emotionally available and able to truly see him. At this stage of his life, he needed his father’s affirmation, so his support, encouragement and acceptance.

If this was so, he wouldn’t have felt loved and accepted by his father and, as he was egocentric, he would have come to believe that there was something inherently wrong with him. His level of development stopped him from being able to realise that this father simply couldn’t provide him with what he needed; it wasn’t that he was worthless and unlovable.

The Outcome

To handle what was going on, his brain would have automatically repressed how he felt and he would have done his best to receive his father’s love. But, as his father wasn’t able to give him what he needed, it wouldn’t have mattered what he did.

Likewise, it won’t matter what he does as an adult as this stage of his life will be over and other people won’t be his father. Thanks to unconsciously projecting his father onto others, perhaps men in particular, he will have unknowingly been engaged in a futile struggle for his father’s love.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this and he is ready to change his life, he may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer. 

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk