Andrew’s Story: Honoring My Father

I’d like to share a little story with you. It is about my father and me and our relationship. My father is old-school, medical doctor, academic, Left brain (rational) man. Since I started to activate the Right side of my brain (in my early 30′s), open and follow my heart…… we drifted apart. He was so judgmental of me and my actions. This felt so not good. So, I decided I would minimize our contact and try to imagine that he wasn’t here anymore. Easy enough as he had suffered multiple severe diseases over the last decade: heavy stroke, cancer (stomach out), open heart surgery, etc. Still this approach it didn’t sit right with me. It meant not feeling my father and I couldn’t do it.

I wanted to have a nice and loving relationship with him. My reason told me this wasn’t possible, as did my sister… just accept him as he is: “judgmental, grumpy, disapproving, etc”

In comes the Honor Window (HW).

I did an HW for my dad all by myself in June this year. In July and August we went to Netherlands (where my dad lives) and I grabbed the first possibility to be with my dad alone and I spoke to him like we had learnt from Michael at our iStand. What happened was sheer magic. My dad couldn’t believe where I was coming from, he was expecting hostility, resentment, frustration etc. None of that, he got understanding, love, honesty, honor! We both spent the rest of the afternoon with Anouk and our kids and things were just great. We laughed, we had fun, we spoke openly, like… like we hadn’t done for a loooooong time.

This marked the beginning of our renewed relationship. Now we skype every few weeks and it is just great. There is respect, love, joy. So when I skyped him for his birthday earlier this month, he said that me skyping him made his day. Wow, how far had we come.

So, I guess, this is my way of saying thank you to you Michael.

Andrew M.D. Troostwijk MBA

PS. One of my friends had his wife for 30 years leave him. Sitting by a beautiful lake (Zaca Lake) I did an HW with him in October when she had already been gone for 6 months. This took 20 minutes. He very much wanted her back….. she was his goddess. They’re both in their late 70′s and he wanted to be with her till the end of days. Anyway, within a month they got back together again and he is very grateful to me for the HW session we had. This stuff is very powerful.