Finding Your personal myth

We were all born with a personal myth.
The story that is trying to awaken within us.
Our reason for being here.
We sometimes hear these faint whispers, but we don’t always understand what they’re telling us.

I think that we’ve all felt that feeling that something is waiting for us, that something is calling us.

Understanding our mythology helps us understand our psychology. And when we start to understand our psychology, we can better understand who we are and how we can best show up in life and take care of the people we love.

”When we open ourselves to mythic imagination, we become able to perceive, not just the nature of our inside story, but also the meanings behind the pain and confusion in our lives.”
—Michael Meade

It is said that our greatest gifts hide where our deepest wounds reside. Finding these gifts asks us to look back as well as forward. Looking back at where our wounds first appeared, but also looking ahead an daring to imagine the life that was ours to begin with. One element is always certain, our gifts are part of the greater community. So whatever you are looking for is both for you as well as for you to share.

I will guide you to learn who you are as a man and as a father.
This is your journey, your personal story and I’m only here to give you the space and the courage to keep walking. I’m here to witness your transformation into who you are meant to be. By having a witness to your process you slowly start to walk into a wholeness. Knowing you are held in compassion and care for everything you are and all that you’ve been carrying with you.

Through this process you will also be able to hold your space as a father with more peace, purpose, and presence. Protecting your loved ones through co-regulation, awareness and a deeper sense of connection.

The myth of fatherhood

When you become a father a new cycle of your story is born together with your child. This is where the connection with the deep self is seperated into two parts. This is the natural, ancestral cycle of wounds and gifts which emerges a new kind of responsibility, and a place where you’re asked to devote yourself to something larger than your individual self. Within this seperation grows the potential of your legacy. Not the external achievement of a legacy that we men too often seek to be validated, but the true inner path of a legacy that can only be reached through a life of meaning.

Leaving a legacy / Living your legacy.

DEEP DOWN, ALL FATHERS WANT TO LEAVE A LEGACY.

But way I see it, legacy is not a goal to achieve, or something to accumulate to leave behind, but the side effect of a life lived with meaning.

In order to live a legacy, you must be willing to let go of the comforts you so desperately cling to.

To dare to ask yourself if you’re willing to see what you’re truly capable of.
And at what costs are you willing to get there?

Why am
I here?

And this is where I have found my own personal myth.

In fatherhood.

And not just in how I feel I want to be a father to my 2 sons, but also in finding other fathers and fathers-to-be, to walk this path together and support each other on this journey of fatherhood.

Looking back, there have been many moments in my life where I very naturally stepped into a fathering role for those around me. A protective, caring, but also daring energy to take care of those around me. And that is the energy I want to expand in my life.

In these last 10 years of fatherhood I kept stepping deeper into my role and curiosity of being a father. While becoming more conscious of my role as a father I very naturally kept researching the patterns in life that could give me a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man, a father, and a son in our western society.

This research found its way from my home and the experiences with my own two boys into a history of indigenous rites of passage, ancient mythology, modern psychology, studying polyvagal theory, early child development, attachment styles, abandonment wounds, actively practicing trauma-informed bodywork through both therapy as well as study, working in special education with early teens in some of the rougher neighbourhoods, observing families while working in child protection services, and finding wisdom from the people I meet along the way.

All this research was very clearly focused and directed around fathering, being a man, raising kids, and all the obstacles we face, directly and indirectly, by living in the systems of our western culture.
Most psychologists I’ve met (often very ego-driven by being educated within a very masculine, competitive, and individualistic educational system) see problems to fix. I see these same problems as symptoms of much deeper societal and cultural layers that are causing the increase of depression, anxiety, and suicides in our western society. In particular among teens and men.

So while my research and studies reach much wider and are driven by a much more holistic understanding of the pressures or society, I’m also actively learning how to best make space for other fathers to dive deeper into their fears. Learning to access their feelings of shame and guilt, making them understand the reasons and consequences of how and why they are consciously and unconsciously trying to control their environments through domination and manipulation. And how to move into a life that is more expansive, that gives room for joy, beauty, aliveness, a vital energy, and a deeper connection with our partners, our kids, and our own body.