Master Your Darkest Inner Fears To Become The Best Possible Parent

Unlock Your Inner Dragon Slayer

A man recently left a thoughtful comment on one of my articles that struck me.

He wrote about how both he and his wife had grown up surrounded by unhealthy examples, and how, when it came to media, their parents seemed to adopt the attitude: “As long as they’re out of my hair, it doesn’t matter what they’re watching.”

That neglect, he said, left a mark. It created fatigue—an exhaustion that came from hating all things “modern” without ever having the words to explain why. Reading my article about the importance of video-games in powerful and unified families, he realized he finally had language to articulate that resentment.

But then he shifted to something more vulnerable.

He told me that I had mentioned in passing how I would take my son to flight lessons. For him, flying is a phobia. Just the thought of it sends his anxiety spiraling. And now, as a father, he worries: will my fears become my child’s fears?

He ended with a question—one that deserves to be asked publicly:

Do we, as parents, carry phobias and fears that our children absorb, even when we don’t intend them to? And if so, how do we overcome them for the sake of those who look to us for strength?

Here is what I told him (with some minor tweaking from the original comment for the sake of you in the audience reading his article, especially at the end):

“What you describe is how you're not supposed to parent with gaming, exactly as I had written. Games are not supposed to replace parents, only supplement parenting.

Meanwhile, while your disdain for modernity is completely understandable (it's why I'm regularly in the wilderness myself), beware of the backfiring of extremes with children as they grow.

It's like the story of Siddharta Gautama, the original Buddha. His father, the king, was presented with a choice: You can either inspire your son to be a great emperor or a great spiritual leader.

Because the king wanted his son to become a great emperor who would advance the kingdom, he thought to prevent his son from experiencing suffering—as great spiritual leaders generally specialize in understanding and teaching about suffering.

As a result of the father's disdain for suffering, his son ended up developing a *fascination* with suffering as a form of backfiring once the son realized that suffering was a real and inescapable thing. As a result, he became the very spiritual leader that his father didn't want him to become.

The same metaphorical situation applies to you: You said that your parents granted you an overabundance of games (I paraphrase, because those weren't your actual words). As a result, you developed the polar opposite appreciation or anti-appreciation for modernity. You went in the opposite directional extreme.

This means that if you stay on course, preventing your children from having games at all or refusing to treat games as a normal part of modern Western life, what you'll likely actually end up doing is fanaticizing the idea of games in your children's mind the same way suffering was in Gautama's mind.

Games are a multibillion-dollar ever-growing industry with no signs it will stop. You might be able to keep them from your children for a time, but they will eventually get exposed to them at some point or another. At which point, they will naturally question your disdain for them as a natural part of testing your parental authority—part of teenhood at the very least.

What do you think is going to happen then, when your children don't find them as horrible as you do, with no strong, objective argument against them you can use to convince them not to use them in alignment with your personal scarring?

It is not terribly unlike my love of European people. Some of my ancestors were slaves, but many were not. Some of my black ancestors suffered at the hands of whites; many other black ancestors *literally risked death* to assimilate with them.

Meanwhile, partially as an indirect result of my step-father trying everything in his power to keep me from embracing my white side...guess who ended up becoming a literal Norse pagan? (Me.)

My step-father hated whites so much that when he failed to produce a solid argument that wasn't based on emotional appeal or *his* scarring that *I* didn't have....”

To which, he retorted:

“...to reply to your comment on games being a booming industry, and how its normalized in western society. The same can be said about booming industries with sinister agendas, the main one being porn. As pornography becomes more and more normalized, with no hiccup in sight, could the child, who we will try to protect their innocence from as much as logically possible, go through the same pathway that you explained with games? (That is if we were to commit to treating games as only negative.)”

I replied with the following:

And to that, I would stay consistent with the same advice: Integrate that which is inevitable healthfully into your mind.

Remember: Your children don't become what you say to become; they become reflections of who you are. Your inner strengths and weaknesses.

Nowadays, one can't *touch* a computer without running into some kind of pornographic image at some point, somewhere. Simply being on social media alone, even if you never click on anything pornographic, the algorithm will *test* an image or two every once in a while in *all* of our feeds just as a systemic part of its processing user data.

One way or the other, if your children are connected to computers in any way, shape, or form for any longer than a figurative five minutes...they are going to run into porn.

If a man has not adequately integrated that aspect of his shadow when he discovers his children looking at porn (or that they have looked at porn), he will not have a plan for how to really prevent them from becoming addicted to it.

Let's use my biggest fear as an example: my children embracing a little too much of their black side.

If I am too pro-European while trying to hide the black ancestry and the reality of mainstream black culture from my children...I may *create* pro-blacks in my house who hate Europeans.

Therefore, the answer is a holistic one: Don't hide my kids from black people. Integrate the reality that they are part black healthfully into their minds by first integrating that fact healthily into my own.

For example, I have taken my children *far* away from geographical concentrations of black people—just as my own black father wanted for me.

Yet, you'll never see me *deny* that I am black. You won't see me straightening my hair at this point in my life, or bleaching my skin.

I wear dreads: a symbol that I have, indeed, healthily integrated the reality of what I am in my own mind.

What occurs, then?

I am a genuine hero to my wife and children. I am far above the bad black father stereotypes.

By taking control and actually *showing* them the harsh reality of controlled segments of black culture and African migrants in Europe—instead of running from them—my children see that I am an anomaly while associating the thought of most of black culture with "disappointment".

And if I can confirm that they view mainstream black culture as disappointing or “unworthy of a certain level of respect”, I can rest easy so long as they respect me more than they respect that culture.

If, however, I tried to hide it all from them entirely, here's more likely what would happen: They would think that all black people are like me—because I wasn't there or willfully refrained from introducing them to black culture *my* way.

That's not me saying that you should show your kids porn; that *is* me saying that you should find your own way to truly face and defeat your own demons rather than burying them.

...else, those demons *will* come for your children the moment they innocently step on the grave you buried those demons still alive in.

...and you will *not* have developed the genuine self-mastery to rescue them as they get pulled under.

Because only then can you demonstrate by example your self-mastery in a way that inspires your children to be the way you actually want them to be out of respect for your character...rather than becoming the way you don't want them to be out of pity for you.

For instance, as a mixed-race black-dominant man: did I choose a white wife because I love myself or because I hate myself?

When inevitably challenged by my children on this matter, likely when they become teenagers, I better be able to show them by example that I chose her because I love myself—that warrants respect.

If, on the other hand, I chose her because I secretly hate myself...then that proves people like Dr. Umar and other pro-black talking figures *correct*, which shatters my authority on the matter in their minds as they'd begin to pity me rather than respect me.

So, it would make sense, then, that my children would gravitate to people they *would* start respecting: the black supremacists.

And their narrative would become about reconnecting with *those* ancestors first and foremost.

All because they'd have popped the hood of my mind to find weakness, instead of genuine strength.

And being able to ensure my family that I chose my wife out of self-love is good for my *wife's* psychology too.

A man who secretly hates himself and chooses his love interest based on that hatred does not actually love at all.

If I had not chosen her because I genuinely love myself in a healthy way, I would lose not merely my children's respect but hers. It would *break her heart* if what she has seen within me for her and her people during key moments of danger and crisis when a hero was needed wasn't real or coming from the wrong place in my mind and heart.

Which would then lead her into a downward spiral of depression and self-doubt, the dissolution of our sex life, etc. She would feel like a true traitor of Latvians. She would suddenly feel the weight of other Europeans who have judged her for going against the conventional wisdom in the process of choosing me the way I chose her.

A lot would happen to her mind and emotions, and thus our relationship…

...and I am just simply not allowing it.

There would be so many things that would consequently occur if I had failed to really conquer my multiracial trauma.

The light in her eyes when she looks at me would almost certainly fade as she'd come to the conclusion that anything I was willing to risk and sacrifice of myself to protect her (such as when we were outnumbered by Chinese triads who wanted to kidnap her into prostitution on the basis of her marketability as a pretty, blonde white woman) was driven by a will to self-destruct...which moots the value of the sacrifice. Negates the definition of what she thought was courage in me.

A martyr is not a martyr who *wants* to die. A true martyr is someone who wants to live, but chooses death for the correct cause. I value myself and my life as something I don't want to lose. It was not the "Doc Holiday Syndrome" she mistook for the best in me.

I have experienced bouts of Doc Holiday Syndrome before I met her, sure enough—but was the timing right for when I met her? Was I truly in a good place of emotional and psychological healing? That is the question.

Because a man suffering from Doc Holiday Syndrome isn’t truly brave; he casts the illusion of what can be mistaken as bravery due to him not caring about his own life.

A man who does not value his life is unafraid to lose it. As fear is the prerequisite for genuine bravery, should he lose his life in service to a woman, people, or ideal throughout the process of facing fear he doesn’t actually have, he would not have truly sacrificed anything of value for them. He wasn’t truly willing to suffer for them in that regard, making his sacrifice a selfish act because he really wanted to die anyway—or at least didn’t actually care if he would. What he would have done in psychoanalytic actuality was seek to end his suffering, not demonstrate that he was willing to suffer, as per the definition of love.

In stark contrast, a man who does value his life is afraid to lose it. As fear is the prerequisite for genuine bravery, should he lose his life in service to a woman, people, or ideal throughout the process of facing the fear he has, then he would have truly sacrificed something of value for them. He was truly willing to suffer for them in that regard, making his sacrifice an act of true love.

No, my wife’s senses and judgment of my character were fine. She chose her husband correctly. I put myself into positions of self-sacrifice out of genuine love for her and our people. I was truly afraid to use my body as a shield during a small avalanche in the Chinese mountains or to go up against the Chinese Triads to prevent them taking her.

You should be able to say the same, in the way that contextually applies, to yourself and yours.

You have to have self-esteem for your love to really mean anything.

Let’s break down the word “self-esteem” in accordance with Dictionary.com:

• “Self-”

  • The ego; that which knows, remembers, desires, suffers, etc., as contrasted with that known, remembered, etc.

  • The uniting principle, as a soul, underlying all subjective experience.

• “Esteem”

  • To consider as of a certain value or of a certain type; regard.

At that point in my life, I had evolved into a man who truly loved and valued himself in a healthy way—making it truly noble, worthy of the classical hero archetype, to risk death for my wife’s honor and well-being.

If we maintain the definition of love as “the willingness to suffer,” then a man who does not love himself is unwilling to suffer for himself; he merely suffers.

I suffer, existentially, when negatively judged for my skin color or hair type without fair consideration for the content of my character. Yet, I healthfully acknowledge that some aspect of it is inescapable, especially as it is impractical for people who do not know me to have a fair opportunity to judge the content of my character.

They are not gods and, as such, have mortal epistemological limitations throughout the process of their own navigation throughout the world.

So, with empathy for people who misjudge me, I remain willing to suffer of myself (also known as loving myself by the definition of love I propose) by not running from the fact that I am black, or black-dominant in phenotype despite being mixed-race.

Do I have it within myself, the inner strength, to hold on to what I know is truly valuable about myself without succumbing to cowardly notions of trying to hide my blackness? If so, then the next level of strength is whether I have the strength of internal consistency needed to still embrace Europeans as my own people, even the very individuals among them who unfairly misjudge me?

Especially to love them and sacrifice of myself for them without any promise of reward?

For a man who loves himself—this is a herculean task, almost godlike in nature. One similar to the archetype of legendary figures like Christ or key tales of the Norse gods at key moments of their character development.

By extension, in contrast, a man who secretly hates himself and chooses his love interest based on that hatred does not actually love at all, because love—real love—inherently demands some form of sacrifice…or, at least, the genuine willingness to sacrifice.

While sacrifice is a component of commitment.

If you aren’t willing to sacrifice for, or commit to, a woman, a people, or an ideal, then you don’t actually love them; you merely have a vague fondness for them.

Perhaps a distorted fetishization of them.

Thus, for a woman to bed a man who does not value himself, who lacks the strength to accept and face the suffering of himself, cannot truly offer anything of value from his soul to her.

If we were to temporarily entertain the thought of my wife as an archetypal Venus, or a Freya, in Joseph Campbellian monomythic terms, if we are each various manifestations of the gods in our cultural storytelling, then that would determine the difference between a high- and low-value sacrifice to such gods.

Even if you are not Norse, merely entertain the metaphysical thought-process; think in terms of poetry and metaphor: What is the quality of my soul being offered at the altar of Freya—Norse goddess of crops, love, and fertility—manifesting in my wife?

In such metaphysical terms, Freya has “blessed” me with such a fruitful, enduring marriage because the sacrifices of myself are of such a corresponding high quality.

Despite my skin color, Freya is moved by the offering of a quality and enduring soul—one strengthened by healthy self-love and certified as quality by having passed multitudes of tests of having slain multiple dragons, demons, or evil spirits that threaten it.

The same metaphorical demons or dragons that I advised the reader in the aforementioned quote to slay of his own.

The valkyrie within my wife did not bed the soul of a mentally broken slave with self-destructively weak impulses; she bedded the manifestation of a dragonslayer true to the legend of Sigurd. (Many may know him by the name of “Siegfried” in games like Soul Calibur; though, a video-game character in modernity, he is based on an actual Norse legend called Völsunga saga.)

Even the valkyries themselves made an exception for the brave and enduring Sigurt in Valhalla, despite his flawed origins. In fact, according to the legend, he married one after slaying the dragon Fáfnir and unlocking the valkyrie’s heart, entrapped by the ring of fire—a feat unheard of for a mere mortal.

Thus, to my wife, I am a true hero of our people. Even if it is hard to see that at first by the common, mortal eye—she sees it.

Freya sees it, and blesses my marriage accordingly.

But, let me start running from my demons…or manufacturing excuses to avoid slaying my dragons in a way unbecoming the manifestation of Sigurt that my wife fell in love with—and watch, the same as my children would, as my sacrifices at Freya’s altar would suddenly decline in quality, leading to corresponding failures in my crops and romance.

…which then leads to the generational trickle-down effect described in the original question.

Don’t flee from or bury your dragons and demons—face them.

You do that by starting off with truth, what truth you can psychologically handle—and then making baby steps from there to build the strength necessary to handle increasing amounts of truth—separate from whatever emotionally scarred you.

Your scarring is the dragon, the manifestation of your personal Fáfnir. Truth is your Gram, the name of Sigurt’s sword he used to slay Fáfnir in the legend—but you cannot wield Gram right away, for the sword is too heavy.

To master it is to master yourself; you must train with it in baby steps in the way that is correct for you—starting with honesty, truth told to yourself, with what you’re running from.

Simply sealing our personal Fáfnir away in his cave for the inability to individuate our disdain for him is not enough. Make no mistake: He is still alive in that damned cave and will inevitably break free to claim the lives of your village children.

And, if you hadn’t been truly training with Gram…you will fail to slay him heroically before the eyes of your wife and children, who will be watching your bout with him from the village when you are called upon to protect them.

They will admire you as their hero if you succeed—following from your example in how to slay him, inspired by your courage and compelled to carry on your legacy out of respect for you.

They cannot if you run from him.

Do not let the women and children of your village come to respect Fáfnir more than they respect you.