Kai's Dad
Michael Schiesser
52 years old
Born Bad Kissingen, Germany
January 1st, 1956
I, Michael, was born in a small village in rural Bavaria ,Germany. As a seventeen year old I joined the police force in Germany and actively worked three years as a policeman in northern Bavaria. I was not happy and left the force and went to College to study Social Pedagogic (a combination of Social work, Psychology and Counseling), graduating with an MA. Parallel, I graduated with a BA in philosophy.
In 1980, an inner pull, which I called my ‘Herman Hesse longing’, had me travel to India and Nepal. My life changed on a trek in the Himalayas. I had my first spiritual realization and experience that there is more to us humans then our mind. In 1984 I came to the United States where my spiritual teacher of that time, Osho, resided. My spiritual pursuits had me participate in numerous retreats, workshops and seminars with teachers of Western and Eastern origins and teachings. My eclectic nature also led me to take a variety of trainings from breath work, bodywork to the study of Chinese Medicine. In the United States I lived in Tennessee, Hawaii, Alaska, before I settled in 1988 in California. Since then I have visited Japan and travelled to India several times more, lived in Burma in a Buddhist monastery as a monk, and traveled to Thailand, Bali, and Australia. I was involved with several different spiritual schools or movements and walked the path of salvation of the West and the path of liberation of the East. I had the privilege to be with and study with a few renowned spiritual teachers of our times from western and eastern traditions.
Since I was a little child, I always felt that there is only one source and many different paths to it. This knowing impacted the founding of a transformational company I called Inner Journey Seminars as a non-denominational vehicle to reach out and serve others on their journeys.
I met Neelama, Kai’s Mom, in 1997 and we became lovers. Neelama then left for a trip around the world and for two years we stayed loosely connected. We met again in August of 1999 in Ottawa, Canada and committed to each other as partners.
Neelama and I together with our wonderful friends, Penelope Bell, Gunnar Nielsson, Scott Paseltiner and Howard Ross brought the Inner Journey work to four different cities in the United States and Canada. Since then four semi independent Inner Journey Communities are serving with transformational programs in their cities.
In the summer of 2002, in a sweet little chapel in my hometown in Bavaria I proposed to Neelama, which led to our marriage on June 1st, 2003.Kai was conceived on our anniversary night, August 15, of that year and came into this world on May 20, 2004. He was born in a home birth with 2 midwives assisting us.He was welcomed by us and a group of friends who shared the miracle that a birth is. (For more details see the ‘Life of Kai’ article on the Blog)
Fatherhood:
Becoming a father has tremendously impacted me and my work.
Twenty years ago I had two abortions within a nine month period with my girlfriend of that times and so when Neelama got pregnant that experience was with me had influenced me towards a YES for fatherhood.
It was not an easy decision because I was 48 years old at that time and knew I would be 66 when Kai turns into a legal adult.
I became excited being a father during the pregnancy and of course, like anybody else, had no real clue what it is to be actually a parent.
There is no way around to learn by experience and I had no idea about the spectrum of experiences that were waiting…. see ‘Life of Kai’.
The gifts that I received from having my son impacted particular my work as a facilitator and therapist.
Before Kai was born I already had worked with hundreds, maybe thousands of people here and in Europe. Yet, without knowing it fully, very often I consciously had taken sides with the clients ‘inner child’. As long as one is NOT a parent, it is impossible to know ‘the other side’ of the parent-child relationship. Although I was kind of proud of my awareness, until Kai became not only my son but also my teacher, I didn’t see to what degree I tended to support the ‘child’ within the client against the parent. Most clients in therapy enrol and sometimes tend to manipulate the therapist to take their sides against the ‘bad’ parent.
This is very natural and instinctual, because in the work with our parents, we have only the child’s perspective, which comes from being the small one, the wounded one, sometimes even the abused one.
One incident, one morning at five AM during Kai’s colicky phase, shifted my perspective of my parents, specifically my father.
In my childhood and youth, in a few incidents, my father ‘lost it’; he exploded, became violent and screamed at me something like,
‘I should have thrown you at the wall when you were little’….
Of course I was scared and later on judged him for saying this to his children.
Now, that particular early morning, Kai was maybe 3 months old, as I paced back and forth, dead tired, maybe the 100ths time, Kai finally stopped crying and fell asleep.
As gently as I could I laid him down next to me, praying for him to stay asleep. As I was turning to the side to finally sleep, his crying started again. I was so close to loosing it, like never before, holding his little body up.
All I could do was just to scream…..to let this incredible anger, frustration and rage out.
When it had passed and shame and guilt took over, I remembered my father’s screaming at me, and I understood him. My judgment went, I forgave him. I had experienced his inner state.
Kai, my ‘spiritual teacher’:
I don’t write this here to show of, I write it factual, I have dedicated my life to ‘find God’, to become enlightened, however you want to call this. On this path I have worked with spiritual masters, teacher and guides, whose desire and intention was to assist me on my journey. Some of them put me by my request in intense situations in which I was confronted with my ego’s tricks and strategies.
Nothing has been so ‘enlightening’ in getting to know all of me than these years with Kai.
My relationship with women comes secondary in intensity, yet Kai has been my greatest teacher, guiding me by being who he is, to look at myself, to experience myself and to learn from it.
And Kai is not special, all kids do this with their parents as we did it with our parents.
The New Age or Personal Transformation sections of bookstores are full of self help books, yet rarely is parenting seen and understood and acknowledged as the unrelenting ‘school of learning and growth’ that it is.
Our children are our greatest teacher.