In this Q&A segment, Eckhart Tolle responds to a participant (Speaker B) who is distressed about conflict between his older son and wife, and feels he has failed as a father, especially toward his younger son. Tolle explains that the participant carries a deep‑seated sense of something important missing, which originates in childhood experiences of not being fully recognized, loved, or hugged by parents. He describes how this unacknowledged need becomes part of one’s personality and continues to influence adult relationships. Tolle illustrates the pattern with his own father’s story—being the ninth child, neglected due to parental fatigue—showing how later‑born children often receive less attention. He emphasizes that the participant has already taken a healing step by seeking the workshop, and suggests that awareness of this childhood burden, acceptance of it without blame, and present‑moment awareness are key to easing the current family tension. The overall message is that the problem is not the fault of the parents or the participant, but an unconscious carry‑over of early emotional deprivation that can be softened through conscious presence and compassion.
Chapters
That sense of something very important missing that you were not given, that you've been deprived of, that then becomes part of your— the person, the personality, the makeup of the personality. And so that's what you still carry around with you every day.
My older son and my wife, these crowns of creation, they are fighting a lot. And my older son is, is here, very high IQ, but he's 24 and he hasn't had any— I mean, he got his high school degree, his Abitur, but no, no, he didn't finish any studies. And I just feel that I had a conversation here with, with some participants. Thank you for collecting all these wise people here. It was It's so great to be here. And I had the impression that I haven't done my job here. And so my question to you is now, how can I heal this situation? How can I— what can I do to make my sons happy? I mean, the younger son, he always wanted to be like Papa, and he was always very, very helpful, and he's very successful. But I just feel that I lost out, that somehow I lost out on something, that I didn't bring myself fully in, and that's my question, what can I do, how can I heal that?
Thank you. Well, one way you've already done it, you've come here, so, and you know this is why you're here, you have to, You see, you carry a burden with you that since goes back to childhood, and it starts from this not being fully acknowledged, not being fully recognized, not given enough love. And so this burden, the strong sense of there's something very important missing within me or in my life. And that starts with childbearing. Of course, what is missing is that attention, that recognition of— a child needs to be recognized in their being by the parent. I mean, quite often parents are not able to do it, or after several children have come into existence, they become a little tired.
Yeah.
And the later ones are not given much attention. In some cases, they didn't really want the later ones, they just happened. In many ways, my father's life is a little bit of a reflection of yours. My father was the 9th and last child. 2 died in childbirth, but he was the 9th. The parents were already very tired. The mother was tired, so many children. The father was always busy, so he was just not giving very much attention. And he felt neglected, and he was, in a way, and never hugged. That was part of their— he was not the only one that wasn't hugged, but that was part of their almost Victorian upbringing, still remnants from the 19th century.
Yeah.
But that sense of something very important missing, that you were not given, that you've been deprived of, that then becomes part of your— the person, the personality, the makeup of the personality. And so that's what you still carry around with you every day.
