Tiny Buddha

Tag: dad

  • To the Parent Who’s Stressing About Being Imperfect

    To the Parent Who’s Stressing About Being Imperfect

    “Your greatest contribution to the universe may not be something you do, but someone you raise.” ~Unknown

    Have you ever heard the saying, “Mama knows best” or “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy”? Honestly, who decided that moms should know everything and that the entire emotional balance of the home rests solely on their shoulders? Isn’t Mom a human too? A beautiful soul navigating this life, trying to figure things out just like everyone else? How is it fair that we pile all the pressure onto this one person—the keeper of the schedules, the task doer, the tender space for everyone to fall?

    It’s no wonder the pressure on moms today is sky-high. We carry expectations that are impossible to meet—being nurturing yet productive, selfless yet balanced. And let’s not forget about dads, who often get a bad rap for not doing things “as well as mom.”

    We need to take a step back. Both parents are human. They come into parenting with their own limiting beliefs, inner critics, and childhood wounds. Being a parent doesn’t mean you automatically know what you’re doing.

    I’ll never forget the drive home from the hospital with my first son. I was in the backseat, staring at this tiny human, thinking, “They’re really letting us take him home?”

    It hit me, sitting in that glider in his nursery a few weeks later, that I had no idea what I was doing. I tried reading all the books, hoping the answers were tucked in there somewhere. But even after reading the same chapter of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child at least thirty times, I still felt lost.

    So, I did what felt natural—I called my mom. Surely, she had the answers. But all she said was, “This too shall pass.” At the time, her words made me angry. I didn’t have time for things to pass; I needed solutions. Yet, over the years, I’ve come to realize that she didn’t have all the answers either. None of us do.

    This journey of figuring it out—of reading books, blogs, and consulting my mom—lasted for many years. I wanted so badly to be a good mom. I was a good mom. I loved my kids deeply, left little notes in their lunch boxes, tucked them in at night, and kept them safe with helmets and seatbelts. But as he grew, so did the struggles, and often, so did my fear.

    When my son was in elementary school, he began struggling terribly. At first, I thought maybe he just needed a little extra encouragement. But when he would cry at homework or tear up on our way to school, I knew it was deeper. He would rush through his work just so he could turn in his tests at the same time as the other “smarter” kids. School was overwhelming for him, and it was crushing me to watch.

    Eventually, he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and a wave of conflicting emotions washed over me. I was relieved to know he had support now, but the meetings, the individualized education programs, the tutoring—all of it weighed on me.

    Sitting in those meetings with teachers and specialists, I’d feel a tightness in my chest and tears spilling over. I wanted him to have an easier path, but I was realizing that I couldn’t just “fix” it. I was the mother, the one who was supposed to protect him, but I was helpless in the face of these challenges he would have to navigate on his own. My heart ached for him, and I often felt ashamed of my own emotional unraveling.

    Reflecting back, I see how much of those tears were for him—and for me. I was spread too thin. Work was overwhelming, my marriage was strained, and I had little left to give. My life felt like a juggling act, and each new challenge threatened to tip the balance. The layers of fear, responsibility, and love were always there, piling up, and I felt the weight of every single one.

    And then came the teenage years. Those years where the stakes felt higher, where choices carried more weight, and where my fear around his decisions—who he spent time with, the roads he might choose—grew even stronger.

    I remember one day, standing in the garage in an argument with him. The tension was thick, and we were both yelling—my fear bursting out as anger. I don’t even remember what we were arguing about; it’s a blur. But the shame and guilt afterward were so clear.

    The truth is, every stage of my son’s life brought forward a new version of myself—a woman, a mother, learning as she went, trying her best to balance it all. My own fear of failure, of not being enough, would surface in unexpected ways. But somewhere along the journey, I realized that my fears and my need for control were driving a wedge between us. And the more I tried to grip tightly, the more I lost sight of the tender love and wonder I wanted to bring into our relationship.

    So, I started working on myself. I went to therapy and hired a coach—not because I was broken, but because I knew I wasn’t showing up as the parent, or the person, I wanted to be.

    Through my healing journey, I learned that my desire to control was rooted in fear—a fear that if I didn’t do everything perfectly, he would somehow slip through the cracks. I feared for his future, that he’d face pain or hardship. But as I began to peel back those layers, I started to see that my fear wasn’t protecting him; it was keeping me from fully loving and trusting him.

    As I did this inner work, something shifted. My approach softened. I wasn’t as reactive or rigid. I found that I could set boundaries from a place of love instead of fear, listen without rushing to fix, and let him make his own choices.

    I became less focused on making sure everything was perfect and more focused on simply being there. I was less afraid, more open—and, truth be told, I began to enjoy life more. I found joy in the little things again, the mundane moments I used to take for granted. And he noticed.

    My children began to see me differently. They told me I was more patient, kinder, and even more fun. This loop of healing—me working on myself, allowing my own growth to ripple into how I showed up for them—created a connection that only grew stronger. The more I invested in myself, the more balanced I felt, and the deeper my love for them became.

    So, what about that old saying, “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy”? Perhaps instead we should say, “No one is happy all the time, but if mom is struggling, she needs time and space to address her own issues, and everyone in the house will benefit.” The same goes for Dad. If he’s checked out, he needs to come back to this one life we’re given. Both parents need to heal, grow, and show up for themselves so they can be there fully for their kids.

    Just like the thermostat in your home, if things are too hot or too cold, you adjust it to find comfort. The same goes for parenting. When we take the time to work on ourselves, we create the right environment—not perfect, but balanced and loving—for our children to thrive.

    It’s never too late to start. Let’s embark on this healing journey together so we can show up as the best parents we can be—not because we have all the answers, but because we’re willing to do the work, grow, and love along the way.

  • 7 Lessons from My Father That Have Made Me a Better, Happier Person

    7 Lessons from My Father That Have Made Me a Better, Happier Person

    “A father is neither an anchor to hold us back, nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.” ~Unknown

    I couldn’t understand his grateful mindset, especially given his obvious rapid decline. My dad was dying. None of us could reconcile a life without our mentor, hero, spouse, brother, uncle, friend, and champion of cheesy dinner table games.

    But it was coming, and we all knew it. Still, he’d tell us he’s “counting his blessings, not his struggles.” This from a man with a failing liver and ammonia on his brain.

    When that fateful morning arrived, my mom and I were in direct alignment with him. We’d stayed by his bedside all night, watching for any changes to his breathing. It seemed to settle—at least, the rattle was gone. Soon, we were also unable to breathe as we watched him slip away to his next chapter.

    He didn’t really look like himself, but he looked peaceful. I felt an immediate panic that I’d left unanswered questions on the table. About his past. About my grandparents that I never knew. About how to maneuver through an uncertain future… Do we lock in for the longer-term mortgage rate? Do we renovate the house now, never or in a few years? Do we pull our kid out of school for an epic family adventure?

    Dad would know these things.

    Despite my aching heart, I’ve realized over the last few months that my dad left us with a legacy of Golden Rules. These will pop into my head randomly, but sometimes I wonder… It seems whenever I long for his wisdom, I hear his voice whispering:

    “Count your blessings, not your struggles.”

    Easier said than done, right? But we can all find something to be cheerful about. My dad weathered deep pain in his last month of life. His leg cramps were the worst! It was torture to see him suffer, but more torturous to witness his declining cognitive function.

    Because my dad was a capable, super-human of a man. He built companies from nothing, organized events to support our city, and could relate to anyone he ever met. To watch him struggle with his phone, and to hear his slurred, slowed-down speech, killed me. And yet… Even ten days before his last day on earth, he continued to believe he was lucky.

    “If it weren’t for my liver disease, I wouldn’t have all these check-ins by my grandkids!” 

    “If it weren’t for the ammonia on my brain, I wouldn’t have had all this extra time with you, Sammy.” (I’d taken a leave of absence from my serving job to be more available.)

    His courageous outlook inspires me to do better. Instead of lamenting my long list of grievances, I can choose to focus on the good in my life. I’m healthy. My kids still think I’m cool. My husband supports my new business gig. I’ve let my gray grow in and have been told it’s not “that cringy.” I believe in myself. I have a lot to be grateful for.

    “You can’t teach a lamb to bark.”

    For years, I tried to mold my youngest daughter into the person I thought would be her best self. I fought her incessant quest to be online, even though she had some prodigious knack for beating all the levels in her games. I pushed playdates on her, because they seemed “age-appropriate” and a “better use” of her time when all she wanted was to be alone.

    I’d lecture her on speaking up; I’d answer for her whenever adults put her on the spot; I’d correct her sometimes quirky behaviour; I’d badger her for not opening up to me.

    The list goes on.

    One day, for reasons related to my nephew and not my daughter, my dad politely informed the family that “you can’t teach a lamb to bark.” It took us a beat, but then it sunk in.

    My kid is an introvert. She should not be shamed into behaving more gregariously. My kid likes gaming, and she’s good at it. Why should I take that away from her if we have some healthy boundaries in place? She doesn’t want to be forced into social situations just because other kids her age want that. My kid is a lamb. I should not expect her to bark.

    “Sit on an emotional email for a day or two.”

    This rule saved my bacon countless times over my sixteen-year career in finance. In the heat of some frustrating situation—often defied by any sense of logic—I’d craft seething emails to send to our head office. In my rookie years, I sent some of them and regretted the fallout immediately.

    Having an emotional response to disappointing news is a natural reaction; it’s part of our humanity to feel. But he would always say, “Sammy, imagine your email is printed on the front page of the Globe & Mail [our national newspaper]. Make sure you’ve digested everything first and given yourself the space to think critically.”

    His technique led to dozens of phone calls rather than heat-infused emails whose tone could potentially be misinterpreted. Or I’d sit on them and just never hit send, later realizing, my knee-jerk reaction would have set off a chain of even more difficult situations I’d rather avoid.

    Then there were those that I would send. I’m proud of them… because I was able to express myself from a place of patience, time, and space. Our initial reaction to things does not always end up as the final say.

    “No amount of past trauma can hold you back if you can forgive and find purpose.”

    As a young boy, my dad was molested by a close family member for years. He repressed this abuse, until one day, the world he built to hide his unconscious pain crashed down on all of us.

    The details are difficult to relive. He was accused of some terrible things. He lost his high-powered position in finance. He’d been living a double life, fighting a sex addiction that had manifested out of his childhood trauma. Something none of us, including him, knew anything about. I was eighteen at the time. I thought for sure my mom would leave him. I remember thinking we would lose the house, and that there could be no way through this.

    When his hidden truth rose to the surface, he began to dig into his past and we watched him fight to keep the family together; rebuilding, restoring, and recovering. In his quest to prove himself worthy, he took on a new purpose. He was not going to let his past define him. He was going to forgive. And he was going to help other male survivors of sexual abuse.

    It was hard for us to watch him speak so candidly about his addiction and past. But the more open he was in his speaking engagements, the more courage he passed onto others who’d been suffering in silence. To witness my father rise above and advocate so passionately has taught me the greatest life lesson around: we have more power than we realize.  

    If we don’t like the chapter we’ve written, we can start a new one. We can make productive choices to use our pain in the service of others. We do not need to stay victimized.

    “Just say the truth.”

    If I had a dollar for every time I pulled my dad’s sleeve and asked, “What should I say to this person, Dad?” I’d have a lot of extra dollars! It used to annoy the Bejesus out of me, because his blunt reply seemed to come without any actual consideration.

    One day early in my career, I was in “a slump.” I hadn’t managed to secure any prospect meetings in weeks and was feeling lousy about myself. Desperation exuded out my pores. I did have one appointment coming in, though; he was a friend of a friend. But I thought for sure he’d already have his financial ducks in a row. He was a doctor, after all.

    About an hour before the meeting, the sweat stains began to show through my tailored navy blazer. What could little old me possibly do to help this guy? I was certain our mutual friend had called in a favor to get him to meet with me.

    “Dad, what do I even say to him?”

    “Just say the truth.”

    “That I’m a rookie and nervous to meet him?”

    “Yup.”

    “Not helpful, Dad.”

    As it turned out, I went with his whole “say the truth” guidance, which seemed to immediately disarm this nice man. And as that turned out, he gave me a chance to review the plans he had in place. I wound up saving him money and replacing his unreliable ‘parachute’ with a more airtight solution.

    My relationship with this client eventually morphed into a specialization in looking after physicians’ insurance needs. He told me it was my down-to-earth nature and zero “know-it-all” attitude that led him to trust me.

    Since then, I come back to this favorite line of Dad’s anytime I begin to concoct an excuse for backing out of plans. It’s easier to say it like it is: “I bit off more than I can chew; can we reschedule?”

    “You can’t steal second without leaving first.”

    That was my dad’s shortened version of the Frederick B. Wilcox quote, “Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” Dad loved a good baseball analogy!

    I’ve applied this to my life countless times when mulling over whether to take a chance. I used it when I was twenty-four, after being dumped by my fiancé just months before our wedding. Ended up dragging my sad ass to the city we were going to start our lives in, without having secured a job. I told myself I was young and had nothing to lose. That I’d figure it out. And I did.

    I used it when my husband and I opted for expensive fertility treatments. We knew it was a crapshoot, but we wanted another child. On the other hand, the money we had set aside made us feel secure. Thank God we took that chance. Our little Saffron was born nine months and two weeks later.

    The highest stakes use of this mantra came when I began to dread going into work several years ago. I felt like a hamster on the treadmill, always under pressure and in hot pursuit of a carrot I could never reach. If it wasn’t my insomnia, the leaking left eye and chronic stomach aches were enough to tell me something needed to change.

    I’d had dreams for the future, but no real battleplan. I knew, however, if I sold my business, I’d have a little runway to try my hand at reinventing myself. Still, I clung tightly to security. I was the main breadwinner and couldn’t be so foolish.

    I ended up walking away, deciding life was too short to hate my Monday through Friday for another fifteen, twenty years. Others had managed to reinvent themselves. Surely, I could, too.

    That chapter in the Book of Sam is still unfolding, and I don’t consider my reinvention reckless. I consider it vital to my life force. If I’d kept my foot on first base, I’d still be there… looking off in the distance at second… wondering if I could make it. That wondering would haunt me. I’d rather know I tried than skip it altogether.

    “Don’t wait until funerals to tell people they’re special.”

    More than a decade ago, a friend of ours lost his battle with cancer. He was a legend in the business and a close pal of my dad’s. He lived in another city, and though we’d meet for focus groups once a year, we regretted not having the chance to tell him how special he was.

    When Randy died, Dad took immediate action. He invited some clients over for a dinner at his and my mom’s home, motivated to seize the day. At first, I thought it was bizarre he’d bought these wigs and weird hats at some costume store, insisting we all don something ridiculous while we ate our meal.

    But when that client was killed in a plane crash a few months later, I finally got the message. We cannot wait to let someone know they matter.

    On December 2nd, 2019, I walked into a so-called ‘networking’ event thinking, “Just a few more of these and then this career and I are done!” Instead, it was a surprise retirement party,” hosted by my dad, in honor of me.

    I was floored. Instead of thinking about himself and the impact my leaving would have on his succession plan, my dad got busy concocting a farewell party. He flew in my sister from out west. Colleagues from down east. Clients were there. He managed to assemble every special person in my life, and I spent the evening listening to people tell me that I mattered.

    It was like a reverse funeral. Let’s call it, the death of my career… cheered on by those I loved and had helped in my years as a financial advisor. I could cry thinking about the effort he put into this special evening.

    If my dad were alive right now, I think he’d be proud to know these lessons have sunk in. But just like you, I’m a work in progress. I’ll be needing his guidance as I continue to walk my new path. So, to all the dads that have shown up for their children, thank you. Not everyone has had this blessing in their life.

  • The Day I Found Out from the Internet my Estranged Father Had Died

    The Day I Found Out from the Internet my Estranged Father Had Died

    “The scars you can’t see are the hardest to heal.” ~Astrid Alauda

    On a lazy Sunday morning as I lounged in bed, I picked up my phone, scrolled through my news feed on Facebook, and decided to Google my parents’ names.

    I am estranged from my parents, and I have not had much of a relationship with them in over fifteen years; however, there’s a part of me that will always care about them.

    I Googled my mother’s name first and found the usual articles about her dance classes, and her name on church and community bulletin boards. From what I was able to find, it appeared she was doing well.

    Then I went on to Google my father’s name. The first item I came across was an obituary posted on the website of a business that provides cremation and burial services. However, there was no actual obituary, only a few pictures of a much younger man and a profile of a much older man.

    Was this my dad’s obituary? It couldn’t be, could it? In shock, I convinced myself that it wasn’t his obituary, but I could not shake the nagging feeling that it was.

    For the last month I had a feeling that something was off, that something terrible had happened or was going to happen. At the time I attributed these feelings to work stress and the global pandemic.

    When I learned of the death of one of my mentors, who had been like a father to me, I attributed these feelings to this experience. Could I have been wrong?

    Later that morning I decided to search for my dad’s name in the obituary section of the online local paper. His name came up instantly, and much to my horror, this was how I learned about his death.

    Shock washed over me as I read the obituary. He had been dead for a month when I began having those intense, unsettling feelings of foreboding, as if something terrible had happened. It all made sense.

    My full name, which I had legally changed several years ago, was mentioned in the obituary under his surviving relatives, which quickly turned my feelings of shock into rage. Did my family think that I didn’t care about him? Did they think that I didn’t have a right to know about his death?

    I reached out to members of my estranged support group only to learn that many others had found out about a parent’s passing in the same manner.

    Years earlier I had feared that I might find out about one of my parents passing through Google; however, I had dismissed the fear and forced myself to believe that someone in my family would tell me if one of my parents had passed.

    In the days and weeks that followed I continued to Google my dad’s name. As I read tributes written by friends and other family members, I was hit with the realization that I did not know the person they were describing.

    He was described as a “simple religious man who was a welcoming neighbor, a devoted friend, family man, and an excellent father.” To me, however, he was none of those things, and as I continued to read the tributes, sadness and anger washed over me, and I was forced to reflect on the painful relationship that I’d had with him.

    In kindergarten I remember him telling me over and over, “You are as dumb as a post.” Later, after a visit to see his father, he repeated his father’s hurtful words, “You’re a wild hair, and you’re going to come to a sad end.”

    He continued to repeat these words on a regular basis throughout our relationship. Every mistake I made was met with harsh judgements, such as “You will never be good at that, you were just wasting your time, you were never going to amount to anything.”

    When I failed, he rubbed my failures in my face, and to this day failure is one of my greatest fears despite becoming a somewhat successful professional and academic.

    Time and time again, he told me:

    “It would be much easier to care about you if you did well with your studies.”

    “You’re illiterate, you’re a delinquent, you’re a dunce, and you are an embarrassment.”

    “You are never going to amount anything; you are going to end up working a minimum-wage job with angry, stupid people.”

    “You are fat, you are lazy, you are unfocused, and you are wasting your time with that stupid piano; you will never amount anything with that hammering.”

    After I broke up with my first serious boyfriend, my father told me, “What do you expect? A person like you is naturally going to have problems with their relationships, I fully expect you to have serious problems in your marriage as well.”

    When I was preparing to move away to go to university, he told me, “When you flunk out, don’t expect to come back here, just find a minimum-wage job and support yourself.”

    It’s taken me years to realize that comments like these are verbal abuse!

    Verbal abuse can be disguised in the form of a parent insulting a child to do better, to push themselves to be more, to lose weight, or enter a particular field. It can be disguised as caring or wanting to push someone to be a better version of themselves. Regardless of the parent’s motive, insults and put-downs are, in fact, verbal abuse, and no number of justifications can change this.

    Verbal abuse can have devastating effects on a child’s life, and these effects can be felt well into adulthood.

    Throughout my childhood and into my teens, my parents’ abusive comments caused me to believe that no one would want me and that I was not good enough for anyone. This limiting belief inhibited my ability to form friendships. As a result, I spent much of my childhood and my teens alone, playing the piano or spending time with my pets.

    The friendships that I did form were often one-sided because I made it very easy for people to take advantage of me, because I believed that I had to give and give in order to be worthy of the friendship.

    I also feared failure more than anything else and became very anxious in any environment where I might fail. This inhibited me from trying new things, and I only engaged in activities I knew I was good at.

    It was not until my mid-teens that I met a mentor who not only saw my work but loved me and nurtured me as if I was his own daughter. For the very first time in my life, I had an adult to support me apart from my grandmother and my grandfather, who believed in me and reminded me every day of my value and my abilities.

    “You are good, you are smart and highly intelligent, you’re capable of doing anything you set your sights on,” he would tell me. At first, I did not believe him, but in time I slowly began to see myself through his eyes.

    He talked to me the way a loving parent would have. When I failed, he didn’t make fun of me; instead, he encouraged me to reflect on what I’d learned from the experience and how I could do better in the future.

    He instilled in me the foundation of shaky self-confidence that enabled me to have the courage to apply to university. Without this relationship, I would likely not be where I am today because I would not have had the courage to break free from the verbally abusive narrative my parents had taught me to believe, or to challenge this narrative.

    As I was reading attributes about my father in tributes from people who knew him, I was filled with a sense of longing. Had my dad been the man who was described in those tributes we could have had a healthy relationship, and I would not have had to make the painful decision to cut him out of my life.

    At the same time, these tributes forced me to accept that we are many things to different people. To some people we are a wonderful friend, a kind neighbor, and a loving parent, but to others we are a rude jerk, a self-centered person, and verbally abusive or neglectful parent. Each one of us has the right to remember the dead as they experienced them and honor their memory as we see fit.

    Years after cutting my parents out of my life I silently forgave them for the hurt they had caused me, and I worked to let go of the pain from the past. However, at times, I found myself fantasizing about what a healthy adult relationship could look like with my father.

    I imagined mutually respectful philosophical discussions, long walks, trips to far off places, and most importantly, being seen not as an unlovable failure, but as a successful adult worthy of love and acceptance.

    My last conversation with my father before my grandmother had passed away was positive, which only fueled these fantasies. Yet in these fits of fantasy, I was forced to accept my father for who he was and acknowledge the painful fact that some people are just not capable being who we need them to be.

    We can choose to plead for a relationship that will never be, or for the person to be something they are not, or we can choose to accept them as they are and accept ourselves in spite of their abuse. But this means we must let go and accept that the future holds time we can never have together.

  • Healing from the Conflicting Loss of a Difficult Parent

    Healing from the Conflicting Loss of a Difficult Parent

    “Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

    I had a tumultuous and interesting relationship with my father. He was a strong, proud man in his spirit as well as in his physical appearance. In my younger years, I knew my father as the final disciplinarian, the breadwinner, and the patriarch of the family. Even at a young age, I felt disconnected from him and did not agree with his harsh parenting choices.

    While I do not want to speak too much ill of my deceased father, to put it lightly, he was not always the most sensitive individual regarding other people’s emotions or thoughts.

    Perhaps it was my father’s past filled with deep hurt from abuse and alcoholism in childhood. Maybe it was the manipulation techniques he learned being a psychologist to control people. Either way, abuse, particularly emotional abuse, ran rampant in my home.

    During my senior year of high school, he was diagnosed with a serious, life-changing illness. When his job laid him off due to his failing health, his decline became even steeper. My father, the man who was the epitome of control and strength in my family, lost control of all bodily functions and became very frail and fragile.

    Tasks considered elementary or simple became very hard due to his disease. Activities such as unbuttoning buttons, writing a letter, or eating became very difficult. He started to have severe, deep hallucinations, and his weight started to drop rapidly. These are just a few of the many symptoms his disease caused.

    The year before he died, I took a gap year between high school and college to help my mom take care of him. Due to this, I experienced his journey through sickness and death very closely. That year was the “year from hell.”

    Not only was I helping taking care of a dying parent, but we had an enormous bedbug infestation in our home, as well as a flood that wiped out our entire downstairs. It was one of those years that brought me to my knees. My mother, being the only person who went through the experience with me, often wonders how we got through that year alive and/or sane. It was that bad.

    I saw things that truly broke my heart and diminished my spirit. I picked up my bleeding father when he fell. I witnessed his severe hallucinations. One night, he got a scary look in his eye and screamed that there were people with guns in the house that were going to kill us. I hid in my room with the door locked, afraid of him.

    My most painful memory was seeing him right before his death when he was going in between consciousness and unconsciousness. I have never seen anything like that before. The memory still haunts me.

    When he died during my freshman year of college, I thought I would be fine. I had spent a year watching him decline, so I could just move on, life as normal, right? The grief would not hit me. I had already worked through all of that. BOY, I was in for a wild ride.

    I had spent the last year going through an incredibly difficult experience and because of what I had been through, my maturity was way beyond the normal eighteen-to-twenty-year-old. I struggled to fit into a party school college environment. The things college kids cared about at this point seemed so trivial to me. I was busy thinking about the impermanence of life and funeral plans; my friends were thinking about rush week.

    I fell into the deepest depression of my life. I was in so much pain that I felt the only way out was to not be present on this earth. I would pray that when I went to sleep, whatever existed “up there” would take me and I would never wake up. Getting through the day felt like running a triathlon. The only time I felt solace was when I was asleep.

    So how did I get here? How did I go from being the most depressed I have ever experienced to sitting here at a coffee shop peacefully typing away?

    I want to share some of the most important tools that helped me through my grief journey and helped me through my depression. While they all may not work for you, I am hoping that at least one of them will help you find peace. Most importantly I want to stress, over and over again, you are not alone. There is a light to the end of the tunnel, as cliché as it sounds.

    Be gentle with yourself.

    When I was working through deep trauma and grief, I was surprised how my body reacted. I did not realize that while I was processing what had happened on a surface level, my subconscious was processing the experience as well. Due to this, I was incredibly tired and emotional all the time. I needed so much sleep and time to decompress.

    Giving my body and mind the time I needed to process what I had been through was incredibly important. Working through difficult experiences mentally and emotionally is not a sprint. It takes time. Being gentle with myself and not rushing my healing journey was very helpful in the long run.

    Find a skilled mental health professional ASAP.

    My partner recently asked me what was the best thing that has happened to me in the past ten years. I told them it was my mom getting me a skilled and powerful therapist at sixteen.

    I know there is therapy shaming that goes on in a lot of circles. I have witnessed people who are in the mental health field who refuse to get therapy. While they believe in mental health for other people, they believe they do not need anyone to help them even though they are struggling deeply.

    Speaking as someone who has spent her entire life researching mental health and intends to make it my livelihood, let me just say this once and for all: Everyone, no matter how healthy or “woke” you are, can benefit from seeing a skilled mental health professional.

    Being able to share your problems with a trusted individual, who is educated and trained to handle trauma and difficult situations, is incredibly healing. Therapists will give you techniques and tools to move through your difficult situations and will be a non-judgmental place to hold space for you when processing painful life circumstances.

    That being said, I often tell my friends that finding a therapist is like finding the perfect sweater. Not everyone is going to fit. People have different techniques, energy, and listening styles. Let yourself explore and what is best for you and do not be discouraged if it takes a few people to find a positive fit.

    Share your story.

    The power of sharing your story is profound. The opportunity to claim something that has happened to you and express it to people who will hold space for you is an incredibly healing and cathartic process. When I was able to express what I was feeling, I felt like those feelings did not have power over me anymore. I felt liberated.

    As a caveat, I learned that it was important to carefully consider whom I chose to share my story with. I chose people who I was confident had earned the right to hear my story. So if I knew that Aunt Sally was going to brush my story aside or tell me that my feelings weren’t valid, I didn’t share my story with her. She had not earned the right to be a witness my experience.

    My life journey and experiences are beautiful and valuable. It is an honor for me to share them.

    Depending on your environment and support group, you may want to get creative with who you choose. I know that not everyone has a group of supportive friends or family members. If you fall into this category, I strongly suggest you look for other avenues such as grief support groups, national helplines, group counseling, talking with a mentor, and/or reaching out to a counselor. No matter your situation, you are never alone. There are people out there trained and ready to help.

    Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

    When I was in my deepest pit of grief and depression, feeling gratitude seemed impossible. I truly felt there was nothing to be thankful for in my life. My friend recommended that I start writing down ten things I was grateful for everyday when she heard how much I was struggling.

    I did not write down huge things. I wrote about the little joys in life. No matter how sucky things were, there was something that made my life easier every day. Sometimes it was the fuzzy blanket that was draped over me to keep me warm. Or the trashy T.V. show I was binging that made me laugh. Or even though I declined, the invitation that my friend sent to ask if I wanted to get coffee with her.

    The other thing I started making myself to do in the morning was writing the three things I was looking forward to each day. When I was at my deepest point of depression, sometimes the things were incredibly small. However, writing down what I was looking forward to pushed me forward even when I felt overwhelmed. This may seem like a small thing; however, practicing gratitude daily is still one of my most helpful tools to stabilize my mood.

    Be open to receiving alternative forms of help.

    I have always been resistant to taking anxiety/depression medication. This was due to some uneducated biases in my past that I have worked through at this point in my life. However, processing my father’s death and the grief that followed while at college was incredibly painful. I remember being so depressed in the mornings, I would stare at my dorm room ceiling and pray that I would just die. Getting myself out of bed was even harder.

    My therapist suggested I get on depression medication, but I was resistant. Finally, one day my mother said to me, “Angela if your best friend was in this much pain and medication may help her, would you shame her into not taking it?”

    “Of course not,” I thought. “I would absolutely encourage her to take it. Who knows, maybe it could help?” Once I said those words, I knew what I had to do.

    I went to a psychiatrist and he set me with a low dosage of depression medication to make me feel comfortable. You know what? It tremendously helped. In fact, if I hadn’t taken this medication, I do not know if I would be writing this article for you today.

    I write this not to try to push anyone to take a certain kind of medication or to try certain forms of healing. However, I do encourage people to try new ways of healing from your experience. If you have gone through an extraordinary painful experience, sometimes it is going to take more intense measures to get back to a new normal.

    Find a sense of community.

    If this experience, or even 2020, has taught me anything it is that we are not meant to live these human lives alone. It is incredibly important when we are going through difficult times to surround ourselves with people and environments we can lean on and that can support us.

    For me it meant dragging myself to a grief support group every Wednesday, even though I was drowning in homework and had so many things going on in my life.

    It meant pushing myself to go out with my friends who loved me, even when I didn’t really feel like it or felt too sluggish.

    Community for me was making me go to the Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday. Sure, I did not know anyone and I sat alone; however, I felt deep comfort in a room where people were just focused on spreading love.

    If I needed alone time, I by all means took it. However, making intentional time to spend time with people who made me feel comforted and loved was incredibly important.

    Remember that this is a season, and your pain will lessen over time.

    I remember when I was at my worst point with depression, I truly did not believe it was going to get better. I was in such a dark place that I literally could not even fathom that I would feel like myself again. People would tell me I would be happy again and I would roll my eyes. They didn’t understand how much pain I was experiencing.

    The pain was telling me there was no way I would get through this experience. I would feel this unhappy forever. I was permanently changed. I felt like I had dropped down so low into the pits of it, that there was no way out. I felt helpless, stuck, and alone.

    However, fast forward four years to now, I want to say that those people who told me it was going to get better were absolutely correct.

    Sometimes when working through deep depression or deep trauma the brain can play little mind games with you and tell you things will never get better. I promise with all I have and all I am that at some point you will see the light again. You will be so glad you stuck through the pain and appeared on the other side.

    A Note on Grieving a Toxic Person in Your Life

    Sometimes when we experience the death of a toxic or abusive person in our lives, we have mixed emotions. This is something that is not talked about, and something I really struggled with in my healing journey.

    Let me be clear, I did not want my father to die, and I did not want him to feel pain. I would never wish that on anyone. However, he did cause a tremendous amount of pain in my life, and this, in turn, has caused sometimes conflicting emotions for me when processing his death.

    Sometimes when I miss him, the memory of him slapping me across the face would pop up in my mind. Or when he would emotionally manipulate me over and over again to get what he wanted, and I would finally concede exhausted from the games. It is still hard for me to process and talk about these experiences.

    I want to stress that if you have a similar experience of someone dying who was a painful person in your life and you feel mixed emotions, you are not alone. You are not a bad person. Or evil. Or sick. You have received trauma from an abuser, and it is natural to be angry with them, whether they are dead or alive.

    The emotions and feelings you are processing are valid, and most importantly, they are okay. I am not going to sit here and pretend that I have all of this figured out. To be honest, the complex grief stuff, I am still working through. However, what I can do is hold witness to your feelings and remind you that whatever you are feeling is not strange or a reason to be ashamed.

    With closing this article, I want to express that all these suggestions above, I still implement them into my life even though I am not depressed or feel much grief anymore. The things I learned to help me through the journey of grief, trauma, and depression help me be a happier individual now.

    Maybe I had to go through that experience to learn that, or maybe I would have figured it out eventually without it. One will never know. However, I do know that I have never felt more liberated in my life, and I am truly thankful for those painful years. They led me to my beautiful life today.

  • When Expectations Hurt: How I’ve Forgiven My Absentee Father and Healed

    When Expectations Hurt: How I’ve Forgiven My Absentee Father and Healed

    “What will mess you up most in life is the picture in your head of how it’s supposed to be.” ~Unknown

    I may have said a few words that hurt my father’s feelings, but…

    See, here’s the backstory.

    I’m thirty-four years old, and I started having a relationship with my biological father at age twenty-one. During my childhood years I would see him every now and then even though he lived less than three miles away from my home. I don’t have any memories of being with my dad for birthdays, holidays, family vacations, or even just hanging out watching TV at home.

    When I was twenty-one my father called and said, “Hey, I’m outside your house.”

    I went outside and he said, “Your mom told me you just had another baby.”

    I said, “Yes, I did.”

    By this time I rarely had any dealings with my father, and I had some negative feelings about him because he was not in my life in the way I felt he should have been.

    A part of me was upset and confused as to why he wasn’t around during my childhood when I needed him. I wanted his guidance and protection, and I felt that he hadn’t given that to me.

    We had a conversation, and he told me that I was welcome at his home anytime and that I should come around more often. Despite how I was feeling, I decided I would give it a try because a part of me wanted to be daddy’s girl.

    So, I did just that. I called him as often as I could and would go by his house for visits. I finally got comfortable enough that felt like I was in a good place with my dad. He has a wealth of knowledge, so we began having deep conversations about different things in life, and he would give me advice on things I was going through.

    I couldn’t help sometimes but wonder, what would my life be like if he’d been there from the beginning?

    I would look at him and his wife and the children they had together—they have so much joy and so many memories with my father. Why couldn’t I get that? Was it because of my mother? Was it because of his wife? What is wrong with me that I couldn’t get the same level of love and attention?

    Recently I saw a post on Facebook by one of my siblings. It read, “I have the world’s greatest DAD!”

    But that’s not who he is to me. I have no childhood bond with him. What we have shared these past thirteen years has been more of a great friendship. He’s not the world’s greatest dad, because if he were he would have been there for me! My emotions and feeling of neglect got the best of me, and I had to disagree with this statement.

    The little girl in me was crying. Why couldn’t my father love me the way he loves his other kids? I felt unworthy. I also felt guilty, like I maybe I had done something wrong. Maybe I wasn’t perfect enough. Maybe he didn’t want me. I asked myself over and over, why couldn’t I have that love? All I wanted was his attention and acknowledgment.

    If you have gone through this experience you know as you get older that little girl or boy is still hurting for the love they didn’t get. That pain often shows up as anger and resentment toward your parent(s).

    The feelings I felt as a child followed me into my adulthood. I was insecure as a person and followed the crowd. I had a hard time trusting people to show up for me; I couldn’t get my own father to be there for me, so why would anyone else?

    Since I felt unworthy of being loved by my father, I developed low self-esteem. Like a drop in the water, this caused a ripple effect. I ended up forming relationships with men who were just like the picture of my father; they would abandon me, and once again I’d feel unworthy of love.

    In order to stop this ripple effect from controlling my life, I had to acknowledge that little girl inside me. I had to let her know that I heard her, and I felt her pain. So I started journaling about my feelings. I took that energy out of my body and left it on the paper.

    I also had to have tough conversations with my parents. This was hard because it meant everyone needed to take accountability for their part in this situation—myself included. That meant releasing the expectations I’d placed on my father, which I’d never communicated to him. I recognized that I’d wanted him to be something he wasn’t, I wanted to change him, but I realized that I can’t control or change anyone but myself. 

    This is the part where I hurt my father’s feelings.

    I needed to have this conversation with my father and get these feelings off my chest. I knew there was a possibility he wouldn’t understand, because he may have felt justified in his absence. But I also knew the pain I was feeling was not my fault.

    I called him, and I stated, “Dad, I feel like we are really good friends, but I don’t feel like you are my dad. I have no childhood memories with you, but I know I can always call you for advice now.”

    I wasn’t trying to hurt his feelings. I wanted to explain my feelings, based on my experience and my perception. I didn’t really know why he wasn’t around during my childhood; I just knew I didn’t get my dad.

    He responded with, “It sounds like your saying I’m a failure.”

    I said, “No, I’m just sharing how I feel.”

    I took a few days to think about this conversation because it was tough for the both of us. I’d cried, and I could tell he felt disappointed. I realized then that just because people have children, that doesn’t mean they are ready to be parents.

    We think two people meet, fall in love, get married, plan to have kids, and plan out their career. Sometimes it happens that way. But often they really love and care about each other, and then they get pregnant, unexpectedly. Then things go south, and co-parenting goes with it. At least this was my reality with my parents. Neither was there to raise me in the way I thought parents should.

    I have no clue what specifically they were going through at that time. But whatever it was, it required me to live with my aunt till I was in third grade.

    My Ah ha! Moment

    A mother and father give you life, but that doesn’t mean they will be the ones who raise you. I have a mother and a father, but my aunt who stepped in and took me to live with her and her three children was my mother.

    My “dad,” who was my uncle, picked me up almost every weekend and promised to protect me from all danger.

    I had another “dad,” who just happened to be my grandfather; he provided for me like a father would.

    When I eventually went to live with my mother, her boyfriend at the time treated me like his own daughter.

    I realized then I’d been wrong when I told myself I didn’t have a dad, because I clearly did.

    Plenty of people had stepped in as father figures even though they had no obligation to do so. They created those birthdays, holidays, vacations, and just hanging out at the house type memories that I was looking for from my father.

    I was blinding myself to my blessings and holding my parents to an expectation that they were never going to be able to fulfill.

    As a child I wasn’t able to look at them for who they truly are or accept them with the good and bad. As an adult, I focused so much on what I was lacking in my relationships with them that I couldn’t see what I’d had in other people all along.

    I know now that I want to lead my life with love. That means accepting people for who they are and how they are, not what I would like them to be.

    Though the pain I felt when it came to my father was not my fault, my healing was my responsibility. As an adult, I’m now capable of taking responsibly for my life decisions in a way I wasn’t as a child. I had to take my power back and stop letting my pain control me.

    I told my father, “I’m not trying to hurt you. Things just are the way they are. It’s not good or bad; this is just our experience. Having you as a friend is better than having nothing at all.”

    I now call my dad often, because I know it’s difficult to find good friends. I’m happy to say that I have found one in my father.

    I think I’d just been caught up in the personal emotions and attachments to the people who gave birth to me and expected them to be X, Y, and Z. As a result, I caused myself a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering. I had to forgive both my parents and myself for holding on to these expectations.

    If we can let go of expectations and focus on appreciating the people who are there for us we can find healing in the painful truth. I think this is a key to finding peace with things that have hurt us. We have a picture in our minds that doesn’t match up with our reality. When this happens, we may feel disappointed and close ourselves off to other perspectives.

    Like me, you may not have had the relationship you wanted with your parents, but perhaps foster parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, or friends stepped into your life and become that dad or mom when they had no obligation to do so.

    To those people in my life I say thank you. It’s hard to see, at first, just how much you’ve done. As a child our pain can blind us from the love we are given. Because of your love, people like me can stop and say, “I did have mom or dad.”

    This insight doesn’t only apply to parents. Have you ever held someone to certain expectations, just because of who they are to you? Like a husband or wife, mother or father, brother or sister, aunt or uncle, grandparents, best friend, boss, co-worker, etc.

    At times we expect people to fill certain roles just because of their label. Some expectations are reasonable and healthy, but can you perhaps release some and replace them with gratitude?

    This is in no way, excuses anyone’s behavior or the pain they may have caused you. This is a step toward acceptance. Accepting people in their truth even when we don’t agree, this is taking back our power.

    I know I can’t change who my parents are or what they’ve done, but I can always change my perspective by looking for positive aspects in each of them. I receive more from being grateful than I do with expectations.

    I’ve stopped focusing so much on them and now focus more on myself, because I’ve realized the only person I can change is myself.

    Forgive yourself for hurting yourself or others with expectations. Know that the pain you feel is real, and that you can release that pain from your life at any moment you choose. And allow yourself to be grateful for all the good in your life instead of focusing solely on what’s hurt you.

    This is how I’ve healed some deeply rooted wounds that caused a great level of pain in my life. I hope by sharing my experience I’ve helped you take a step toward your own healing and understanding.

  • This Baby Boy Really Loves His Dad (Adorable Video)

    This Baby Boy Really Loves His Dad (Adorable Video)

    Okay, so this child is barefoot and running around outside in a diaper, but this video completely melted my heart!