What my father's words taught me about focus, forgiveness and freedom

Discover how a single conversation with my father unearthed deep truths about anger, forgiveness, and self-awareness—transforming relationships and inner peace.

*This is the written version of ‘its not you’ podcast episode #62

Everything was going good until my dad said to me, you know, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

Thirty-one (ish) years ago I was pregnant for one of my children and my dad came to visit. He drove a total of 17 hours to get there.

Of course, he didn't drive it all in one shot, but that's how much it meant to him. Combined with the fact that we had just lost my mother a few months prior. So he was still very much grieving and lonely.

And we as a family were more than happy to have him there with us.

My dad and I... we're the only 2 left in our immediate family. My mom was gone. His parents are gone. Her parents are gone.

And of course, they lost my brother when he was, 18. And I'm remembering as I'm talking, my dad and I standing watching my mom take her last breath. And my dad grabbed my hand and he said, "Well, it's just you and me now, sis".

He used to call me sis. I still don't know why, but it was endearing.

Gosh. It's amazing, isn't it? How just in the middle of a conversation, one memory can bring back and flood you with all that raw emotion from that time.

I was really happy to have my dad visiting until that moment when he said:

"If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing."

And that happened while I was in the kitchen preparing for supper. I was over the sink doing the vegetables with my back to my dad. He was reminiscing about life - having just lost my mom.

When he said that, I think I was peeling potatoes... uh.. I was peeling something. And he said that, and I stopped peeling. And my I didn't move. I just was frozen there, and my eyes grew big. I had a huge lump in my throat, and I started fuming. I was SO angry.

My first thought was, "after all you did to me and you're sitting here saying you wouldn't change a thing if you had to do it all over again??"

I was so hurt it took everything in me to not lash out. I just let him talk, vent, mourn, and I just listened and I thank God that I have my back to him. I was listening to him but cycling in my mind was that same mantra. "After all you did to me not once have you acknowledged the shit you put me through."

Sitting here reminiscing as if we lived a Beaver Cleaver lifestyle, and I don't bear the pain in the wounds of what you've done to me. It's about focus. That's all I could like, I was in a tunnel, and that's all I could focus on was my pain and how it's gone unacknowledged.

It's kinda like that feeling when you realize you're never gonna get an apology. Now as much as that sucks, I was able to glean a bit of acceptance in that. And my mind and body started to calm.

And then I went from just listening to my dad to engaging and conversing with him. I had finished what I was doing over the sink so I could turn around and my dad didn't have to look at my back anymore.

And the more we talked the more I remembered this man is grieving. I mean I lost my mom. I was grieving as well but this was his wife of however many years.

Me, I've got a distraction. I'm about to give birth to a baby, plus I've got a family so I've got a lot of distractions, and this was his wife. So he's grieving and in that grieving, I'm feeling a great deal of empathy for him.

And then I realized I was making this all about me

Forgetting that he's grieving. No. He's not gonna think about every wrong thing he did in his grief.

He lost his wife.

I was making it all about me me me me me me me. Now, given what I had been through, what he did put me through, I have a right to make it about me - make some things about me - but not then.

He had no one to talk to, and he was there talking to his daughter, and I was making it all about me.

Now I know I keep saying that, but I want you to understand how often in life we make shit about us that has nothing to do with us. And then we build this big story in our head, and then at some point we explode and the recipient has no idea what's going on.

And that's exactly what would have happened to my dad had I exploded like I initially wanted to. He would have wondered what the heck is she going on about.

And here's why: Aside from the realization that I was making this all about me me me me me, I also, out of the blue, had this other revelation. Which was - he really doesn't know what he did to me. He really doesn't know the harm he caused me. He truly has no idea.

It was in that very moment that I thought, holy crap. All these years, I've been carrying around the weight and the pain and the resentment and anger toward them for all that they did, and they don't have a clue.

They just went on with their lives as if nothing happened, and I'm the one carrying the burden.

Have you ever heard that quote from Buddha where he says,

"Holding on to anger is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die"

Well, there was me for all those years drinking the poison.

The anger that was festering inside of me didn't hurt them. It was hurting me. It interfered in my relationships because it made me short-tempered, judgmental, and I got offended really easily.

I took almost anything personally, which means I was defensive, which means I would lash out and attack back. And the worst of it, it all spilled into my parenting.

As you probably already know, whatever we are burdened with, it has to come out. So we're constantly triggered and reacting to things in our past, but we think it's what's in front of us.

So unfortunately, our kids took the brunt of the pain that was inflicted on us years ago. And they were punished as if they caused that pain. Just for doing what kids do.

Now one might argue "Yeah but they did this and the kids did that and they broke this and they broke that and they spill things and and and and..."
That was me. I made excuses for why I disciplined the kids the way I did for what they did, and it was all bullshit.

Because if you are really honest with yourself, and that's what you're going to need to be - in order to heal your wounds - and quite frankly have the life that you want - is you gotta be honest with yourself.

What are you really reacting to? Here's a simple example. I always got mad when things got broken, and to be fair to them they were always accidents.They never intentionally broke things.

And what I would find out years later about what I was actually reacting to wasn't that they broke something. It was always about money.

They broke something. Now I don't have it, and I can't afford to replace it.

Or as the kids grow older and you get into the curfew discussion, as I did obviously, and they come home late. I got very angry about that. But I remembered being a teenager - but I didn't remember it then.

All I remember then was I wasn't being listened to. I'm not being heard. He knows that this bugs me, and he's intentionally doing it to piss me off.
That was the story I told myself.

But... it gets even deeper than that.

Under all that was fear

I was dreadfully terrified of losing my children. Call it morbid. I don't care what you call it. I am saying this for anybody who feels the same way.

And who feels like there's something wrong with them for thinking that.

I'm an open book. I will express anything that I've gone through if it helps one person to not feel alone and like they're crazy. Because I know I'm not crazy and neither are you.

But there's so many different ways that this sort of thinking evolves, and it's way too much to get into. But for me, it begins with the abandonment that an adopted person such as myself feels.

And that abandonment feeling was, of course, exacerbated by the fact that I was rejected and abandoned by the family that adopted me that was supposed to love me.

So then every subsequent event that happened after that, that set in concrete that I really was worthless. So when it came to my kids, I became overbearing and controlling in a lot of areas, and it honest to goodness - it was fear. It wasn't because I wanted to be like that. I didn't even know I was controlling.

Now that right there, what I just said that I didn't know, I was being controlling - is really important. Because that's the problem that we have when we have our unhealed wounds.

We don't even know that we're doing what we're doing. And that it's a bad thing. We are in self-protection mode 24/7. And for us, it feels like we're protecting ourselves and those around us.

To those around us, it looks and feels like we're controlling and smothering them.

Now you see what's happening? One incident, one circumstance, one situation, two complete different perceptions. Mine is - I'm trying to keep my kids safe. The kids perspective is "my mom is controlling."

Now expand interactions like this into the future and it's not hard to see where this and what this evolves into. This is where families break down and you just can't see or hear the other person's point of view, and so on and so on.

But it's not just kids. It's spouses, it's coworkers, it's friends, it's anybody that you interact with. If we are so focused on me me me me me, (so going back to the beginning where I said, while my dad is grieving and I'm making everything about me), when we are wounded that's what we do.

We make everything about me, my feelings, and the way I think things should be to save me from feeling any more pain. Not only that, you completely lose your ability to trust your intuition. And I don't know where you are on the path of intuition, but I'm telling you it is the most crucial thing that will keep us alive and thriving.

And you know that's true because you know the stories of, you know, you get that hit that says don't go down that dark alley, and down that dark alley you could have been murdered.

Now you might be thinking, wow, that escalated fast! From, you know, following your gut to, getting murdered. Well, let me give you another quick example of how serious I am about this.

My oldest wanted to go to this party, and I was in a good state, so I wasn't riddled with fear or anything, but I had this really bad feeling about it. And I told him no.

Of course, we got into an argument. I said no, and he rebutted and gave me all the reasons. And I'm a terrible mother, and everybody else's parents... but I was relentless, and I would I would not let him go. But remember it was not a fear-based decision.

It was something inside of me saying no. Well, as it turns out, at this party was one boy who could not stand my son, and he showed up with a baseball bat and started beating kids with it.

Now I've got example after example after example like this, and I know that you do too. But that just goes to show you the difference between, you know, reacting out of fear versus following your gut.

• And in order to follow your gut you've got to heal your wounds.
• And when you heal your wounds then you can be true to yourself.
• And when you're true to yourself life just kind of coasts along because you're no longer letting all this nonsensical BS influence your behavior.

Like taking things personally, or as an adult still trying to appease your parents, or worrying about offending people.

All of these things will fall by the wayside. You'll be a better person, parent, spouse, daughter, coworker, friend.

And you'll save yourself a whole lot of time and heartache having to go back and face everybody and apologize for the harm that you may have caused.

Like I did with my kids. When I realized what I shared here, that my reactions to the things that they were doing, wasn't about them at all. It was all about me and how what they were doing was simply triggering my old wounds. And that's what I was reacting to.

That there was nothing wrong with them. They didn't do anything wrong. They aren't wrong. It was all what was going on in my head.

I also left it open to them to come to me anytime for any reason, you know, should they have a memory or something, and they want some clarity on my reaction.
Now assuming I remember the event, I'm more than happy to do this so they don't have to live the rest of their life like I feel like I did for so many years. Wondering what's wrong with me.

Unfortunately, I didn't heed the lesson I learned from my dad, you know, that he didn't do what he did because of me. In fact, he didn't think he did anything wrong.

I wasn't able to apply that theory that... "okay so he didn't do it because of me, so maybe other people aren't doing things because of me as well." I don't wanna go too far off in the weeds. I hope that makes sense.

But I wasn't able to apply that to everyday life with everything. I thought it was just an isolated event. I was very young then. I thought it was just isolated, and it wasn't until I had my own kids and saw that same behavior with myself.
That's when I recognized it, and that's when everything started lining up and making more sense.

And if you want to make more sense out of your life, let's recap a few of the key points so that you can become more aware of them in your life, so you can nip them in the bud.

In no particular order, focus would be one of the things.

What you focus on you create in your life

So if you're always focused on me me me me me...they're doing something to me, they're going to hurt me, nobody listens to me, me me, everything's about me...

You completely miss the bigger picture of what's really going on. And it just drives wedges in every relationship.

Another key point is what are you really reacting to? Because it's not what's right in front of you.

Okay. A third key point...harboring anger only hurts you. Whoever you're angry at has long moved on and is enjoying their life while your body is being poisoned by your anger.

Fourth and final key point that I can think of at the moment is people don't do things to you, they do things for themselves as outlined by my experiences with my dad and my own kids.

Look. I know that hearing all of these things all at once, it might seem like it's really overwhelming, and you'll never get to be where you want to be. But it doesn't have to be that way. Seriously. Just one step at a time.

Just go into every day without reacting. Let's just start there. Are you really reacting to what's in front of you, or is it something deeper? And I can assure you it's something deeper.

And when you're doing that, you have to be really, really honest with yourself.

Oh, there it is. Number five key. Be honest with yourself.

Always be honest with yourself.

Notice I said be honest with yourself. I didn't say berate yourself and make yourself feel like shit and go on a tyrant about what a horrible person you are because you screwed something up.

I just said be honest with yourself about the real reasons for your reactions, good or bad.

And when you're honest with yourself, things make a whole lot more sense.