Conscious Fatherhood: Letting go A Little at a Time

Okay, well, hello, Contrasphere. I am here in downtown Los Angeles shopping with my wife because she asked me to come. And that's what you do when you love somebody. You go to downtown Beverly Hills with your dog. Let's see. Can I show. Can I show my little doggy? Where's my little doggie? There's Coco. But yeah. So I'm trying to enjoy my hello, speak Wonder. And I'm trying to do this and take care of my dog and also be with my wife on her shopping. Her shopping extravaganza. And so anyways, I'm gonna.

But it is so. So my wife, Nancy, she's talking to me, and she's like, so Grace got really anxious before school, and I don't. I don't want to give out all her business, right? But. So she had some challenges at school. And the beautiful thing is she went right to the counselor. Right to the counselor. She was having some difficulties. She went right to the counselor. Now, the counselor's little gatekeeper said, do you have. Have a pass? And Grace is like, I don't, but I'm really having a hard time.

And she's like, gatekeeper, instead of saying, oh, my gosh, okay, well, let's see what we can do. Says, I'm sorry, you don't have pass. You have to go back to your class. So my daughter is like, if I go back to my class, I'm gonna break down in front of my teacher in front of my stud, and I'm gonna fail my test that I'm supposed to take. So this is just a background. So she skips class, and she is upset and disappointed about skipping class. She's talking to my wife, and then I'm talking to my wife as well.

And as I'm listening to her, like, getting pretty emotional, like, just thinking about the challenges my daughter's having and, like, what that means, right? And so I leave my group, go home talking to my daughter. Just, you know, we didn't really talk about what happened. I just wanted her to see me there. She's 16, and, you know, the whole title of this is about letting go. Like, what does it mean to let go of our kids? And I know some people have already kind of done this journey, but it's really powerful for me because it's like, there's this letting go and holding on at the same time, right?

And part of it is the letting go is, like, she's 16. She's gonna go out with friends instead of hanging out with us, she's going out you know, on dates and having that experience, and she's getting ready for college, and she's gonna. She is going to sink or swim a fair amount on her own. We could be little helicopter parents and stand over her. Oh, did you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this? But we're just not willing to do that, right? She's got take some responsibility. And she is. She's taking responsibility.

She's learning and all of that. So go home. I'm talking to her, you know, just showing her that I'm there. But when I was with my friends, it really was like. It was. It was pretty emotional. Like, one of my friends was like, you know, everything okay? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's okay. It's not great, but it's okay. And then he went to give me a hug, and I just started crying, and I was just like, wow, like, where's this coming from? And it's like the intensity of love that blew me away, frankly.

Like, just the love I have for my daughter and the pain, you know, that she's experiencing it as a result. And, you know, that's like. I don't know. That was really powerful. It was beautiful. And then. And even a little bit surprising, it caught me a little bit off guard, I'm happy to say. Right. So. So one of the things that we did is we coached our daughter, right? We said, he, the best thing you can do is reach out to your school counselor that you went to see and explain what happened and hope that they have a good supportive response.

And I'm happy to say one. Grace wrote an excellent email, very thoughtful. We looked at it and think my wife added, like, one word. And then Grace sent it off, but we were still a little nervous. Is she going to get a zero on the test? Were they going to be supportive? How's the school going to respond? Right? And it was amazing. The counselor sent this amazing email to Grace that basically said, oh, my God, I'm so sorry you had that experience. I'm so sorry you're having the difficulties. Let's talk about it right now.

Let's get you. Let's get you what you need. I will talk to your teacher and make sure you're able to take the test, and I will even say that you were with me so that you are not marked absent, which is amazing. That is not the treatment I got as a student, although it's not the treatment I engendered as a student either, because I was quite difficult. Right. But that was also part of the emotional aspect for me is it's like I didn't have support at home, I didn't have support at the school. I pushed everybody away.

And it's like I'm watching a healthy response to all of this, and then. And at the same time feeling myself letting go, feeling myself saying, my daughter is becoming an adult, an amazing adult who's able to do these things for herself. And my job as her father is not to criticize her, is not to hold her hand so tight, but simply. Simply to say to her, I love you. You can do this. You're going to be okay. And then let's get you not only the support you need for that day, let's pay attention to what happened and let's get you some additional support.

And she's open to that as well. So that's my lesson. That's my lesson. And I share it with you all here in the Cosmosphere and happy Saturday, and I wish you all a very wonderful rest of the weekend. Bye. Bye.