Parenthood Grief

I've been feeling a lot of fear, sadness, stress, and grief over the last few weeks. Another quite raw layer of my heart is being alchemized.

After over a year in Switzerland, I've been grieving a lost sense of purpose that came from being physically close and immediately available to my children as their dad. On the one hand, the grief is simple. My body is confused that they're no longer in the next room. How can I protect or listen or bring attention or hug or provide? I didn't know this part of my identity went so deep. I feel the loss in my bones.

And god, the grief is complex. For 20 years, I was physically present and devoted to being their dad in the best ways I knew how. And quite often, that wasn't enough to give them the depth of safety, security, and love they deserved.

Memories of profound father love. Holding them. Singing to them. Playing and laughing and reading and exploring and watching them in wonder. Encouraging and supporting them. Witnessing them grow and change and learn and become.

But also yelling at them in moments of intense reactivity rising from the defensiveness of unknown and untended complex trauma in my body. Withdrawing my love. Overlooking their bids for connection. Missing the ways they needed me. Falling apart several times in a downward spiral of confused brokenness. Forgetting how to be an adult. Piecing myself back together.

With me, they experienced two divorces. They needed to go back and forth between houses week after week, year after year. I hated that they didn't have a single space of security and love. I felt like a failure more often and fully than I ever allowed anyone to see, feel, or know.

I was not the dad they deserved. I say so with deep love and compassion for myself and with clarity that it's true.

I'm much closer now to embodying the qualities of fatherhood I hoped I could meet them with, which adds a bittersweet flavor to these feelings, and I am grateful I can show up in their lives and the lives of others with a more refined father's heart.

This grief is compounded with stress about work, money, and success. I moved here with some continued security of my publishing job in the US. Several months ago, my hours were cut in half. As much as I had hoped my self-employment would be successful here, I'm struggling.

I feel embarrassment, shame, and fear about being a 46-year-old man trying to start again (again) and build a business in a country where I don't speak the primary language well, am struggling to find clients, and haven't yet made any close friends.

I know with more clarity than ever in my life what I'm here to do and how I'm called into deeper service, and I'm not yet having success with a physical manifestation of that service here.

The money stress touches on survival and provider fears that feel hard-wired on a biological level. I've been waking up in the middle of the night, the charge of fear in the center of my chest, waves of grief streaming from my throat and eyes, surges of fear finding their way to the ground again.

In the wake of these releases, I typically feel good, grounded, loving, and hopeful again, but it's been hard and stressful. I know it's all temporary.

Amid these inner challenges, my social media posts don't seem to be seen by many people anymore. Over the years of trying to share what I'm up to and am passionate about, including how I'm trying to move forward in my self-employment, I imagine I've turned people off and engaged in unbalanced ways that don't appeal to the algorithms.

Seeing the lack of engagement has brought moments of urgency and discouragement that even these expressions trying to find connection, solidarity, compassion, and help may not be landing anywhere.

The young aspects of me are here, wanting to be seen, acknowledged, and valued right alongside my more mature core of being that knows my devotion to Life and Love isn't about material reward, attention, or a scripted form of success.

Many have experienced the powerful presence and beauty of my singing and performing. Though singing will always remain a close and important part of my journey and giving in this life, I long to bring my further gifts of presence into connection with more and more people through the further gifts I've recovered.

This longing isn't so much about wanting or needing recognition. It's more like the father's heart that, in its clear and grounded state, knows it is here to love and provide presence. I'm here to continue an ancient song of my ancestors.

I return again and again to trusting the movement, flow, and timing of Life. I know we're all part of it, so I remain open to what you, as an active participant in this ever-unfolding now, may have as an insight or invitation on the path.

Writing and sharing help me process. Hearing from you would be great. I'm giving myself a lot of compassion and loving encouragement. And I'm embracing my need to receive it from others, especially when it's hard to ask.