September 2, 2025 • 60 mins
Send us a text with your feedback here!
In this episode of The Real Family Eats, host Reesa sits down with JP, a single father, to discuss co-parenting, personal growth, and a special family dessert recipe. JP shares his honest journey through divorce, healing old wounds, and redefining what it means to be a dad.
- The challenges and realities of co-parenting after a breakup, especially from a father's perspective
- How childhood trauma and family patterns shape adult relationships and parenting
- JP’s step-by-step process for emotional healing, communication, and setting boundaries
- The impact of loss and grief on personal transformation and parenting style
- A simple, beloved family dessert recipe that’s both versatile and meaningful
Hit subscribe for more real conversations about family, food, and growth!
From JP:
42 year old Single Girl Dad to a 10 year old. I'm a healthy co-parenting relationship.
Connect with JP:
https://www.instagram.com/jpmrsh?igsh=Ym1lbmZzMGJvNXk1
********
Recipe shared courtesy of:
https://www.kimscravings.com/chocolate-delight/
******
Host: Reesa Morala, MA, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Reesa is a parenting specialist with a niche in supporting couples. Find Reesa hosting couples and parenting workshops nationwide!
Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe!
For the video version of this episode find us at: https://www.embracerenewaltherapy.com/
If you are a parent ready to share your real-life parenting struggle and dish up a recipe with Reesa, apply here:
https://www.embracerenewaltherapy.com/real-family-eats-guest
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or need personalized support, please seek help from a licensed mental health professional. If you are in immediate danger or experiencing a crisis, contact emergency services or a crisis hotline in your area.
Suicide and Crisis Line: Text or Call 988
Go to your local hospital or call 911
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When everything was chaoticaround me is when my nervous
system was calm and I felt safe,even knowing the whole,
you know, my whole lifeis going to go to shit
Hey Everyone, thanks forjoining me.
(00:22):
My name is Reesa and I'myour host.
We are talking to real familiesabout real stories here on The
Real Family Eats, where we'vegot food for thought
and thoughtful food.
So let's eat.
(00:47):
Welcome back everybody.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I'm excited for today's episode.
We have JP joining us. Hi JPThank you so much for being
a guest on The Real FamilyEats. Hi.
Thanks for having me.
It's, it's pleasure to be here.
Yes.
So I am so excited to heara little bit about your story
and your recipe.
Of course.
But before we get started,for anybody who doesn't
(01:08):
know you, can youintroduce yourself for us?
Yeah.
I am a 42 year old single fatherto a ten year old girl and
I've been doing the co-parentingthing for about eight years.
You know, eight yearsand a little bit of change.
We split up right aftershe turned to.
(01:31):
And then, you know, we hadthe normal fighting conflict,
you know, hurt feelings,all that stuff for a good year
and a half, probably,you know, close to two years
before it.
Started changing or, you know,finished changing.
(01:51):
Most of it was me workingon myself and going through
my childhood baggage and traumasand this and that, and learning
how to communicate betterand get out of my own way and,
you know, sort of processall the grief that I was
kind of dealing with at thesame time.
Okay.
So then the bedroom I got inall these things,
then the easier it got.
But obviously it stilltakes time because I
(02:14):
she heard me say it outdifferent.
I've changed and all thesedifferent things for
different parts of ourrelationship.
And you know, all these,you know, so it takes
a while for it to sink inand then that growing up
in and around the AA systemfrom childhood, you know, my dad
quit drinking when I was young,there were sponsors.
(02:35):
And so, okay, the communityand having somebody that's
a little further ahead of youon the journey, you know,
no matter what it is,whether it's business coach,
you know, nutrition coach,personal finance, personal
fitness, any of these differentthings.
If you want to flex time,avoid booby traps, change your
(02:55):
mindset, change your realityand all these different things
and be held accountable,especially when I worked
with people, found communities,coaches and this.
So when I was dealing withthe high conflict
and everything, and then itkind of evolved into me
doing the same thing for otherpeople, especially dads, because
(03:16):
we taught not to ask for helpand not to have any problems.
And, you know, suck it upand deal with it, all that kind
of stuff.
And it's it's starting tohave change.
But and I it's, it's,it's a passion subject for me.
And it's a passion kind of dealfor me.
(03:37):
And it's, it's one ofthose deals where, you know,
I'm seeing the dance side herein the dance side, getting
some empathy for the fatherswho are not only not able to,
you know, that it's abig shockwave for the dance
because typically thedance moves out and
they lose the kids.
And so you go from havingevery night with your kids
(03:58):
to six, eight daysa month. Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And that's a I'm sureeverybody else deals with you
having to leave the houseand the break up and all
that stuff.
But you lost your home,you lost your wife,
you lost your kids, you losteverything.
And there's not a lot ofempathy or, you know, care
for the for the guys.
(04:19):
It seems. Yeah.
And that I honestly, I gottabe honest with you, I'm so,
so thankful for youbeing willing to even
come and talk about some ofthe dads side of things,
because I absolutelyagree with you, and I'm
so onboard with that passion.
As far as just really creating,a space, of change when it comes
(04:41):
to, to men and emotionsand, you know, I see I have two
sons of my own, so ifanything, it's for hopefully
for their future too.
And so I'm so excitedto kind of talk a little
bit more about that with you.
Before we kind of jumpall the way in.
Tell us, what recipeare you sharing with our
(05:02):
audience today and why did youchoose this one?
Well, I mean, it's my I,you know, I grew up in
a restaurant, my parents on asmall restaurant, and the
mom was a waitress, and this wasmy birthday cake.
My, you know, this was the dealthat made for, you know,
(05:25):
certain people for theirbirthdays and fundraisers
and these things and thosethings.
And it's so easy.
But it's different,you know what I mean?
It's not a pie or a,you know, it's not a cream pie
that you're having to try to door pumpkin pie or, apple pie
kind of deal where the crustis finicky.
Or you might be able to,you know, some of these things
(05:47):
that kind of fall apartif you don't know how to bake
really well and you can you canmake it is elaborate as
you want or as simpleas you want.
And it's kind of you can playwith it.
I mean, this one.
Is, you know, the one thatyou're making is a little
bit different than the onemy dad made because he used,
(06:08):
you know, if you get doublestuffed Oreos, crumbs, and then
you add the butter to thatand then to make that your crust
is how he used to do it. Okay.
You can also get the premade,you know, pie crust and make
the same dessert and thatand not have to worry
about the crust at alland put it on the Oreo one,
(06:28):
or put it on the graham crackerone and it and it be the same.
It tastes just as good.
So you can make it a pie.
You can make it a big pan dish.
I mean, it put some chocolateshavings on top after you're
all done.
If you want to make itlook fancy for Thanksgiving
or Christmas, you know, stufflike that.
Yeah, I love it.
And I love that.
It sounds like it has sucha special, place
(06:50):
in your family's life.
And so I appreciate you beingwilling to, to share that
and let us into that,that world.
So tell me, what or give methe overview of,
the ingredients, the steps.
I'll get assembling and mixingwhile we chat.
And not a lot of ingredients.
I mean, you just kind ofwhatever forum you want
(07:13):
to be able to make itinto squares, you know,
you brown pan or cake panor anything like that.
You can use Oreos.
The recipe that I'd say it haslike a peak on from one.
Or you can use graham cracker,you know, any kind of
those chocolate or as healthyas you want with the crust.
And then it's a cream cheese,you know, layer chocolate
(07:37):
pudding layer, whippedcream layer.
And that's pretty much it.
I mean, it, but you can useit's versatile and I like it
because you can use itand change it and mix it
for whatever you like,because you can swap out
the chocolate pudding forstrawberry or lime or, you know,
whatever flavors that you want.
(07:59):
Yeah, as long as you matchthe bottom, it's pretty
universal to whatever youwhatever whatever fits for you
to make it at any given time.
Because it's mostlyjust pudding.
Well, we like puttingin our house, so I'm excited.
I have never triedthis particular kind of recipe,
so I'm excited to jump in.
(08:20):
For anybody who is watchingand you're looking at at
my dish, I, I've already donemy crust layer and I've put
my cream cheese in and like thatkind of sat a little bit.
So this is nice and chilled.
So just so you're awareof kind of where I'm jumping in
as far as, when I'm making ittoday.
So while I do this,I love to talk a little bit
(08:42):
more, really starting because Iheard you mentioned in there
that there's, there'sa different side of when you're
going through divorce and you'reseparating homes.
And just from beginning part ofof dad's commonly being the ones
that are moving out and that aremaybe on the limited schedule
(09:03):
of seeing, seeing your childrenand what that like as a father
to kind of go through thatand what's going on for you
in that moment.
And, you know, I heard youmentioned kind of grief
in there.
Can you can you talk and start?
Is there.
Yeah.
I mean, it's I got in myparticular situation, I got
(09:27):
extremely lucky because we wereunmarried.
So we're not wrapped intothe system.
We never got thrown intothe money making court process.
So there was no.
Extra pressure and extrafinancial stuff and all of
(09:49):
these extra things onthe other side that I got
really lucky on was, is mydaughter's mother is close
with her dad, and so I never waslimited access with my daughter,
you know what I mean?
It was always my daughtercomes and goes, even still
comes and goes as she pleases.
But we are adults and you know,same rules in both houses.
(10:12):
She granted our second here.
She's not playing us offeach other.
Can we talk?
Discuss best for her?
If she's in trouble, she's introuble.
Both places.
But also my daughter'sin a blended family now.
We sit by each otherat the school functions,
the dance recitals, the sportsstuff, and then barbecue
and sometimes some holidays,depending on if everybody's
(10:32):
in town isn't there.
So, I mean, my situationhas gotten to be really smooth
and, and easy.
Okay. But when you, you know,when you break up,
go through the divorce process,starting the divorce
process and or, or any of thosethings, I had a really hard time
(10:56):
getting out of my own wayand sort of grieving the
relationship and letting it die,which I think is the
hardest part for most everybody,because you want to really use
all of these feelingsand emotions as a crutch
to either make yourself to makeyour self feel better for the
situation, or to have somebodyto blame.
(11:17):
And I think it gets worse and alittle bit when you get into the
court process, because thenyou have lawyers, mediators,
and you're feeding intothis money machine that's masked
by the guise of best interestof the children, right.
And but when you get intothis process, you know, a lot of
the people I talk to and workwith every day, you know,
(11:38):
more times than notit was almost pretty civil until
the lawyers got involved.
And then it becomes fingerpointing from both sides at
the other side.
And then you start getting mador you know, you can build or it
doesn't help you get overor through any of the unresolved
anger or resentment or hurtfeelings or all of these
(12:01):
different things.
And then, you know,from the dad's perspective
and you, you basically losteverything.
They tell you that it's eitherin the best interest of
the kids or, you know, there'sa lot of guys that I talk
to that have, you know,quote unquote, week on,
(12:21):
week off, 50, 50 custodyof their kids, but they're
still paying.
Is I don't understand howthey can say it's 5050
and you do week on week offand have equal time,
but somebody's still paying youthe person to babysit your kids
instead of just giving youmore time with your children.
And then that causes, you know,that causes more resentment
because you're you'repaying money that you don't
(12:45):
feel like you should be payingor you've lost in the court
process, or your lawyer juststraight up told you you're not
going to win.
So don't find any way.
And it's just a lot ofjust gut punch is and and shots
to the face over and overthrough the whole process that.
The average guy just wants tobe with his children, you know.
(13:05):
And they're a lot of times,you know, you get six,
eight days a month, you know,every other weekend.
And then maybe, spring break ina month in the summer
or something like that.
Is is pretty typical.
I it's so it's easy to, tohold on to all these emotions
and then, you know, in my case.
(13:28):
I was I would instantlyget defensive.
Like the biggest thingthat I had to get over
was myself.
And I, you know, we kind of gotinto this routine where
I would get a message through mynervous system of like, go into,
you know, anxiety, anxiousmode or, you know, fight
or flight.
And I react by sayingsomething back.
(13:51):
And then she would react byand it would go back
and forth for, you know, afew days or a week until one
or both of us had bottled upthe back and forth
enough to where one of uscan, you know, push over
the edge and, and turninto this.
People fight over in the matchon the phone or whatever
the case may be.
Yeah.
And then the more that Ihealed from the baggage and all
(14:16):
that hurt feelings and all thesedifferent things from the
relationship, the easierit was to just stop reacting
and start responding.
And then it became easier tocommunicate because I wasn't
talking back, or I wasn'tfeeling like I was being poked,
because most of the timeit was just me being the it's on
the defensive, and it hadnothing to do with anything
(14:37):
that, you know, I it was the wayI took it, not the way
not what was being said.
And so yeah, for me, I had toI had to actually get one
of those little memo padnotebooks around with me
all the time.
And then I would get a textand you could feel yourself,
you know, your heart rate go upand you get an, you know,
(14:59):
you take it or whatever.
And so I had to start writingin that.
What I was going to say back.
And then I would come back to itwhen I system came back down.
And like nine times out often, like, that's not
what I ended up sending backbecause I then had
to train myself to stop snapresponding, snap reacting,
(15:21):
and start responding because I'dcome back a couple hours later
the next day or somethinglike that.
Read it the comments, and thenI'd send an actual response
as opposed to a post back,you know, unless it needed
my attention.
You know, quicker than that.
But I mean, I had totrain myself to stop.
Giving the reactionmaybe she was looking for
(15:42):
or being easily defensiveor letting my, you know,
emotions cloud my betterjudgment on what I wanted
to reply with or what I wantedto say back or anything
like that.
And, and, I mean,it was a process and it took
a while, but trainingyourself to communicate
differently and see themas a different person
(16:04):
is usually the the first commentthings you got to get through
because if you're holding onto all this baggage and all of
this trauma and all ofthese emotions, and it's hard
to move forward in the realitythat you're in because you're
not with that person anymore.
Yeah.
And but if you keepcommunicating the same way
you were at the end ofyour marriage, it's just going
(16:25):
to keep revolving with thesame sort of interactions.
I mean, that makes alot of sense, right?
They're trying the same thingand expecting a different
outcome.
Yeah.
And so I, I'm curious for you,because I heard you mention
in there that you found themmany times, kind of
that reactivity was, was mayberooted in that, that feeling of
(16:49):
defensiveness.
So and I heard youa couple times kind of mentioned
some of some of your bagsthat you, you were
carrying around and someseriously, what what was maybe
coming up, what was your braintrying to convince you of that
maybe led to, like yousaid, that path of of feeling
(17:09):
defensive and feelinglike I need to go to war.
Can you say a little bitmore about maybe what was
the narrative, that you wereworking with?
I mean, I up until thatpoint and from, from childhood,
I had been telling myselfand following this narrative
(17:32):
that I was a victim andit woe is me.
She was always going to drawwhether I was self-sabotaging
myself or not.
It was always something else,something external.
It wasn't my fault.
Even though I made the decisionto be in this place,
do these things and all thesedifferent things.
And so I got into this,this habit or, or identity
(17:56):
of, of being a victim or alwaysthinking I was the victim or
the blame game kind of dealsand stuff like that.
And so for me, I had toI had to.
Backtrack, you know,once I started became aware
and started doing different workon myself and had baggage
(18:20):
sorting and trauma and all thesedifferent things, I had to
figure out why she triggered me.
And then it jumped back tosomebody else in, you know,
ten years before her.
And then it went intolike when I was in high school.
And then it, you know,eventually I made my way
all the way back to when I was,you know, akin.
Yeah.
And then had to fix that, healthat, you know, over that,
(18:42):
you know, bullshit.
And then jump up to wherethe next one where I felt like,
you know, it kept me inthat state or, you know,
this girl friend in high schoolthat that, so then I had to
just let that go because,you know, I can't do
anything about it now, you know,forgive them whatever
I need to do to heal.
And then it became, you know,accepting a lot of the things
(19:06):
that I was doing in my 20sand early 30s, that kind of
stuff that I needed to eithertake accountability for, forgive
people for, forgive myself,or look at dejectedly and, and
and realize that somecircumstances are just
circumstances.
Nobody's maliciouslytrying to do these things
to you.
(19:26):
And then as I got better at selfreflection, then I was
able to start training myselfhow to be a better communicator
and how to have difficultconversations without either
feeling like I was attacked,or feeling like somebody
was trying to scrutiny overor take advantage of me or,
(19:48):
you know, because Imean, that was most of it is I,
I had a lot of low self-worthand a lot of self-worth issues
growing up and through myteenage years.
And so I always felt like.
I got people who were eitherabusive or takers or people
that would, you know,railroad you around me
(20:09):
and in my life because they knewthey could, because
I allowed them to,because that's how I felt like
I deserved to be treated.
And then it propelled them to,you know, all these
other things.
And so, I mean,it was a process.
It took me a few yearsto get through a lot of it, but,
you know, the bigger part of itwas, was my childhood in trying
to break generationalcurses and not.
(20:31):
Be the same kind of parentto my daughter that my
parents were, you know,and sort of raised in our loving
household.
It wasn't emotionallydisconnected and trying
to set her up the bestI could for a successful
future. And so if I wanted tochange these things
and her to be more equippedas a, you know, young adult
(20:54):
than I was, then,I needed to add more tools
to my toolbox.
And so then it became.
You know, working with people,getting outside opinions
that had been through it.
You know, it's not likeI could go and get
my mom's advice when she'd neverbeen divorced and they didn't
co-parent at all.
So, I mean, being aware of whoyou're taking advice from in the
(21:14):
in the information that you'rebringing in was a big
part of it, but that was part ofthe process of, you know,
the more I could accepta lot of these things, easier
it was to let go of a lotof these hurt feelings and
issues and stuff, because Inobody was picking on me.
Her mother wasn't doingthese things maliciously
(21:35):
to hurt me.
And even if she waslooking for a certain reaction,
I was probably giving it to herbecause she knew that's
how I was going to react.
And so I had to changemy reactions so that she'd
stop looking for thosereactions.
And then it became easierto communicate and easier
to communicate.
Easier to communicate, becauseI was stuck in this mindset
(21:59):
in the same mental space andemotional state mindset
that I was at the end of therelationship, even knowing the
relationship has been deadfor a year and a half.
And my new reality isshe's a parent and I'm a parent
and we're trying to raisea child as opposed to
you heard me and all theseother things that you can get
wrapped up in and kindof dwell on for too long.
(22:22):
Yeah.
And it sounds like, ifI'm hearing you correctly
and let me know if I'm way offbase here, is that for you?
As you did some ofyour unpacking and your work
on yourself and figuring outkind of maybe the origin
of some of that defensiveness,that it sounds like it came
from, maybe your brain'swave when you were a child.
You know, this is thisis the way to cope,
(22:44):
because this is what helpskeep us safe.
Like, if I go into this space,it's happening to me.
Because likely as a child,you know, we are we are helpless
in this sense, and we don'thave a ton of, resources,
especially if it's comingfrom someone near and dear to us
that, you know, societysaying, hey, this is the person
taking care of you, but imagineyou're your brain
(23:06):
is going, well, I've got tofigure out how to survive
somehow.
And so if I if I go intothis headspace in this
particular narrative, that'sa little bit easier to swallow
than to swallow an idea of,I'm not worth this love
or this care or this compassion.
You know, that's athat's a really hard thing that
(23:27):
to swallow.
And so why on earth wouldour brain want to, like,
lead us there?
So instead, let's let's get thisother narrative.
This one's easier to swallow.
Right.
And so it sounds like from that,from that place of protection,
it just kind of grew and becamereally good.
It sounds like it going tothat narrative.
Right.
Because again, that's that'ssomething that's known and that
(23:50):
has served you and protectedyou. Right.
In other circumstances,am I hearing that correctly?
Yeah.
Well, it it did and it also,you know, not that, you know,
it took me it took me wellinto my 30s to accept the fact
that my parents did the bestthey could with the tools
that they had and that theywere more emotionally
(24:12):
available and open than theirparents were and did a
better job than their parents.
And you do the best you canwith the knowledge and
and the way that you're raised,unless you want to change it and
be different and it was justan emotionally disconnected
household.
And so you really only got I wasan easy kid.
(24:33):
I have an older brother that's,you know, two years
older than me.
He demanded a lot of attention.
And so the only way that you,you know, so I grew up with the
forgotten child, middle childkind of syndrome as a,
as a, as a kid.
Okay.
So the only, the only wayyou really got attention is
if you were doing somethingwrong.
(24:54):
And so then that happened.
What does every kid say totheir parents when you
get caught doing somethingwrong?
It wasn't me.
It wasn't my fault.
I didn't mean to, you know? And.
And then it becomes a habit.
That's just your reactionto anything that happens.
Yeah.
Because I've got 12, you know,12, ten, 12 years of experience
(25:14):
of every time, you know,this is when somebody
notices me.
Well, I don't want to, you know,get a spanking or be in trouble.
So I didn't mean to.
It wasn't my fault.
And this is, you know, howit happened, and I just happened
to be there.
You know, whatever the casemay be.
And then.
And then when I got about 15,you know, then it became
(25:34):
my school party and a little bitand then alcohol became the
biggest crutch I could usebecause I didn't have to be me,
and I could be numb.
And I didn't have to deal withthe real world.
But every time, every timetrouble came around the corner,
I, I could, you know, it wasmy fault.
It's just, you know, everybody'sdoing it.
I'm just the one that getscaught all the time.
(25:55):
Or I'm the one that.
Gets picked up by thepolice and, you know, knocks on
your door to sign off deals.
Or I can be dropped off at homeand all these different things.
Well, it's not my fault.
We live in a small townand there's nothing else.
You know what I mean?
And then it just an excuse camefor everything.
Yeah.
And I really appreciateyou kind of bringing that
(26:18):
to light, because I think,on a couple fronts.
First of all, that many times,like you said, that our,
our parents and even our parentsaren't necessarily
going into this journey going,how can I destroy my
child's life like, I don'tI don't think I've ever met
any parent who would say that.
(26:38):
That's the intent, right?
It doesn't mean, like you said,that it's not necessarily
something that ends upoccurring for one reason
or another, and thatalso for you kind of mentioning
just that, that piece of it thatfor for you, it came from,
like you said, that placeof trying to, to figure out how,
how do I get along in this worldand how do I fit in.
(27:01):
And and oftentimes I findthat when, when we're talking
about some of these maybe,I'm not as healthy
kind of coping skills, right,that often they are coming from
that place where our brainisn't going, how can I
destroy myself or self-sabotageor, you know, hurt other people
(27:22):
and we're not?
I don't think that mostpeople are going into it
with that mentality, but rather,you know, I, I'm feeling unsafe
in this moment and thisparticular thing helps me
feel safe.
And so our, our brainsnaturally want to keep us safe.
I mean, it's that instinct,that survival instinct, right?
Yeah.
(27:43):
And it does.
And then it would, you know, Ilooking back, it makes
sense to me.
And I had a conversationwith somebody earlier
today about, you know.
Your comfort zone is yourcomfort zone, whether
that's chaos or being an anxietyor being in an abusive
relationship or being in toxicrelationship or whatever
(28:04):
the case may be, whatever yourcomfort zone is, until
you do some sort of work or getthrough it.
And, you know, looking back nowand throughout, you know,
my 20s, any time I every timesomething, you know, I felt
the most uneasy and themost anxious when things
(28:26):
in my life seem to be goingreally well, and I didn't have
a big disruption.
So I then I became anxiousand I was waiting for it around
the corner.
And then typically I wouldsubconsciously do something
to blow it.
Whatever I had going.
Yeah, because I neededthat chaos, something safe.
I needed that that tensionand I needed, you know,
(28:47):
and so when everything waschaotic around me is
when my nervous system was calmand I felt safe, even though
the whole, you know,my whole life is going to
go to shit, you know.
And so and then it was onrepeat, repeat, you know, every,
you know, three, 4 or 5 yearswhen I had, you know, I
was doing well at my jobor starting a business or had
(29:10):
a decent relationshipwith somebody or my friends.
And, you know, we wereall thinking and driving
and everything was going good.
And no worries, no worries,no worries.
And then it became like adeal where I'm sitting there
waiting for the other shoeto drop and the waiting for the,
you know, to step in that holeand something just to go wrong.
And then most of the time I,I would kick a domino that
that would make it do that.
(29:32):
But I wouldn't know that I was,you know, I wouldn't necessarily
know that I was doing that,but I wasn't, you know, able to.
Get out of that state, you know.
But you but when you'redoing it, you don't even realize
that you're doing it. Yeah,absolutely.
And that makes a ton of sense.
In fact, you know, I've,I've read even the
(29:52):
studies, right, that whenyou're in that state of that
higher level of cortisol for along enough period of time,
your body is like, you shouldkind of get used to that, okay.
That's our baseline.
So maybe our baseline empathizewith lower.
But then, you know we're ina constant state of chaos now
your body goes okay well this isthis is the the new baseline
(30:14):
we need to eat in order to you.
I can help to survive.
And so when we find,like you said, maybe
an environment that isn'tas chaotic, our body, you know,
tends to go, this doesn'tfeel great.
I don't know this this thisdoesn't this doesn't feel safe.
And so, I can absolutelyappreciate that.
Like you said, wherethere's almost, almost a comfort
(30:38):
then in, in the chaos.
Because at least I knowthe chaos.
I know how to operate thatversus the calm where, I haven't
really been shown that calmis is safe.
And so now I'm.
I'm on edge.
Right, right.
So and you see it a lotwith people who have you see it
(31:01):
a lot.
You know, with with peoplewho had the nurtured or had,
you know, chaotic relationshipswith their parents or watched
their parents have chaoticrelationships or in my case,
my parents were, you know,my parents were essentially
roommates from the timeI can remember till I was like
(31:21):
17 years old.
They didn't.
I never saw in case they neversaid, I love you.
But that was, you know, that wasthe norm, you know, and we would
all go, you know, we didn't havea lot of money.
Dad worked a lot.
They worked a lot,all that stuff.
But, you know, we take like twocamping trips a year
and everybody would go.
But my parents never wenton a date night, never went to
(31:42):
on a vacation by themselvesthat my entire time, I mean
all of these things.
So this was my norm and it was afairly chaotic place, you know,
even though my dad got soberwhen I was, you know, 4
or 5 years old, his mentalityand actions and everything
else, I mean, it didn't matter,you know, there was no
alcohol around, buteverything else was the same
(32:03):
for the most part.
Okay.
And so, you know,then in my 20s.
The chaotic, toxic relationshipsfelt safe.
But when somebody was normal or,you know, emotionally
intelligent or honest or ableto express their wants, needs,
(32:24):
boundaries, you know, feelingsand all these different things
that felt foreign to me.
And so that would scare meand send me into like,
I don't like this.
And you see it a lotand you see it a lot with,
you know, when you hear womentalk about, I need the exciting
guy, but I don't like the guy,that's the boring guy.
You know, the fun because it's,you know, not normal to them,
(32:45):
you know, and these thingsand you see it with in a lot
of situations, you know,guys are the same way.
You know, somebody who's grew upin a place where it's chaos
and all these different things,and they meet somebody that, you
know, was from I live in a ruralarea, you know, like a farmer's
daughter where they go to churchas a family every Sunday.
And, you know, everybody,you know, like and it just
(33:06):
feels foreign to me, like meand my daughter's mother were
together.
They have a close family.
So they're all together onevery holiday.
And they do like dinnersand all these different things.
And it's like I couldn'tget used to it, but I hadn't
done any sort of workor healing.
But it was so, you know,everybody being calm and just,
you know, getting along for themost part, you know, as much as
(33:29):
families do.
But doing all these thingstogether and, you know,
birthdays and all thesethings are a big family event
that was foreign tome, you know, yeah.
And so I'm curious,like you said, with all of that
being being foreign and,and even it sounds like
kind of that emotionalvulnerability being just a big
no no at this point.
(33:49):
Right.
How how was that for you,especially at the beginning
of your journey when you'reyou're trying to kind of
maybe open these things,open wounds that maybe have been
there for, who knows how long,which require, I imagine,
you know, a degree ofvulnerability and maybe
even honesty with yourself.
What that means to kind ofgo through that and, and,
(34:14):
you know, were there barriersthat you found yourself
kind of coming up against thatyou had to work through?
Yeah.
I mean, I the more Ilearned about, you know, trauma
from different books, I gotreally into, to, paying
(34:34):
attention and being aware.
I started doing mindfulnesstraining and being aware
and practice, you know, trainingyour mind to not control
your thoughts, but notget wrapped in your thoughts
at the same time and all thatstuff.
And then I read books on,you know, the importance
of habits.
The small wins, the mentalshifts, the, internal dialogs.
(34:57):
Processing trauma and griefand, you know, some of it was
extremely uncomfortable.
Parts of it was extremely lonelyand isolating.
Okay.
(35:17):
And it goes it, you know,if you don't like yourself, it's
really hard to be alone,but it's really hard to be
a good person or goodfor the people around you.
If you don't like yourselfand you can't be alone, like,
now I'm, I'm I'm alone, but I'mnot lonely.
Before I was lonely.
So I tried to fill this void.
Whether it be, you know, alcoholor people or fake friends or
(35:41):
going to the, you know, goingto the bar would fill that hole
for a certain amount of timebecause there's people around
and, you know, because youwere down there all the time,
just like them and all thesedifferent things.
And so you were constantlydoing all these things to try to
not have to be yourself, nothave to do it yourself.
But even so, it takes ait's really uncomfortable
and it's it's a process and it'shard to take a look at yourself,
(36:06):
you know, and then you startidentifying your triggers
and then you start figuring outwhy they're triggers and why
you react this way.
And you can map out how you'resabotaging yourself and doing
these things.
And it's and it's uncomfortable.
And then as you grow,you sort of.
Find yourself in this limbofor however long, depending on
(36:29):
how hard the work is,how much you're actually doing
in this, that because you're notthe person that you were, so you
don't really have anythingin common with the people
that you used to interact withall the time.
And when you become aware,you become aware of everything.
And so you notice thingsthat you didn't notice before.
So maybe this childhood friendis a shitty parent,
and you don't necessarilywant to be around that kind of
(36:50):
person anymore.
So now you got to distanceyourself from the people
who drink if you don'twant to drink, and people
that are toxic.
If you don't want toxic peoplein your life because you you
start to figure outwho gives you energy and
who drains you and all of thesedifferent things, but you're not
quite healed enough to be onthe level of all the people
that you're going to besurrounding yourself with
and interacting with.
(37:11):
You know, it'd be like havingsomebody that's in the midway
of their fitness journey.
You're not in the beginnerclass anymore, but you're
not quite with the peoplethat are working out five days
a week or whatever.
So you're kind of in the middleand it and it, but that's
where the coaches and thetherapists and the communities
of people that are in the samekinds of situations are dealing
(37:33):
with the same sorts of,you know, mindsets and external
problems because just likeyour diet or just like fitness
or just like businessor just like anything else,
you're you may go 3 or 4 stepsforward and feel really great,
but then you might takesix, five, six steps
backwards or, you know,sideways and the plateaus
(37:54):
and the ups and downs.
It's it's it's it's isolatingif you're trying to do it
all by yourself and it's,it's time consuming.
Yeah.
And I imagine, like you said,if you're in that space
where you're starting to becomemore aware of maybe even other
people's behaviors and,and going, if I want to
make this change, it might alsocome with distancing myself from
(38:19):
from these people.
And I imagine that in itselfcould be a really scary barrier
for people to want to dothat change.
Because again, now I'mletting go of these people
and maybe it turns out to bemost everyone that I'm currently
surrounding myself. Right.
And that's that's scary, right?
Because in I mean, it is, butanytime that you're getting out
(38:45):
of your comfort zone and makingchanges, it's always going
to be scary.
It's whether or not you can.
Keep going and do thesmall things and keep changing
your habits and keep doingthese things because you know, I
you're growing and you'reoutgrowing people and you're
(39:06):
growing into somebody and all ofthese things.
And then, you know,especially with the people
that I talk to and the guysand girls and ladies that I work
with and that kind of stuff.
And it's like, well,I can't outgrow the other
parents, you know, we'reconnected.
We have to communicate,you know, and it's like
fair, you know?
But you, you know, wherethey're always calling me
(39:31):
and, you know, ventingor talk to, you know, dumping on
on me with stuff that doesn'thave to do with our kids or,
you know, whatever.
It's like the thing you needto start making boundaries.
Like, this is not my businessproblem and something that I,
you know, need you don't needto be telling me, you know, I
we can be friendly, but I don'tneed to know about your problems
(39:51):
with your significant other.
You know what I mean?
Like, this is not my business,and I don't need I don't,
you know, if you needa therapist and go, but I don't.
I'm not it.
You know what I mean?
I know the weird historyin this that.
But a lot of people, you know,so it's it's understanding
the people that are draining youcompared to the people that,
you know, give you energy.
(40:12):
And so even if it's family,you know, if you say your mom
is overbearing and every timeyou talk to her and
she calls you every dayand every day and every time
you go on the phone, you'reexhausted and you're like,
feel shitty about yourselfbecause everything's a problem.
And, you know, you get totake a part.
Every, you know, aspect ofyour life is getting
picked apart, and it's like,you get it wrong and you love
(40:35):
me, you love someone, but maybeyou don't need to talk to her
every day.
Yeah, maybe talk to heron Sundays, Sunday,
early on Sunday so you can restthe rest of the day and you
don't have to take.
You don't have to be drainedall week instead of having
five 30 minute conversationsa week.
Maybe you just have one hour,one on Sundays or an hour
(40:55):
and a half.
And if it's really bad,you know, every other week
once more, you know, nobody saysthat you have to be this
worn out, burned out entity runwalking around because
everybody's uses you as theiremotional toxic waste or makes
you feel bad about yourselfor drains you, you know, drains
(41:16):
your energy.
Because if you have no energy,then you're not good
for anybody, especiallyyour kids.
Yeah, and I love thatyou pointed that out, because
I hear that commonly as a retortwhen we talk about,
like you said, kind of settingsome of those boundaries, it's,
oh, well, does that make me abad person or, you know,
am I selfish or allthese kind of, you know,
(41:36):
the propensity right to, to goinner critic on herself,
right? Right.
Versus being able tomaybe zoom out and say,
gosh, if, if I can drawthis boundary and maybe
set some limits with that,you know, I can still love them,
but not necessarilyhave to take on some of
those behaviors or take ontheir bad day.
(41:58):
Right? Right.
What does that freeme up to do in as far as
being the parent and showing upand being maybe the partner
that I want to be, the parentthat I want to be.
Right?
Or just show up for me.
Right? Right.
I mean, there's a reasonthat when you get on
an airplane, they tell youto put your mask on first.
(42:19):
Yeah.
And and your energy, your lifeand everything around you
is the exact same way I.
If you talk to somebody
at 2 (42:28):
00 every afternoon and they drink it and they make
you feel shitty about yourself,whether it's a friend or family
or whatever, you're you'rethe parent.
It doesn't matter.
And it exhausts you or puts youin a bad mood every time
it makes you feel shittyabout yourself.
And then you go pick your kidsup at 3 p.m.
and how good, I mean,how good are your kids
(42:50):
when you're picking them upfrom school?
You know, you're sitting therelike you're probably
sitting there pissed offor, you know, half in tears
or depressed or worn outor ready for a nap or whatever
the case may be, instead ofbeing like, you know, I doubt
you're even asking themhow their day was, what
they learned in school, you knowwhat I mean?
And then it's just come home.
You're tired, so then you'regoing to order fast food
or pizza or pick something upon the way home because
(43:11):
you don't have the energyto cook.
So your kids aren't gettingthe nutrition or food or,
you know, dinner that theyprobably deserve or that
you would have been ableto cook or you're short
with them.
They're not in there helping youbecause you don't.
You don't have any more energyand this and that.
So then you just hand thema tablet.
Don't go to town becauseyou don't have the energy to
interact or get help ordo any of these things that if
(43:34):
you cut that person out of aweekday life, I mean, you get
to have all these wonderfulthings with your children
or your spouse or yoursignificant other or you know,
whatever.
Yeah.
As opposed to doomscrollingon Facebook with your phone
because you wore out,because your mom took all your
energy, you know,or your brother take
(43:58):
all your energy or your sisteror cousin or friend who,
you know, calls you justspecifically because
they don't have a therapistand they want to dump all their
problems on you.
You know what I mean?
Like, but you're not there'sthere's no there's nothing
in your life that tells youyou have to be everybody
around this therapist or ventinganger or, you know, problem
(44:21):
solver or you know what it is.
You get to pick and choosewho you have in your life.
Yeah.
I know you mentioned, at thebeginning that, kind of early on
in your journey, you had lostyour father as well.
And so I'm curious, like,for you and some of this work
(44:41):
that you were doing in tryingto kind of like you learn
some of these boundaries,these elements, figure out
and sort through someof your bags, and, and heal.
Where in, in your journeydid that happen and did
that kind of shake things upor rock your world as far as
in terms of healing, even?
Oh, well, okay, so my situationwas a bit I, you know,
(45:10):
everything comes in threes,as they say in a lot of.
Different cultures and differentthings.
You know.
And so I, I, you know, I'm,I work in construction,
do carpentry and remodelhouses in this.
And I live in a rural area.
And your, your pick up isyour most important tool
(45:32):
to do your job.
So could you back forth?
You could be anywhere withina hundred miles.
So I blew the transmissionin my pickup.
Well, it went out, soI had no pickup in like a week
or two later, I threwin the towel.
No more relationships.
So then I did whateverybody does when you when you
(45:54):
split up.
And you have to startcompletely over your life and do
all these things from scratch,you move in with your parents
to get on your feetto figure out, you know,
it's not like you're looking fora new place while you're
breaking up and moving outof your house.
You know what I mean?
Most people have to go eitherfamily or friends or, you know,
something to to start sortingit out.
So then it's my parents house,which is in the same town,
(46:18):
you know, six, eightblocks away.
I think I was there for liketwo weeks, three weeks, maybe.
And my dad died unexpectedly.
You know, when I sayunexpectedly, he was.
Training to get training for thequalifier for the Boston
Marathon.
He was on a Sunday morning runa mile eight and me.
And he died.
(46:38):
Wow.
And so.
So I got grief, grief andhuge pain of not having my
pickup or a pickup and like,not having any way to get back
and forth, not having any wayto get around, got thrown
into single fatherhood, stillhave nowhere to go pick her up,
(46:58):
get around, do any of thesethings that I need to be able
to do as a father, especiallya father that doesn't have
the mom, you know, inthe same house doing all
these things that my dad does.
So then it spins me into this.
I mean, like, I went into likea depression, but I was,
(47:21):
you know, then it'sit sent me into this depression.
But it also was a lot of itself.
Sort of self put I put iton myself.
Nobody really asked me to.
But then that's, that was partof the victim, you know,
sort of habits that I hadgotten into.
But I was essentiallyI felt stuck at my mom's house,
not only in my grief,but not able to escape her grief
(47:44):
like my brother could come.
I really could go home and getaway from, you know, my mom
just lost her husbandof 35 years or whatever.
So then I got started puttingthis extra guilt on myself
that like, I can't move outbecause in my mom's going to
be alone, and she hasn'tbeen alone in her entire
adult life and allthese different things. But I
was not processing anykind of grief or any
(48:06):
my situation in this.
And so, you know, insteadof hiding an alcohol, I hid in,
you know, for like a year, yearand a half, couple years,
all I did was go to work,come home, hang out with
my daughter.
If I wasn't at work,I was hanging out with
my daughter.
If I didn't have my daughter,then I was just at my
parent's house, didn't gosocialize, lost all my friends,
(48:28):
stopped communicatingwith anybody and everybody
that didn't eitherdirectly relate to work
or parenting.
Yeah, and was a deal wheremy mom was, you know,
at some point, at one point,my mom just finally was like,
hey, you need to go, you know?
But I had already I had donea bunch of homework, and it was
in a place where I was not,you know, feeling trapped
(48:52):
necessarily, but I was kind ofnot really sure when the right
time to just, you know,hear you, like, live in this
half acre with fourbedroom house that you can't
really keep track, you know.
Yeah, that's going to bea lot of house and a lot of work
and all these differentthings for you because
when dad died, not only didmy mom lose her husband,
but she also lost her jobbecause he was the cook.
(49:14):
She was the waitress at therestaurant that they owned.
So then the restaurantshut down.
So then Covid hits and there'sall these different things that
that kind of came later,but I it had forced me to
process a lot of things,but also I had my dad was a
(49:37):
was the, the objectof a lot of my childhood baggage
and trauma.
And it was whether itwas easier or or not.
And when he died,I could finally sort of
deal with it because there wasnothing I could do about it.
It's not like I could sit thereand have the conversations
with him.
I had to just let it go,and that made it easier
(50:00):
to just let go of all thethe same sort of hurt
feelings and animosityor pent up whatever emotional
stuff.
With my daughter's mother,it was easier to just
it made it, you know, onceI process that grief and let
go of a lot of the baggagetrauma from from my wife
with him, it became easier tosort of go through and do that
with everybody else.
(50:20):
That was in and around my lifeon a smaller scale compared
to him.
What was my childhood?
And so then it became easierto forgive others and it became
easier to forgive myself,and it became easier to
to take a home, look inthe mirror or to look inside
and figure out that, like,you know, 90% of the time
(50:41):
I was the fucking problem.
You know, in this instance,it was me and it was doing this,
and in this instance, it was methat was reacting this way
or doing this or doing this,and because of this and,
you know, but that helpedwith the triggers and, and,
and the identifying a lot ofthose things.
But it was a deal where I wassitting there and I, I,
(51:03):
I was acting like my dad.
My daughter was like twoand a half, you know, three
and a half, four years old,something like that.
And I'm fighting with himon the phone.
She's crying.
I thought she was inside,but I'm screaming out
on the phone, gettingscreamed out on the phone.
Look over.
She's crying.
My mom's looking at melike I'm a piece of shit.
I was like, this is not the lifeI want, and this sure
(51:23):
isn't the life I want herto have.
And so then it just became,how do I make changes?
You know, how do I changethe reality that I'm in?
And how do I change the waythat I act?
And how do I change the way thatI think and and then it became a
snowball rolling downhillbecause you keep gaining
momentum the more that you canbe uncomfortable.
(51:45):
You actually look at yourselfand your actions and take
accountability and dothese things that the first
few of them.
It's hard because you don'twant to believe that you're
the problem or that you'remaybe not the best or you're not
the good communicator.
It's everybody, you know,all these different things.
Yeah, but the more that I couldkind of flip through a
(52:05):
few of them in, the more thatI got through a few of them.
Then it became easier toget through others because
I already knew, like, thisis my habit.
This is the same as that one.
I did the same thing.
I had the same rat, you knowwhat I mean?
And then as you get momentum,it becomes easier and easier
to keep, you know, being awareand taking hard looks
at yourself and beingaccountable to yourself about,
(52:27):
you know, how did I did I handlethis situation the way that
I think I did or did I?
Am I just trying to blameeverybody else, or am I just not
acknowledging my partthat I played?
You know what I mean?
And and even if it wasn'tnecessarily me, you know,
forgiveness is is apowerful thing because not
forgiving people for them, it'sso that you can just let go
(52:50):
of all that or whateveryou're holding onto most.
Yeah.
And what I really appreciate youmentioning there is,
like you said, that momentum.
I definitely find that in folks.
It's that retrainingof the brain, right?
We're now giving our brainsome new facts to latch on to,
that like, hey,I can go into this and I can
(53:12):
create a different way to,to find safety, versus purely
relying on maybe this otherpattern of behavior that
I've been doing.
And I think you're so spot on.
But the more that we do that,the more facts that we give to
our brain.
It is that retraining of who?
I can do this and this ispossible for me to do.
And so I love that.
(53:33):
And so my last questionthat I like to ask folks
is that if if you had accessto a Delorean, my huge back
to the future fans.
So that's why I worked on there.
Is there any point in timethat you would go back and not
necessarily to change something,but to offer you whatever age
(53:54):
that's maybe appropriate, yetoffer yourself some words
or a different or maybe it'sjust a hug, that
you would offer.
What would you say?
And I, I would.
(54:16):
I would probably go back towhen I was three, eight,
ten years old, maybe.
And I tell myself, and I thinkthis was one of the biggest and,
(54:37):
kind of kind of PPC campaigns,but one of the biggest, like.
And so we got attentionwhen we did something wrong or
something didn't work outor whatever the case was.
And so, you know, beforethat started becoming my habits,
I was, you know, prettyathletic, didn't need attention
(54:57):
in sports, but my brother wasn'tso athletic.
So he needs a lot of attention.
And so I had to get attentionthere, going to be doing
something wrong or need help.
But you couldn't ask for help.
It was more hard to watch,get fairly good at it, and then
somebody would either,you know, you just basically
had to watch and learn and thenI would go back and tell myself
(55:20):
that, like even knowing nobody'sgoing to notice and you're
not going to get anyacknowledgment or praise.
It doesn't mean that you shouldstop trying, because that
was one of the biggest catalystsfor me to just give up
on everything and justthrow my hands up and say,
fuck it.
And so, like, and I and I, and Idon't remember exactly when that
sort of sunk in.
Maybe it was learned overat different sports and doing
(55:41):
different different teams,you know, different baseball
seasons and different wrestlingseasons and stuff like that.
But it was yeah, you know, beingand being good or possibly,
you know, maybe a little aboveaverage athletically.
I, I didn't need help to, toget better.
And I wasn't really running intoand you know, adversity
(56:04):
and so in everything I was doingwas unnoticed.
And so then it became a habit ofwhy try nobody gives a shit.
And so then that's for allthe into all aspects of my life.
Like if you don't try, youcan't fail.
And if you don't fail, you'renot in trouble and you don't
get in trouble, then you knowwhat I mean?
And it just kind of spiderwebit out.
But I think that's probably thebiggest thing.
I would go back and, you know,I don't necessarily think I
(56:26):
would want to change anything,and I probably give myself a hug
and be like, you can stilltry, you know, somebody
somebody, you know, later andlater down the road people
will notice and you will get theacknowledgment or the
you know what?
Not the praise is a bad wordor criticism isn't good.
(56:46):
But I think the more effortyou put in and you get, the more
you try, the more rewards you'llget later in life and in
different situations.
Because it's all depends onhow much you want to, you know,
do it for yourself more thanother people.
I guess.
And I love that mindset,that idea of you as your self,
(57:08):
as your, you know,your own person that you
deserve to try and, you know,and being able to kind of
even extend that to yourself,I think is just such a wonderful
message that hopefullyour listeners, you know, we're
hearing that and you yourself,whoever is listening,
also deserve to, to try,if you know, not for
anybody else, but justfor yourself.
(57:30):
So that's awesome.
I'll wrap up.
So for anybody who,is wanting to connect with you
or any services, this isour shameless plug section.
So tell us all, what is itthat you're offering?
How can they find you?
On Instagram?
Is is the best place.
And then it's just at JPAmara Sage.
(57:51):
And then that's where, you know,people can send me messages
or ask me questions or connector anything like that.
And I love social media,so I don't really do a lot.
You know, I don't it's not it'snot something that I, that I.
It's just it drains me and it's.
(58:11):
Yeah, it's just too mucha lot of times and I and I have
other things to do.
But I did start a podcast.
So then once I start publishingthose soon, I hope that
I'm working on it.
Yeah.
Do you have a name where you're,you're planning on releasing
your podcast so we can beon the lookout?
(58:32):
Marsh Talks okay. AndI have it set up to go to
to do Spotify, but we createdany of the other ones that.
Okay, well, make sure tocheck that out, everyone.
And, as always, we'll make sureany of the links the socials
get, get popped down toour show notes so you can
check them out there.
(58:53):
So I'm excited.
I've got my guy all ready to goand pop them in the
in the fridge.
To set in there.
So thank you so much forfor sharing this recipe with us.
Also for just being willing toto share your story,
help normalize, especially forour dads out there that
are listening.
That parenting is hard going on.
(59:15):
Some of this healing journey isreally hard.
But that you are not aloneand that it is possible.
So I really appreciate you,being willing to share that
with us.
And, join us today.
So thank you for coming on.
Thanks for having me.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
Thank you, everyonefor listening.
We'll talk to you next time.
If you or anyone that you knowis struggling with any of
(59:37):
the topics that we discussed intoday's episode, make sure
to check out our show notesfor support and resources.
You can get help.
So thanks again for joining uson today's episode of The
Real Family Eat.
If you're a parent readyto share your real life
parenting story, make sure toreach out to us and our website
(59:58):
found in the show notes.
And that goes for today'srecipe.
Social media's supportand resource is all that can
be found in our show notes,so make sure to check them out
and make sure to follow, like,share, subscribe and stay
up to date on all thingsthe real family Eats.
I hope you'll join us next timefor more food for thought
(01:00:20):
and thoughtful food! Enjoyyour eats!
When everything was chaoticaround me is when my nervous
system was calm and I felt safe,even knowing the whole,
you know, my whole lifeis going to go to shit
Hey Everyone, thanks forjoining me.
(00:22):
My name is Reesa and I'myour host.
We are talking to real familiesabout real stories here on The
Real Family Eats, where we'vegot food for thought
and thoughtful food.
So let's eat.
(00:47):
Welcome back everybody.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I'm excited for today's episode.
We have JP joining us. Hi JPThank you so much for being
a guest on The Real FamilyEats. Hi.
Thanks for having me.
It's, it's pleasure to be here.
Yes.
So I am so excited to heara little bit about your story
and your recipe.
Of course.
But before we get started,for anybody who doesn't
(01:08):
know you, can youintroduce yourself for us?
Yeah.
I am a 42 year old single fatherto a ten year old girl and
I've been doing the co-parentingthing for about eight years.
You know, eight yearsand a little bit of change.
We split up right aftershe turned to.
(01:31):
And then, you know, we hadthe normal fighting conflict,
you know, hurt feelings,all that stuff for a good year
and a half, probably,you know, close to two years
before it.
Started changing or, you know,finished changing.
(01:51):
Most of it was me workingon myself and going through
my childhood baggage and traumasand this and that, and learning
how to communicate betterand get out of my own way and,
you know, sort of processall the grief that I was
kind of dealing with at thesame time.
Okay.
So then the bedroom I got inall these things,
then the easier it got.
But obviously it stilltakes time because I
(02:14):
she heard me say it outdifferent.
I've changed and all thesedifferent things for
different parts of ourrelationship.
And you know, all these,you know, so it takes
a while for it to sink inand then that growing up
in and around the AA systemfrom childhood, you know, my dad
quit drinking when I was young,there were sponsors.
(02:35):
And so, okay, the communityand having somebody that's
a little further ahead of youon the journey, you know,
no matter what it is,whether it's business coach,
you know, nutrition coach,personal finance, personal
fitness, any of these differentthings.
If you want to flex time,avoid booby traps, change your
(02:55):
mindset, change your realityand all these different things
and be held accountable,especially when I worked
with people, found communities,coaches and this.
So when I was dealing withthe high conflict
and everything, and then itkind of evolved into me
doing the same thing for otherpeople, especially dads, because
(03:16):
we taught not to ask for helpand not to have any problems.
And, you know, suck it upand deal with it, all that kind
of stuff.
And it's it's starting tohave change.
But and I it's, it's,it's a passion subject for me.
And it's a passion kind of dealfor me.
(03:37):
And it's, it's one ofthose deals where, you know,
I'm seeing the dance side herein the dance side, getting
some empathy for the fatherswho are not only not able to,
you know, that it's abig shockwave for the dance
because typically thedance moves out and
they lose the kids.
And so you go from havingevery night with your kids
(03:58):
to six, eight daysa month. Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And that's a I'm sureeverybody else deals with you
having to leave the houseand the break up and all
that stuff.
But you lost your home,you lost your wife,
you lost your kids, you losteverything.
And there's not a lot ofempathy or, you know, care
for the for the guys.
(04:19):
It seems. Yeah.
And that I honestly, I gottabe honest with you, I'm so,
so thankful for youbeing willing to even
come and talk about some ofthe dads side of things,
because I absolutelyagree with you, and I'm
so onboard with that passion.
As far as just really creating,a space, of change when it comes
(04:41):
to, to men and emotionsand, you know, I see I have two
sons of my own, so ifanything, it's for hopefully
for their future too.
And so I'm so excitedto kind of talk a little
bit more about that with you.
Before we kind of jumpall the way in.
Tell us, what recipeare you sharing with our
(05:02):
audience today and why did youchoose this one?
Well, I mean, it's my I,you know, I grew up in
a restaurant, my parents on asmall restaurant, and the
mom was a waitress, and this wasmy birthday cake.
My, you know, this was the dealthat made for, you know,
(05:25):
certain people for theirbirthdays and fundraisers
and these things and thosethings.
And it's so easy.
But it's different,you know what I mean?
It's not a pie or a,you know, it's not a cream pie
that you're having to try to door pumpkin pie or, apple pie
kind of deal where the crustis finicky.
Or you might be able to,you know, some of these things
(05:47):
that kind of fall apartif you don't know how to bake
really well and you can you canmake it is elaborate as
you want or as simpleas you want.
And it's kind of you can playwith it.
I mean, this one.
Is, you know, the one thatyou're making is a little
bit different than the onemy dad made because he used,
(06:08):
you know, if you get doublestuffed Oreos, crumbs, and then
you add the butter to thatand then to make that your crust
is how he used to do it. Okay.
You can also get the premade,you know, pie crust and make
the same dessert and thatand not have to worry
about the crust at alland put it on the Oreo one,
(06:28):
or put it on the graham crackerone and it and it be the same.
It tastes just as good.
So you can make it a pie.
You can make it a big pan dish.
I mean, it put some chocolateshavings on top after you're
all done.
If you want to make itlook fancy for Thanksgiving
or Christmas, you know, stufflike that.
Yeah, I love it.
And I love that.
It sounds like it has sucha special, place
(06:50):
in your family's life.
And so I appreciate you beingwilling to, to share that
and let us into that,that world.
So tell me, what or give methe overview of,
the ingredients, the steps.
I'll get assembling and mixingwhile we chat.
And not a lot of ingredients.
I mean, you just kind ofwhatever forum you want
(07:13):
to be able to make itinto squares, you know,
you brown pan or cake panor anything like that.
You can use Oreos.
The recipe that I'd say it haslike a peak on from one.
Or you can use graham cracker,you know, any kind of
those chocolate or as healthyas you want with the crust.
And then it's a cream cheese,you know, layer chocolate
(07:37):
pudding layer, whippedcream layer.
And that's pretty much it.
I mean, it, but you can useit's versatile and I like it
because you can use itand change it and mix it
for whatever you like,because you can swap out
the chocolate pudding forstrawberry or lime or, you know,
whatever flavors that you want.
(07:59):
Yeah, as long as you matchthe bottom, it's pretty
universal to whatever youwhatever whatever fits for you
to make it at any given time.
Because it's mostlyjust pudding.
Well, we like puttingin our house, so I'm excited.
I have never triedthis particular kind of recipe,
so I'm excited to jump in.
(08:20):
For anybody who is watchingand you're looking at at
my dish, I, I've already donemy crust layer and I've put
my cream cheese in and like thatkind of sat a little bit.
So this is nice and chilled.
So just so you're awareof kind of where I'm jumping in
as far as, when I'm making ittoday.
So while I do this,I love to talk a little bit
(08:42):
more, really starting because Iheard you mentioned in there
that there's, there'sa different side of when you're
going through divorce and you'reseparating homes.
And just from beginning part ofof dad's commonly being the ones
that are moving out and that aremaybe on the limited schedule
(09:03):
of seeing, seeing your childrenand what that like as a father
to kind of go through thatand what's going on for you
in that moment.
And, you know, I heard youmentioned kind of grief
in there.
Can you can you talk and start?
Is there.
Yeah.
I mean, it's I got in myparticular situation, I got
(09:27):
extremely lucky because we wereunmarried.
So we're not wrapped intothe system.
We never got thrown intothe money making court process.
So there was no.
Extra pressure and extrafinancial stuff and all of
(09:49):
these extra things onthe other side that I got
really lucky on was, is mydaughter's mother is close
with her dad, and so I never waslimited access with my daughter,
you know what I mean?
It was always my daughtercomes and goes, even still
comes and goes as she pleases.
But we are adults and you know,same rules in both houses.
(10:12):
She granted our second here.
She's not playing us offeach other.
Can we talk?
Discuss best for her?
If she's in trouble, she's introuble.
Both places.
But also my daughter'sin a blended family now.
We sit by each otherat the school functions,
the dance recitals, the sportsstuff, and then barbecue
and sometimes some holidays,depending on if everybody's
(10:32):
in town isn't there.
So, I mean, my situationhas gotten to be really smooth
and, and easy.
Okay. But when you, you know,when you break up,
go through the divorce process,starting the divorce
process and or, or any of thosethings, I had a really hard time
(10:56):
getting out of my own wayand sort of grieving the
relationship and letting it die,which I think is the
hardest part for most everybody,because you want to really use
all of these feelingsand emotions as a crutch
to either make yourself to makeyour self feel better for the
situation, or to have somebodyto blame.
(11:17):
And I think it gets worse and alittle bit when you get into the
court process, because thenyou have lawyers, mediators,
and you're feeding intothis money machine that's masked
by the guise of best interestof the children, right.
And but when you get intothis process, you know, a lot of
the people I talk to and workwith every day, you know,
(11:38):
more times than notit was almost pretty civil until
the lawyers got involved.
And then it becomes fingerpointing from both sides at
the other side.
And then you start getting mador you know, you can build or it
doesn't help you get overor through any of the unresolved
anger or resentment or hurtfeelings or all of these
(12:01):
different things.
And then, you know,from the dad's perspective
and you, you basically losteverything.
They tell you that it's eitherin the best interest of
the kids or, you know, there'sa lot of guys that I talk
to that have, you know,quote unquote, week on,
(12:21):
week off, 50, 50 custodyof their kids, but they're
still paying.
Is I don't understand howthey can say it's 5050
and you do week on week offand have equal time,
but somebody's still paying youthe person to babysit your kids
instead of just giving youmore time with your children.
And then that causes, you know,that causes more resentment
because you're you'repaying money that you don't
(12:45):
feel like you should be payingor you've lost in the court
process, or your lawyer juststraight up told you you're not
going to win.
So don't find any way.
And it's just a lot ofjust gut punch is and and shots
to the face over and overthrough the whole process that.
The average guy just wants tobe with his children, you know.
(13:05):
And they're a lot of times,you know, you get six,
eight days a month, you know,every other weekend.
And then maybe, spring break ina month in the summer
or something like that.
Is is pretty typical.
I it's so it's easy to, tohold on to all these emotions
and then, you know, in my case.
(13:28):
I was I would instantlyget defensive.
Like the biggest thingthat I had to get over
was myself.
And I, you know, we kind of gotinto this routine where
I would get a message through mynervous system of like, go into,
you know, anxiety, anxiousmode or, you know, fight
or flight.
And I react by sayingsomething back.
(13:51):
And then she would react byand it would go back
and forth for, you know, afew days or a week until one
or both of us had bottled upthe back and forth
enough to where one of uscan, you know, push over
the edge and, and turninto this.
People fight over in the matchon the phone or whatever
the case may be.
Yeah.
And then the more that Ihealed from the baggage and all
(14:16):
that hurt feelings and all thesedifferent things from the
relationship, the easierit was to just stop reacting
and start responding.
And then it became easier tocommunicate because I wasn't
talking back, or I wasn'tfeeling like I was being poked,
because most of the timeit was just me being the it's on
the defensive, and it hadnothing to do with anything
(14:37):
that, you know, I it was the wayI took it, not the way
not what was being said.
And so yeah, for me, I had toI had to actually get one
of those little memo padnotebooks around with me
all the time.
And then I would get a textand you could feel yourself,
you know, your heart rate go upand you get an, you know,
(14:59):
you take it or whatever.
And so I had to start writingin that.
What I was going to say back.
And then I would come back to itwhen I system came back down.
And like nine times out often, like, that's not
what I ended up sending backbecause I then had
to train myself to stop snapresponding, snap reacting,
(15:21):
and start responding because I'dcome back a couple hours later
the next day or somethinglike that.
Read it the comments, and thenI'd send an actual response
as opposed to a post back,you know, unless it needed
my attention.
You know, quicker than that.
But I mean, I had totrain myself to stop.
Giving the reactionmaybe she was looking for
(15:42):
or being easily defensiveor letting my, you know,
emotions cloud my betterjudgment on what I wanted
to reply with or what I wantedto say back or anything
like that.
And, and, I mean,it was a process and it took
a while, but trainingyourself to communicate
differently and see themas a different person
(16:04):
is usually the the first commentthings you got to get through
because if you're holding onto all this baggage and all of
this trauma and all ofthese emotions, and it's hard
to move forward in the realitythat you're in because you're
not with that person anymore.
Yeah.
And but if you keepcommunicating the same way
you were at the end ofyour marriage, it's just going
(16:25):
to keep revolving with thesame sort of interactions.
I mean, that makes alot of sense, right?
They're trying the same thingand expecting a different
outcome.
Yeah.
And so I, I'm curious for you,because I heard you mention
in there that you found themmany times, kind of
that reactivity was, was mayberooted in that, that feeling of
(16:49):
defensiveness.
So and I heard youa couple times kind of mentioned
some of some of your bagsthat you, you were
carrying around and someseriously, what what was maybe
coming up, what was your braintrying to convince you of that
maybe led to, like yousaid, that path of of feeling
(17:09):
defensive and feelinglike I need to go to war.
Can you say a little bitmore about maybe what was
the narrative, that you wereworking with?
I mean, I up until thatpoint and from, from childhood,
I had been telling myselfand following this narrative
(17:32):
that I was a victim andit woe is me.
She was always going to drawwhether I was self-sabotaging
myself or not.
It was always something else,something external.
It wasn't my fault.
Even though I made the decisionto be in this place,
do these things and all thesedifferent things.
And so I got into this,this habit or, or identity
(17:56):
of, of being a victim or alwaysthinking I was the victim or
the blame game kind of dealsand stuff like that.
And so for me, I had toI had to.
Backtrack, you know,once I started became aware
and started doing different workon myself and had baggage
(18:20):
sorting and trauma and all thesedifferent things, I had to
figure out why she triggered me.
And then it jumped back tosomebody else in, you know,
ten years before her.
And then it went intolike when I was in high school.
And then it, you know,eventually I made my way
all the way back to when I was,you know, akin.
Yeah.
And then had to fix that, healthat, you know, over that,
(18:42):
you know, bullshit.
And then jump up to wherethe next one where I felt like,
you know, it kept me inthat state or, you know,
this girl friend in high schoolthat that, so then I had to
just let that go because,you know, I can't do
anything about it now, you know,forgive them whatever
I need to do to heal.
And then it became, you know,accepting a lot of the things
(19:06):
that I was doing in my 20sand early 30s, that kind of
stuff that I needed to eithertake accountability for, forgive
people for, forgive myself,or look at dejectedly and, and
and realize that somecircumstances are just
circumstances.
Nobody's maliciouslytrying to do these things
to you.
(19:26):
And then as I got better at selfreflection, then I was
able to start training myselfhow to be a better communicator
and how to have difficultconversations without either
feeling like I was attacked,or feeling like somebody
was trying to scrutiny overor take advantage of me or,
(19:48):
you know, because Imean, that was most of it is I,
I had a lot of low self-worthand a lot of self-worth issues
growing up and through myteenage years.
And so I always felt like.
I got people who were eitherabusive or takers or people
that would, you know,railroad you around me
(20:09):
and in my life because they knewthey could, because
I allowed them to,because that's how I felt like
I deserved to be treated.
And then it propelled them to,you know, all these
other things.
And so, I mean,it was a process.
It took me a few yearsto get through a lot of it, but,
you know, the bigger part of itwas, was my childhood in trying
to break generationalcurses and not.
(20:31):
Be the same kind of parentto my daughter that my
parents were, you know,and sort of raised in our loving
household.
It wasn't emotionallydisconnected and trying
to set her up the bestI could for a successful
future. And so if I wanted tochange these things
and her to be more equippedas a, you know, young adult
(20:54):
than I was, then,I needed to add more tools
to my toolbox.
And so then it became.
You know, working with people,getting outside opinions
that had been through it.
You know, it's not likeI could go and get
my mom's advice when she'd neverbeen divorced and they didn't
co-parent at all.
So, I mean, being aware of whoyou're taking advice from in the
(21:14):
in the information that you'rebringing in was a big
part of it, but that was part ofthe process of, you know,
the more I could accepta lot of these things, easier
it was to let go of a lotof these hurt feelings and
issues and stuff, because Inobody was picking on me.
Her mother wasn't doingthese things maliciously
(21:35):
to hurt me.
And even if she waslooking for a certain reaction,
I was probably giving it to herbecause she knew that's
how I was going to react.
And so I had to changemy reactions so that she'd
stop looking for thosereactions.
And then it became easierto communicate and easier
to communicate.
Easier to communicate, becauseI was stuck in this mindset
(21:59):
in the same mental space andemotional state mindset
that I was at the end of therelationship, even knowing the
relationship has been deadfor a year and a half.
And my new reality isshe's a parent and I'm a parent
and we're trying to raisea child as opposed to
you heard me and all theseother things that you can get
wrapped up in and kindof dwell on for too long.
(22:22):
Yeah.
And it sounds like, ifI'm hearing you correctly
and let me know if I'm way offbase here, is that for you?
As you did some ofyour unpacking and your work
on yourself and figuring outkind of maybe the origin
of some of that defensiveness,that it sounds like it came
from, maybe your brain'swave when you were a child.
You know, this is thisis the way to cope,
(22:44):
because this is what helpskeep us safe.
Like, if I go into this space,it's happening to me.
Because likely as a child,you know, we are we are helpless
in this sense, and we don'thave a ton of, resources,
especially if it's comingfrom someone near and dear to us
that, you know, societysaying, hey, this is the person
taking care of you, but imagineyou're your brain
(23:06):
is going, well, I've got tofigure out how to survive
somehow.
And so if I if I go intothis headspace in this
particular narrative, that'sa little bit easier to swallow
than to swallow an idea of,I'm not worth this love
or this care or this compassion.
You know, that's athat's a really hard thing that
(23:27):
to swallow.
And so why on earth wouldour brain want to, like,
lead us there?
So instead, let's let's get thisother narrative.
This one's easier to swallow.
Right.
And so it sounds like from that,from that place of protection,
it just kind of grew and becamereally good.
It sounds like it going tothat narrative.
Right.
Because again, that's that'ssomething that's known and that
(23:50):
has served you and protectedyou. Right.
In other circumstances,am I hearing that correctly?
Yeah.
Well, it it did and it also,you know, not that, you know,
it took me it took me wellinto my 30s to accept the fact
that my parents did the bestthey could with the tools
that they had and that theywere more emotionally
(24:12):
available and open than theirparents were and did a
better job than their parents.
And you do the best you canwith the knowledge and
and the way that you're raised,unless you want to change it and
be different and it was justan emotionally disconnected
household.
And so you really only got I wasan easy kid.
(24:33):
I have an older brother that's,you know, two years
older than me.
He demanded a lot of attention.
And so the only way that you,you know, so I grew up with the
forgotten child, middle childkind of syndrome as a,
as a, as a kid.
Okay.
So the only, the only wayyou really got attention is
if you were doing somethingwrong.
(24:54):
And so then that happened.
What does every kid say totheir parents when you
get caught doing somethingwrong?
It wasn't me.
It wasn't my fault.
I didn't mean to, you know? And.
And then it becomes a habit.
That's just your reactionto anything that happens.
Yeah.
Because I've got 12, you know,12, ten, 12 years of experience
(25:14):
of every time, you know,this is when somebody
notices me.
Well, I don't want to, you know,get a spanking or be in trouble.
So I didn't mean to.
It wasn't my fault.
And this is, you know, howit happened, and I just happened
to be there.
You know, whatever the casemay be.
And then.
And then when I got about 15,you know, then it became
(25:34):
my school party and a little bitand then alcohol became the
biggest crutch I could usebecause I didn't have to be me,
and I could be numb.
And I didn't have to deal withthe real world.
But every time, every timetrouble came around the corner,
I, I could, you know, it wasmy fault.
It's just, you know, everybody'sdoing it.
I'm just the one that getscaught all the time.
(25:55):
Or I'm the one that.
Gets picked up by thepolice and, you know, knocks on
your door to sign off deals.
Or I can be dropped off at homeand all these different things.
Well, it's not my fault.
We live in a small townand there's nothing else.
You know what I mean?
And then it just an excuse camefor everything.
Yeah.
And I really appreciateyou kind of bringing that
(26:18):
to light, because I think,on a couple fronts.
First of all, that many times,like you said, that our,
our parents and even our parentsaren't necessarily
going into this journey going,how can I destroy my
child's life like, I don'tI don't think I've ever met
any parent who would say that.
(26:38):
That's the intent, right?
It doesn't mean, like you said,that it's not necessarily
something that ends upoccurring for one reason
or another, and thatalso for you kind of mentioning
just that, that piece of it thatfor for you, it came from,
like you said, that placeof trying to, to figure out how,
how do I get along in this worldand how do I fit in.
(27:01):
And and oftentimes I findthat when, when we're talking
about some of these maybe,I'm not as healthy
kind of coping skills, right,that often they are coming from
that place where our brainisn't going, how can I
destroy myself or self-sabotageor, you know, hurt other people
(27:22):
and we're not?
I don't think that mostpeople are going into it
with that mentality, but rather,you know, I, I'm feeling unsafe
in this moment and thisparticular thing helps me
feel safe.
And so our, our brainsnaturally want to keep us safe.
I mean, it's that instinct,that survival instinct, right?
Yeah.
(27:43):
And it does.
And then it would, you know, Ilooking back, it makes
sense to me.
And I had a conversationwith somebody earlier
today about, you know.
Your comfort zone is yourcomfort zone, whether
that's chaos or being an anxietyor being in an abusive
relationship or being in toxicrelationship or whatever
(28:04):
the case may be, whatever yourcomfort zone is, until
you do some sort of work or getthrough it.
And, you know, looking back nowand throughout, you know,
my 20s, any time I every timesomething, you know, I felt
the most uneasy and themost anxious when things
(28:26):
in my life seem to be goingreally well, and I didn't have
a big disruption.
So I then I became anxiousand I was waiting for it around
the corner.
And then typically I wouldsubconsciously do something
to blow it.
Whatever I had going.
Yeah, because I neededthat chaos, something safe.
I needed that that tensionand I needed, you know,
(28:47):
and so when everything waschaotic around me is
when my nervous system was calmand I felt safe, even though
the whole, you know,my whole life is going to
go to shit, you know.
And so and then it was onrepeat, repeat, you know, every,
you know, three, 4 or 5 yearswhen I had, you know, I
was doing well at my jobor starting a business or had
(29:10):
a decent relationshipwith somebody or my friends.
And, you know, we wereall thinking and driving
and everything was going good.
And no worries, no worries,no worries.
And then it became like adeal where I'm sitting there
waiting for the other shoeto drop and the waiting for the,
you know, to step in that holeand something just to go wrong.
And then most of the time I,I would kick a domino that
that would make it do that.
(29:32):
But I wouldn't know that I was,you know, I wouldn't necessarily
know that I was doing that,but I wasn't, you know, able to.
Get out of that state, you know.
But you but when you'redoing it, you don't even realize
that you're doing it. Yeah,absolutely.
And that makes a ton of sense.
In fact, you know, I've,I've read even the
(29:52):
studies, right, that whenyou're in that state of that
higher level of cortisol for along enough period of time,
your body is like, you shouldkind of get used to that, okay.
That's our baseline.
So maybe our baseline empathizewith lower.
But then, you know we're ina constant state of chaos now
your body goes okay well this isthis is the the new baseline
(30:14):
we need to eat in order to you.
I can help to survive.
And so when we find,like you said, maybe
an environment that isn'tas chaotic, our body, you know,
tends to go, this doesn'tfeel great.
I don't know this this thisdoesn't this doesn't feel safe.
And so, I can absolutelyappreciate that.
Like you said, wherethere's almost, almost a comfort
(30:38):
then in, in the chaos.
Because at least I knowthe chaos.
I know how to operate thatversus the calm where, I haven't
really been shown that calmis is safe.
And so now I'm.
I'm on edge.
Right, right.
So and you see it a lotwith people who have you see it
(31:01):
a lot.
You know, with with peoplewho had the nurtured or had,
you know, chaotic relationshipswith their parents or watched
their parents have chaoticrelationships or in my case,
my parents were, you know,my parents were essentially
roommates from the timeI can remember till I was like
(31:21):
17 years old.
They didn't.
I never saw in case they neversaid, I love you.
But that was, you know, that wasthe norm, you know, and we would
all go, you know, we didn't havea lot of money.
Dad worked a lot.
They worked a lot,all that stuff.
But, you know, we take like twocamping trips a year
and everybody would go.
But my parents never wenton a date night, never went to
(31:42):
on a vacation by themselvesthat my entire time, I mean
all of these things.
So this was my norm and it was afairly chaotic place, you know,
even though my dad got soberwhen I was, you know, 4
or 5 years old, his mentalityand actions and everything
else, I mean, it didn't matter,you know, there was no
alcohol around, buteverything else was the same
(32:03):
for the most part.
Okay.
And so, you know,then in my 20s.
The chaotic, toxic relationshipsfelt safe.
But when somebody was normal or,you know, emotionally
intelligent or honest or ableto express their wants, needs,
(32:24):
boundaries, you know, feelingsand all these different things
that felt foreign to me.
And so that would scare meand send me into like,
I don't like this.
And you see it a lotand you see it a lot with,
you know, when you hear womentalk about, I need the exciting
guy, but I don't like the guy,that's the boring guy.
You know, the fun because it's,you know, not normal to them,
(32:45):
you know, and these thingsand you see it with in a lot
of situations, you know,guys are the same way.
You know, somebody who's grew upin a place where it's chaos
and all these different things,and they meet somebody that, you
know, was from I live in a ruralarea, you know, like a farmer's
daughter where they go to churchas a family every Sunday.
And, you know, everybody,you know, like and it just
(33:06):
feels foreign to me, like meand my daughter's mother were
together.
They have a close family.
So they're all together onevery holiday.
And they do like dinnersand all these different things.
And it's like I couldn'tget used to it, but I hadn't
done any sort of workor healing.
But it was so, you know,everybody being calm and just,
you know, getting along for themost part, you know, as much as
(33:29):
families do.
But doing all these thingstogether and, you know,
birthdays and all thesethings are a big family event
that was foreign tome, you know, yeah.
And so I'm curious,like you said, with all of that
being being foreign and,and even it sounds like
kind of that emotionalvulnerability being just a big
no no at this point.
(33:49):
Right.
How how was that for you,especially at the beginning
of your journey when you'reyou're trying to kind of
maybe open these things,open wounds that maybe have been
there for, who knows how long,which require, I imagine,
you know, a degree ofvulnerability and maybe
even honesty with yourself.
What that means to kind ofgo through that and, and,
(34:14):
you know, were there barriersthat you found yourself
kind of coming up against thatyou had to work through?
Yeah.
I mean, I the more Ilearned about, you know, trauma
from different books, I gotreally into, to, paying
(34:34):
attention and being aware.
I started doing mindfulnesstraining and being aware
and practice, you know, trainingyour mind to not control
your thoughts, but notget wrapped in your thoughts
at the same time and all thatstuff.
And then I read books on,you know, the importance
of habits.
The small wins, the mentalshifts, the, internal dialogs.
(34:57):
Processing trauma and griefand, you know, some of it was
extremely uncomfortable.
Parts of it was extremely lonelyand isolating.
Okay.
(35:17):
And it goes it, you know,if you don't like yourself, it's
really hard to be alone,but it's really hard to be
a good person or goodfor the people around you.
If you don't like yourselfand you can't be alone, like,
now I'm, I'm I'm alone, but I'mnot lonely.
Before I was lonely.
So I tried to fill this void.
Whether it be, you know, alcoholor people or fake friends or
(35:41):
going to the, you know, goingto the bar would fill that hole
for a certain amount of timebecause there's people around
and, you know, because youwere down there all the time,
just like them and all thesedifferent things.
And so you were constantlydoing all these things to try to
not have to be yourself, nothave to do it yourself.
But even so, it takes ait's really uncomfortable
and it's it's a process and it'shard to take a look at yourself,
(36:06):
you know, and then you startidentifying your triggers
and then you start figuring outwhy they're triggers and why
you react this way.
And you can map out how you'resabotaging yourself and doing
these things.
And it's and it's uncomfortable.
And then as you grow,you sort of.
Find yourself in this limbofor however long, depending on
(36:29):
how hard the work is,how much you're actually doing
in this, that because you're notthe person that you were, so you
don't really have anythingin common with the people
that you used to interact withall the time.
And when you become aware,you become aware of everything.
And so you notice thingsthat you didn't notice before.
So maybe this childhood friendis a shitty parent,
and you don't necessarilywant to be around that kind of
(36:50):
person anymore.
So now you got to distanceyourself from the people
who drink if you don'twant to drink, and people
that are toxic.
If you don't want toxic peoplein your life because you you
start to figure outwho gives you energy and
who drains you and all of thesedifferent things, but you're not
quite healed enough to be onthe level of all the people
that you're going to besurrounding yourself with
and interacting with.
(37:11):
You know, it'd be like havingsomebody that's in the midway
of their fitness journey.
You're not in the beginnerclass anymore, but you're
not quite with the peoplethat are working out five days
a week or whatever.
So you're kind of in the middleand it and it, but that's
where the coaches and thetherapists and the communities
of people that are in the samekinds of situations are dealing
(37:33):
with the same sorts of,you know, mindsets and external
problems because just likeyour diet or just like fitness
or just like businessor just like anything else,
you're you may go 3 or 4 stepsforward and feel really great,
but then you might takesix, five, six steps
backwards or, you know,sideways and the plateaus
(37:54):
and the ups and downs.
It's it's it's it's isolatingif you're trying to do it
all by yourself and it's,it's time consuming.
Yeah.
And I imagine, like you said,if you're in that space
where you're starting to becomemore aware of maybe even other
people's behaviors and,and going, if I want to
make this change, it might alsocome with distancing myself from
(38:19):
from these people.
And I imagine that in itselfcould be a really scary barrier
for people to want to dothat change.
Because again, now I'mletting go of these people
and maybe it turns out to bemost everyone that I'm currently
surrounding myself. Right.
And that's that's scary, right?
Because in I mean, it is, butanytime that you're getting out
(38:45):
of your comfort zone and makingchanges, it's always going
to be scary.
It's whether or not you can.
Keep going and do thesmall things and keep changing
your habits and keep doingthese things because you know, I
you're growing and you'reoutgrowing people and you're
(39:06):
growing into somebody and all ofthese things.
And then, you know,especially with the people
that I talk to and the guysand girls and ladies that I work
with and that kind of stuff.
And it's like, well,I can't outgrow the other
parents, you know, we'reconnected.
We have to communicate,you know, and it's like
fair, you know?
But you, you know, wherethey're always calling me
(39:31):
and, you know, ventingor talk to, you know, dumping on
on me with stuff that doesn'thave to do with our kids or,
you know, whatever.
It's like the thing you needto start making boundaries.
Like, this is not my businessproblem and something that I,
you know, need you don't needto be telling me, you know, I
we can be friendly, but I don'tneed to know about your problems
(39:51):
with your significant other.
You know what I mean?
Like, this is not my business,and I don't need I don't,
you know, if you needa therapist and go, but I don't.
I'm not it.
You know what I mean?
I know the weird historyin this that.
But a lot of people, you know,so it's it's understanding
the people that are draining youcompared to the people that,
you know, give you energy.
(40:12):
And so even if it's family,you know, if you say your mom
is overbearing and every timeyou talk to her and
she calls you every dayand every day and every time
you go on the phone, you'reexhausted and you're like,
feel shitty about yourselfbecause everything's a problem.
And, you know, you get totake a part.
Every, you know, aspect ofyour life is getting
picked apart, and it's like,you get it wrong and you love
(40:35):
me, you love someone, but maybeyou don't need to talk to her
every day.
Yeah, maybe talk to heron Sundays, Sunday,
early on Sunday so you can restthe rest of the day and you
don't have to take.
You don't have to be drainedall week instead of having
five 30 minute conversationsa week.
Maybe you just have one hour,one on Sundays or an hour
(40:55):
and a half.
And if it's really bad,you know, every other week
once more, you know, nobody saysthat you have to be this
worn out, burned out entity runwalking around because
everybody's uses you as theiremotional toxic waste or makes
you feel bad about yourselfor drains you, you know, drains
(41:16):
your energy.
Because if you have no energy,then you're not good
for anybody, especiallyyour kids.
Yeah, and I love thatyou pointed that out, because
I hear that commonly as a retortwhen we talk about,
like you said, kind of settingsome of those boundaries, it's,
oh, well, does that make me abad person or, you know,
am I selfish or allthese kind of, you know,
(41:36):
the propensity right to, to goinner critic on herself,
right? Right.
Versus being able tomaybe zoom out and say,
gosh, if, if I can drawthis boundary and maybe
set some limits with that,you know, I can still love them,
but not necessarilyhave to take on some of
those behaviors or take ontheir bad day.
(41:58):
Right? Right.
What does that freeme up to do in as far as
being the parent and showing upand being maybe the partner
that I want to be, the parentthat I want to be.
Right?
Or just show up for me.
Right? Right.
I mean, there's a reasonthat when you get on
an airplane, they tell youto put your mask on first.
(42:19):
Yeah.
And and your energy, your lifeand everything around you
is the exact same way I.
If you talk to somebody
at 2 (42:28):
00 every afternoon and they drink it and they make
you feel shitty about yourself,whether it's a friend or family
or whatever, you're you'rethe parent.
It doesn't matter.
And it exhausts you or puts youin a bad mood every time
it makes you feel shittyabout yourself.
And then you go pick your kidsup at 3 p.m.
and how good, I mean,how good are your kids
(42:50):
when you're picking them upfrom school?
You know, you're sitting therelike you're probably
sitting there pissed offor, you know, half in tears
or depressed or worn outor ready for a nap or whatever
the case may be, instead ofbeing like, you know, I doubt
you're even asking themhow their day was, what
they learned in school, you knowwhat I mean?
And then it's just come home.
You're tired, so then you'regoing to order fast food
or pizza or pick something upon the way home because
(43:11):
you don't have the energyto cook.
So your kids aren't gettingthe nutrition or food or,
you know, dinner that theyprobably deserve or that
you would have been ableto cook or you're short
with them.
They're not in there helping youbecause you don't.
You don't have any more energyand this and that.
So then you just hand thema tablet.
Don't go to town becauseyou don't have the energy to
interact or get help ordo any of these things that if
(43:34):
you cut that person out of aweekday life, I mean, you get
to have all these wonderfulthings with your children
or your spouse or yoursignificant other or you know,
whatever.
Yeah.
As opposed to doomscrollingon Facebook with your phone
because you wore out,because your mom took all your
energy, you know,or your brother take
(43:58):
all your energy or your sisteror cousin or friend who,
you know, calls you justspecifically because
they don't have a therapistand they want to dump all their
problems on you.
You know what I mean?
Like, but you're not there'sthere's no there's nothing
in your life that tells youyou have to be everybody
around this therapist or ventinganger or, you know, problem
(44:21):
solver or you know what it is.
You get to pick and choosewho you have in your life.
Yeah.
I know you mentioned, at thebeginning that, kind of early on
in your journey, you had lostyour father as well.
And so I'm curious, like,for you and some of this work
(44:41):
that you were doing in tryingto kind of like you learn
some of these boundaries,these elements, figure out
and sort through someof your bags, and, and heal.
Where in, in your journeydid that happen and did
that kind of shake things upor rock your world as far as
in terms of healing, even?
Oh, well, okay, so my situationwas a bit I, you know,
(45:10):
everything comes in threes,as they say in a lot of.
Different cultures and differentthings.
You know.
And so I, I, you know, I'm,I work in construction,
do carpentry and remodelhouses in this.
And I live in a rural area.
And your, your pick up isyour most important tool
(45:32):
to do your job.
So could you back forth?
You could be anywhere withina hundred miles.
So I blew the transmissionin my pickup.
Well, it went out, soI had no pickup in like a week
or two later, I threwin the towel.
No more relationships.
So then I did whateverybody does when you when you
(45:54):
split up.
And you have to startcompletely over your life and do
all these things from scratch,you move in with your parents
to get on your feetto figure out, you know,
it's not like you're looking fora new place while you're
breaking up and moving outof your house.
You know what I mean?
Most people have to go eitherfamily or friends or, you know,
something to to start sortingit out.
So then it's my parents house,which is in the same town,
(46:18):
you know, six, eightblocks away.
I think I was there for liketwo weeks, three weeks, maybe.
And my dad died unexpectedly.
You know, when I sayunexpectedly, he was.
Training to get training for thequalifier for the Boston
Marathon.
He was on a Sunday morning runa mile eight and me.
And he died.
(46:38):
Wow.
And so.
So I got grief, grief andhuge pain of not having my
pickup or a pickup and like,not having any way to get back
and forth, not having any wayto get around, got thrown
into single fatherhood, stillhave nowhere to go pick her up,
(46:58):
get around, do any of thesethings that I need to be able
to do as a father, especiallya father that doesn't have
the mom, you know, inthe same house doing all
these things that my dad does.
So then it spins me into this.
I mean, like, I went into likea depression, but I was,
(47:21):
you know, then it'sit sent me into this depression.
But it also was a lot of itself.
Sort of self put I put iton myself.
Nobody really asked me to.
But then that's, that was partof the victim, you know,
sort of habits that I hadgotten into.
But I was essentiallyI felt stuck at my mom's house,
not only in my grief,but not able to escape her grief
(47:44):
like my brother could come.
I really could go home and getaway from, you know, my mom
just lost her husbandof 35 years or whatever.
So then I got started puttingthis extra guilt on myself
that like, I can't move outbecause in my mom's going to
be alone, and she hasn'tbeen alone in her entire
adult life and allthese different things. But I
was not processing anykind of grief or any
(48:06):
my situation in this.
And so, you know, insteadof hiding an alcohol, I hid in,
you know, for like a year, yearand a half, couple years,
all I did was go to work,come home, hang out with
my daughter.
If I wasn't at work,I was hanging out with
my daughter.
If I didn't have my daughter,then I was just at my
parent's house, didn't gosocialize, lost all my friends,
(48:28):
stopped communicatingwith anybody and everybody
that didn't eitherdirectly relate to work
or parenting.
Yeah, and was a deal wheremy mom was, you know,
at some point, at one point,my mom just finally was like,
hey, you need to go, you know?
But I had already I had donea bunch of homework, and it was
in a place where I was not,you know, feeling trapped
(48:52):
necessarily, but I was kind ofnot really sure when the right
time to just, you know,hear you, like, live in this
half acre with fourbedroom house that you can't
really keep track, you know.
Yeah, that's going to bea lot of house and a lot of work
and all these differentthings for you because
when dad died, not only didmy mom lose her husband,
but she also lost her jobbecause he was the cook.
(49:14):
She was the waitress at therestaurant that they owned.
So then the restaurantshut down.
So then Covid hits and there'sall these different things that
that kind of came later,but I it had forced me to
process a lot of things,but also I had my dad was a
(49:37):
was the, the objectof a lot of my childhood baggage
and trauma.
And it was whether itwas easier or or not.
And when he died,I could finally sort of
deal with it because there wasnothing I could do about it.
It's not like I could sit thereand have the conversations
with him.
I had to just let it go,and that made it easier
(50:00):
to just let go of all thethe same sort of hurt
feelings and animosityor pent up whatever emotional
stuff.
With my daughter's mother,it was easier to just
it made it, you know, onceI process that grief and let
go of a lot of the baggagetrauma from from my wife
with him, it became easier tosort of go through and do that
with everybody else.
(50:20):
That was in and around my lifeon a smaller scale compared
to him.
What was my childhood?
And so then it became easierto forgive others and it became
easier to forgive myself,and it became easier to
to take a home, look inthe mirror or to look inside
and figure out that, like,you know, 90% of the time
(50:41):
I was the fucking problem.
You know, in this instance,it was me and it was doing this,
and in this instance, it was methat was reacting this way
or doing this or doing this,and because of this and,
you know, but that helpedwith the triggers and, and,
and the identifying a lot ofthose things.
But it was a deal where I wassitting there and I, I,
(51:03):
I was acting like my dad.
My daughter was like twoand a half, you know, three
and a half, four years old,something like that.
And I'm fighting with himon the phone.
She's crying.
I thought she was inside,but I'm screaming out
on the phone, gettingscreamed out on the phone.
Look over.
She's crying.
My mom's looking at melike I'm a piece of shit.
I was like, this is not the lifeI want, and this sure
(51:23):
isn't the life I want herto have.
And so then it just became,how do I make changes?
You know, how do I changethe reality that I'm in?
And how do I change the waythat I act?
And how do I change the way thatI think and and then it became a
snowball rolling downhillbecause you keep gaining
momentum the more that you canbe uncomfortable.
(51:45):
You actually look at yourselfand your actions and take
accountability and dothese things that the first
few of them.
It's hard because you don'twant to believe that you're
the problem or that you'remaybe not the best or you're not
the good communicator.
It's everybody, you know,all these different things.
Yeah, but the more that I couldkind of flip through a
(52:05):
few of them in, the more thatI got through a few of them.
Then it became easier toget through others because
I already knew, like, thisis my habit.
This is the same as that one.
I did the same thing.
I had the same rat, you knowwhat I mean?
And then as you get momentum,it becomes easier and easier
to keep, you know, being awareand taking hard looks
at yourself and beingaccountable to yourself about,
(52:27):
you know, how did I did I handlethis situation the way that
I think I did or did I?
Am I just trying to blameeverybody else, or am I just not
acknowledging my partthat I played?
You know what I mean?
And and even if it wasn'tnecessarily me, you know,
forgiveness is is apowerful thing because not
forgiving people for them, it'sso that you can just let go
(52:50):
of all that or whateveryou're holding onto most.
Yeah.
And what I really appreciate youmentioning there is,
like you said, that momentum.
I definitely find that in folks.
It's that retrainingof the brain, right?
We're now giving our brainsome new facts to latch on to,
that like, hey,I can go into this and I can
(53:12):
create a different way to,to find safety, versus purely
relying on maybe this otherpattern of behavior that
I've been doing.
And I think you're so spot on.
But the more that we do that,the more facts that we give to
our brain.
It is that retraining of who?
I can do this and this ispossible for me to do.
And so I love that.
(53:33):
And so my last questionthat I like to ask folks
is that if if you had accessto a Delorean, my huge back
to the future fans.
So that's why I worked on there.
Is there any point in timethat you would go back and not
necessarily to change something,but to offer you whatever age
(53:54):
that's maybe appropriate, yetoffer yourself some words
or a different or maybe it'sjust a hug, that
you would offer.
What would you say?
And I, I would.
(54:16):
I would probably go back towhen I was three, eight,
ten years old, maybe.
And I tell myself, and I thinkthis was one of the biggest and,
(54:37):
kind of kind of PPC campaigns,but one of the biggest, like.
And so we got attentionwhen we did something wrong or
something didn't work outor whatever the case was.
And so, you know, beforethat started becoming my habits,
I was, you know, prettyathletic, didn't need attention
(54:57):
in sports, but my brother wasn'tso athletic.
So he needs a lot of attention.
And so I had to get attentionthere, going to be doing
something wrong or need help.
But you couldn't ask for help.
It was more hard to watch,get fairly good at it, and then
somebody would either,you know, you just basically
had to watch and learn and thenI would go back and tell myself
(55:20):
that, like even knowing nobody'sgoing to notice and you're
not going to get anyacknowledgment or praise.
It doesn't mean that you shouldstop trying, because that
was one of the biggest catalystsfor me to just give up
on everything and justthrow my hands up and say,
fuck it.
And so, like, and I and I, and Idon't remember exactly when that
sort of sunk in.
Maybe it was learned overat different sports and doing
(55:41):
different different teams,you know, different baseball
seasons and different wrestlingseasons and stuff like that.
But it was yeah, you know, beingand being good or possibly,
you know, maybe a little aboveaverage athletically.
I, I didn't need help to, toget better.
And I wasn't really running intoand you know, adversity
(56:04):
and so in everything I was doingwas unnoticed.
And so then it became a habit ofwhy try nobody gives a shit.
And so then that's for allthe into all aspects of my life.
Like if you don't try, youcan't fail.
And if you don't fail, you'renot in trouble and you don't
get in trouble, then you knowwhat I mean?
And it just kind of spiderwebit out.
But I think that's probably thebiggest thing.
I would go back and, you know,I don't necessarily think I
(56:26):
would want to change anything,and I probably give myself a hug
and be like, you can stilltry, you know, somebody
somebody, you know, later andlater down the road people
will notice and you will get theacknowledgment or the
you know what?
Not the praise is a bad wordor criticism isn't good.
(56:46):
But I think the more effortyou put in and you get, the more
you try, the more rewards you'llget later in life and in
different situations.
Because it's all depends onhow much you want to, you know,
do it for yourself more thanother people.
I guess.
And I love that mindset,that idea of you as your self,
(57:08):
as your, you know,your own person that you
deserve to try and, you know,and being able to kind of
even extend that to yourself,I think is just such a wonderful
message that hopefullyour listeners, you know, we're
hearing that and you yourself,whoever is listening,
also deserve to, to try,if you know, not for
anybody else, but justfor yourself.
(57:30):
So that's awesome.
I'll wrap up.
So for anybody who,is wanting to connect with you
or any services, this isour shameless plug section.
So tell us all, what is itthat you're offering?
How can they find you?
On Instagram?
Is is the best place.
And then it's just at JPAmara Sage.
(57:51):
And then that's where, you know,people can send me messages
or ask me questions or connector anything like that.
And I love social media,so I don't really do a lot.
You know, I don't it's not it'snot something that I, that I.
It's just it drains me and it's.
(58:11):
Yeah, it's just too mucha lot of times and I and I have
other things to do.
But I did start a podcast.
So then once I start publishingthose soon, I hope that
I'm working on it.
Yeah.
Do you have a name where you're,you're planning on releasing
your podcast so we can beon the lookout?
(58:32):
Marsh Talks okay. AndI have it set up to go to
to do Spotify, but we createdany of the other ones that.
Okay, well, make sure tocheck that out, everyone.
And, as always, we'll make sureany of the links the socials
get, get popped down toour show notes so you can
check them out there.
(58:53):
So I'm excited.
I've got my guy all ready to goand pop them in the
in the fridge.
To set in there.
So thank you so much forfor sharing this recipe with us.
Also for just being willing toto share your story,
help normalize, especially forour dads out there that
are listening.
That parenting is hard going on.
(59:15):
Some of this healing journey isreally hard.
But that you are not aloneand that it is possible.
So I really appreciate you,being willing to share that
with us.
And, join us today.
So thank you for coming on.
Thanks for having me.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
Thank you, everyonefor listening.
We'll talk to you next time.
If you or anyone that you knowis struggling with any of
(59:37):
the topics that we discussed intoday's episode, make sure
to check out our show notesfor support and resources.
You can get help.
So thanks again for joining uson today's episode of The
Real Family Eat.
If you're a parent readyto share your real life
parenting story, make sure toreach out to us and our website
(59:58):
found in the show notes.
And that goes for today'srecipe.
Social media's supportand resource is all that can
be found in our show notes,so make sure to check them out
and make sure to follow, like,share, subscribe and stay
up to date on all thingsthe real family Eats.
I hope you'll join us next timefor more food for thought
(01:00:20):
and thoughtful food! Enjoyyour eats!
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com