"We have to be careful not to dehumanize people we disagree with. In our self-righteousness, we can easily become the very things we dislike in others."
This is an important message to remember not only in estranged situations, but in all our relationships.
I know that I'm not ready to show this kind of vulnerability. Also, I am more ready than I was a year ago. It is a goal and this post reminds me to focus on opening.
Is my daughter trying to open as well?
I can't know. Really it's none of my business.
The situation causes our bodies to protect us. Overriding that instinct is our work.
Kathy, this is such an honest and self-aware reflection.
And I think what you said is important… you are more ready than you were a year ago. That matters. Opening rarely happens all at once. It unfolds in layers, as the body begins to feel safer stepping out from behind its protection.
And perhaps this is part of the hope we hold onto: that movement toward healing, connection, and wholeness is innate in all of us. When one person begins to shift, it affects the relational field around them. Your own healing, your own rising, does not happen in isolation.
I wrote a little more about this here if you ever feel like diving deeper: The Secret Link to Your Estranged Child
Beautiful and valuable meditation. I especially appreciate the insight that both kinds of pain are startlingly identical.
I also particularlybappreciate your nod to balancing factors, "Perhaps some doors really do need to stay closed. Perhaps some people really aren’t safe."
After being the one over the years to soften over and over, and just being increasingly seen as a sucker for it, it's time to love them, yes, bless them, yes, forgive them, yes, hope for their happiness, yes ~ but at a healthy distance.
Great offering, we'll timed to comfort heartbroken readers 👌
What a gift to have a poet receive this as a meditation. I'm glad you were so willing to sit with it. Thank you.
Your words tell me you've done something most people never do... you softened, again and again, even when it cost you. That's not weakness. That's someone who knows how to feel and wants a lot from life. And a poet who knows how to feel is someone who eventually finds the gold in every experience, even the ones that don’t go as planned.
I hear you on the distance. Sometimes that's exactly right. And I also know that for someone with your depth of perception, the mirror has a way of showing up everywhere, and not just in family, but in every relationship, every stranger, every line you write. That's the particular gift and burden of the desire to see into things.
And here is what I suspect you already know in your quietest moments... the ones after the meditation ends and before the world rushes back in. That nothing outside of you has ever truly had the power to harm the deepest part of who you are. The sucker wasn't weak. She was just still learning that her wholeness was never actually at risk.
That realization doesn't come from protecting yourself from the world. It comes from going so far inside yourself that the world loses its power to define you.
That's the journey your poetry is already taking you on. And here is what I know for sure. When the timing is right and you arrive at that place within yourself, you will find your way back to what matters, with a new understanding, and discover something different on the other side.
It all unfolds in time, doesn't it? And for a young person still moving through the world with open eyes, that journey through time is the purpose of it all.
The heartbroken readers you mentioned — you're right that they are. But here's what I've come to know: the broken place is never the end of the story. It's usually where the light finds its way in.
Keep writing. Keep traveling. Keep feeling everything. The answers live inside the very experiences you're moving through.
Thank you for this clarification, Ana. I realize now I mistakenly read your original comment through the lens of an estranged adult child rather than a parent.
And interestingly, I think that only deepens the point of the piece for me, because both sides often arrive at such similar places emotionally: the exhaustion, the self-protection, the need for distance, the desire to stop hurting.
The mirror I was speaking to is exactly that shared pain beneath the different roles we occupy.
I also deeply respect what you said about having found what matters. Sometimes love changes form. Sometimes the path forward is peace.
Thank you again for engaging so thoughtfully with the writing.
Beautiful and valuable meditation. I especially appreciate the insight that both kinds of pain are startlingly identical.
I also particularlybappreciate your nod to balancing factors, "Perhaps some doors really do need to stay closed. Perhaps some people really aren’t safe."
After being the one over the years to soften over and over, and just being increasingly seen as a sucker for it, it's time to love them, yes, bless them, yes, forgive them, yes, hope for their happiness, yes ~ but at a healthy distance.
Great offering, we'll timed to comfort heartbroken readers 👌
Beautiful and valuable meditation. I especially appreciate the insight that both kinds of pain are startlingly identical.
I also particularlybappreciate your nod to balancing factors, "Perhaps some doors really do need to stay closed. Perhaps some people really aren’t safe."
After being the one over the years to soften over and over, and just being increasingly seen as a sucker for it, it's time to love them, yes, bless them, yes, forgive them, yes, hope for their happiness, yes ~ but at a healthy distance.
Great offering, we'll timed to comfort heartbroken readers 👌
"We have to be careful not to dehumanize people we disagree with. In our self-righteousness, we can easily become the very things we dislike in others."
This is an important message to remember not only in estranged situations, but in all our relationships.
This is so important.
I know that I'm not ready to show this kind of vulnerability. Also, I am more ready than I was a year ago. It is a goal and this post reminds me to focus on opening.
Is my daughter trying to open as well?
I can't know. Really it's none of my business.
The situation causes our bodies to protect us. Overriding that instinct is our work.
Kathy, this is such an honest and self-aware reflection.
And I think what you said is important… you are more ready than you were a year ago. That matters. Opening rarely happens all at once. It unfolds in layers, as the body begins to feel safer stepping out from behind its protection.
And perhaps this is part of the hope we hold onto: that movement toward healing, connection, and wholeness is innate in all of us. When one person begins to shift, it affects the relational field around them. Your own healing, your own rising, does not happen in isolation.
I wrote a little more about this here if you ever feel like diving deeper: The Secret Link to Your Estranged Child
Thank you Lisa 💐
Happy Mothers Day Jennifer.
🫶🏻
Beautiful and valuable meditation. I especially appreciate the insight that both kinds of pain are startlingly identical.
I also particularlybappreciate your nod to balancing factors, "Perhaps some doors really do need to stay closed. Perhaps some people really aren’t safe."
After being the one over the years to soften over and over, and just being increasingly seen as a sucker for it, it's time to love them, yes, bless them, yes, forgive them, yes, hope for their happiness, yes ~ but at a healthy distance.
Great offering, we'll timed to comfort heartbroken readers 👌
What a gift to have a poet receive this as a meditation. I'm glad you were so willing to sit with it. Thank you.
Your words tell me you've done something most people never do... you softened, again and again, even when it cost you. That's not weakness. That's someone who knows how to feel and wants a lot from life. And a poet who knows how to feel is someone who eventually finds the gold in every experience, even the ones that don’t go as planned.
I hear you on the distance. Sometimes that's exactly right. And I also know that for someone with your depth of perception, the mirror has a way of showing up everywhere, and not just in family, but in every relationship, every stranger, every line you write. That's the particular gift and burden of the desire to see into things.
And here is what I suspect you already know in your quietest moments... the ones after the meditation ends and before the world rushes back in. That nothing outside of you has ever truly had the power to harm the deepest part of who you are. The sucker wasn't weak. She was just still learning that her wholeness was never actually at risk.
That realization doesn't come from protecting yourself from the world. It comes from going so far inside yourself that the world loses its power to define you.
That's the journey your poetry is already taking you on. And here is what I know for sure. When the timing is right and you arrive at that place within yourself, you will find your way back to what matters, with a new understanding, and discover something different on the other side.
It all unfolds in time, doesn't it? And for a young person still moving through the world with open eyes, that journey through time is the purpose of it all.
I wrote about my own path of discovery here, if any of it calls to you.https://estrangednetwork.substack.com/p/why-kids-walk-away-and-why-you-should
The heartbroken readers you mentioned — you're right that they are. But here's what I've come to know: the broken place is never the end of the story. It's usually where the light finds its way in.
Keep writing. Keep traveling. Keep feeling everything. The answers live inside the very experiences you're moving through.
Friend, I'm glad this found you... 3 times —wink.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
I believe I have found my way to what matters. It is not my daughter.
Thank you for this clarification, Ana. I realize now I mistakenly read your original comment through the lens of an estranged adult child rather than a parent.
And interestingly, I think that only deepens the point of the piece for me, because both sides often arrive at such similar places emotionally: the exhaustion, the self-protection, the need for distance, the desire to stop hurting.
The mirror I was speaking to is exactly that shared pain beneath the different roles we occupy.
I also deeply respect what you said about having found what matters. Sometimes love changes form. Sometimes the path forward is peace.
Thank you again for engaging so thoughtfully with the writing.
Hey, you ROCK, you know that?
That mirror again. Thank you friend.
Some people are only in our lives for a few seasons, and then leave. Their path might or might not cross again.
Perhaps. And yet we don’t leave relationships unchanged inside us.
Every experience leaves an imprint, something remembered in the body, the nervous system, and the way we move forward in new connections.
Even when someone is no longer in our lives, the relational field continues inside us, shaping how we see, feel, and interpret what comes next.
That's absolutely right, and blood relationship or lack thereof have nothing to do with that truth. 👌
Beautiful and valuable meditation. I especially appreciate the insight that both kinds of pain are startlingly identical.
I also particularlybappreciate your nod to balancing factors, "Perhaps some doors really do need to stay closed. Perhaps some people really aren’t safe."
After being the one over the years to soften over and over, and just being increasingly seen as a sucker for it, it's time to love them, yes, bless them, yes, forgive them, yes, hope for their happiness, yes ~ but at a healthy distance.
Great offering, we'll timed to comfort heartbroken readers 👌
PS Apologies for the repeated comment posting. I deal with hackers, and my screen kept telling me it hadn't posted 😅
PS Apologies for the repeated comment posting. I deal with hackers, and my screen kept telling me it hadn't posted 😅
Beautiful and valuable meditation. I especially appreciate the insight that both kinds of pain are startlingly identical.
I also particularlybappreciate your nod to balancing factors, "Perhaps some doors really do need to stay closed. Perhaps some people really aren’t safe."
After being the one over the years to soften over and over, and just being increasingly seen as a sucker for it, it's time to love them, yes, bless them, yes, forgive them, yes, hope for their happiness, yes ~ but at a healthy distance.
Great offering, we'll timed to comfort heartbroken readers 👌