The past 6 months have been hard, there have been moments that have felt damn near impossible. My wife and I agreed 6 months ago that her and my kids would go ride the pandemic out in their home country, Portugal, while I stayed in the United States to sort out our affairs here. That’s a long story and if you’re interested in hearing it, you can read it right here: Moving Your Family to Portugal in a Pandemic
We flew to Boston together. Then we sat in the ghostly terminal E at Boston Logan, which once was bustling with international travelers from all over the world and waited patiently to part ways for an undetermined amount of time.
I remember when we arrived in Boston there was a 5-hour layover before their flight departed for Portugal. Usually, we’d pass that layover in a nice restaurant just outside security and enjoy a lobster roll and bisque. But on this particular trip we were shocked to see that literally every restaurant was shut down. We hadn’t brought any food with us and the kids were starving after the 6-hour flight from Phoenix. As husband and wives do, we began to bicker because this seemed like an insurmountable problem at the time. I suggested grabbing some snacks from the Hudson News Stand, and she rightfully told me that snacks weren’t food and the kids needed dinner. She suggested I take an Uber to a Burger King, and I argued that I didn’t want to spend the last 5 hours I had with my kids in an Uber in Boston. Ultimately, we opted for some snacks from the Hudson News and had the least satisfying and most depressing meal imaginable. An hour later, security opened, and it was time to part ways. I cried as I hugged my family for what I knew at that moment would be the last time for the foreseeable future. They passed security and disappeared around the corner and I went to my hotel.
Looking back at that seemingly innocuous argument over dinner in the airport, I can’t tell you how much I would give for a moment like that with my wife and kids today. Six months have passed… six. I figured when they left that with the pandemic and things I needed to get done in Phoenix, it would take a couple of months for me to get out there. Then the flights shut down and I was faced with the hard truth that I was not going to get to them anytime soon.
I fell into a puddle of self-pity. I spent months angry, distant, and sad. I was looking for something to blame but I couldn’t find it. During that time, I wasn’t there for my family or myself because I was too busy feeling bad for myself.
What pulled me out of this abyss was a simple logic statement that changed everything… If you can’t control a situation, you can certainly work to control your reaction to it. Phew, simple but powerful. My reaction had not been optimal, and something had to give if I was going to get through this.
At that moment I started the work. What was that work? Well, it started with leaning into what was hard. In 2020 I lost a lot… a business, a truck, a house, my family, and I was left alone in the house with nothing but myself to stare at. Even after years of working on myself I realized I still didn’t like what I saw. Sure, I’ve made some good progress physically, but my emotional state was still a mess. You see, I can be cold… I can be un-empathetic… I can be someone who tunnel visions (can you say work-a-holic?)… I can be a narcissist… and I can be eerily robotic in my routines to the direct detriment of those around me (my way or the highway sort of thing). When faced with these truths about myself, I knew that I wanted to grow and that this forced solitude could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to do just that.
But where do you start? How do you know what to do to change yourself from the inside? That was the challenge. I had been in therapy for years at this point and felt like I’d made progress on some anger issues I cope with… but the other stuff, I had avoided.
Here are some of the things I did in the hopes of leaning into the hard and building a better version of myself to bring back to my family.
Reflect
If you don’t know where you have been then it’s hard to know where you are going. I’d viewed the past from my own lens but had rarely stopped to view it through the lens of those around me. It’s one thing to think you’re doing the right thing because you create that narrative in your own mind. It’s another thing to stop and truly reflect on whether or not your ‘right thing’ was actually the thing that your loved ones needed and asked for from you.
When I took a moment to reflect (actually a lot of moments), I was faced with the cold truth that the simple answer was, no. I have a horrible tendency throughout my life to do things my way or the highway. If you’re looking to build a healthier relationship with your loved ones you best start with reflection. Ask yourself what your truth is from both your perspective and then the perspective of those around, you. Do they align? Unsurprisingly I realized that mine did not.
It’s not always fun to hold the mirror up to yourself, in fact I found it to be downright painful, but growth begins at the intersection of resilience and pain. So, I leaned in.
Study
Find literature, podcasts, people, and communities that reflect the person you are striving to be. Discussions about empathy, compassion, happiness, and love frighten me. Afterall, I am a big athletic male and we’re supposed to shy away from those words, right? I thought so but oh how wrong I was. I spent 6 months alone reading every book I could find on my relationship with myself, my loved ones, money, and how I prioritize my time.
I learned that if what I’m reading makes me uncomfortable, then I probably need to read more of it. If a podcast topic made me want to run for the hills, then I’d better listen to it. And if a conversation with my loved ones made me feel 2 inches tall, then I’d better lean into it.
You don’t grow emotionally if you aren’t willing to see another perspective. Studying has given me perspectives that have elicited some truly deep thought about the type of man I want to strive to be.
Burn it All Down — It’s Just Stuff After-all
As much as I like to consider myself one who thrives on experiences, I had to accept that I am also very much someone who values ‘stuff’… my truck, my house, my paycheck, my career status… you know, stuff.
Suddenly there was a realization that we were going to have a geographically separated household for an undetermined amount of time. There simply wasn’t enough money to afford two lives in two separate countries. Afterall, one of my businesses has shut down due to the pandemic and money’s is tight trying to float those assets. But I spent time trying to make it work, until I realized that the burden was slowly poisoning my mindset. So, I leaned into it.
I had to sell my house to downsize into something more affordable. I had to sell my beloved truck (fully lifted and paid off Toyota Tacoma TRD… if you’re a truck guy, you get it). I had to cash in savings that I’d worked years to grow. It was hard. I felt like I was watching a life we’d built over a decade crumble in on itself so that we could keep things afloat.
But you know what? When it’s all said and done, I am grateful for every last thing I don’t have anymore. My life is simpler now. It is more affordable. I’m not burdened by the constraints of over-ownership and heavy debt load. And most importantly… burning it all down like that made me realize a very important truth… life goes on… it’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter. There are very few things in this world that actually matter. I can tell you when I get to my death bed, I know I’ll be grateful for my family and probably won’t think twice about the Toyota Tacoma I owned in my 30’s.
Give Your Loved Ones the Space to be Heard
I like the sound of my own voice. I like to be on camera. I like to write this blog and check the views every 30 minutes for the first 48 hours it is live. Call me a narcissist, it’s fine, I probably am one to some degree. But this comes at a cost. I had to recognize (largely through the steps taken above) that if you don’t give those you love the space to be heard, then you are going to have a hard time maintaining a healthy relationship. So, I am leaning into it.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is just shut up and listen. And if you don’t like the things you hear, or they make you uncomfortable… then good. It means the person speaking was hurting and needs to be heard. Now I’m not saying to let yourself be a punching bag… but you do absolutely have to honor and respect that when someone tells you how something made them feel, you have very little right to question that. So, give your loved ones the space to be heard. You’d be amazed at what you can learn if you put your own ego aside for a while and give the people around you a platform to talk to you and be heard.
Lean into the Hard
At the moment I’m writing this piece, my cat and I are sitting on a plane to Portugal to reunite with our family after 6 months. I can’t say what is going to come in the following months. I left my hometown, Phoenix, behind and am going to try to find where I fit with my family after 6 months of being separated. It’s scary and simultaneously exciting. So, I’ll lean into it.
I’ll say it again… growth begins at the intersection of resilience and pain. If it doesn’t hurt a little bit, then you’re probably not growing. At the end of the day, I want to be a better man today than I was yesterday. So, when you feel that discomfort in your gut or that voice in your head telling you you’re not good enough, lean into it. You’ll be ok and you just might grow a little bit in the process.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Martin Shreder on Unsplash