I Teach Awareness for a Living. My Father Still Made Me Lose It.

I've spent 20 years teaching awareness, gestalt therapy, and mindfulness-based coaching. I've built a career on helping people meet hard moments with presence instead of reactivity. My father still got under my skin.

"If you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family."

I quote Ram Dass every time I visit my family, and this year is no different. I jokingly say it's my continuing education, and I should have a PhD or two by now. Joking aside, I adore my family and I am always discovering something new, as much about them as myself. This time, my father's physical health is declining rapidly and I am meeting him in a new place: as a caregiver.

Many Gen X'ers like myself are finding themselves in the same place, and it's a strange role to step into. My sister is our dad's primary helper, carrying the weight of his care. I have the luxury of stepping in and out seasonally, which gives me a very different perspective than hers.

I wish I could tell you I've met this with an open heart. I haven't. What set me off wasn't old history, it was watching a familiar dynamic unfold right in front of me.

My father is still trying to have things go a certain way. Even now, when his body is no longer giving him the ability to be in charge of his surroundings, I can see how much he wants to hold on to that sense of control.

And my sister, who is carrying so much, often steps in to accommodate him, smooth things over to keep things moving. Watching it brought up a surprising amount of frustration, anger and judgment in me.

I could feel myself wanting things to be different. Wanting him to let go, wanting her to stop carrying so much, wanting everyone to see what I was seeing.

And there's the awareness work. (Who is the one needing control..?)

I could see the patterns, but seeing it didn't automatically make me wise about it. For a few days, I lived inside the reality of what was happening. I noticed the routines, the limitations, the moments of frustration, the exhaustion and the tenderness. I saw the grief that sits underneath so much of it, like a low hum you eventually realize has been there all along.

So I did what I ask my clients to do: I sat it in. And that's when something changed, or perhaps settled is a better word to describe it. I felt it in my body, like an exhale as opposed to an inhale. The space instead of the contraction.

I found my inner Wise Adult. The part of me that doesn't need my father to be different in order for me to be OK. The part that can see what's happening without immediately needing to fix it, fight it, or make someone else understand it.

The Wise Adult doesn't necessarily feel peaceful all the time. She can be frustrated and even angry. She can feel grief and a myriad of other emotions. What makes her wise is that she can hold all of it without turning any one feeling into a whole story. And she sets boundaries.

From an awareness perspective, I've been coming back to the question I often ask: What is life asking of me here?

Right now, I believe it's asking me to practice being with what I cannot control. To notice when I want to take over. To notice when someone else's choices activate me. To love people without needing to manage their process. And to remember that acceptance doesn't mean I approve of everything that's happening. It just means I'm no longer spending energy arguing with reality.

I'm learning to parent myself while standing in the middle of something I can't parent anyone else through.

This visit has been filled with polarities. I've been staying with my brother and nephews, who are thriving, while I tend to my father, who is fading. And inside me, my own polarity: the daughter who got activated by old patterns, and the woman who has spent 20 years teaching people how to meet exactly this kind of moment.

I don't know if this softening stays once I'm home and out of his daily orbit. I'll find out. Tomorrow I leave for Croatia, ready for new adventures there. My time in Sweden feels complete, for now.

If you're navigating a complicated relationship with an aging parent, or any ending that's stirring up more than you expected, you're not alone in it. This is the kind of work I help my clients move through, not by bypassing the hard feelings, but by learning to stay present with them. If that's where you are right now, learn more about working with me.