Family Disappeared

Surviving Christmas As The Ghost Parent: Coping With Parental Alienation And Estrangement - Episode 73

• Lawrence Joss

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In this Christmas episode of the Family Disappeared podcast, host Lawrence Joss and guests discuss the challenges of parental alienation during the holidays. They share personal stories of estrangement, recovery, and the importance of community support. The conversation highlights the emotional complexities of missing loved ones while also finding joy in new traditions and connections.

The guests reflect on their journeys, the significance of planning for the holidays, and the cherished memories that bring warmth to their experiences. In this conversation, participants share their experiences and strategies for navigating the emotional complexities of the holiday season, particularly in the context of estrangement and alienation. They discuss the importance of having a plan, finding joy through service, creating new memories, and leaning into community support. The conversation emphasizes the significance of mental health and self-care during the holidays, encouraging listeners to embrace their feelings and seek connection with others.

Key Takeaways

  • Christmas can be a painful reminder of estrangement.
  • Recovery allows for a better connection with oneself.
  • Creating new traditions is essential for healing.
  • It's important to live for oneself, not just for the kids.
  • Hope for the future is a powerful motivator.
  • Community support is crucial during the holidays.
  • Finding joy in small moments can uplift spirits.
  • Planning for the holidays can provide structure and comfort.
  • Cherished memories can bring warmth amidst challenges.
  • Emotional well-being is key to navigating estrangement. The devastation of alienation can lead to a lack of motivation during the holidays.
  • Having a plan can provide emotional grounding and structure.
  • Engaging in service work can help shift focus from personal pain to joy in helping others.
  • Creating new holiday memories is essential for personal healing.
  • Mental health strategies, such as community support, are crucial during the holidays.
  • Leaning into relationships and connections can combat feelings of isolation.
  • It's important to acknowledge and communicate personal feelings and needs.
  • Finding joy in small traditions can help maintain a sense of normalcy.
  • Self-care practices are vital for emotional well-being during the holidays.
  • Embracing gratitude can lead to a more positive holiday experience.


LINKS FOR PREVIOUS THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS PODCASTS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvS8LXhLs3w&list=PLXKmbDpvEQfXvYyjv88EZIkhDJZtGT8h2&index=18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GirAtZbHciI&list=PLXKmbDpvEQfXvYyjv88EZIkhDJZtGT8h2&index=19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlzMvk29zYo&list=PLXKmbDpvEQfXvYyjv88EZIkhDJZtGT8h2&index=

This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team:
Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host
Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager

Connect with Lawrence Joss:
Website: https://parentalalienationanonymous.com/
Email- familydisappeared@gmail.com

Speaker 1:

Today I can like show up for my family, I can show up for my friends, I have a great holiday, I miss my kids, I love my kids tremendously and I have a wonderful and rich, meaningful life, and that doesn't make me less of a father. I really think it makes me more of a father and I think for all of us like parenting in this way and showing up for the holidays in this way is really profound and makes us the best possible parents we can be. Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Today is our Christmas episode and we have three wonderful people that are going to be on the show. That are all parents, grandparents that are alienated, estranged or erased, and they're all part of our 12-step community, which is Parental Alienation Anonymous. There's always a link in the show notes if you're not familiar. It's a wonderful community and everyone has shared reality and shared experiences and it's an incredible support for the holidays. So on today's episode we're just gonna be talking about Christmas and, if you weren't around last year, there's gonna be a link as well to last year's Christmas episode. We'll throw that up on the screen so you can check that out also. Different conversation, different questions, some different people. And yeah, having the holiday episodes is super important, you know, just to be able to connect and for a lot of us, this is a connection we'll get with folks in our community for the holidays. And if you'd like more connection and more community, there's a bunch of resources in the show notes and we're really glad to have you here. If you're new to the community, and that's it, let's just jump into the show.

Speaker 1:

Christmas is challenging for me, like I want my family together, I want everyone to be sitting around, being silly and playing games and having some food and just really loving and enjoying each other. And it's really not the reality that I'm living in today. You know, parental alienation, estrangement, erasure, no matter if you're a parent, grandparent, if you're a child, anyone in the system. It's super, super challenging and today it doesn't quite look like that and as I work on myself emotionally and spiritually, I've changed so much during the holidays. You know I don't need something outside of myself to make me happy and I'm not putting pressure on my children or anyone else to do the work for me. I'm doing my own work during the year and then I show up.

Speaker 1:

Okay, during the holidays it's getting easier, and if it's brand new for you and these are your first holidays, I just want to acknowledge that it's super, super challenging and a hard thing to do, and the more I work on myself and the more that I have a plan and the more that I know what I'm going to be doing over the holidays, the easier it gets for me. So I just wanted to share that a little bit and let's jump into the panel with all the parents. Good morning everyone. It's super cool to have you all back today. On today's podcast, we're going to talk about surviving Christmas and I just want to give you all an opportunity to reintroduce yourself to the community. So, stephen, if you could just qualify and say hi to everyone in the community, that would be great.

Speaker 2:

Hi, I'm Stephen. I am a dad to five kids alienated estranged from a 25-year-old married daughter with some recent text contact, and estranged or alienated from a 19-year-old son for about three years, although we've had opportunity to meet four or five times this year, which is great, and we're having some increasing text communication as well, so glad to be back, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, stephen. It's nice to hear that things are progressing in your life and your connection with the kids. It's super cool and great for our community in general. Anyone that starts to connect is a victory for everyone. So thank you and welcome back. And, anna, if you could please introduce yourself next.

Speaker 3:

Hi everyone. I thank you and welcome back and Anna, if you could please introduce yourself next. Hi everyone, I'm Anna. I am the mother of two adult sons, a 21-year-old and a 20-year-old. I've been alienated from both of them for coming up for eight years now and I'm looking forward to the recording today, which is an improvement from the last year's recording around Christmas because it was painful for me. So that speaks to my progress. So thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for that, anna, and great to have you back as well. And, julie, if you could just introduce yourself for the community, please.

Speaker 4:

Hi, I'm Julie. I'm the mom of a 15 year old boy. He was taken for me in a court battle a little over two years ago. But we do have contact again now as of this summer, and I'm starting to to get him, get time with him every week and but it's still a struggle. And I also have a stepson who's 22 almost 23 and we have heard very little from him in two years thank you, julie, and, uh, great to hear you back and also hear that you get in some more connection.

Speaker 1:

That is fantastic. And for anyone out there that's just dropping in, maybe for the first time, listening to to one of the podcasts, we introduce ourselves and we qualify just to let everyone know where we are in our journey, and there's a free 12-step program and within the 12-step program everyone just qualifies so people can understand where we are in the journey and the continuum. And I don't usually qualify on the show, but I'm going to join in with the crew here and how I would qualify is hi, my name is Lawrence and I'm going to join in with the crew here, and how I would qualify is hi, my name is Lawrence and I'm an alienated father. I have three daughters.

Speaker 1:

I have a 30-year-old that it's been about eight or nine years with no contact. I have a 27-year-old who was about six years with no contact and over the last month we've been connecting and contacting and it's been really sweet. And I have 23 year old daughter I have regular contact with, and, and a couple grandkids that I have not yet met but am seeing pictures of, which is super cool, and I also just want to say, like all of us have been no contact at some point, struggled with contact and, as you can hear, the continuum switches, moves and some of us are experiencing more contact in some of our relationships than some of us aren't. But this whole recovery process is slow and super cool that there's been contact. I think all three of us have had added contact this year and I think recovery is really a pivotal part of that. And that's enough out of me.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to jump right here into some questions and get the conversation started. So how did you all feel before you started your recovery journey? Like I'm thinking like a Christmas, whatever a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, whatever that looked like Like. What did that look like coming into the holiday, and what differences can you qualify or quantify today? And we will start with you first, anna.

Speaker 3:

Well, christmas, before I started recovery, was really painful for me. I did everything I could in my power to avoid even speaking about the feelings sitting in the feelings, and so I would often work over the holidays or I would bury myself into the celebrations of another family that were kind enough to welcome me in so I didn't have to think about the fact that I missed, learned to have a better connection with myself and allow myself to have those feelings and not have to dive into them in a way that felt scary and aggressive, but gently sort of lower myself into that state and have the courage to explore what they were telling me and honor them. And it hasn't been easy. I couldn't do it without community and I couldn't do it without doing the step work, but it feels like a real gift to myself to be able to do that. And now I'm looking forward to the holidays and I still miss my kids, as I'm sharing that I can feel my spirits lifting.

Speaker 3:

My spirits oftentimes around this time of year have just been so low and I've not wanted to do anything about it, and now there's definitely a shift in perspective, so I'm hugely grateful for that.

Speaker 1:

Sounds really sweet, anna, just the idea of being with your feelings and showing up for your own life, and that shift from everything is really, really bad to hey, I'm enjoying myself, I'm finding myself and I miss my kids, like both realities exist at the same time. So it's both end and I think for a lot of us, when we start dealing with parental alienation, estrangement or ratio, it's all, it's this either, or like it's either really, really, really bad or I can breathe. You know what I mean and I think that's a really great arc in recovery and building community and working on ourselves at a both. It switches to both end. Like this is hard and I miss my kids and I can laugh and I can be in the holidays. So thank you for that. Anna and Julie, I'm going to jump into you with the same question what was it like before, what is it looking like now and what differences do you want to share?

Speaker 4:

The hard part around the holidays started with the divorce. I got divorced when my son was two. I had him for the first, maybe five Christmases because his dad always worked. But there's that first Christmas where you're not with your kid, they're at the other house and that's really tough. But I think I leaned into my marriage and my relationship with my new husband and forming our own traditions and sometimes they included my son because he was with us and sometimes they didn't. So the first two Christmases without my son after the alienation they were tough. But I tried to just think of it as he's at his dad's house right now, you know a just for today moment. But hopefully there will be more Christmases in the future where he's back with us and just try to keep the traditions that I wanted to continue in my own house so that when he came back they were still in full swing.

Speaker 1:

That's very sweet, yeah, and those first couple of years are really a little bit discombobulating as we try to figure out where our feet are. But it sounds really nice, really nice. And in your recovery, julie, now that you're building community and potentially working on yourself in a different kind of a way, what is like a real different or a marker you can identify from the beginning till today, just like one marker that you can say well, this is like a really important piece that I've learned over this last two or three years.

Speaker 4:

I mean, I think it was always about trying to create the memories for my son and trying to create the memories for my stepson, and it had to switch to. You know, I'm living this life and I can't just live for my son or my stepson or anybody else. I have to live for me. So what do I want my Christmases to look like? What are the traditions that I enjoy and I'm not just killing myself for because I want it for somebody else?

Speaker 1:

Thank you, I love that and, yeah, I do think that I tended to want to live for my kids, and if they weren't happy, I wasn't happy, and finding myself in the holidays too, just like you're saying, has been incredibly, incredibly freeing and has freed up the kids, too, and everyone else in my life at the same time. So I love that. Julie, thank you for that. And Stephen, how about yourself?

Speaker 2:

I would say that I have some similarities to Julie's situation Going back when I separated with my ex. Many of the traditions that we had were centered around my ex and her family. I didn't realize it at the time but my family, gradually over many years had been sort of marginalized and I allowed that. That's my responsibility, but I allowed that and that's sort of part of my alienation story is that it started a long time ago. I didn't realize it until I got further down the road that there was some of that going on.

Speaker 2:

So when we separated man initially I felt like all the traditions kind of which sounds kind of weird all the traditions and all the stuff kind of stayed with my ex and I was alone and without traditions and trying to figure it out. And that was hard. That was hard at first, really really hard, and pretty lonely. But I started to create my own traditions for the kid, my son and now my two stepdaughters that I do have more regular contact with and that's been great and I also invested myself in ways that I could help others. So I, you know, did, did, I've done some volunteering at like the Ronald McDonald house and done some gift, uh, you know kind of um where you gather gifts for um, different underprivileged communities and things like that.

Speaker 2:

So I I kind of created a new tradition of trying to figure out a way that I could, I could give back, because those those traditions I didn't, I didn't necessarily have, and actually I'm just now starting to get to the point of creating some traditions with the portion of my family that's intact, so that we have those available, like Julie was saying, when my two alienated, estranged kids do come back to the family, that we have things in place with my new wife.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, and I'm curious, stephen, the traditions and building your own traditions and also figuring out that there weren't really your traditions that kind of got left with the ax and it's part of the divorce settlement, which is kind of funny but true for a lot of us. But what are the feeling tones like? What were the feeling tones in the beginning? And then what have your feeling tones sort of changed over the last couple years? Uh, you know, working in recovery and kind of like finding a different pace in your life.

Speaker 2:

Oh gosh, I I felt like, uh, I was in a rental house. I remember this, uh, I was in a mold infested rental house, um, because it's all I could afford at the time. And uh, it felt, uh, it's all I could afford at the time and it felt lonely and dark and isolating. I would say that's how it felt initially and I had to make a choice to get out of that place. So I joined. You know, around that time I really started to join a local cycling and triathlon club, connected with other people, started to create some traditions, some holiday runs and different things like that to become a part of. And now it looks different.

Speaker 2:

I mean, man, I still miss, just right now, my son's coming back for Thanksgiving break and because of my situation, I, you know I'll be able to meet with him, but he's not able to come to my house. So you know that's hard. It's hard to know that your kids are close by. My kids are a couple miles away from me but I don't really get to see them and you know they're spending time now with their. My daughter's married, so she's spending time with her, her in-laws you know she's spending more time with her in-laws during the holidays than she is with me, and that's kind of hard. But I'm in a different place. I'm not despairing about it, I'm not devastated. I have hope for the future and I'm doing the best I can to create better traditions for myself and also to be of service to other people during this time.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, stephen. And yeah, all of you had a great piece there. And just for myself, when I first got here, like just when the separation happened and I in the beginning I just didn't have access to my oldest daughter. I had my two youngest daughters and it just it was devastating to be in the holidays and feel that anxiety and that fear and kind of like feel like everything could implode at any kind of second. Emotionally for me personally, and not necessarily understanding the effect that that was having on my kids and my family and other friends that were around. You know, that's what it felt like in the beginning. And today I can like show up for my family, I can show up for my friends, I have a great holiday, I miss my kids, I love my kids tremendously and I have a wonderful and rich, meaningful life. And that doesn't make me less of a father. I really think it makes me more of a father and I think for all of us like parenting in this way and showing up for the holidays in this way is really profound and it makes us the best possible parents we can be.

Speaker 1:

And that was a good question to start off with. But I also want to jump into a little bit more of a fun question here, to just to kind of like touch into the holiday spirits. And what is one of your favorite memories since you started this journey or parental alienation has come into your life? It can be right in the beginning, it could be really, really recent. What's just a funny, favorite, wonderful, meaningful memory that you have? And Julie, we'll start with you first.

Speaker 4:

So when my son was about I think he was in fifth grade, maybe he and his friends decided that they were going to catch Santa Claus on video, and so they all agreed to set up their iPads in the living room to record all night long so that they could capture Santa.

Speaker 4:

Well, I didn't know that and luckily, when we did decide to play Santa, all the lights were out and we didn't turn them on, because the Christmas lights were on and mostly it was just my husband that went into the living room and put the presents out and then left and we had no idea this had been recorded. And my son? The first thing he did was run to the living room and was like aha, and he got the iPad and, purely out of luck, he only recorded a shadow of a man delivering presents and he was like I think it's you and I was like I don't know. I just see a man delivering presents and he's never forgotten that, that he was sure it was us, but he couldn't prove it the way he really hoped he was going to be able to prove it. So I still find myself looking for the hidden iPad, just in case. But I think at 15, he's figured out what's going on, but I will forever remember the year he tried to catch us, but luck prevailed.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that. What a what a great story. It's like a family lore now and can get passed down from generation to generation Like maybe, maybe, mom, maybe dad, maybe Santa. That's super, super sweet. And how about you, Steven?

Speaker 2:

We used to take a.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of families have kind of like some you know, some traditions that they do regularly, you know, during the holidays and this was this was before actually, I separated and it kind of comes through till today so we used to go to a beach location about 10 hours away from where we live here in the Florida Panhandle and we used to go sometimes, you know, in the fall, but we would go pretty regularly, maybe every other year or every year to during the Christmas time and you know it would be maybe 55, 60 degrees during the day, but if you're in the sun it was that kind of really really nice feeling where you're just you're in a like a long sleeve light sweatshirt but you feel nice and toasty, warm and you can sit out on the beach and I just have great memories of those long car rides where you're with the kids and the kids are laughing and you're talking about stuff and you're doing sing-alongs and then just having that relaxed time.

Speaker 2:

We didn't really do the big, we didn't set up a Christmas tree there and all that stuff because we were out of town, but we just really had a lot of close family time and the sounds, the sounds and sights and smells of of those memories, uh, stick with me to this day and we're, you know and I'll probably talk about this later but we're, we're trying to create a new and different beach tradition. That's, uh, we're going to actually start that this year and I am looking forward today when I'll have all five of my kids, with Susan and myself, in a beach location and doing something similar but different.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, that's really sweet, stephen. I got a little bit of goosebumps with just the idea of, like that day when all the kids are going to be together and there's going to be the sand and the sea and just the family, and it doesn't need to be a tree, they're just. You know, that's a beautiful little image that I have in my head and I saw you smiling, so that really touched my heart. Thank you for that. And uh, anna, what about you?

Speaker 3:

one of my favorite memories is actually from last year where I arranged to go with a friend to go and see the lights display that they have at the zoo where I live, which is beautiful. They have millions of lights and there's snow on the ground, and so it was. It was lovely, but it it took me a while to talk myself into it. I wanted to push at the edges of my recovery. I'd been in program for two years and I wanted to start doing things differently. So I set it up earlier on in the year and I lined her up and I asked her to push me if I felt like I was dragging my heels, but in a gentle way. And when we we got there, it was just so much fun. We were all wrapped up like snow bunnies and we were walking around taking pictures of one another like teenagers.

Speaker 3:

It was light and it was fun, and I actually felt like I could feel my kids feeling that fun energy and, as I'm saying that, that's making my pulling out my heartstrings too. But I was really proud of the way that I was able to do it and be present and in the moment, and that's one of the things that the recovery journey has really taught me and it was something that I really wanted to do and it was fun and it was a little bit silly and my friend and I we bounced off one another our energy and the energy of and there were kids, there were lots of kids at this particular showing showing and I could enjoy their joy. I wasn't standing there thinking that I wish my kids were with me or pining over any of that sort of thing and it it felt. It just felt so beautiful and so nice to be present and very different from me hunkering down before and just wanting to pretend that christmas didn't exist. So it's very special. I hope to do it again this year at some point.

Speaker 1:

I just have this image in my head of you in like a bunny onesie, a bunch of lights and just hopping around. And you touched on something I just want to just expand on a little bit is this idea of you having a beautiful time and your energy, being open and being kids around, and that, in the spaciousness and feeling, actually, that you could be in your own body and be present with this moment, that your kids experience that too? Right, there's this emotional connection that I believe that we have with our kids, whether they're physically present, in proximity or if they're further away, and can you just speak to that a little bit, about how you feel connected to your kids as your heart opens and as you step into your life and actually are available to yourself. That that creates connection and some expansiveness with the kids, even though the kids aren't physically with you.

Speaker 3:

I think it really stems from me being more connected with myself. Actually, it's what recovery work has made me realize that as much as I loved and love my kids, when I was more of an active parent with them, I really wasn't connected to myself. So I wasn't able to tap into that spiritual connection. And I think it might sound a bit perverse, but the lack of physical proximity has heightened the spiritual connection and as I'm really discovering who I am as a person, what I like, what I don't like, what, what fills my cup, I feel that ripple out to my children and I'm able to show up for them differently. Even though our paths don't literally cross these days, it just it feels very powerful. It's part of my spiritual journey. It's part of what gives me hope when I have time, because I imagine over Christmas I will have some moments where I'm feeling like I'm really missing them.

Speaker 3:

But I can bring myself back into a space or even that example that I just gave where I could feel their energy. So I can feel sort of an embodiment of what that feels like. It's just so beautiful and I mean I miss them at the same time. But I think wow, feels like it's just so beautiful and I mean I miss them at the same time, but I think wow, it's uh, my evolution and recovery. It also includes them as well, and it's just such a beautiful thing to be able to reflect on thank you for that, anna.

Speaker 1:

And I know for me in the in the beginning not being able to really enjoy the holidays and be really present there was a component where my kids were looking at me whether they're looking at me with their eyes or emotionally, they were checking to see if I was doing okay. So they were actually in some ways taking care of me because I wasn't fully in my own body and early on it was so emotional and so challenging that that is true and I think, as a parent and parenting, it wasn't my best parenting, because I still emotionally wanted the holidays to be a little bit different and I think they felt the impact of that. So I think that's something that I am doing differently and I did the best that I could. And holidays are tough and they're going to be imperfect and they're going to be messy and they're going to change and it's going to evolve from minute to minute, no matter what the plan is. And just to share a funny story with you, I was like freshly separated, struggling with the kids, and got the Christmas tree up fake Christmas tree and didn't have ornaments or anything. So I came up with a great idea just to put my kids clothes on the Christmas tree. So anything that was lying on the floor underwear, t-shirts, whatever I threw all over the Christmas tree and we started putting clothes on the Christmas tree for a couple of years and it was like the single dad was like whoa, this is perfect. It was really super simple, super silly and super fun and you know what a cool thing to be able to laugh and to be silly amongst the challenges. So that was one of my favorite things.

Speaker 1:

And I want to switch gears here a little bit to the plan. You know what I mean. I think this is a really, really important part of getting through the holidays for myself and I'm curious what you all think. Is there a plan, like a tangible plan, for the holidays? And if there is a plan, is that useful If you don't have a plan, is it useful not having a plan? And let's start with you first, steven. Let's talk about the christmas plan. Is there a christmas plan for you?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think this is the first year since, uh, kind of the um more recent alienation with my son, where we've we decided, you know, let's create a tradition, you know for kind of tradition for who's available at any given year, because, as you guys know, the kids get older and they have their own families and sometimes you know it's not going to, it's not going to work out for everybody. So we are doing a kind of a, we're actually planning on going to Cozumel and spending Christmas there this year. So so that's the plan. And we have my two stepdaughters and my oldest son, who I have full contact with, and so there'll be five of us this year, but I envision in the future there might be seven of us or nine of us, or grandkids or whatever down the road. However that works out and we've got a place to stay down there that we own, and so that's nice that we'll be able to have an ongoing tradition there.

Speaker 2:

But I think the other part of the plan for me is kind of what Anna spoke to, which is the idea that you know we can give ourselves whatever feeling we want to, and so even the, my two children, who I'm not going to be spending Christmas with.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to give myself the feeling of loving them and being generous with them and thinking about them and wishing them the best for whatever Christmas celebration they're doing this year with my ex or, you know, with friends or whatever and I get to choose to give myself that really feel-good, loving, you know, open-hearted feeling for them, and that's an exciting thing and that's something I have power and agency and control over, and it's a wonderful thing. So that's part of my plan too, and I guess the other part would be that I have the opportunity to join in with a group here locally that helps adopt children that age out of the foster care program and helping to get gifts and supply gifts for those children. So I'm looking forward. This will be the first year I'm doing that. So, yeah, so that's the plan. It's multifaceted, but I'm very excited about all the parts of it.

Speaker 1:

That sounds like it's going to be a beautiful holiday, stephen. It sounds great. I want to come. So just in case you have an extra spot. But like you got the plan, you got all these wonderful things happening this year and in past years did you not have a plan? Was it harder not having a plan? Did it feel like an emotional, like pitfall not having a plan? And is it different now? Or is it always been kind of like having a holiday plan and this is just pretty consistent for you?

Speaker 2:

No, I did not have a plan. I think, to be honest, the the devastation of the alienation and the estrangement for a few years there I didn't want to do anything. I didn't. I didn't want want to have a plan. It didn't. It didn't feel right, it felt empty, it felt like people were missing and it just didn't feel like the Christmases I was used to. And so I kind of made the choice there, which I'm not advocating it, but the choice was kind of like well, if I can't have the Christmas that I normally had, gosh darn it, I'm not going to do it at all. And I kind of just, I just kind of said screw it and. And uh, just kind of went through the season and tried to muddle my way through, basically trying to get to the other end of it as quickly as possible. And uh, I wouldn't recommend that cause. It kind of sucked the joy out of it. But uh, that's that's where I was for for a number of years. I would say yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for that, stephen, and I think for so many of us getting here and coming into the holidays and there's this crazy triangle of holiday after holiday. I know for me in the beginning having no plan nearly killed me, like I couldn't fill in the gaps, I didn't know where I was going to be, what I was going to do. So having a plan just emotionally gave me something to ground into. I knew where I was going to be, I knew who I was going to reach out to, if I was going to go to a support meeting or what that looked like. And it's been really intricate part to making the holidays fun and bearable and to be present.

Speaker 1:

And some days aren't like that. Some days are still really, really crappy and I get lost in some thoughts and feelings. So this isn't just like this linear arc that just keeps getting better and better. It kind of moves and molds and changes shapes and colors for me personally. But, anna, what about you Plan? Did you have a plan before? What does having a plan look like? Does it feel better? Does it feel worse? Is it neutral? What can you share about your plan?

Speaker 3:

You know what? I didn't have a plan before and, somewhat similar to Stephen, I would hunker down and uh, or either be working uh, my butt off in whatever capacity I was able to do that or hunkering down on my sofa and looking at the clock and waiting for December 26th to arrive. And it was miserable, as I'm sharing that now. It felt I was. I think part of that was that I was punishing myself too. I took a lot of blame on for disrupting the family or removing myself from the family I don't even know how I'd phrase that, but I was wallowing in it in a lot of respects. And it is very different now and I started doing some planning last year, but I have even firmer plans in place this year For the day itself. It's still evolving and that's okay, but, um, I've been doing things to lead up to it, to try and feed that spirit a little bit, and choosing things that I really want to do. So I mean yesterday, for example, I dropped off, I signed up to adopt a senior at Christmas and provide a gift for them, and so I had the fun of choosing um gifts for this lady who's nearly 100 years old, and I had an image of her in my head and we had a bunch of snow here. So, yes, I did the process of ordering things and wrapping them up and writing a little card, and then I I drove to drop the package off and we've got snow on the ground and I was skidding in the car driving to the the drop-off point. But, and really thinking like this, it felt, um, like a journey to give her I'm not literally giving her the present, but it's so much changed my perspective and I got so much joy. From the point of signing up to do this to getting the profile of the person that I was going to be helping, I thought, wow, this is what I want Christmas to feel like. And again, I can still miss my kids, but the idea of being able to have an image of her face lighting up on Christmas morning when she opens that box, I thought, oh, I can, because of recovery, I can tap into that joy.

Speaker 3:

I wasn't allowing myself to have any joy. It was almost like a masochistic kind of I don't know. It was just like Christmas is cancelled, I'm going to pull that date off the calendar and I'm just not going to do it and I don't want to sit in that place anymore. So it just feels nice to be able to celebrate in that way and take myself out of my own head, like doing service work, working helping other people. I'm also doing something else with a friend where we're packing up gifts for children that get distributed throughout the city, and it's the same kind of feeling. It's like wow, and to have the energy and the enthusiasm to do it and want to promote joy for other people. I didn't have that at the beginning because I felt so miserable and I just thought I'm just going to remove myself from anything that involves me feeling any kind of joy. So it's nice to give that back to myself.

Speaker 1:

That's super cool, cool. And I'm just I'm thinking like you're shopping for a hundred year old person. I'm like I wouldn't even know where to start. Like, what do you? What do you get? Was there something really fun that you got that you can share just in a sentence?

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, they share some details. So she's a Jamaican lady who was a farmer in Jamaica and she likes Rastafarian hats and so I got this really cool hat and I had an image of her wearing it, like on Christmas Day. So they give you some prompts. But for me to be able to visualize a lot of that and think, wow, this is, yeah, a lot of joy and just a lot of fun, uh, but I I had to be encouraged by someone else to do it. I thought, okay, instead of sitting in my miserable hunker down space, I'm going to step away from that and see what this feels like, because I was like low threshold, but, yeah, a lot of fun. I would love to meet her, but well, I'm meeting her in spirit, so that's's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

That's cool. It's nice to see your face light up and the Jamaican Rastafarian hat that, just what a great way to connect with another human being and be of service and get out of yourself and in a way again, it's a profound way to parent Like. I heard Stephen talk about service. You're talking about service and yeah, like out service and yeah, like we can be of service to other human beings and have been of service to other human beings who are actually being of service to our children too. Not directly sometimes, but we're expanding this world, we're expanding the connection and we don't need anyone to take care of ourselves as we're being of service to other people. So I think it's a profound healing that people wouldn't necessarily point to and identify at first. Of healing from alienation, estrangement, erasure, anything but service is a wonderful, wonderful, uh self for for any kind of emotional wound, in my opinion. And Julie, what about you? What, what can you? What can you share with us?

Speaker 4:

Well, if I can first tack on to um, you know what Steven was talking about reminded me that, well, we probably vacationed in the same spot, on the Florida Panhandle, and this Christmas, before my son was alienated from me, we had taken the week after Christmas to go to our beach vacation destination and at that time of year in Florida the sun rises and sets over the Gulf of Mexico, which when you're normally there in the summertime, you never get to see. But I had this memory of my son and I sitting on the beach and watching the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico and we were in two lounge chairs and he grabbed my hand and said this is my happy place. And that was just nine months before he was estranged. And that memory sustained me through the estrangement and I had taken a picture on my phone of our feet in the sunset and it kept me going that, even though he was accusing me of terrible things when he was estranged, I knew that I knew what my reality was. You know, I knew that that memory of him grabbing my hand and us watching the sunset was real and I could hold onto that and it's a good reminder that you know you make these memories for yourself and that this is your life and and you want to hold onto these memories for yourself just as much as your kids or anyone else.

Speaker 4:

And you know my mother-in-law, her husband, died right around Christmas time five years ago and so she canceled Christmas. After that she doesn't decorate, she got rid of her tree and all of her ornaments and all of her decorations, and that makes me sad, because I'm sure she enjoyed Christmas for a lot more reasons than just because of her husband and and I don't, I don't want to do that, and so what I try to do every year I don't make a specific plan, but I just create a bucket list of, like, what are the things that makes Christmas time Christmas for me? And you know a lot of it is recreating our own childhood memories and the memory of making cookies with my mom, and it was such a pain in the butt because we handmade the dough and you had to refrigerate the dough and the cookie cutters and you can never get the cookie to come out as soon as you scoop it up off the counter. It all falls apart. But I still have memories of that and I still like doing it, whether or not there's Santa Claus to eat the cookies anymore, or kids that want to do it with me, and frankly I don't think my boys ever appreciated it as much as I enjoyed it.

Speaker 4:

So if that's on my bucket list I need to find a way to work it in where I can to make cookies, just because I feel like making cookies, because that's part of my Christmas tradition and I don't love putting the lights on the tree, but I do like looking at my tree when it's all decorated. So I begrudgingly go through the labor of setting up my tree and decorating it because I do love those nights just looking at the Christmas lights on the tree. So I have to remind myself it's worth all the effort of dragging that stuff out of the attic and the pine needles and everything else that goes along with that. So I just try to make a list of things that I want to accomplish and find time to work those things in.

Speaker 1:

That sounds beautiful and I got this image of you kind of begrudgingly walking around the tree and decorating it and, you know like, like a piratey kind of thing. I'm not sure if that is a good reflection, but that's what what came to me and I and I just want to say for everyone out there again, from my perspective, having a plan around the holidays is is paramount, you know, cause they're just. They just kind of like build on each other. And for me, when I didn't have a holiday again, I'd fall into this like kind of like black hole and it'd be hard to kind of get out and do anything like basic stuff like making breakfast felt like a chore and having a plan and knowing where I was going to be, who I was going to be connecting with, what friends I could reach out to, if I needed support, if I was going to go to any meetings you know like again, we have a free 12-step parental alienation meetings, which is a great place to go and get support and kind of like really like shore up your mental health, and I needed that and I did a lot of stuff like that in the beginning, because it was hard to get from one breath to another breath and, unless I had some support and some kind of connection with other parents, I was struggling. I was.

Speaker 1:

It was hard to realize that it wasn't just me, right? I? I really felt isolating, like this is just me, that this is going through and everyone else in the rest of the world is doing great. But the reality is is holidays are hard, whether you're estranged, alienated from your kids, whether you just just are in the holidays. Sometimes it's really isolating and lonely. So I just want to expand a tiny bit on this question, like, like from a mental health perspective, from an emotional perspective, like we've all got these wonderful traditions and plans, but like just a couple things that you do to take care of yourself, or a backup plan or a support system or something that you have in place to lean into if you need. And that's this question might not resonate with everyone, but I think it's incredibly important. And, anna, is there any kind of like mental health, emotional health, well-being kind of stuff like you have set up for yourself if you need it?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know what there is, lawrence. I mean, a big part of that is the community, and the program that you mentioned is being able to reach out to people and be my authentic self, rather than having to pretend that I'm having a good time or to mask that I'm feeling bad. I get to be authentic, but I also did. We recently did like a grief webinar, and one of the things that they suggested because they were talking about the holidays is to create a holiday pact with yourself, and then they had suggestions for different pieces around that, and the one that I chose. The essence of it is about communicating about my feelings and my expectations and needs, and that cause that really spoke to me, because I have not been good at doing that in the past.

Speaker 3:

I have not acknowledged that I have feelings and needs, and I realized when I picked that that I've been doing that since October when I've been planning for Christmas, because I'm really tapping into what is it that I need to do, not just to look after myself, but to have some fun, but to also provide a safety net for when it just feels like it's too much. So I've written this little thing out on a piece of paper and it sits on my kitchen counter just to remind me and it feels like it's not just for the holidays right, it's for the 12 months of the year but it really resonated with me and it feels really good to support myself which is very different from the way I've done it in the past and to be able to support others, to know the network that I have. It works both ways. It feels authentic and it feels real, and there's joy and sorrow potentially mixed up in all of that.

Speaker 1:

So thank you and and something really important that I heard you say is you started working on a plan before Christmas. You did a grief group. You wrote these things out like you didn't wait until the day. You know what I mean. And as recovery works and as my emotional stability changes, like I'm doing this a week a month, two months beforehand, I'm not waiting. So this plan is a necessary plan on the day, which is great to have. It's kind of like like a build up and that's what I heard you reflect on which I have my sponsor and we're.

Speaker 4:

we have group texts that go around and we check in with each other and you know cause we're all in various stages of alienation and, um, it's, it's nice to know that I have that group that I can check in with. And I also like to give myself a craft project that I do over Christmas. It just keeps me busy. I like to cross stitch, I like to embroider, and I pick out a Christmas project and I work on it and it's just a way to, you know, occupy my time and I'm not mindlessly scrolling and looking at other people's holiday pictures and, you know, watching sappy Christmas movies, necessarily, but just doing something that is related to the holiday. I'm making some sort of decoration or something, but I'm keeping my mind occupied and it's just a healthy mental release that I enjoy particularly around the holidays.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I love that you know bringing up social media and getting stuck in other people's pictures and other people's experiences and having kind of like a boundary for yourself where you're taking care of yourself, you're embroidering, you're staying out of that, because that's a slippery slope that you can slide into under, through down. There's a lot of different places to go, so I love that way of of taking care of yourself. And you also mentioned, julie, about having a sponsor, and a sponsor in a 12 step program is someone that's kind of like a guide that helps support you and it's a great place for support. And then, as Julie also mentioned, she had a bunch of other people within her pod and smaller community, within the larger community that she connects with on a regular basis.

Speaker 1:

And throughout my recovery and dealing with this, I've had other parents that have a direct experience and understanding of the feelings and the words and the stuff that's going on that I could reach out to.

Speaker 1:

And it's very different than reaching out to my family, who loves me and supports me, but they're not necessarily in it the same way that another parent or grandparent or child is in it. So I'd love that you brought that into the conversation. Pivotal, pivotal part about the holidays is to have community and there's 12-step meetings on all the holidays, usually at least two meetings a day. If you are looking for some extra support and you can just show up and hang out for a little bit, there will be a link in the show notes for you if you haven't been to a meeting yet and you want to check it out. Or you know, if there's a group around you, whatever at some religious organization, some other nonprofit organization, wherever getting into a group of people that are struggling. It's really nice to have that support and love. And what about you from like a mental health, emotional health perspective for the holidays, stephen and?

Speaker 2:

what about you from, like a mental health, emotional health perspective for the holidays. Steven, when I first started dealing with you know the alienation and it was really, really isolating, and so I try to remind myself to lean into, lean into the holidays, lean into relationships. Lean into the holidays, lean into relationships, lean into connection, because part of what's, at least when I talked to my friends in this community PA community one of the things we all struggle with is that the isolation is so the isolation of alienation is pretty devastating for most of us, and so I had a counselor friend who you know suggested well, you know you have lots of choices you could make, but why not lean into connection during this time? And so that's what I try to do. I do that through attending more of the 12-step meetings, creating more connection for myself. I really make an effort not to isolate. So when I feel myself doing that, I do something as simple as hey, I'm going to go to isolate. So when I feel myself doing that, I I do something as simple as hey, I'm going to go to the gym today and I'm going to, I'm going to sit on a spin bike in the gym, and even though I might not talk to anybody. I've got hundreds of people around me that are working out and it feels like I'm in community, doing something with other people at the same time, and, uh, and then also I, I just give myself permission to do what I need to do to take care of myself, and and that that's okay too.

Speaker 2:

So I think Julie was mentioning, you know, for years I would say I didn't lean into Christmas, I leaned out of it. And so you know, when, when I separated from my ex, all the, for example, just something as simple as this all the Christmas ornaments didn't come with me. So all those Christmas ornaments over the years that the kids had, and whatever they, they stayed, they stayed with my ex. And so I had no Christmas ornaments and I had no um, no stockings and um, for a couple of years I I didn't, you know, I just decided I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that, you know. And and then I thought, why am I? Why am I doing that? Even for my kids that I have limited contact with, I was like I can still buy a Christmas ornament and I can still celebrate their year.

Speaker 2:

So what I did was I started buying, like my daughter was at a certain university. So one year I bought a Christmas ornament with that university and that was her Christmas ornament for that year, and I hadn't even talked to her the entire year. And so I get to do that for myself and that felt good to me. It felt really good to start buying and creating a collection of Christmas ornaments for, you know, for my kids, even the kiddos that I had a distance and an alienation with, and so I just try to remind myself just lean in, you know, just lean into relationships, lean into the meetings, lean into loving others, even if they're not family members or they're people that I don't even know, and just really trying to lean in rather than lean out. So that's kind of what I try to remind myself of during this time of year and that seems to help.

Speaker 1:

I love that lean in metaphor and be available and be present and, as you lean in, like this space for creativity and for things to change. I love that and I'll just share this for me, like I'm a huge plan, like I know I'm going to go to a meeting, I know what time I'm going to go to the meeting, I know who's coming over, when we're going to cook or if we're going to play games or whatever, and what my day is going to look like it and what my day is going to look like. It's really important for me to have that for myself and early on.

Speaker 1:

I remember my first year like just the pain was just crazy and I didn't know what to do and my sponsor in the 12-step program.

Speaker 1:

I landed up spending Christmas with him and his family and they invited me and my two daughters in and they had presents for us and they fed us and they played with us and they loved us and it was so, so magical amongst the devastating pain, like I couldn't have done anything, I couldn't have planned anything, all I could do is just fall on my feet and someone that I built a relationship with invited me somewhere and it was so pivotal because he was part of a 12 step community and in 12 step community, you know, we love each other where we are, and sometimes we don't like everyone and sometimes we do, and it's just this magical place of having a relationship where you're connected through working on yourself and, yeah, and it's just beautiful.

Speaker 1:

It really brings a couple tears to my eyes just thinking about that and what a great conversation. And we're just going to wrap the conversation up with this. Like if you were to tell another parent, a grandparent, person, struggling whether they're a child, whoever they are, that's just struggling with any form of alienation, estrangement, erasure. What would be one thing you'd like to say, to do, not to do, or just something fun. And if you could also just say, say a happy Christmas greeting at the same time as you're kind of like signing out for this podcast, I'd appreciate that too. So I think we're going to start with you first, julie.

Speaker 4:

I mean, I think my best advice is to remember that this is your life and you get to create the memories for yourself and recreate memories from your childhood, if that's what you want, but and recreate memories from your childhood if that's what you want. But it's your life to live, it's your magical moment that comes once a year to enjoy, and you should do that the best way that you know how. And it's, yes, it's about bringing people together, but it's also, you know, it's just the magic of the year of the twinkling lights and a feeling of gratefulness, and try to embrace that and not not cast away um the parts that you're not able to enjoy from your past, but capture the ones that you can. And I hope everybody just enjoys this magical moment when the days are getting shorter, but there's magic in that and the lights and just a feeling of being grateful for what you do have and not sad for what you don't.

Speaker 1:

That's beautiful, julie. Thank you for that, and, stephen, a Christmas something and one thing maybe you'd like to share with everyone as we close out here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say allow yourself to give yourself the Christmas experience that you want, whether that be for yourself individually, you know you want to go travel somewhere by yourself and just get some space to go view something beautiful, or you want to write a letter that you may never send to a kid that's alienated, but you want to share your love and gratitude and connection with them, even though they may not be in a place to receive that, I guess I would just encourage I'm encouraging myself and encouraging those listening to create the feeling and the memories and the connection that you want to experience, because you get to choose that and, like Julie said, this is your life and you get to create that however you see fit.

Speaker 2:

And since we're belief creating machines and life creating machines, why don't we create things that serve us? And that seems to make sense to me and for me, my background. I come from a Christian background, and so Christmas specifically reminds me of grace, and I want to strive to be a person that exists in the world with grace and love and kindness for others, and so that's what I wish for anybody who's listening to this, anybody in our 12 step community, is that your, your Christmas season is filled with grace and love and kindness and compassion and, uh all the wonder that this time of year has has meaning for.

Speaker 1:

So Thank you. Thank you for that, steven, and I love the word grace and having grace for family and friends and, and I think more importantly than anything, is just having some grace for yourself. You know what I mean. Giving yourself some space and the opportunity to be imperfect, I think, is wonderful and that's what I hear when you're saying grace. So thanks for bringing that up, stephen and Anna. What about you? What would you like to say as we're wrapping up here?

Speaker 3:

You know, what I'd really like to reflect and give out to the community is and this is speaking from firsthand experience is to really make an effort to not beat yourself up about what you consider you've done wrong, especially if that's haunting you during the holidays the idea that you could have created a different outcome if you're able to just shelve that for a little bit and really look for the glimmers and the gratitude because, I mean, I had to dig deep to do that myself.

Speaker 3:

They are there and they're what helps the change and the shift in perspective, and it makes a big difference whether you speak them out loud, whether you write them down. Despite the challenges and the pain that I've learned, I'm practicing finding those glimmers and practicing the gratitude, and I know when I surround myself with people that love me unconditionally so I can be my authentic self, then I have more space to celebrate the joy, instead of sitting in a space where I feel like I need to punish myself, which has been a big part of my life to date and it's shifting, so it is possible to change these things.

Speaker 3:

So I would wish that everyone out there could find the glimmers and find the gratitude and celebrate the changes that they're making, the positive changes.

Speaker 1:

I heard forgiveness, I heard changes, I heard a lot of beautiful, beautiful stuff, and I would say for me, like, remember to breathe. Right, I find myself during the holidays holding my breath because I want stuff just to get done. I just want to get through a moment. I want something to change, and remembering to breathe is really useful for me. Feeling my feet on the ground and being present in my body is really useful, and these might sound really simple and mundane, but I gotta tell you I I couldn't find myself in a lot of the holidays and just feeling my feet was incredibly useful. Breathing and, uh, you know, if you're around people, physical touch is great. Get in a hug, hug in someone else. You know what I mean. And uh, yeah, and I hope everyone has a a marvelous holiday and uh, we have an incredibly beautiful community.

Speaker 1:

There's a bunch of podcasts out there to listen to. There's a podcast again from last year, from the holidays, with, I think, definitely different folks. I can't remember who was on it, but there's. There'll be a link for you to click on that and you can watch that too. And uh, yeah, thank you all three of you for coming out and playing one more time and I wish you the the merriest happies of ho ho, ho christmas stuff happening in in all your lives. Oh, what a great show. What a great show. Some great insights, some wonderful people showing up and you can just hear in the conversation, like the recovery that we're talking about, like all these people are actively working on themselves emotionally and spiritually, and you can hear the change, you can hear the acceptance, you can hear the patience, the joy. You can also hear the hurt and some of the anguish that comes along with being an alienated, estranged, erased person. There's nothing simple about it and it does change and it does evolve. And again, having a plan is so super important and if you're new to the community, welcome. There's a plethora of podcasts to listen to and there's a link for last year's Christmas show. I highly suggest you jump on that. We have a Thanksgiving show and some other holiday stuff coming up, so if you haven't seen that, you know those are really useful things to watch during the holidays and I just want to wish everyone a happy, happy Christmas.

Speaker 1:

A ho, ho, ho, a carol, a song, you know, whatever makes you happy on the holidays. A Christmas tree yeah, for me I got my pink Christmas tree, you know, decorated with all the stuff and you know, just reminds me of my girls and the holidays, and it makes me happy and it's a way for me to connect and have love and play with my kids, even though I might not be in physical presence. So I wish you all a happy holidays. If no one's told you yet today, I love you. You know what I mean. This is a challenging journey and it's nice just to to hear that you're cared about, and I like to hear that too. So enjoy the day. Wow, wow, wow. I hope you have the greatest day and I hope there's something really cool for you under the Christmas tree. We will see you have the greatest day and I hope there's something really cool for you under the Christmas tree. We will see you around the neighborhood.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.