If My Plate Could Talk: “How To Cope When Father’s Day Is Hard”

Well, hello, Quadra sphere. We're back together. It's so good to see you and know that we're energetically going to be holding space over the next several minutes. Pull up a chair, pull up a seat, stand, drive without the camera on, whatever you need to grab your beverage of choice. My choice today is agua water. I want it to be other things, but I've got some blood work to do this morning, so what are it is. But you best believe that the moment that blood work is over, I will be somewhere grabbing something delicious and good for my body.

I hope that this week has been. What's the word? I want to say? I hope it's been bearable. Not in a bad way, but just whatever is coming your way this week, I hope that you have found that you have enough strength in order to navigate through it. If this is your first time here, I'm Doctor Charryse Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist, mindfulness practitioner, and author. Books are in the back. I need to actually put the other book back there as well. And I am here on Fridays where we center on Cadre around the element of grief.

But I always give it grief with a twist. So it's not only just your traditional thoughts of grief, but delayed grief, hidden grief, and the things that we grieve about ourselves, our lives, our body image, our relationship with food, and all the things. Good morning to all of those who are coming in in the moment. Hello to all of you who will listen on replay. I love it. You're letting me know where you are. What's up, Buffalo? Good to see you. I am here in Charlotte. A few more weeks and then who knows where I'm going to be?

I'm not going to tell you, but I've got some really great surprises, international surprises, coming up, so that'll be fine to figure out all of the time frame. I see Shelly here. I know Shelly's from Canada. So what's up, Canada? Why do we do that? Some of you who are new. Hello, Charlotte. Well, because it's important for us to recognize and remember that we are not alone in the world and to understand how big and large this sphere is. I also hope that we will continue over time to build community.

And selfishly, when I know what city you're in, then when I'm going to visit a city, I can say, hey, anybody that's part of the cosmosphere family in x, y and z, and then we can connect. Hello, South Carolina, for example. I will be next month in Texas, in Houston. So stay tuned for that. We are a few throws away. Hello, Statesboro, and hello, Pa from Father's Day. And so I spent time around Mother's Day talking about my own personal grief towards Mother's Day. And I thought it would be helpful to also make sure that we give Father's Day some street cred.

For me, personally, Father's Day doesn't impact me the exact same way that Mother's Day does, for multiple reasons, all of which I won't get into. But I want us to all acknowledge that Father's Day, like mother's Day, like any holiday, is not all always wonderful and phenomenal. Hello, Charleston. It can be complicated at times, and it's important for us, even as humans, to recognize that it may be a day for us that is fine and well, and we don't have issue with it. But at any given point, there's also someone around us who may be having a different situation.

You know, this is coming to my mind when I think about the concept of a sphere. You know, that circular, 360 degree dynamic of us being able to say it isn't just about my own experience, but because of the pain that I've experienced. I know joy, but also because of both of those, I'm able to be aware of what people in my life may be experiencing and not assume that everybody's experience is just like mine. I remember many, many years ago, I stopped automatically saying happy Mother's Day and happy Father's Day because we are putting an assumption onto other people that it's a happy day for them and life is complicated.

So how do you cope when Father's Day is hard and this can be helpful to you or maybe helpful when you are navigating life with other people. So I made this really long list. Hello, Minnesota. That I want to go through. It's not going to take me any longer than it normally does, but I think it's important because I wrote a list of what are all of the situations that could contribute to Father's Day. Feeling a little complicated. As I go through this list, I want you to see what resonates with you.

And then if there's anything that you would add to the list of here's another element that can make this day, or does make this day complicated for me, then add it in the chat so that we create that community and that collective share so situations that can contribute to a complicated Father's Day, a father who has abandoned your family and it is not far from you and you will never forget the fact that because they were no longer there. It made things difficult. And that has ramifications throughout every generation of the family.

A mother who abandoned a father and the father had to play both roles, both roles that no one parent is equipped to, to do well. And so that may have been difficult, in essence, of them being harder on you or less available to you in certain ways because they were trying to play both parts and were very structured and rigid, maybe, versus giving you just the love and attention that you wanted. A father who is widowed and just hasn't been the same. And when someone loses a spouse or a partner, yeah, we acknowledge that that changes you, that it can be really difficult, but it can also be really difficult when you're the person that's like, but I am still here, and I feel like I've lost a part of you because our mother is no longer available in that scenario, an abusive parental relationship.

So there can be a really challenging dynamic when you have a parent that has not been great and they have been, whether that's physically abusive, emotionally abusive, but also can be very intense. There are some fathers that aren't great, but also expect great things out of you that might say things to you like, well, I'm still your father. You should still respect me. What are you doing for me? So they have a lot of entitlement, and it doesn't match the true nature of the relationship. Perhaps you have a father that you're estranged from that you don't really know well, and you hold some feelings around the fact that they never chose to show up or wanted to be a part of your life, and maybe they even have another life with other people, which can be even more frustrating, other situations.

A father who is emotionally unavailable. So one who felt like their only role in your life was to work and to provide for you, and that needed to be enough. And in some ways, you've accepted that. But there's also a part of you that's always wished that you had more. You could even have a husband who is a father and not the kind of father that you wish that your children had. And that's also complicated where you're going, do I want to do something for this man for father's day, like, he ain't my daddy, but I also, you know, want to model that for my kids, or whatever the case may be, divorce, addiction, miscarriage and infertility, which is often overlooked in terms of this being a complicated holiday.

You could perhaps have been in a situation where if you are a female, you were unable to have children and Father's Day coming up loops in a dynamic of, I wasn't able to make my spouse or partner a father. And that can hold feelings and that can hold guilt or that can hold a longing that just makes the day complicated. It doesn't necessarily mean that it leaves you laid out in your bedroom, but it can make it a little complicated. As you're watching other families engage in ways that you feel like we don't get to participate in this day.

On Mother's Day or Father's Day, you have a father that was unable or unwilling to be what you need, one that you see show up big in the life of other people, but show up small or not at all in yours. And then the last one that I'll say is on my list is an ailing father. So a father that is slowly fading because perhaps they're aging. They could be going through Alzheimer's or dementia. They could have some situation where you are recognizing, this is not the same father that I've always grown up with.

And while you are fully accepting of the fact that that's the case, it doesn't make it easy. And each time you are with them, you notice, wow, they're fading little by little. That's one thing that I can say about my father Lovell. He was technically my stepfather, but very much a father figure in my life. And I remember when we found out that he had Alzheimer's. And watching him go through each stage, you also wonder what's going to happen. Is this going to be a situation where they're going to go through the stages and become irritable and angry or childlike?

And I remember even being apprehensive about the fact that, oh, he's always been so kind. I don't know that I can handle him if he gets that dementia, irritability. I mean, I could. I have no choice. But I remember the moments of knowing our time is winding down and I don't have many days left. I remember even my last Father's day with him before he passed away and how important it was for me to. To really grasp a hold of that moment. So there is that grief there of missing him and his presence in my life and going, man, what would it be like if he could see our kids now?

But my personal belief is that he is looking down and he is very aware of what is happening in the lives of our family and cheering us on. If there's something that you would add to the list, I want to encourage you. If you choose or want to give you. I want to invite you to put it in the chat. Write different dynamics and situations that can make Father's Day complicated for you or for someone that you love. So if you're in a situation that you're like, man, quite a few of those kind of hit the nail on the head, or they hit the nail on the head for people that I'm close to and that I know even if they don't say anything, what can you do?

So here are five ways that you can support yourself or another person. Number one, communicate. Don't be afraid to continue to talk about your experience of the day. Find that trusted person in your life that you go, I just need to say, hey, this is a really difficult day for me. I'm going to be doing this, I'm going to be doing that. But it's really hard. If we add in the dynamic of how our complicated days intersect with our nourishment and the way that we feed ourselves, it might also be a dynamic where you communicate to someone.

This is typically a busy weekend or a tough weekend that's filled with a lot of different things that don't align with my values for how I want to nourish myself. Let's stay in connection. Let's stay in contact. Or it might be that you need to phone a friend and go, Father's day sucks. I don't like this day, and it's really hard every year. And I thought this would be the year that it would be easier, and it's not, and that's okay. Grief is unpredictable. Complicated emotions around life and family and ourselves are unpredictable.

So we just have to navigate them the best way that we can. Number two, search for joy. Even in the midst of the complicated day that may be occurring, search for the moments of joy that you can find those little glimmers of. Here's what's still great in your life. Here's what you're holding on to. Maybe that's another relationship in your life that's going well. Maybe that's a child, maybe that's a grandchild, maybe that's a niece, a nephew. It could be a number of things, but search for joy and find it, because we always want to keep in mind that even through the difficult, complicated moments, Joy can coexist.

It's actually helpful for it to coexist so that we don't get, what's the word? Overtaken by all of those pieces. Number three, abandon the comparison game. Try as hard as you possibly can not to compare what you may experience during a typical Father's Day or Father's Day weekend with what the rest of the world is experiencing. Because keep in mind that we're experiencing and seeing their highlight reel, they're only putting on what they want you to know and there is always a different story underneath the surface.

So try not to look around and go, oh, they have it so wonderful. And oh, they're doing all these sweet things and oh, things are so well. And oh, I wish my father was like this, because we don't really know the truth of someone's story unless we're a part of their lives. So it might be important for you to pull back off of social media and just really curate the space that you need to be in as you navigate Father's Day weekend. Number four, don't be disingenuous towards yourself. That means abandon the part of you that feels like you need to show up and pretend that everything is great and fine and it's wonderful.

You may need to do that for a particular moment, depending upon your vocation or how you need to show up. But it's also very important that you are honest and authentic with what you are experiencing so that you do not ignore and diminish your needs. And then as a result of that, start engaging, particularly with something outside of yourself, as a way to numb. That's how we get into disordered or emotional eating around our life experiences that are complicated because we are disingenuous towards ourselves.

I often will tell people when we think about the dynamic of emotional eating or disordered eating, we are essentially abandoning ourselves self because we feel like what's there is too complicated and too heavy. You have the skills and you have the ability to navigate through whatever the weekend brings. And number five, celebrate yourself. Celebrate yourself without guilt. You may think, wait a minute. How do we go from complicated dynamics and grief around Father's Day to celebrating yourself?

There's always reason to celebrate yourself. Celebrate the fact, if we go back through our list, that you made it through that abandoned family, you made it on the other side of an abusive parental relationship, that you are managing infertility, and the fact that you weren't able to bring a child to life for your spouse or partner and you're still standing. Celebrate the fact that you have made it through multiple other father's days. And although there may be a little tinge of grief or some complicated moments of sadness and comparison, you've navigated every one of them.

Celebrate yourself and your ability to keep moving through. Okay, take this information and utilize it in whatever way that it's helpful to you. Tried to make it quick so you could come back and listen to it as needed. It could even be something that you refer to someone else if you know they struggle with this holiday but don't often talk about it. It's so important for us just to hear and to normalize these moments as you go throughout this coming weekend, especially for those of you that are listening to this in the moment, I want you to pay close attention to what's on your plate.

And if your plate could talk, what is it telling you? What is it telling you about what's metaphorically on your plate? What is it telling you about what's tangibly on your plate? What are you noticing about your food choices as you navigate this moment and what you think it's supposed to mean? And no matter what, hold to what is true for you. Do not abandon yourself this weekend. Do not abandon the goals that you've set for yourself and the level of health that you have set for yourself. Because grief will always be there.

There will always be moments of sadness that exist, but even in them, we have the ability to separate our focus from our feelings. We want to acknowledge those feelings. We want to communicate them. We want to honor whatever we need. We want to continue to celebrate ourselves and know that we can experience a level of quiet strength as we move through. Take care of yourself unapologetically, whatever that means. If that means that you need to be in the house all weekend and just doing your thing and kind of shut everybody out, then do that.

But if that means that you also need to be out and go for a walk or go for a run or pick some blueberries and do whatever makes you happy, then also do those things as well. m. for change the narrative in honesty, I was supposed to do that last week. Daughter came back home all off, totally forgot. But it's on my calendar. So for those who want to talk about mental health for mental fitness for athletes, I'll see you tomorrow at 930. Until then, have a great day and take care of yourself.