This is a letter to my daughter in hopes that one day it will help her get through difficult times.
As you go on about your life, there will surely come a day where you experience tragedy. Even if you try to avoid it or even if we try to protect you from it, you will likely experience it. You might go through a difficult breakup, get rejected from your dream job, experience a health scare, lose a pet, or lose loved ones. In some form, tragedy seems to find its place in everyone’s lives.
When you do experience this, my hope is that I will be here for you to listen, to comfort, and simply be present. But if there comes a time where I can’t be there in person, I want to give you my thoughts and reflections on dealing with tragedy. I don’t know if anything I say will make you feel better while you’re experiencing it. I am just hopeful that what I say will someday be useful to you in your life.
1) It’s ok to not be ok
When you encounter tragedy, it’s going to be hard to go through your normal day. Just getting out of bed is going to feel really difficult. If it’s too hard to carry on with your life, I hope you acknowledge what you are currently feeling and give yourself some time to rest.
It’s ok to lay in bed crying for days because it hurts. It’s ok to eat that tub of ice cream because it’s comforting. It’s ok to miss some days of school, work, and social events if you don’t want to be around others. Be kind to yourself and allow yourself to feel the breadth of emotions.
To other people, what you are experiencing may seem small or insignificant. They might expect you to keep pushing on with your life. But I am here to tell you that it’s ok to pause and take a break. It’s ok to give yourself time to heal. There will come a day when you will feel better and you can go back to living your normal life. But for now, be kind to yourself. Give yourself some grace and allow yourself time to heal.
When I was going through something hard, I used to feel guilty that I wasn’t able to show up to make progress in life. It honestly felt like I was wasting time. What I quickly realized was that showing up was the actual waste — I lacked focus, had a negative attitude, and produced nothing of value. It was actually better if I didn’t show up and came back as a better version of myself.
What I learned is that your life won’t pass you by because you took a break to heal. That’s because this is your life and not anybody else’s. You can dictate the direction, the pace, and the journey of your life. But if you don’t allow yourself time to heal, you may find yourself going in the wrong direction or burning out from going too fast. Acknowledge what your body and mind is telling you and allow yourself to pause the journey so that you can continue down the right path at the right pace at a later time.
2) Don’t blame and learn to forgive
There will come a day where people will hurt you and there will also come a day where you hurt others. They might not have meant to hurt you or you might not have meant to hurt them, but in the end someone may have gotten hurt. When that happens, I hope you are able to forgive those people and forgive yourself.
Forgiving other people that do you wrong is really hard. Forgiving yourself when you make a critical mistake is also really hard. But at the end of the day, we are all human. We all make mistakes and dwelling on each one will surely sap your energy and remove you from being present. It’ll force you to dwell on the past and you will constantly be looking in your rearview mirror — so much so that you won’t even know if you’re progressing forward with your life.
Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting. Ignoring something that happened isn’t conducive to growth and that’ll lead to similar mistakes down the road. But forgiving allows you to look forward — it allows you to progress. Forgiving is the only way you can stop looking backward and allow you to focus on the now. No matter what we do, time continues to move forward. Without forgiving our past mistakes, we will be stuck in the past and time will continue to move on without us.
One of the most dangerous things you can do in your life is to remove yourself from the present. If you overly focus on the past or on the future, you will surely misstep and find yourself in a hole in the present. We don’t have the ability to control time; therefore, we can’t change what has already happened or what will happen. All we can do is dictate the current path that we are walking on.
3) Surround yourself with people that will help you
There is a saying that you can’t choose family, but you can choose your friends. Luckily for you, you have a family that really, really loves you and will always be here for you when you need someone to lean on. But beyond family, I hope you hold yourself to a high standard when finding and investing in friendships.
Find the people that will be there for you through all stages of life. Find the people that will not only celebrate all your triumphs, but will also support you when you are not at your best.
I had a best friend that would celebrate my big life events even when I didn’t want the attention on myself. He would cry when I was in pain before I even started crying. He would help me laugh when I lost sight of joy. He would put me back on the right path when I was going down the wrong one. And he would get on the next flight available when I needed him to be there most. That’s the type of people you want to surround yourself with.
To find these people, you have to be generous, kind, and present with them. All the things you want them to do, you have to do those things even better. If you continue to have positive energy, you will convince others to match your energy. And if they choose not to match what you offer, then it is unfortunately time to move on and stop investing in that friendship.
I’m sure when you find your people, you will know what I mean. From the bottom of your heart, you will feel like you would do anything for them. You will take action to help, support, and be present before your mind even thinks about it. Find the people that you would do this for and find the people that would do this for you. And once you do, treasure them and never let them go.
Truly, the only way to get the full experience of life isn’t to walk the journey alone, but to walk the journey with others. You will get far walking down the path alone, but you will only be able to get further when you have found the people that are willing to be there for you. One day you will understand what I mean.
4) Find help
By the time you’re an adult, there’s probably going to be a more positive perspective toward therapy. I hope therapy is something you would be open to when you need help.
When I was younger, I didn’t think I needed help to handle grief. I thought I was adult enough and could handle my emotions. I believed that needing help meant that I was weak. When my dad passed away, I kept moving through life and never gave myself time to acknowledge how much pain I was in. I neglected my emotions for 2 years and one day all my emotions came crashing down.
I remember I literally just spent a whole week crying because I missed my dad and I started to blame myself for not spending more time with him. I couldn’t forgive myself. It reached a point where I was scared of all the thoughts that went through my mind and I knew I needed to find help.
Therapy gave me an opportunity to talk through and acknowledge what I was feeling. I had to unearth all the emotions I buried over the last two years and this process was truly life changing. It was a difficult process, but at the end of it all, I understood myself better than I ever had before.
Going to therapy and seeking help isn’t an admission of weakness. It’s one of the bravest things you can do. In each conversation or session, you come face-to-face with all your thoughts and emotions. You might feel pain, sadness, anger, or frustration as you go through this, but I promise you that you will come out the other side better understanding yourself and your emotions. And this understanding will help push you through the next chapter of your life.
5) Be Present
If there is one thing I want you to take away from all this, it is that you need to be present. Everything I have talked about simply comes down to this.
Don’t look backward at what has already happened and don’t look too far off into what will happen. Look at the path you are currently on and ask yourself if you are happy with where you are and if you are where you are supposed to be.
Look side-to-side and acknowledge the people that are walking down this path with you. Are they the people you want to be here with today?
Acknowledge everything that you are feeling. Take in all the pain, anger, and sadness that came with what you experienced. And also appreciate all the happiness, gratitude, and joy that came with the journey you walked thus far.
Be there for yourself right now. Be there for your family and friends right now. Be there for your community right now. There is so much you have to offer to everyone right now.
If you can focus on the now, you will be ok. I believe that you will be ok. Right now, I know it’s hard. You are walking through the dark valley without knowing whether the path you are on will get you to the right destination. But you are doing everything you need to be doing to ensure that you can get far and push even further.
You are taking care of yourself. You are taking care of your emotions, body, and mind. You are walking down the journey with the people you love. You have the help and resources that you need to help guide you to the right place. You are doing so well.
Be Present. That is all. That is the culmination of everything I have to offer.
Conclusion
When the day comes that you read this, I hope I’m still around. If that’s the case, you can make fun of me all you want for how sentimental and cheesy I am. But in the end, I hope you take these learnings, interpret and process these thoughts in your own way, and come to your own conclusion of how to live your life. When times get hard, when you find yourself in the deep valley, remember these thoughts. With each hard step forward, you are getting closer to the end of the valley.
Life is hard. You are going to experience a lot of hardship. But life is also good. Right now, you might not be the best version of yourself or you might not be where you want to be. But if you are able to be present with yourself and others, you’ll one day be a better version of yourself and experience a better version of life. You will one day find peace. I trust that you will.
Love, Daddy.
Welcome to The Intentional Café.
