Brian explores how emotional suppression from his childhood led him to cut off his estranged daughter and carry guilt over a traumatic incident at a creek. The facilitator guides him through an inner-child dialogue and a letter of atonement to help him forgive himself and accept what he couldn't control.
It's not a coincidence that you've cut people off in your life to avoid the grief and loss. It's not a coincidence that your 23-year-old daughter not wanting to talk to you would bring up these exact same feelings. And it's not a coincidence that, that, that, that day that when you blamed yourself, you took it to the extreme of really blaming yourself because you blamed yourself for the emotional neglect that you experienced from your father prior to that. You already believed that things were your fault. So of course you went right back to the same beliefs that you already had. And what you proved, you said, nobody supported me. Nobody told me something different. Nobody helped me process it.
Yeah, I was taught that essentially. Yeah, in my job.
Absolutely. You were taught that it was always, you know, don't talk about anything.
We don't talk about anything about anything. Nothing was ever sitting down and talking to someone was never an option. You know, that's just the way things work.
What happened? I didn't reach out to your daughter.
What happens when I reach out to her? I get no response, brother. I get no response, especially after the divorce, man. Like, I quit drinking. I quit everything. I put my whole heart and soul into that kid to make sure that she didn't feel any of the pain that I was feeling from the divorce because it rocked my world, man. You know, I went through every stage of grief in that except the acceptance part. And that just took, you know, with time, I guess acceptance came, but I never purposely accepted it.
Look at the parallels between this and the Joey situation, right? Yeah, that you put— you said, I put my heart and soul into that kid.
I did, man.
The same way that you did with Joey that day at the creek, trying to bring him back to life. Felt the same. Yeah. No matter what I do, it's not enough.
Kind of feel that in a whole bunch of different aspects of my life. You put it like that.
Yeah. You know what God showed you that day at the creek?
That I am enough.
That he was with you.
He was, man.
That he was with you. That the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. That he's been with you this whole time. He's never going to leave you. He's never going to forsake you. That he's with you. And even though things don't turn out the way we always want them to, God's still with us. But there's an opportunity today for you to forgive yourself, to forgive yourself for what happened with Joey. And you need to have a conversation with that 10-year-old version of you. You need to let him come and sit on your lap, and he needs to tell his side of story, and you need to listen, and you need to tell them the truth. And then I would write a letter of atonement to your daughter, and I would tell your daughter about the Joey situation and about how the Joey situation is connected to you losing the relationship with her, and the fact that you have avoided it because it hurts you and it breaks your heart, and to apologize and ask for forgiveness for any way that you might have hurt her in the process. And what that'll do is it'll clear up your conscience. It'll give you a clear conscience and for you to remember, bro, that you did the best you could. There was a responsibility that adults had that day that they didn't fulfill on, and it was sitting you down, getting eye-to-eye level with you, getting in the truck with you, taking a ride with you and telling you, hey, Brian, you did the best you could. It's not your fault. This was an accident and you didn't cause this. You didn't create it. Brian, you couldn't have prevented it. You didn't see it happening. Brian, you did the best you could. And Brian, you even went down to the creek and even tried to resuscitate him and bring him back to life. You tried to— you tried everything you could.
