A Note to Dads: A guide to Embracing Presence and Cherishing Time

Ever felt like you're missing the moments that truly matter with your children? This episode brings you a heartfelt exploration into the emotional complexities of fatherhood and the essence of being present with our kids. I open up about my personal journey of parenting a teenage daughter and the challenges that come with it. Through these stories, I share hard-earned lessons on forgiveness, grace, and the profound impact of being fully present. This isn't about offering solutions, but rather a candid conversation about savoring life's fleeting moments and the legacy we build with our actions today.

Join me as I reflect on the pressure fathers face to be providers, often at the cost of precious time with family. Through a powerful tale reminiscent of an 80s song, we examine how choices echo through time, shaping future relationships with our children. It's a timely reminder to set aside ego and pride, allowing us to truly connect and cherish the moments that might otherwise slip away. Whether you're a father, a husband, or just someone juggling life's myriad roles, this episode is an invitation to pause, breathe, and appreciate the beauty of the here and now.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:42

Hey, what's going on, dads? I wanted to take a moment to connect with you guys on a more deeper level, beyond the surface of fatherhood and being a dad and all the nuances of being a man, a husband and all that stuff and all those labels. I want to take a moment and really talk to your inner self, the person that we forgot, the person that we stopped giving grace to, because the world tells us we have to be hard and strong and upkeep all these things, but we are still human. Our experience is there's some level of experience that we experience that is consistent with the same of every other human on this planet, and so I wanted to talk to your inner person this morning.

Speaker 1: 1:38

I've been going through a lot personally, going through a lot personally. My daughter is a teenager and making decisions that would very well crush a parent and give her the help and guidance and give her the forgiveness the world will not and give her the grace and the love that the world will not, and that's difficult, and so that's been heavy on me and it's kind of kept me from creating episodes because I've been going through some things. But I'm here today because I've learned some lessons from those moments over the last couple of months, um, and the first one, I'll tell you, is more of a personal thing and not of, hey, this is what you do with your teenage daughter, um, but more so, um, what to do with you. And today's note, fathers, will be about savoring moments. I've listened to a couple of podcasts about, you know, minding your mind, and what I've heard over this past couple of weeks has been like a consistent, even with my therapist, of that being present and what that looks like and savoring those moments. Oftentimes we're so busy trying to provide and be a provider and that we forget that those moments when, where we need to sit and taste the air, breathe, you know, smell the air and listen and use all of our senses to really be present, we're usually in our phone thinking of the very next move that we're going to take in order to further provide for our family and be more valuable to our family.

Speaker 1: 3:36

But there's this story about how there's a song that came out in the 80s where this dad it's a story about how the dad basically, you know, was in places where the kids was or maybe he worked late nights and maybe he spent so much time away from his kids because he felt like he was doing them a service. And years roll by and you know he's missing. He's at events but not really present, not really talking or, you know, not really enjoying and always thinking about the next thing. And then he looks up, years go by and his son, um, writes a song and ends up in the Hall of Fame and you know, his son is just as busy, his child is just as busy as he is when he was an adult, and he reaches out. The father reaches out to the son and asks hey, you know, hey, I would love to spend some more time with you. And the son, you know, basically said I would love to spend more time with you if I had more time, and it's all.

Speaker 1: 4:39

It's like how your decisions will come full circle these moments when your children are growing and little and you're, you know, getting upset for long periods of time about little things and that, in the grand scheme of your lifespan, doesn't really matter. You're wasting time. Forgive your kids, love on your kids. It's not about who's being the bigger person, but in fact you see the world from a different vantage point, vantage point from your kids. Your ego can wait. Your pride can wait. Your pride can wait Because there's moments that you won't get back once they're gone.

Speaker 1: 5:21

And for me, I feel that I'm always working a lot. I mean, I spend time with my family and I dedicate time with my family. But am I really there, family, and I dedicate time with my family, but am I really there? Like there's holidays that take place that I kind of just you know, I'm anxious or I'm overthinking it, because I want it to be perfect, I want it to be great, I want everybody to enjoy it, and I'm not really necessarily enjoying it. I'm looking forward to it being over, so that I can see everyone's smile on their face, and what's happening is I'm not actually enjoying the moment, I'm not smelling the air, creating the sense, and so I miss. I feel like I'm actually missing those moments. I'm not really creating those things like a memory would be made.

Speaker 1: 6:06

And so my tips for you today is ways that you can also make a memory in those situations. That you can also make a memory in those situations and the way that you would make memories in moments where you were being stimulated, or the lack of, is that you would put other senses in place. We used to remember so many things based on smell, based on sound, based on all these different nuances that make up the atmosphere. Recreate the atmosphere in order for your moments to become memories. And that's my advice to you guys Make moments memories by including your other senses.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Be present and savor the moment. There's research on savoring moments. It's different than just being there. Savor those moments, the good and the bad, because they all make up memories. In the end of the day, when you're looking back on your life, when you're 80, 90 years old and you're trying to see what went right and what went wrong, all of those memories will be valuable in those senses and there'll be things you won't even remember, that you probably hold really important today, may not matter at all in 10 years, 5 years. So get through the moment, save it as a memory, love your family, create those memories, be present when you get the chance, and that's my note to dads