/
Episode 248
This Thanksgiving, join me for a heartfelt exploration of life’s most challenging moments. When our carefully constructed and curated expectations shatter like dishes crashing from a flipped table, how can you find grace, gratitude, and grounding?
In this short solo episode, I draw from a deeply personal reflection sparked by loss and uncertainty. This episode speaks directly to anyone feeling untethered—parents struggling with family challenges, individuals navigating unexpected life transitions, or anyone wrestling with the gap between what is and what we thought life (or Thanksgiving) would be.
Gift yourself 15 minutes and find ways to embrace your current journey compassionately, sit with discomfort, and discover that being “okay” looks different for everyone.
This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol
Hopestream Community is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and an Amazon Associate. We may make a small commission if you purchase from our links.
If you are walking around the stores as I was today, distracting myself from what I really needed to be doing, And looking at decorations and food and new appliances and pillows that seem to be like, Hmm, maybe that’s what’s missing. Maybe that pillow on the couch will make me feel better. Instead of distracting yourself, try a little bit of introspection, find a place outside to breathe in all of the magic that comes from nature that comes from the leaves on the ground. And just know that not one of those things out there is going to anchor you.
[00:00:42] Welcome to Hopestream, a podcast where you’ll hear interviews, conversations, and encouraging words for parents of teens and young adults who struggle with substance misuse and mental health. I’m Brenda Zane, your host and a fellow parent whose child struggled. I’m so glad you’re here. Take a deep breath and know you’re not doing this alone anymore.
[00:01:11] Hey friend, well, since today’s episode falls on Thanksgiving, it seems natural that I would do an episode about being thankful for all the things that we should have gratitude for, or how to navigate Thanksgiving with complicated kids and families.
[00:01:29] And at the end of the day, I realized that what I see so many people suffering with is this sense of displacement and disassociation from everything that they know or everything that they thought that they would be experiencing. It’s kind of this sense of disorientation. And all of these things come when your life gets turned upside down, or when it gets turned upside down and then it gets turned right side up again, for some of you, but it looks completely different than the right side up that you used to know.
[00:02:10] It’s like you’re having dinner at your dinner table. And just like in the Housewives of New Jersey, if you remember this episode from a long, long time ago, there was a big table flip. Everything went crazy. Everything fell to the floor. There was a lot of mayhem. And then eventually the table gets uprighted only you are not at the same table anymore.
[00:02:34] And it is so confusing and things aren’t bad. They’re good. But maybe they’re different good. It is just very confusing.
[00:02:43] And this idea came to me today because I was trying to figure out what to share with you on this episode on Thanksgiving. And I found myself distracting myself over and over and over finding all kinds of [00:03:00] things that I needed to do, like go to target, like talk to my kids on the phone. like organize my office, sort out some bills, dig into a problem that we were having on the website, you know, all these things that kept distracting me from sitting down and really facing what I needed to get done Because it requires thinking, it requires concentration, and it requires tapping into emotions and feeling and sometimes Target looks like a way better option to that. And I am so fortunate because my table in this scenario has been uprighted and it does look different and that’s okay. And I’m thinking that you might be either in the pre table flip stage or your table might be upside down right now.
[00:03:58] And the chaos is ensuing. Or you may be somewhere in between and it’s all disorienting. And I think that is the feeling that I experienced myself and that I see you experiencing. It’s this feeling of disorientation of like, where am I now? My life doesn’t look like what I anticipated it would look like.
[00:04:22] And what we anticipate life is going to look like is usually based on what other members of our family’s lives [00:04:30] have looked like, right? That’s our vision or what people who we admire, what their lives look like, or what we see in the media or what we read in books. And it can be, I think, extremely dangerous to focus on those things because those are not our things.
[00:04:51] And we have to realize that that anticipation of what we thought a holiday like Thanksgiving would look like is just a fabrication of what it actually really is. And what it really is, is a time to be in the presence of others have some grace with people who are working on becoming better versions of themselves, have grace with ourselves, as we work on having and being better versions of ourselves.
[00:05:24] And for taking a moment to appreciate the delicate, fragile, and impermanent nature of ourselves of being together. And I say this coming out of a week of family friends losing their son tragically in a diving accident had nothing to do with substances. This young man was 27 at the peak of his very young life, doing incredible things in his own personal life and in his career, but also serving [00:06:00] others.
[00:06:01] And when a life is just extinguished with no notice, no reason, no anything, it kind of stops you in your tracks. It’s like a punch to the gut that told me and is still telling me, be here, be present for all of it, for the good stuff, for the painful stuff, for the stuff confuses me for the stuff that frustrates me or angers me.
[00:06:37] Even be here to be curious about this sense of disorientation and to what I think should be going on. And why do I think that if you think about it, we may say, Oh, I feel so untethered to what my life should be, but this is your life. You can’t be untethered from it because you are in it and you are tied to it and it is it.
[00:07:05] And so I don’t know if you can sneak away, if you’re listening in real time on Thanksgiving from whatever or wherever you may be with friends, with family,
[00:07:18] if you’re by yourself to just pause and say, thank you life for being here. Thank you for holding me, even though I feel untethered, [00:07:30] even though I feel like I’m floating and I really want my feet to ground and land and have everything feel right and in order, like everything is spinning in the right direction again.
[00:07:44] It’s okay if it’s not like that today. I always laugh because we have a dog who I call our high sensitive dog. You know how there’s highly sensitive people. He is our highly sensitive dog. And just like a highly sensitive person, he feels our discomfort when we are uncomfortable.
[00:08:06] He feels sadness. And it’s not until my husband, my son and I are all at home, all together in the same room, where I can see him, just, I can see him thinking to himself, it’s okay. Now life is spinning in the right direction. My people are all here. I’m in my bed. The fire is going in the fireplace. The soccer game is on TV.
[00:08:31] Somebody is cooking and everything is okay. It’s okay. And we all want that right? We all want everything to be okay and spinning in the right direction. And so if you’re in a position where everything is okay, you’re in your bed, the fireplace is going, someone’s cooking and all your people are around. I hope I hope I hope that you will just close your eyes and savor that because there’s no [00:09:00] guarantee that that is going to last.
[00:09:03] And I don’t say that to scare you. I don’t say that to be, you know, pessimistic, but live in it today and breathe it in and soak it in tell those around you how much they mean to you. And if your table is flipped, legs in the air and the food is all over the floor. And people are slipping and sliding and swearing and punching holes in the wall.
[00:09:32] That’s okay too. Or maybe your person or your people are not with you. They’re away from you. Maybe they have to be somewhere else right now because they can’t be with you. And that hurts deeply. Maybe. Just also take some time for yourself to recognize that. You’ve done what you can with the information you have, you’ve loved and loved and loved and you are not willing to love that person to death. You are only willing to love them to life and I know how painful that is to have your child out there. not with you. Maybe they’re not safe. And the only thing I can say through the scar tissue of my lived experience is that it is part of their journey.
[00:10:27] We wish it wasn’t. We wish this was [00:10:30] not their story, but it is. And it’s also part of your story. So give yourself grace and tap into somebody who understands this so that you’re not feeling alone in it.
[00:10:45] And if you are walking around the stores as I was today, walking through Target, distracting myself from what I really needed to be doing, And looking at decorations and food and new appliances and pillows that seem to be like, Hmm, maybe that’s what’s missing. Maybe that pillow on the couch will make me feel better.
[00:11:09] Maybe a new recipe for stuffing this year will be just what we need. Instead of distracting yourself, try a little bit of introspection, maybe find a place outside to breathe in all of the magic that comes from nature that comes from the leaves on the ground. And just know that none of those things, not one of those things out there is going to anchor you.
[00:11:38] You are going to anchor you. You cannot depend on anyone or anything to do that for you. And so just find your practices.
[00:11:48] You know what those are. You know what makes you feel good and feel grounded. And if you are in a good place with happiness around you and celebrating with loved ones, [00:12:00] maybe send a wish for that parent who is not where you are today. We need all of the good energy in the world that we can right now, especially the ones who are really struggling.
[00:12:13] And instead of distracting yourself, just go inward, look inside, be okay with being untethered. Be okay with the feeling of disillusion, disappointment. I heard a great word this week, a friend of mine shared the word antisappointment, which I think is so beautiful and fitting for everything and everywhere that we are right now.
[00:12:38] So grasp on and hold on to your antisappointment and know that it’s okay. These holidays and special occasions don’t have a right way. There is no right way. So looking at the family next to you or the home next to you or the things on TV or Instagram or wherever, that’s not a template. That is not right.
[00:13:01] They are not right. And you are not wrong. You’re exactly exactly where you’re supposed to be right now. Even if that feels scratchy, and sandpapery and uncomfortable, it’s okay. Just be okay with it. we often feel the sandpaperiness of life and we try to smooth it out immediately and just sitting with it and welcoming it and saying, wow, I feel the [00:13:30] scratch.
[00:13:30] It’s okay. I feel the crack in my heart. I just feel it. I don’t buy into it. It’s not me. I’m not going to make stories about it. It’s not here forever. It’s what it is today. And I’m now going to do something to care for myself and tend to myself and my heart. So yeah, that’s what I’ve got today. That’s what came after I stopped all the distraction around me.
[00:13:59] And it’s really hard sometimes. So if you’re in distraction mode, Picking up the last minute thing that you really didn’t need, but it felt like it was important. You can smile to yourself and know that you are in good company. Many of us are trying to distract our way through the holiday. And I am just sending so much love, so much peace, lots of low drama energy to you.
[00:14:26] And know that you are okay. Even if you feel disoriented, even if your table is upside down, even if you are not quite sure what is going to ensue, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to get through it and you’re going to do it with grace because I know you, you are going to do it with grace and style and empathy and compassion and all kinds of badassery because that is the kind of parent that you are.
[00:14:57] And I look forward to meeting [00:15:00] you right back here next week.
[00:00:42] Welcome to Hopestream, a podcast where you’ll hear interviews, conversations, and encouraging words for parents of teens and young adults who struggle with substance misuse and mental health. I’m Brenda Zane, your host and a fellow parent whose child struggled. I’m so glad you’re here. Take a deep breath and know you’re not doing this alone anymore.
[00:01:11] Hey friend, well, since today’s episode falls on Thanksgiving, it seems natural that I would do an episode about being thankful for all the things that we should have gratitude for, or how to navigate Thanksgiving with complicated kids and families.
[00:01:29] And at the end of the day, I realized that what I see so many people suffering with is this sense of displacement and disassociation from everything that they know or everything that they thought that they would be experiencing. It’s kind of this sense of disorientation. And all of these things come when your life gets turned upside down, or when it gets turned upside down and then it gets turned right side up again, for some of you, but it looks completely different than the right side up that you used to know.
[00:02:10] It’s like you’re having dinner at your dinner table. And just like in the Housewives of New Jersey, if you remember this episode from a long, long time ago, there was a big table flip. Everything went crazy. Everything fell to the floor. There was a lot of mayhem. And then eventually the table gets uprighted only you are not at the same table anymore.
[00:02:34] And it is so confusing and things aren’t bad. They’re good. But maybe they’re different good. It is just very confusing.
[00:02:43] And this idea came to me today because I was trying to figure out what to share with you on this episode on Thanksgiving. And I found myself distracting myself over and over and over finding all kinds of [00:03:00] things that I needed to do, like go to target, like talk to my kids on the phone. like organize my office, sort out some bills, dig into a problem that we were having on the website, you know, all these things that kept distracting me from sitting down and really facing what I needed to get done Because it requires thinking, it requires concentration, and it requires tapping into emotions and feeling and sometimes Target looks like a way better option to that. And I am so fortunate because my table in this scenario has been uprighted and it does look different and that’s okay. And I’m thinking that you might be either in the pre table flip stage or your table might be upside down right now.
[00:03:58] And the chaos is ensuing. Or you may be somewhere in between and it’s all disorienting. And I think that is the feeling that I experienced myself and that I see you experiencing. It’s this feeling of disorientation of like, where am I now? My life doesn’t look like what I anticipated it would look like.
[00:04:22] And what we anticipate life is going to look like is usually based on what other members of our family’s lives [00:04:30] have looked like, right? That’s our vision or what people who we admire, what their lives look like, or what we see in the media or what we read in books. And it can be, I think, extremely dangerous to focus on those things because those are not our things.
[00:04:51] And we have to realize that that anticipation of what we thought a holiday like Thanksgiving would look like is just a fabrication of what it actually really is. And what it really is, is a time to be in the presence of others have some grace with people who are working on becoming better versions of themselves, have grace with ourselves, as we work on having and being better versions of ourselves.
[00:05:24] And for taking a moment to appreciate the delicate, fragile, and impermanent nature of ourselves of being together. And I say this coming out of a week of family friends losing their son tragically in a diving accident had nothing to do with substances. This young man was 27 at the peak of his very young life, doing incredible things in his own personal life and in his career, but also serving [00:06:00] others.
[00:06:01] And when a life is just extinguished with no notice, no reason, no anything, it kind of stops you in your tracks. It’s like a punch to the gut that told me and is still telling me, be here, be present for all of it, for the good stuff, for the painful stuff, for the stuff confuses me for the stuff that frustrates me or angers me.
[00:06:37] Even be here to be curious about this sense of disorientation and to what I think should be going on. And why do I think that if you think about it, we may say, Oh, I feel so untethered to what my life should be, but this is your life. You can’t be untethered from it because you are in it and you are tied to it and it is it.
[00:07:05] And so I don’t know if you can sneak away, if you’re listening in real time on Thanksgiving from whatever or wherever you may be with friends, with family,
[00:07:18] if you’re by yourself to just pause and say, thank you life for being here. Thank you for holding me, even though I feel untethered, [00:07:30] even though I feel like I’m floating and I really want my feet to ground and land and have everything feel right and in order, like everything is spinning in the right direction again.
[00:07:44] It’s okay if it’s not like that today. I always laugh because we have a dog who I call our high sensitive dog. You know how there’s highly sensitive people. He is our highly sensitive dog. And just like a highly sensitive person, he feels our discomfort when we are uncomfortable.
[00:08:06] He feels sadness. And it’s not until my husband, my son and I are all at home, all together in the same room, where I can see him, just, I can see him thinking to himself, it’s okay. Now life is spinning in the right direction. My people are all here. I’m in my bed. The fire is going in the fireplace. The soccer game is on TV.
[00:08:31] Somebody is cooking and everything is okay. It’s okay. And we all want that right? We all want everything to be okay and spinning in the right direction. And so if you’re in a position where everything is okay, you’re in your bed, the fireplace is going, someone’s cooking and all your people are around. I hope I hope I hope that you will just close your eyes and savor that because there’s no [00:09:00] guarantee that that is going to last.
[00:09:03] And I don’t say that to scare you. I don’t say that to be, you know, pessimistic, but live in it today and breathe it in and soak it in tell those around you how much they mean to you. And if your table is flipped, legs in the air and the food is all over the floor. And people are slipping and sliding and swearing and punching holes in the wall.
[00:09:32] That’s okay too. Or maybe your person or your people are not with you. They’re away from you. Maybe they have to be somewhere else right now because they can’t be with you. And that hurts deeply. Maybe. Just also take some time for yourself to recognize that. You’ve done what you can with the information you have, you’ve loved and loved and loved and you are not willing to love that person to death. You are only willing to love them to life and I know how painful that is to have your child out there. not with you. Maybe they’re not safe. And the only thing I can say through the scar tissue of my lived experience is that it is part of their journey.
[00:10:27] We wish it wasn’t. We wish this was [00:10:30] not their story, but it is. And it’s also part of your story. So give yourself grace and tap into somebody who understands this so that you’re not feeling alone in it.
[00:10:45] And if you are walking around the stores as I was today, walking through Target, distracting myself from what I really needed to be doing, And looking at decorations and food and new appliances and pillows that seem to be like, Hmm, maybe that’s what’s missing. Maybe that pillow on the couch will make me feel better.
[00:11:09] Maybe a new recipe for stuffing this year will be just what we need. Instead of distracting yourself, try a little bit of introspection, maybe find a place outside to breathe in all of the magic that comes from nature that comes from the leaves on the ground. And just know that none of those things, not one of those things out there is going to anchor you.
[00:11:38] You are going to anchor you. You cannot depend on anyone or anything to do that for you. And so just find your practices.
[00:11:48] You know what those are. You know what makes you feel good and feel grounded. And if you are in a good place with happiness around you and celebrating with loved ones, [00:12:00] maybe send a wish for that parent who is not where you are today. We need all of the good energy in the world that we can right now, especially the ones who are really struggling.
[00:12:13] And instead of distracting yourself, just go inward, look inside, be okay with being untethered. Be okay with the feeling of disillusion, disappointment. I heard a great word this week, a friend of mine shared the word antisappointment, which I think is so beautiful and fitting for everything and everywhere that we are right now.
[00:12:38] So grasp on and hold on to your antisappointment and know that it’s okay. These holidays and special occasions don’t have a right way. There is no right way. So looking at the family next to you or the home next to you or the things on TV or Instagram or wherever, that’s not a template. That is not right.
[00:13:01] They are not right. And you are not wrong. You’re exactly exactly where you’re supposed to be right now. Even if that feels scratchy, and sandpapery and uncomfortable, it’s okay. Just be okay with it. we often feel the sandpaperiness of life and we try to smooth it out immediately and just sitting with it and welcoming it and saying, wow, I feel the [00:13:30] scratch.
[00:13:30] It’s okay. I feel the crack in my heart. I just feel it. I don’t buy into it. It’s not me. I’m not going to make stories about it. It’s not here forever. It’s what it is today. And I’m now going to do something to care for myself and tend to myself and my heart. So yeah, that’s what I’ve got today. That’s what came after I stopped all the distraction around me.
[00:13:59] And it’s really hard sometimes. So if you’re in distraction mode, Picking up the last minute thing that you really didn’t need, but it felt like it was important. You can smile to yourself and know that you are in good company. Many of us are trying to distract our way through the holiday. And I am just sending so much love, so much peace, lots of low drama energy to you.
[00:14:26] And know that you are okay. Even if you feel disoriented, even if your table is upside down, even if you are not quite sure what is going to ensue, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to get through it and you’re going to do it with grace because I know you, you are going to do it with grace and style and empathy and compassion and all kinds of badassery because that is the kind of parent that you are.
[00:14:57] And I look forward to meeting [00:15:00] you right back here next week.
