In this episode, Joy talks about her grief process when she learned about her son's trans identification and how her strong faith has helped her work through her grief. She explains that separating from the family may also be an important aspect of a child's developmental process.
Joy reminds us that it's important to hold onto and honor and cherish our memories and not only hold on to the anger and disappointment. We don't want to get stuck in the cycle of loneliness and isolation. Embracing and accepting the difficult emotions is part of healing. Its just not okay to get stuck there.
Joy: "Resting is a good place to be. And it's also part of it. I think it's further down the grief cycle. because initially you're not ready to rest, you're ready to learn everything you can.”
Joy: “We expected to have our children, to love our children, to nourish our children, to care for our children. We never expected to let them go. And this is part of the parenting process too.”
Joy asks herself: “what's the worst case scenario? I'll think about it. And I'll put it in my head. And then I'll say, okay, does that mean his life isn't worth anything? No.
It just means my ideal of what I expected his life to be is going to look different. And that's okay. That's okay.”
Joy offers a weekly prayer group. To see the calendar and join the group, please click here.
StoicMom highlights Joy's intentionality in the meaning she makes from the situation with her trans identified son. She also asks the crucial question: what is our relationship to the pain?
StoicMom: “We need to be big enough to hold our kids through this. And we need something big enough to hold us.”
“Looking at the ugly things strengthens us.”
“And freedom, I like that you call it freedom. that is where our agency is. Yes, we can continue to be a victim. Or we can choose something else. We can choose to make something beautiful out of the tragedy.”
Got a topic you would like StoicMom to address in an upcoming episode? Leave it in the comments! If you enjoyed this conversation, please like the post. And if you have any thoughts to share, we love to hear them!
Share this post