Flipping the Script.

Some of my first memories as a child are of hanging onto the side of a pool awaiting my turn to swim with my mother. She would switch back and forth between my sister and I, as we were five and three at the time.

Fast forward many years later to teaching my own kids to swim. One particular moment still stands out vividly. One of my daughters, who was just a bit older than I was in those early memories, decided she was ready to ride on my back underwater for a quick dip.

I asked her to tap my back if she needed to surface. As I slowly submerged us, I only went deep enough to take us both under briefly. After a few seconds I surfaced, slightly uncomfortable, only to realize she wanted to go deeper.

So back down we went.

As my belly dragged across the bottom of the pool, she held on, and a complete body chill took over me. It wasn’t fear exactly. It was the realization that she trusted me completely.

As we slowly surfaced, she smiled and immediately asked to do it again, but this time to wait until she tapped.

It’s been fourteen years since that moment, and while her memory of it may differ, it still brings up many emotions for me.

I grew up with divorced parents and alongside four brothers and five sisters. Each one of us carrying our own emotional weights, some heavy, some beautiful, some indifferent, yet all of them contributing to who we became.

While parents often receive the majority of the blame or praise for a child’s development, I’ve realized how many other influences quietly shape us too. Some reinforce emotional wounds. Others help soften them. Many do both without ever intending to.

The truth is that many parents barely get the amount of time with their children they truly long for. Work, stress, institutions, expectations, and survival itself all leave their signatures on a family.

Looking back, I can now see that during nearly every joyful or painful season of my life, there was always someone, directly or indirectly, contributing something my psyche seemed to need at the time.

The apple and the tree explain a lot, yet equally it takes a tribe too.

Every person who enters our lives, whether through joy, hardship, guidance, pressure, or simple presence, leaves behind individual emotional signatures.

Over time, those experiences shape the perspective through which we learn to face life’s obstacles.

One of my heaviest periods took place over a three-year stretch. At the time it simply felt like normal life unfolding yet looking back I can now see the weight of it more clearly.

Within those years came the loss of an incredible job, a marriage, rebound love, and three essential family members in my life.

The transition away from that career placed me on airplanes for nearly three years straight. Somewhere within all that movement, audiobooks slowly found their way into my subconscious.

I remember developing a strange balance with them. I would listen to one heavy book, then follow it with something lighter or fun. At the time, that emotional roller coaster somehow made perfect sense.

Over time, this method became a mantra of sorts. I found myself endlessly reading, taking notes, reflecting, and slowly metabolizing these ideas into my psyche.

One concept that stood out to me was the idea of love languages and how each of us carries a sort of emotional fuel tank that requires proper care to function well.

From feng shui to gemstones, psychology to spirituality, I became fascinated by the many ways people search for healing, meaning, and connection. None of these interests provided overnight success, which in itself became one of the hardest lessons to accept.

What slowly began to shift my life, however, was prioritizing my own genuine interests over the constant recommendations, expectations, and projections of others.

One of my favorite lessons from that time came from a simple note reminding me not to take the bait, but instead to learn from the temptation itself.

Yoga became another powerful teacher for me. Not simply the poses, but the deeper meaning behind the word itself, union. In many ways, I realized that most of yoga’s true practice takes place off the mat.