Am I Being Selfish for Moving Forward? For Alienated & Estranged Parents

desires guilt moving forward self care

Shelby Milford: Is It Selfish To Want More?? For Alienated & Estranged Parents

Are you a bad parent if, in the middle of alienation, you decide to treat yourself to something new? What if you laughed at a movie, planted flowers, took a vacation, or had one quiet afternoon where you weren't consumed by the grief?

If you've ever had a completely normal human moment and immediately felt guilty for it, you're not alone. And... this post (and companion podcast episode) is for you.

Why Parental Alienation Keeps You in Permanent Crisis Mode

"Parental alienation forces you into an unnatural state of permanent crisis. And when your body has been living in that crisis for so long, even peace can start to feel suspicious."

Alienation can make you feel like if you are not actively suffering, you must not care. If you're not crying, not obsessing, not researching, emailing, fighting, trying to prove your innocence, trying to figure out the next move — some part of your brain may be whispering, "What kind of parent are you?"

But here's what's important to understand: that whisper didn't start with alienation. Alienation amplified it. Alienation weaponized it. But most of us were trained long before any of this happened to believe that our needs were either inconvenient, dangerous, or morally questionable.

The Childhood Programming Behind the Guilt

Before we even talk about alienation, we need to zoom out — because most of us were trained very early on to have a deeply confused relationship with the word selfish.

A lot of little girls are taught, directly or indirectly, that being good means being agreeable, nurturing, helpful, and low-maintenance. Don't need too much. Don't ask for too much. Don't take up too much space. Those little girls grow up into women and mothers who believe that love means putting everyone else first and themselves last.

And a lot of little boys are taught that their value comes from providing, producing, staying strong, fixing the problem, and not needing much emotionally. Those little boys grow up into men and fathers who believe that if they're tired, scared, or heartbroken, they should just push harder and provide more.

Then parenthood amplifies all of it. And then alienation takes that already distorted programming and weaponizes it.

Because now the thought becomes: "If a good parent sacrifices everything, what kind of parent am I to want peace? To want one moment of clarity and joy? To stop obsessing for five minutes and just breathe?"

Once you understand that this guilt was trained into you long before alienation began, you can start questioning it instead of obeying it.

Why Staying Small Is Not Proof of Love

This is where the trap gets even more twisted.

The guilt tells you that staying small is proof of love. That staying isolated is proof of devotion. That staying depressed is proof that your child matters to you.

But what if staying small is not protecting the bond? What if staying small is actually helping the alienation take more from you than it already has?

When you disappear into guilt, shame, and instability, you can accidentally become the very picture the alienating parent's narrative has painted of you — broken, unstable, incapable, unsafe.

There's a difference between honoring your pain and letting it become your identity.

The Selfish Soundtracks Playing in Your Head

Moving forward doesn't always look like a dramatic life change. Most of the time, it shows up in tiny daily decisions.

Sometimes it's just buying the better groceries. Replacing your mattress. Going to the movies. Not spending your child's birthday in bed with old photos and a nervous system completely on fire.

And with each of those little decisions, there's usually an inner soundtrack. Here are some of the most common ones — and the truth underneath them.

"How can I buy a nice couch when my child isn't here to sit on it?" Reframe: You cannot heal a traumatized nervous system in a living space that feels like a temporary holding cell. Your body needs cues for safety. Decorating your space is not about forgetting your child — it's building a stable, peaceful home that is ready to welcome them back.

"Taking care of my body feels vain when my child is suffering." Reframe: Taking care of you is not self-indulgence. It's battle readiness. Not the battle of fighting harder with the ex or the courts — the deeper battle of staying alive, staying regulated, staying emotionally available, staying healthy enough to handle whatever comes next. Your child needs you to survive this ordeal.

"Taking care of you is not self-indulgence. It's battle readiness."

"If I'm happy, it means I don't miss them." Reframe: Joy is not amnesia — it's preservation. Joy does not mean you forgot. Joy does not mean you don't miss them. Sometimes it's just your nervous system taking a clean breath of air. Sometimes it's your soul reminding you that alienation didn't get to destroy every single last part of you.

Want to go deeper on joy and healing? Check out *10 Solid Reasons It's Ok To Create Happiness...

The Shadow Calendar

Alienated parents often live by two calendars.

There's the regular calendar everyone else is living by. And then there's the shadow calendar — the one inside your chest. Today they would be turning 16. Today we should be prom shopping. Today I should be making their favorite breakfast.

That kind of temporal whiplash can keep your nervous system in a perpetual trauma response. You're physically in the present, but emotionally being dragged through an alternate timeline of everything that should have been.

On hard days — birthdays, holidays, milestones — you don't have to choose between total collapse or performing fake happiness. There's a third option: parallel celebration.

Parallel celebration means honoring the bond from exactly where you are, with exactly what you have. You celebrate your child externally from a distance instead of suffering internally in isolation. Maybe you plant a tree on their birthday. Donate a toy to charity in their honor. Bake their favorite cake and share it with people who love you. Light a candle. Write a card — whether you send it or not.

This is not pretending the day doesn't hurt. This is giving the love somewhere to go.

Moving On vs. Moving Forward — The Distinction That Matters

For an alienated parent, the phrase moving on can sound like closing the door. Like replacing your child. Like saying, "Well, that chapter's over."

No wonder your whole body rejects it.

But moving forward is different.

Moving on implies leaving your child behind.
Moving forward means taking your child with you in your heart while you continue to grow, live, heal, and build.
Moving forward means you are not making your pain the only evidence of your love (If this resonates, you might also love the episode *Mistaking a Painful Narrative for True Connection — it goes deep on exactly this.)
Moving forward means building a life that still has room for them.

This is where the lighthouse metaphor matters deeply.

A lighthouse does not swim out into the stormy sea to drag ships to shore. It stands. It shines. It stays stable. It becomes a point of orientation for when the storm clears.

But if a lighthouse crumbles into the sea out of sympathy for the ship — now both are lost.

Your child may not be able to see your light right now. They may not even know it's there. But that does not mean the light isn't needed.

Selfishness vs. Self-Care — The Real Definitions

Your inner critic is calling everything selfish. Rest is selfish. Joy is selfish. Decorating is selfish. Spending money on your health is selfish.

But that's not what selfishness actually means.

Selfishness is caring primarily or exclusively about your own interests and desires without regard for the well-being of others. Selfishness says, "Only I matter." It takes from others for personal gain.

Self-care is the ongoing practice of taking intentional actions to protect, promote, and maintain your holistic wellbeing — physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual. Self-care says, "I matter too."

If self-care allows you to stay alive, regulated, grounded, and capable of loving your child without disappearing into the pain — then it is not the opposite of good parenting. It may be one of the most important forms of parenting available to you right now.

Your Challenge This Week

Do one thing this week that the old programming would call selfish.

Not something reckless. Not something that abandons your values. One small, intentional thing that supports your life.

Buy the better groceries
Sit in the sun for 20 minutes without checking your phone
Fix the thing in the house that's been broken for months
Put fresh sheets on your bed
Go to a movie
Paint a room
Make the appointment with the counselor or coach

And when the guilt comes up — because it probably will — say this: "I'm not abandoning my child. I'm rebuilding the parent they will one day need to find."

If you'd like support in doing this work — not just surviving alienation but actively rebuilding — working with Shelby one-on-one might be your next "right" step.

You are not selfish for choosing to survive. You are not selfish for choosing to thrive — even inside alienation. You are not selfish for becoming the lighthouse instead of letting the storm take you under.

Moving forward does not mean leaving your child behind.

It means carrying the love with you — enough love for both of you — while you keep becoming someone stable enough, whole enough, and alive enough to receive them when they find their way home.

This is not selfish. This is sacred.

Listen to the full episode of Beyond the High Road wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube (or click on the vid above👆🏼).

Episode Transcript

Am I Being Selfish for Moving Forward? For Alienated Parents

Your child needs you to survive this ordeal. I don't care what they're saying to you right now or if they're saying nothing, it's crickets out there. They need you to survive this, A broken down, chronically depleted parent cannot handle the complex emotional reunion that may happen months or even years from now.

Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.

Stay tuned

[00:00:41] Am I Selfish for Moving Forward? | Alienated Parent Guilt

Hi Everybody, how we doing today? So today I wanna start off with a few questions like I did last week. Okay? So are you a bad parent? Do you believe somewhere in you that you're a bad parent if you bought a new coffee maker today? Are you selfish if you spend an hour planting flowers in your yard, um, instead of crying over the last text that your kiddo wrote to you,

or reviewing the court documents maybe for the gazillionth time, Are, are you betraying your child if you laughed at a movie, cooked yourself a decent meal, bought new sheets, went to the gym, or had a quiet afternoon where your entire nervous system was not wrapped around the alienation?

If you've ever had a human, no- completely normal human moment and then immediately felt guilty for it, this episode is for you. Because parental alienation forces you, forces us into an unnatural state of permanent crisis. And when your body has been living in that crisis, this crisis, for so long, even peace, your moments of peace can start to feel suspicious

[00:01:48] Why Parental Alienation Keeps You in Permanent Crisis Mode

Alienation itself can make you feel like if you are not actively bleeding, gushing blood, that you must not care.

If you're not crying, if you're not obsessing, if you're not researching, emailing, fighting, trying to prove your innocence, trying to figure out the next move, some part of your brain may be whispering to you, " What kind of parent are you?"

But I want to offer that that whisper didn't start with alienation. Alienation amplified it, yeah. Alienation weaponized it for sure. But most of us were trained long before this ever happened, alienation ever happened, to believe that our needs were either inconvenient, dangerous, or morally questionable.

So today we are gonna break down the specific selfish soundtracks that might be playing in your head. We're gonna look at where that programming came from, and then we're gonna give those thoughts, shamey thoughts, a new script. Okay? Because buying the coffee maker, planting the flowers, going to therapy, laughing at the movie, or making your home feel peaceful is not abandonment of your kid it may just be you in the middle of the construction of that lighthouse that we've been talking about for when your child finds their way home.

[00:03:04] The Childhood Programming That Makes Alienated Parents Feel Guilty for Self-Care

So before we even talk about alienation, I wanna zoom out for a second because most of us were trained very early on to have a really confused relationship with the word selfish.

So A lot of little girls are taught directly or indirectly, that being good means being agreeable, being nurturing, being helpful, being low maintenance. Don't need too much, don't ask for too much, and don't take up too much space. Then those little girls grow up into women and then, then into mothers who believe that love means putting everyone else first and themselves last.

a lot of little boys also are taught that their value comes from providing, from producing, from staying strong, from fixing the problem, from performing at the highest level, and not needing much emotionally, right? And then those little boys grow into men and then into fathers who believe that if they are tired, if they are scared, heartbroken, emotionally depleted, whatever it is, that they should just push harder and provide more.

And even as kids, many of us learn that wanting space, wanting some, like, privacy, personal time away, right, wanting something different than the other kids wanted, wanting more or saying no could -- get labeled as selfish.

So we learned to disconnect from our own needs before we even had language for them Then parenthood comes along and this conditioning gets amplified. Suddenly, there's this cultural pressure to be the parent who gives everything, signs up for everything, buys everything, attends everything, signs the kids up for all of the summer camps and all the things,

sacrifices everything, and somehow does it all with a smile. And if you're not careful, then keeping up with the Joneses stops being about what the neighbors have and starts becoming an intrusion on your own self-concept.

You start measuring your worth as a parent by how much of yourself you are willing to lose. Then alienation comes in and takes that already distorted programming and then weaponizes it.

Because now the thought becomes, " If a good parent sacrifices everything, then what kind of parent am I to want peace, want a peaceful day, want, moments of clarity and joy even? What kind of parent am I if I buy myself something? What kind of parent am I if I stop obsessing for five minutes and breathe?" So when we talk today about whether moving forward is selfish, I do not want you to hear this as some sha-shallow conversation about self-care.

This is deeper than bubble baths and boundaries. okay? We are talking about decades of conditioning that taught you that your own needs were either dangerous, inconvenient, or morally suspicious. And so right now we're gonna begin to untangle that.

Because once you understand that this guilt was trained into you long before alienation began, you can start questioning it instead of obeying it. The conditioning I'm talking about. So let's look at the architecture of the selfish trap- how old program defines a good parent as a complete martyr, And why that definition becomes so dangerous inside of alienation.

[00:06:18] The "Good Parent = Martyr" Trap — And Why It Backfires in Alienation

The old programming that a good parent gives everything, a good parent sacrifices. A good parent puts themself last.

A good parent does not rest until we know that the child is okay, That can sound noble. And in the ordinary parenting, sacrifice, self-sacrifice, has a feedback loop. You stay up late, you pack the lunches, you drive to practice, you go without so that your child can have.

The loop part of this, is somewhere in there, you get a smile, you get a hug, you get a little hand in yours, the, "Thanks, Mom," "Thanks, Dad." And when that happens, your cup gets refilled. But in alienation, you sacrifice, the void swallows it, and you're left empty. You give and give and give and give, and there may be no response, no repair, no reassurance, no visible evidence that anything that you are doing is landing.

This is one of the biggest, pain points for many of my b- brand-new clients. It really is something that people have a hard time with because it feels like it's just you're giving, giving, giving, and it goes out into the abyss, right? If there's... You don't know if it's being received, if it's working, quote-unquote, working or not, you know.

It feels hopeless and lonely. So if you do not make a conscious decision to refill your own cup, There may not be a natural refill coming.

You do not just become tired in that moment. You begin to evaporate yourself,

[00:07:50] Why Staying Stuck Doesn't Prove You Love Your Child

This is where the trap gets even more twisted, you guys. And I, I don't... When I'm saying this, I don't wanna, instill any fear or make this negative.

Trust me, there's a very positive spin on all of this, but I do wanna recognize your pain. The guilt tells you that staying small is proof of love, staying isolated is proof of devotion,

staying depressed is proof that your child matters to you. But what if staying small is not protecting the bond? What if staying small is actually helping the alienation to take more from you than it already has? When you disappear into guilt, into shame, instability, whatever, you can accidentally become the very picture the alienating parent And their narrative has painted of you, right?

Broken, unstable, incapable, too emotional, not okay, unsafe. And I say that with so much compassion because of course you are not okay. It's traumatic. This whole thing is traumatic.

But there's a difference between honoring your pain and letting it become your identity.

[00:08:57] Guilt Soundtracks Alienated Parents Hear — And the Truth Underneath Them

So now I wanna get into something very specific. We're gonna be talking about those soundtracks that I mentioned in the, in, in intro, okay? Because moving forward sounds like this big dramatic thing, right? But most of the time, it shows up in tiny little daily decisions. It's not always moving across the country, starting the new relationship, making a huge life change, or closing some massive chapter, right?

But that's what we all think. We think we have to change it all to get done with that and move forward, move on, right? Sometimes it's just buying the better groceries. Sometimes it's replacing your mattress maybe, or it's going to the movies. It's the everyday things. Sometimes it's not spending your child's birthday in bed with old photos and a nervous system that's completely on fire, you know?

And with each of those little decisions, there's usually an inner soundtrack. So I wanna name the soundtrack, and then I wanna offer you the truth underneath it. That's the whole goal today. one of the ways, I'm gonna give you a few, four different scenarios here, um, and make them yours.

[00:09:59] Is It Selfish to Improve Your Home When Your Child Is Gone?

The first scenario is upgrading your personal environment and comfort, okay?

This one really-- I put this first because this was a, a thing for me. Um, well, I'll get into it in a minute. But the scenario here is buying new furniture, painting a room, upgrading, like I was just mentioned, a worn-out mattress maybe, getting a new coffee maker, fixing something broken in the house, or making your home just feel more peaceful, the environment feel more peaceful.

The internal soundtrack that might go on when you go to do one of those things you have in the past, right? Is " how can I buy a nice couch when my child is not here to sit on it? " That's one." I should be saving every penny for legal emergencies because they're gonna show up".

I just know it, Another one is "decorating a life without them means that I am moving on and that I'm gonna forget them," Or " if I make this place nice, am I admitting that they're not coming back?" That, that was a tough one for me. If I- take out the old decor, if I make the upgrades, am I just admitting defeat?

Am I moving on with my life and replacing the memories of them, her, for me? I wanna give you a reframe here. This is not luxury. The things that, what I just mentioned and any other little upgrades that you wanna do f- to your surroundings, this is not luxury. These are anchors. This whole idea concept is an anchor for you.

You cannot heal a traumatized nervous system in a living space that feels like a temporary holding cell, number one, or a graveyard, Your body needs cues for safety.

Your nervous system needs some evidence from you to support that life is not only danger, it's not only grief, it's not only court files waiting and survival. Decorating your space is not about forgetting your child. It doesn't have to be about that. It's building a stable, peaceful home environment that is ready to welcome your child back without placing the burden of the misery that you've been living onto them. You are allowed to create a space where love still lives. And this was really important to me because back when I was living in the house on the hill, like I, I sold the, the one house, my dream home really, where I had, I bought after the whole mess, right?

I was still going through off and on litigation, all this stuff, but I loved that house. And It was beautiful. I loved the environment, and I needed that back then for the same reason I'm talking about today, because we were going in and out of court, right? When we moved into that house, she was five. And so then I sold that house to pay for court.

Of course, if I'm a good mom, then I should sell the house and use whatever funds I can to pay for those things. I'm not faulting myself for that. That's what I wanted to do then, and that's, that's fine, right? But then I moved into one, two different places, um, to follow that before I moved over here to Florida, and both of those places were...

They had their great qualities, but they also, the interior of both of those homes really felt like a holding cell, like a prison, to me anyway. It was not surrounded with lovely things, you know? It was the place I was in, too, because I was feeling very dark, and so I was not motivated. That was not even on my priority list, right?

To do that stuff. But when I came here, people always ask me if my background is, if it's a, a virtual background, you know? It's not. I made this one of the first priorities when I moved here, is to build those shelves and do all the things that I have because I really value beautiful things around me.

And it did change my whole internal... Because when you're looking around yourself, you know, going into a beautiful, uh, hotel or, or somebody else's beautiful home, or maybe it's your, an, a room already that's in your home it causes you, your spirit to lift, right? And then you don't feel like you're living a sentence, like a life sentence in all the areas of Your world, you know?

For me anyway, it was so important to do that, to settle my nervous system. Even after all the work I had done. I had done the inner work on me, started all that back in Texas, and that was absolutely necessary. And then I came here and I was like, "This is what I'm doing." Anyway, it was just...

It's been priceless, and I'm s- still always doing things, trying to surround myself with lovely things. And you don't have to do that on some big budget. You can start with just rearranging the furniture, adding a couple throw pillows, um, brightening up the lighting, adding some plants.

Whatever makes you feel good and feels beautiful, even... I'm talking to you guys too, the dads out there too, for you, feels settling, feels calming. Your nervous system needs this, especially in your home environment. Okay? Surround yourself with lovely things.

[00:15:06] Self-Care for Alienated Parents: Why It's Battle Readiness, Not Selfishness

Okay. So the next place that this shows up is in your body and in your mental health. Okay? And this one can feel especially loaded because there's money involved, time involved, energy involved, and maybe a little, even a little active hope involved. Here's the scenario for this one, is investing in your physical and mental health, maybe paying for therapy, paying for coaching.

Hi. Um, a gym membership, healthier food, maybe supplements, medical care, dental care, rests, your sleep, or time outside, any of those things, right? All of those things.

Your internal soundtrack could be something like, " Oh yeah, but buying the gym membership or do, going, doing the coaching or the therapy or whatever it is, is gonna cause me to spend more money and time on myself, and that money should be spent on trying to reach them, or hiring a different attorney, in your mind, taking care of your body, taking care of your mind feels vain, especially when you feel like your heart is broken and your children are suffering. How can I go to the gym when I should be figuring out the next legal step, How can I rest when my child is still caught in this, .

Here's the reframe though, you guys. Taking care of you is not self-indulgence, it's battle readiness. And I do not mean battle in the sense that you're fighting harder with the ex, adding more resistance, right? Or fighting harder with the court, the system, or everyone around you. I- doesn't have to mean that.

I mean the deeper battle of staying alive, staying regulated, staying emotionally available, staying healthy enough to handle whatever comes next.

Taking care of your health is a protective measure for future you. And future you happens to be your child's future parent

[00:17:20] Can Alienated Parents Allow Themselves to Feel Joy?

So now I wanna talk about joy. And I know recently I did a couple happiness episodes, one back in the fall that was more statistics, and then another one I gave you, I think it was like 10 reasons to, to find happiness, to create happiness in your world today. so this is just a little segment, but I, I do think it's important to touch 'cause not everybody listens to every message or every episode.

So let's talk about joy because this is the one that might feel the most offensive to the traumatized brain. You can be having a perfectly normal moment. You could laugh at something, you could enjoy a meal, you could feel the sun on your face, get caught up in a movie, and then wham, suddenly the guilt slams in.

Joining a local club, laughing at some comedy special taking up a hobby maybe, going out with a friend, enjoying a quiet morning or letting yourself feel good for a few minutes. Might cause an internal soundtrack that sounds like, " If I'm happy, it means I don't miss them.

If someone sees me laughing, they'll think I'm over it. They'll think I don't care anymore. They'll think I'm a bad parent. They'll judge me," another one is, "I don't deserve to feel joy my- my ch- kid is being brainwashed. I don't deserve that. A good parent wouldn't be feeling joy right now.

They would have already figured this out,". Or maybe it sounds more like, this definitely was mine for a long time. It sounds more like, "Wait, what do you think you're doing?" My talk to myself. "What do you think you're doing right now? Do you not remember that your whole world is blown up?"

Because I would catch myself in these, like laughing out loud or feeling good and wanting to like frolic, to just be, you know? And i- of course, that was my nervous system needing a moment, needing a beat to just live and be a normal human. But when I would catch myself doing it, I'd straighten up, firm up, right, stand up straight and be like, "What do you think you're doing?

You can't do this. Who do you think you are? This is not congruent with the life that you're supposed to be leading or bleeding into," right? "Because your kid is over there and you're here." That's what it sounded like for me.

And if I was doing it out in public, then it was like, "This is not how people should be seeing you, because if they see you like that, then they're gonna think it's not okay or that you are okay, and that is not okay. And who's gonna get... How's that message gonna get back to the other parent? And then the

other parent will see that I'm okay when I'm actually should not be presenting as okay. I hope that makes sense, you know? I wanted the other parent to always, in my mind, I wanted them to know, and of course I wanted, at that point, I never wanted my daughter to know that I was suffering, but I also never wanted to...

It w- there was this fine line I was walking between like if I'm too happy, then she's probably gonna question that, and she's gonna wonder why I'm so happy when I'm should be parenting her. And then if I was

too, too sad. I didn't want to worry her, but I wanted to be there s- this happy medium of, like, living like a wallflower, living... Not living, right? Just staying stagnant in a holding cell, in a holding pattern, waiting for her to come back, because then that would, um, express to the world that this alienation has really gotten me and what they have done to me is really terrible, and it would also, uh, convey to my daughter that I'm waiting for her, that I'm not living life without her, right?

I hope that all makes sense. But listen, guys, I... The, the reframe here for you is that when you go out and you find yourself laughing or you really crave doing that, it's not amnesia that you're having, it's preservation. Kind of like I mentioned just a minute ago. Joy does not mean that you forgot, okay?

Joy does not mean that you do not miss them. Joy does not mean that you are over it, that you are over them. Sometimes joy, peace, whatever it is that you wanna feel, is just your nervous system taking a clean breath of air, right? Sometimes it's your soul reminding you that alienation didn't get to destroy every single last part of you.

The alienating narrative wants you to feel isolated and defeated. Shame also wants you to feel isolated and defeated, Reclaiming small pockets of joy proves that the system did not destroy your capacity to love life, and that's really important, and that's the kind of-- exactly the kind of healthy parent your child will need later.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there are days, many days out of the year I'm sure, that don't feel like ordinary days at all, right? Birthdays, holidays, graduation, Mother's Day, Father's Day coming up, the first day of school, the last day of school, the day they get their license, the day they turn 16, 18, 21.

For girls, the first day that they date and even get their cycle, all those things. These are really important milestones for parents. Um, some of those, the latter ones, for moms, you know, especially. These days can feel like landmines for us because you're not just living the day that's in front of you. You're also living the day that should have been happening, right? in this scenario, it's your child's birthday, a major holiday, a school milestone, some other meaningful date, right? And you have no contact, let's say.

The internal soundtrack for you could sound like, "I should spend this entire day in bed crying or staring at old photo albums to prove my grief," If I cook a nice meal for myself, go out or celebrate with others, I'm betraying my child, especially on these days.

Another one is, I am a monster if I go enjoy a holiday while my child is missing from my table, What kind of monster would do that?

And if I do not sit in my, drown in my tears today, does that mean that I don't care? And the reframe for you guys here is this is not a betrayal. A- absolutely not. It is honoring the bond in your private sanctuary. Marking a milestone with despair may feel like devotion, but it drains your energy and keeps you stuck in the alienator's trap.

You're playing right into the game, Reframing the day means shifting from deprivation to tribute. Okay? You can honor the day without letting grief consume your entire energy

[00:23:46] The Shadow Calendar: How Alienated Parents Grieve Milestones and Missed Moments

alienated parents often live by two different calendars. There's the regular calendar that everyone else is living by, and then there's this shadow calendar inside of your chest, inside of your mind. The shadow calendar says, "Today they would be turning 16. Today we should be prom shopping, wedding dress shopping even. "Today I should be making their favorite breakfast. I should be taking pictures. I should be, um

I have a client, I was just thinking now, um, when I said taking pictures, I was just thinking last week one of my clients was sharing that each year on the first day of school, he would take a picture in front of a certain, um, hedge in front of his house, right? And he did this for all the years that he was with his, his kids, right?

And now he's not doing that anymore. For the past, I think, three years he's not been doing that. So I'm sure that that same soundtrack is playing each first day of school for him, you know? This is the day that I would typically take a picture of them right before. And I'm sure many of you have that.

The whole idea of the shadow calendar concept is today should not look like this. It should look like that. That's how it should be, right? And so then you're fighting this reality, right? But the, the crux of that problem is if you stop fighting reality, then the idea is then you're giving in to alienation.

But, um, hold tight for a second because that's not, doesn't have to be the case for you. Back to the shadow calendar that kind of temporal whiplash, if you will, can keep your nervous system in a perpetual trauma response of like, " Today should be the day that we did this."

Oh, God, that loop can go on for so long. You can find the today should be blah, blah, blah about things in the past all day long if you wanted to, and every day of the, the year. You could be living a shadow calendar of the schedule that you used to keep when they were home with you, you know? So what happens is that you're, you're physically in the present.

But emotionally, you're being dragged through or brain is dragging you through an alternate timeline of everything that should have been.

[00:26:02] Parallel Celebrations: How to Honor Your Child on Hard Days Without Falling Apart

So I want to offer you a different, um, like an alternative to that. Instead of forcing yourself into either total collapse or some fake celebration, right? Some, uh

one-person celebration, you know, I'm gonna offer a third option for you, which is a parallel celebration. Parallel celebration means you honor the bond from exactly where you are with exactly what you have. Okay? You celebrate your child externally from a distance, if that's how it is today, right?

Instead of suffering internally in isolation. Most parents that I know will go and isolate themselves on that day, and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. It also kind of depends on how you grew up, and if you were the child that sort of retracted and wanted to work things out on your own, it makes sense that you do that now.

And actually, the reason that you might have started to retract, this is way off my notes, um, as a kid, is because that was predictable for you in childhood. Because maybe the, your love or the attention was coming intermittently, and so in order to self-soothe and cope, you chose to just always rely on yourself.

I know this very well because this is what I did for much of my childhood and life. Okay? So anyway, um, back to where I was. So,

You celebrate your child externally from a distance instead of suffering internally in isolation, right? You let the love, your love, move outward instead of letting the grief implode inside of your body. Okay? Maybe you plant a tree on their birthday.

Maybe you donate a toy to a local charity in their honor. Um, maybe you bake their favorite cake and share it with the people you love and who support you. Maybe you light a candle. Maybe you write a card that you don't send, or maybe you do send it. Maybe you say, "I love you. I'm still here, and I'm gonna stay well enough to keep loving you."

This is not pretending that the day does not hurt. This is giving the love that you have somewhere to go. It's opening up as opposed to keeping it all in. It is celebrating actively, and doing something out in the world, like the planting the tree or whatever. You're, you're using your love,

for good. For your good, for their good, for somebody else's good maybe even too . You know? Um, you're-- It's a tribute.

Also, so I wanna mention that sometimes the healthiest thing that you can do right now is to treat the day like a normal Tuesday.

That's okay too. That might sound wrong to the guilt brain, but may be exactly what your nervous system needs right now. That's fine.

If honoring the day, you know historically has meant that you completely flood, you spiral, and you

completely lose yourself, then maybe going to the movies, taking a hike, ordering takeout, or refusing to perform grief for the calendar can be a valid and loving choice. You're allowed to survive the day in, in the way that helps you survive the day. Okay?

[00:29:09] Moving On vs. Moving Forward: What Every Alienated Parent Needs to Know

So this actually brings us to the distinction that I think matters most because I think a lot of the pain comes from the phrase moving on. For an alienated parent, moving on, that term can sound like closing the door. It can sound like replacing your child. It can sound like you're saying, "Well, that chapter's over. Oh, well." No wonder your whole body rejects that. moving forward, on the other hand, means taking your child with you in your heart while you continue to grow, to live, to heal, to build. Reinvent even,.

Moving forward means that you are not making your pain the only evidence of your love. Okay? Th- of course, when I say that, it reminds me of the episode I did a long time ago, maybe a couple years ago, um, mistaking a painful narrative for connection. That's another one you could go back and listen to.

It was a f- a couple, maybe three years ago.

Moving forward means building a life that still has room for them.

Moving forward means that you keep the light on without drowning yourself in the storm.

This is where I always come back to the lighthouse. A lighthouse does not swim around into the stormy sea to drag ships to shore, It stands, it shines, it stays stable.

It becomes a point of orientation for when the storm clears.

But if a lighthouse crumbles into the sea out of sympathy for the ship now both are lost

I'm gonna say it's probably safe to say that you are not gonna be able to help your child if you're collapsing into the water.

You're gonna help by staying rooted, staying lit, steady, visible.

Your child may not be able to see your light right now. They may not know it's there, but that does not mean that the light is not needed for them, that your light is not needed.

[00:30:58] Selfish vs. Self-Care: The Real Definitions Alienated Parents Need to Hear

And this is why I think that we have to be very clear about the difference between selfishness and self-care because your inner critic is calling everything selfish. Guaranteed, Rest is selfish. Joy is selfish. Decorating is selfish. Spending money on your health is selfish. Having one peaceful afternoon is selfish maybe. but that's not actually what selfishness means. That's not the definition. Selfishness... You guys, I went to W- WordHippo and also to the dictionary earlier.

Selfishness is caring primarily or exclusively about your own interests, your own needs, and your desires, often, without regard for the well-being, feelings, or rights of others. Selfishness says, "Only I matter. Only I matter, and it doesn't matter who gets in the way," Selfishness disregards the impact on other people.

Selfishness takes away from others for personal gain. That's not what we're talking about here.

Self-care, on the other hand, is the ongoing practice of take- taking intentional actions to protect, promote, and maintain your holistic wellbeing. Okay? It includes your physical health, your emotional health, your mental health, social health, recreational life, and spiritual sense of meaning. Self-care says, "I matter too."

Self-care says, "I'm responsible for the body, the. Mind, and the nervous system that I live inside of

Self-care says my child deserves a parent who has not been completely destroyed by all of this. So if self-care allows you to stay alive, allows you to stay regulated, steady, grounded, and capable of loving your child without disappearing into the pain, then it is not the opposite of good parenting.

It's not. It may be one of the most important forms of parenting available to you right now in this moment. Okay?

[00:32:55] Your Challenge This Week: One Act of Intentional Self-Care

So that brings me to this week's challenge This week, I want you to do one thing, just one thing that the old pro- programming would call selfish, okay?

Not something reckless, not something harmful, not something that abandons your values, One small thing that supports your life. I'm not talking about flipping the fuck it switch and calling it self-care, right? Blowing some shit up, self-sabotage. Not at all, okay? I'm talking about intentional self-care So

Maybe this week you buy the better groceries. Maybe you sit in the sun for 20 minutes without checking your phone, okay? Without dr- drowning yourself in the mental courtroom playback, Maybe it's that you fix the thing in the house that's been broken for months in your house. As soon as I said that, do you guys remember Modern Family when, Phil keeps tripping on that stair?

Gotta fix that stair. But maybe it's the one thing that's been driving you nuts in your house that you fix. put fresh sheets on your bed. Go buy fresh sheets for your bed, it doesn't have to be super expensive. But something that just, that changes the way that you see your environment might be really one of the best small moves that you can make, , that uplevels the way that you see your surroundings, you know?

Um, go to a movie, paint your room. Painting is always a very good refresh. Make the appointment with the counselor, with the coach, with whoever. Commit to you and your betterment Because you know that in the end, bettering you is going to your children, Support your connection with your children. Feeling connected to and with your children, even while you're doing the-- well, if you're coaching with me, for sure, but even sometimes therapy, can help you to feel more connected to and with your children. So it doesn't have to happen the second that they walk back in the door. You can start to feel connected even just today by the way that you're thinking about them. Okay. So that-- and that's another thing that you can do. You can really commit to managing your mind in a way that supports you and supports your connection with your child, as opposed to being that inner critic and constantly downing yourself and downing the relationship, telling yourself this is all hopeless, or sitting in anger because anger feels better than sitting in grief..

I'm not saying-- suggesting that you go sit in anger. I'm saying that you could-- you manage your mind to not have either of those things an option for you. You know, just anger, just grief. Instead, learning how to manage your mind that supports your whole life, the rebuild of your life, and theirs moving forward, you know?

So committing to yourself, letting yourself laugh without apologizing afterwards, And when the guilt does come up, because you know that it probably will at some point, I want you to say, "I'm not abandoning my child. This is not what that's about. I'm rebuilding the parent that they one day will need to find, So again, I'm gonna say this a million times over. You are not selfish for choosing to survive, not selfish for choosing to thrive. You can, even inside alienation. I am living proof of it, You are not selfish for wanting a life that contains peace. You're not selfish for tending to your body, to your home, to your mind, to your heart, or your future. You are not selfish for becoming the lighthouse instead of letting the storm take you under. Moving forward does not mean that you are leaving your child behind, you guys.

It means that you are carrying the love, your love with you, enough love for the both of you, or however k- many kids you have, while you keep becoming someone stable enough, whole enough, and alive enough to receive them if and when they find their way home.

I'd like to say when they find their way home. This is not selfish. This is sacred, So, if this episode resonated with you today, I would love it if you would share it with somebody else or even just, um, write a review on Apple if you haven't done that already.

I would really love that, and that would actually help other parents like us to find us because the more reviews that we have, the more visibility that we have. And if you're watching on um, YouTube, you guys, I noticed... Now I sound like diary of a CEO guy. Um, but that I noticed that 77, I looked at it the other day, 77% of people that watch, regular watchers or listeners of the podcast are not subscribed.

77%. It's a lot. So if you're on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, please. I would love that. That would help too. And I love you guys. Have a lovely week, and I will talk to you next week. Okay, bye.

Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-sized clips and tips, be sure to find me on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week.