Breaking The Cycle
The most important work many fathers will ever do
We all arrive on the shores of fatherhood having travelled different waters. Some arrive after smooth sailing. Others have had wave after wave crash upon their boat, weathered storms leaving indelible marks on both ship and sailor. If your childhood was far from ideal, becoming a father will bring dormant emotions and experiences to the surface; waves that must be navigated before all are consumed in their wake.
In the world of therapy and self-improvement, we call this “breaking the cycle.” It’s a commitment to doing everything in your power to prevent passing on what was passed down to you. It’s gruelling, relentless work, but—for dads who grew up dealing with physical and emotional abuse—there’s no better gift you can give your children.
Today, on World Mental Health Day, I’ve invited Sean Talbeaux to share his story of becoming a father. Sean writes Into the Fire, exploring the intersection of men’s work and psychedelic integration. This essay is raw and real, touching on topics of childhood abuse and suicidality. It outlines how Sean has used widely available tools and techniques to heal from his childhood experiences. I am thankful to Sean for sharing his truth here and to all the dads out there committed to doing the work.
For most of my life, I didn't want kids because I feared I would be a father who beat his child, screamed in their face, and poured bleach in their underwear when they soiled themselves. I feared that I would have become like my mum's boyfriend when I was eight years old, who demanded I count aloud each violent impact he made upon my body. I feared that I would have, like him, rubbed a child's nose in their own shit, and insisted they clean the hallway floor from sunrise until midnight without eating that day or the next.
Or, like my own father, I might have simply disappeared, moved a thousand miles away unannounced, only to let my family know where I was once I was established with another family, with no intention of returning.
During a powerful psilocybin mushroom journey a few years ago, I viscerally felt the impact of how those experiences had shaped me. I felt the grief and loss of who I might have become, had the men in my life sought therapy or a men’s group. I felt the red-hot pain that had arrived to my body by blood and hand, and the cold dissociation that I’d employed to escape it. During that journey, I spurned to perpetuate that suffering, even if it meant never having kids.
Deep down, I wanted to be a father. I wanted the opportunity to do it better: to be present with my child in a difficult moment, and instead of trying to make it better, to empathize and love them up with every cell in my body. I wanted to joyfully hold the hand of my little one—as I did a few days ago—as we walked to a blueberry bush together, and witnessed in delight as he picked a berry, put it in his mouth, squealed, and picked another.
My path became clear: I had to learn to be with myself in the quietest, darkest moments of shame and self-hatred. Also, to interrupt the patterns of violence and disconnection by orienting toward the core of my suffering, getting curious about it, noticing the sensations and emotions, and learning to trust that it would—eventually, inevitably—change.
For most of my life, my survival strategies were so entrenched that all I could do was push people away, sabotage my and others' relationships, and hate myself for existing—so much that I badly wanted to die. I felt as if I had nothing to live for. Had my best friend not taken his own life when we were teenagers, I may have, but I knew the other side of that grief too deeply to inflict it upon anyone else.
In 2011, having realized that suicide was a clear 'No,' I slowly began to open to life. I was a commercial fisherman in Alaska, and the summer following my not-suicide, I met my now-wife at a dusty airport in the tundra next to an oceanic river.
This woman saw me clearly, even as I hid beneath my masks. She challenged my integrity and the ways that I said I'd shown up in past relationships. I was turned-on by this because it revealed something of her true depth. It also became clear that, together, we had experienced almost every toxic father archetype you could imagine: absent, addict, abuser, abandoner, emotionally unavailable, dead.
Although being around her made me want to be a better man, I felt helpless to the fate of fulfilling each item on that list. I began to search for healthier male role models.
Finding few on the sea, I became a woodworker, and found my way to cabinetmaking. Something about the need to be present, thoughtful, and precise around sharp blades in service to others felt important. I slowly found mentors in men whose ways of being invited calm, thoughtful relationships. Carpentry developed into a deep practice for me, which helped to support our family for years.
As we deepened into marriage, my wife nudged me toward men's work, though I waited to engage until I was ready. Excited and scared of what I’d find, I attended men's rites of passage workshops, wilderness immersions, and sat weekly in small groups for years. I learned about accountability, integrity, internal clarity, and (as if practicing for fatherhood) living from a deep sense of purpose, even in the face of discomfort or conflict.
It soon became important for me to discern the nature of the men's work being offered by individuals and organizations. Male-exclusive spaces are, by definition, patriarchy, so I began to ask myself questions like: is this group or teacher able to meet me where I'm at? Do they welcome questions, doubts, my full expression? Or do I need to contort myself in order to fit their definition of a 'man’?
I recall one weekly meeting early on where I just couldn't wipe an ingratiating smile from my face, even as someone spoke of a particularly painful experience. There was a volcano of anger bubbling under the surface for me. A man in the group offered his truck cab as a place for me to let fly for a few minutes. I gave hell to the seats and dash. The physical release felt great, but more powerful was being witnessed by others who neither feared my expression, nor sought to change it. The shit-eating smile vanished, and I was more able to be present with others after that.
This was just one of dozens of nuanced experiences where I felt my mind and body re-wiring around how men can show up for each other in more dynamic ways than fist bumps and intellectual banter. It was also a meaningful drop in the bucket of learning to trust men again.
I began to dive deep in other ways. Psychedelic medicine journeys revealed in terrifying, numinous clarity the depth and breadth of the inner work before me. Vipassana meditation taught me to track my reactions to stimuli and bring equanimity to difficult moments. Somatic therapy—and MDMA—helped me to feel safe within myself for the first time in my life.
Although I am grateful for the re-parenting that came from choosing a healing-oriented relationship with my wife, my ongoing relationship with a Hakomi therapist has helped relieve my wife of holding the burden of my emotional work and wounding, freeing her to mother our child instead of my own inner little boy.
My personal work eventually shifted into supporting others on their own healing paths. Many men I’ve worked with report reconnecting to their own inner wisdom, self-love, and empathy. They re-discover their essence beneath layers of conditioning, patriarchy, colonialism, and disconnection. I am passionate about exploring the intersection of men’s work and psychedelic work through a somatic lens. I lead an annual Fatherhood retreat in this vein, as well as other containers where participants can go as deep into their work as feels right for them.
These days, I feel free and clear in a way that I could not before have imagined. The overwhelming trauma fog has lifted from my body and mind, and I spend most of my moments present in the here and now, even when the little one screams and bites and thrashes about. I am aware that fatherhood may get harder as he grows into the ages at which my own trauma intensified. And I know in my heart of hearts that I’ll be okay, and that I’ll have space for him.
I’m grateful to report that I am a father who gently and respectfully changes his son’s diapers, repairs when I’ve reacted, and prioritizes my kiddo when he calls for connection. I am doing my work so that the pain I experienced does not continue, that something more healthy and vibrant can take its place.
The work is never quite complete, nor is this journey easy. Thanks to Kevin for holding this container for all of us. We're not meant to do it alone.
Three things to read this week
Doing things a little differently this week.
For World Mental Health Day, three essays from the archive:
We Need to Talk About Dads, Depression, and Suicide (October 2022)
When undiagnosed, unacknowledged and untreated, paternal mental health episodes can lead to grave outcomes. Depression is linked with more hostile and violent parenting, poorer physical health and well-being of children, and a higher risk of children developing chronic conditions, including depression and anxiety, as adults. For post-natal depression, the research is heavily tilted towards the mother’s experience, where research has shown incidents of self-harm are on the rise, and suicide rates for new mothers have tripled in the last decade. But when we layer on what we already know about male suicide—the leading cause of death for young men, a gender 4 times more likely to kill themselves than women, and with 82% of male suicides coming from the first known attempt—it becomes clear why fathers dealing with mental health problems are up to 47 times more likely to take their own life in the post-natal period. It’s a sickness that has been killing dads for decades. We’re only just becoming aware of it.
Pulling Yourself Out of a Funk (November 2023)
This rebound has taken a while, and I’ve felt myself slip into a funk. It’s not just here—it’s spreading its slimy tentacles towards everything it touches. From talking to friends and fellow dads it seems I’m not alone. If you’re feeling it, your particular flavour of funk might flow from a number of sources: the intensifying cycle of horrific news, dark evenings bringing the dreaded cycle of “Is this seasonal affective disorder or something worse”, uncertainties around the economy and the increasing cost of everything (bar salaries), the inevitable exhaustion that comes from trying to balance it all and feeling like you’re doing a shitty job of everything. These things pile up.
Consider, for a moment: you are a boat. There are waves approaching you every day. A sea of never-ending trials and tribulations, as Mr James Murphy once put it. You know they're coming—they’re inevitable. So you decide to face them head-on, battening down the hatches, steering straight into them. To feel them crash upon you, take the strain, endure the struggle. But what if there was another way? What if you took a moment? Took a breath? Re-orientated yourself and let them peacefully pass underneath? That’s what meditation can bring.
All TNF issues on mental health can be found here and are never paywalled.
Want to Start Meditating? Today is the Day
Like Sean, the combination of therapy and meditation has been the greatest ongoing contributor to my mental health. Starting—and maintaining—a regular meditation habit has equipped me with the resilience and fortitude required to overcome life’s toughest challenges, of which fatherhood provides a slice.
In the early days of this newsletter, a few of us got together to try out the 28-day “Meditation for Dads” introductory course offered by Waking Up. This week, a dad in The Dadscord suggested he was going to give it a go again and opened the invite to others. We’ve formed a little crew of a dozen mindful dads. Who knows where we’ll end up?
Maybe you’re curious about meditation and wonder what it can do for you. Or perhaps you tried other apps or approaches, and the habit failed to stick. Whatever the case, if you’re still reading this, why not follow along? You can listen to Sam Harris talk about what makes Waking Up different here. All you need is 10 minutes a day, and it won’t cost you anything.
Here’s what you need to do:
Use this link to access a free 30-day trial of Waking Up. To be crystal clear: I am in no way affiliated with Waking Up, and I make a grand total of $0.00 for every person who signs up. My only reward is the satisfaction of hearing from dads who connect with it and tell how much they enjoy their new-found peace of mind and equanimity.
For the next 28 days, we'll work through the Introductory Course inside the app. It is focused on both the practice and the theory, so you get a better understanding of how to do it and why it works. Once a day, find a quiet place to sit and practice the daily meditation. They're generally less than 10 minutes a day, but a few are 12-13 minutes long.
There are optional "Theory" sections. If you can only manage 10 minutes, focus on the main practice path. But if you find the time in the day to listen to the theory, it’ll be a massive help on your journey. For these parts, you don't need to be sat somewhere quiet. You can do them anywhere — out walking the dog, cooking dinner, any task where your brain can spare a few cycles to concentrate on what's being said.
For those dads in The Dadscord, I'll listen to the same two pieces every day and post something to start a conversation in our new #meditation channel. Follow along, share thoughts, observations, or any questions.
A few tips before we get started:
Most meditation guides will tell you that to make it a habit you must do it at the same time every day. As a parent, finding the same ten minutes isn't always possible. But you can almost always find them somewhere. I tend to either do it in the morning (if I'm up before the kids), during a short window in the daytime when they're at school and I'm not on a call, or in the evening once they've gone to sleep. I’ve done it on a bench with a pair of Airpods, lying on a bedroom floor waiting for my son to go back to sleep, or sitting parked up in the car before heading into the house.
The practice can be done anywhere, so long as you won't be disturbed mid-way through. Don't feel you need to be sat cross-legged on a cushion (in fact, that can actually do more harm than good when you’re starting out). Try to find somewhere you won't be disturbed, but don't worry about some background noise.
The benefits won't be immediately apparent. It's not like you'll sit down for 10 minutes and find enlightenment. But I've found it akin to compound interest, with the effects getting stronger with regular practice.
One last thing. The reason I've found Waking Up to work so well for me (and others I've talked to have told me the same) is its ability to completely rewire how your brain works. This is done through combining neuroscientific research with the ancient Vedic traditions. It provides accessible on-ramps to issues around the framing of consciousness, where thoughts come from and their power over us, and the nature of non-duality, leading you inevitably and inexorably to a place where you re-evaluate how your brain perceives all it encounters. This is the "waking up" Sam Harris is talking about.
The benefit of this shift in worldview is nothing short of momentous. But it's not something you’ll achieve in just a month. I’m five years in and still learning. The intro course will touch on ideas that seem out of reach at first, and with time, practice, and guidance, it'll start to open up. So, a big piece of advice for anyone taking part is to enjoy the next 28 days, not to force anything, and try to find 10 minutes a day to look inward.
Use this link to get free access for thirty days—it’s an actual “trial” too, not a bait and switch that starts charging you if you forget to cancel. You can, of course, do this entirely on your own. But if you would get more from having other dads to share the experience with—and help keep yourself on track and accountable—then come join us in The Dadscord.
Good Dadvice: The Therapy Edition
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Well done. I did not become a father until I was 50, and only after 30 years of life in the Army. My healing has been a priority, and pouring into my four kids has greatly enriched my focus on what being a good man looks like.
Amazing and brave piece, Sean. Thank you for sharing. I’m always finding myself writing about generational cycles in parenting, but it’s hard to understate just how great an impact our past experiences can have on our own parenting, and how vital it is for us to address whatever’s happened in our past so we can do it better than what came before us.