On a reality show, there is a LOT of talking. Most of which never makes it onto the screen.
There is a lot of editing and moving back and forth to keep the story alive. You have to stay interested, right?!
You’ll see interviews, interspersed with action shots throughout. Some of those interviews went pretty deep.
Actually they brought up some things I hadn’t though about really in years.
Since the show is called “Being Dad,” of course the topic of daddy-dom is front and center. But I was only thinking in terms of ME being the daddy.
But when the cameras start rolling, I started opening doors to my father and how he failed so many ways in his life and the lessons it taught me.
As a coach, I am always happy to explore avenues that may sometimes get a little uncomfortable. That’s usually where the best breakthroughs come from.
Dealing with my own “daddy” issues is not particularly new to me, but sharing them with the world kinda was.
To bring you up to speed, my father was an eternal pessimist. He may have played at being an optimist, but there was a lot of negativity in his DNA. And sadly, in mine, I’m afraid.
I am constantly doing the work to clear out the negativity. And it is a constant challenge.
My father had a divorce early on. His first wife decided she wanted to be with his best pal at the time. Just like my first wife. Scary, I know.
He listened to all the self help recordings of the day and read the books. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” always stood out in my memory as his “go to” tome.
But like most people, what he read on the page was not ingrained in his psyche.
Don’t get me wrong, he was a heckuva salesman. He was a “Land Man” in the seventies. He would lease land from people so that oil companies could drill on them.
He did quite well for a time. But he would be out of town for months at a time, and that took its toll on his second marriage, to my mother.
He was an alcoholic. Not a physical abuser, but definitely an emotional and mental abuser, primarily toward my mother. To this day, I still don’t know why.
He used to stop at this crappy little hole in the wall bar in OKC, called the Orbit Lounge, and would get drunk on his way home. Then he would berate my mother for some reason. He was like Homer Simpson, only the dick version.
My brother and I had front row seats to these events as we were usually sleeping on the floor by my mother’s bedside.
After a move out of OKC to a tiny town called Mustang, a new house, and a booming oil market, things got better for a time. But his being gone all the time was not great, and then the oil market plummeted.
He lost his job, and we lost everything. That marriage ended after 20 years. I was 13. I saw him rarely after that until he passed.
The things my father taught me were not intentional on his part. I gleaned my training learning what not to do.
I have always worked on staying positive, being in integrity, and treating my loved ones with care and as much love as I can give them.
Since my first marriage ended in the same way as my fathers, I had to stand up and take notice.
I can not and will not end up like my father. I have my own path.
In my second marriage, I am focusing on communication and connection with my wife and son.
And I treat my wife wife the utmost respect. And I adore her too.
The main takeaway is that I can see what my dad did, and I can go another way. Regardless of upbringing and all the baggage that comes along with it.
And that is really what the interviews are all about here.
Asking the hard questions about fatherhood and sharing the fears and doubts that just, what if I were to be like my father?
Well, that’s a hard no on my end.
I want to live my life so that my son Declan is proud of me.
Did I love my father? Of course I did. Was I proud of him? No.
I knew he loved me and my brother. He just had a lot of conditioning from his folks that was far less than enriching and positive.
My job is to right those wrongs and give my son a loving home with stable parents.
So in the end, I guess being on a reality show can have its perks. It makes you take a look at things from a different perspective and really hone in on what is in your internal messaging.
I mean, that is not really what you would expect from a reality show, but I guess that’s why this one is so good, they actually stayed close to reality.
Deep discussions were had, nobody flew off the handle and created a big argument or fight.
And hopefully, what we said on the topics, helped some people take a look at their own inner messaging and stories.
Because, as we know, there are a lot of people out there with daddy issues.