If you’re a targeted parent, somebody has said it to you. A friend over coffee, a therapist who doesn’t really get it, a relative who’s tired of watching you cry. “You just need to let it go.” And you nod, or you don’t, and then you go home and chew on it for three days, because let go of what, exactly? A grudge, I could let go of. A bad haircut. This is my child.
I get where it comes from. We’re all swimming in wellness talk now. Release what you can’t control, protect your peace, detach from what no longer serves you. Some of that is good advice. If a coworker was rude to you in 2019 and you’re still rehearsing your comeback in the shower, yes, please, let it go. But alienation isn’t a rude comment. It’s watching your kid get turned against you a little more every month while the house is on fire, and everyone keeps telling you to stop staring at the flames.
I teach mindfulness, so I’ll admit I used it the wrong way first. I tried to meditate my way out of grief. I tried to breathe through the panic of another unanswered call, like the right breath would make the phone ring. I did a lot of yoga that was really just hiding on a mat. None of it worked, and I almost quit the whole thing.
What brought me back was figuring out that mindfulness was never supposed to make me stop caring. It doesn’t fix alienation. Lawyers and judges and a whole lot of luck might, someday. What it does is keep me from getting swallowed. Because the chaos is the point. Every ignored text, every accusation, every cruel thing your kid says in somebody else’s words, it all pushes you to react, and when you react, you’re the one who looks unhinged. The calm parent gets believed. The desperate one doesn’t, even when she has every reason to be desperate.
So say your child posts a picture, smiling, on a trip nobody told you about. The grief hits like a truck. Let it. Say, okay, this is awful, and feel the whole awful thing, and then try not to let it eat the rest of your day. You don’t have to answer every provocation. Some silences you can just leave alone. Staying steady isn’t letting go. It’s showing the court, and the evaluators, and your kid, who you actually are. Five minutes on the cushion some mornings is just me remembering that person, because alienation works really hard to make you forget her.
Some days I hate the cushion. Stillness lets everything in, and every mindful breath feels like a lie, because nothing about this is okay. On those days I remind myself I don’t have to be okay. I just have to be here. And I’m still here, which is not nothing.
So when someone tells you to let it go, nod if you want. Or tell them the truth. You’ll let go of the shame, and the blame, and the idea that you caused this, and the loneliness somebody built around you on purpose. All of that, you can put down. Your child? Never.
