S4 E70: Purpose before performance
with therapist and TED speaker Dr Charles Daniels
Key Takeways
I tell people all the time, you wanna find your purpose, look at the place in your life that has caused you the most pain. And specifically for me growing up without my father and a household headed by my mother caused me grave pain. Seeing the kids play with their fathers. Moments that consistently reminded me that my father wasn't in my life.
And that led to me just having this, my existence and my being, but also not knowing how to navigate shame embarrassment myself, depression myself, how important it was for fathers like him to have the adequate support. So creating Fathers Uplift birthed from a place of pain.
Really understanding why they are disengaged. And helping them create and implement solutions to stay in their kids' lives. When substance use is present, when mental health disorders are present, when homelessness, shame, guilt, embarrassment, when all of those potential barriers are present, we help them overcome them to stay engaged.
We are essentially teaching society how to embrace fathers. But think about their journey in a different way. For example, no father dreams of being a deadbeat when they're younger. Who dreams and envisions being that to themselves but also to their children. No one.
Creating compassion for fathers that have lost their way is a part of our mission. And we do that by having people think critically about their circumstances, but also about the fact that every father, every parent, wants to be the best that they can be when they can't. That's society, that's the other side.
The other piece is direct through provision of therapy to fathers to help them overcome their own issues to stay engaged. I call it Self Parenting. Our assumption is that you can't parent another child if you're incapable or you don't know how to parent yourself. So our main focus is getting that father to become a better father to himself because naturally he's gonna be a great father to his children, but we have to help him treat himself better.
So you have that mental health service lens. And then after that you have that coaching lens where we are partnering our fathers with coaches and peers to overcome obstacles similar to the obstacles that they have challenges with. So they have an example who did it, and if they did it, I could do it too.
One father raised his hand and he said, you know what? I can get therapy anywhere. I can get coaching anywhere. It isn't a service, it's how they make me feel. So when you look at the root of what we do, the foundation of what we do and the secret sauce, it isn't the service. It's how we make our fathers feel. And if the fathers feel as if they got community when they're going to therapy or they have community when they speak to their coach or an ambassador, we've done our job. And community for me is the essence of our being and why we're here. We want every father in America and abroad to feel like they have community, and that's extremely important to me.
What's portrayed about men and how men should conduct themselves is a significant barrier. Men should be tough, men should be strong. Men should hold everybody else's burdens, even when they're incapable and unable to hold their own. So that's what we're constantly dealing with when we're fighting these systemic norms. We are trying to make compassion for fathers a normal thing. And we also wanna make sure that fathers who believe they're not deserving of compassion because they can't provide physically or housing, shelter, money, they're not inadequate because they can't live up to society's expectation of a man, which is really embedded and rooted into old archaic thinking.
We really focus on making sure that fathers know that they're deserving regardless of what they're capable or incapable of doing and that's for us is the secret sauce, making them feel I'm special regardless of what society says I should be.
I find myself taking the position of being a lifelong learner. And that means that, there is no way possible that I will get to a place where I can't be taught or I can't learn anything else. When you take that approach, you allow yourselves to continuously be surprised, to continuously learn, but also continuously be amazed by how much people can teach you through their own experiences. So for me, learning open learning mind frame, and I think a part of that learning mind frame is the notion that you don't have to know it all to be successful. It's okay to say, I don't know. It's okay to say, can you teach me? Can you help me with this? So for me, that's where I start in every situation. And I think also, it counters this whole toxic masculinity approach to thinking that I have to know everything. I have to be perfect. No, that's not where I stand. So I keep that open learning mind frame.
I can also say in terms of burnout, still learning with that. The work is so hard when you're an advocate there. There will be moments where you burn out, but to be able to acknowledge when you are for me, I found is very important. because I'd rather be burned out and know that I'm burned out and I'm able to add language to it as opposed to be burned out and afraid to tell people that I am burned out and that I need help when I'm in that position.
What we give fathers is what I try to have for myself. So when it's time for me to support a father and activate in his community and connecting him to the community, I'm doing it from a place of being genuine. I'm not preaching what I'm not practicing. Making sure that if I'm gonna preach it, I'm gonna practice it. Making sure that I have community, making sure that I'm humble enough to acknowledge my shortcomings and when I am burned out. And also making sure that I'm not afraid to ask for help when I need it. Cause we all need help. No man is an island.
The journey of becoming an advocate is extremely difficult especially when you're proximal to the problem, growing up in the household without my father, experiencing my own mental health symptoms. You can only imagine how difficult it is to maintain a sense of sanity when you're so close to the problem. So a lot of these things I have to utilize strength because if I don't I can fall victim to my purpose.
You have to remember that you're only the participant and the purpose that's greater than you. You're not the purpose. You're participating in a purpose that's larger than you. So all of those things I just shared is a participatory mind frame of being an advocate. There isn't pressure when you're participating. Pressure, because when you think you have to harness everything by yourself and do everything by yourself. And I know when I get in that point, I am no good to anyone and I'm no good to myself. But when I remain a participant, I can continue to affect change. So that's the mind frame that I try to stay in when I'm doing anything, when I'm advocating for anybody or I'm talking about anything, that's what I wanna do. I wanna participate. I don't wanna be the end all be all.
My advice would be to start with the small things, because the small things means the most for us. Customer service is very important when you're doing fatherhood work. For fathers that you know, rarely engage in supportive services. And it takes a little bit more time to develop trust. We have to put a lot of thought in making sure that our organizations are doing the small things well. So for example if I have a father that I'm serving, am I wishing him a happy birthday? And really considering the holidays that make him feel important? Is my organization taking the time to call him and think about him?
Do I have pictures on the wall that reflect fathers in my program? Am I making sure that the environment speaks that the same thing that I'm telling these fathers. You also gotta put more into your environment to make sure that your environment is saying the same thing that you're saying. Your environment has to be reflective of what it is that you wanna do for these fathers, because fathers were going to your office and when they look at the wall, if they don't see themselves, it could really put them in a crazy position. Making sure that we have magazines that reflect their interests in our office. So when they sit down and read, they can see themselves and the things that they read. They can see themselves on the pictures or my walls. All those things are important.
Also, how is my staff really treating these men and families when they walk into my office? For us, we prioritize customer service. We really think about these small things, make sure that our fathers for important, make sure that we acknowledge them on days where they need to be acknowledged. Making sure that we say thank you when it's important to say thank you. So when I say go back to the small things, I really encourage organizations to look at the small things in their office and really have a conversation with the men in that program. What are some things that's very valuable to you outside the services that we provide? What is very valuable to you in this office space? What's very valuable to you?
We are triggered sometimes by our own experience with our parents that can interfere with being present when it comes to trying to create some type of relationship with the father. We have a saying, if you're not addressing your stuff or aware of when your stuff surfaces, you can become a part of the problem than the solution. So I think the first piece is really that self-evaluation, but also self-awareness is very important. Having those honest conversations with yourself about your own expectations of men, which is very important. And I think this isn't only important for mothers.
I think this is also important for fathers because some fathers the same strict views they have of themselves, or the same strict views they have of other men in their lives. Which can interfere with the way that they parent their boys or the way that they interfere with fathers in their lives, right? So we have to really take a hard look at our definitions of what we think fathers should be. A hard look into our expectations of what we want fathers to be.
For us to always remember that we're not perfect. So how do we make room for other people's imperfections? And the first place to start with that is to make room for your own imperfections. And we tell people, a good monitor for yourself when you are trying to figure out, Hey, can I be a good advocate for fathers? I really want fathers in my life is to start how you view yourself and treat yourself in regards to making the mistakes. So are you the type of person that make a mistake and then beat yourself up for when you made it? If you are, I'm pretty sure you're doing that to other parents in your life, other people in your life, right? So how you treat yourself is a good compass for how you would treat also other people in your life. And I think the stuff that creates the most damage is the stuff that occurs when we don't acknowledge that it's occurring.
The first place to start with that is to really get acquainted with some of the tough questions and the tough experiences that you've encountered in your own life. And it starts with your own places of trauma, your parents. Go to your places of trauma and your places of parents and really ask some tough questions. You can do that with yourself, but also do that in the presence of a therapist or someone that you trust to love and really have some honest dialogue around those things. I think it set the foundation for something great in your life.
I think society is really big on performance and for what I want for my kids, I really want them to be directed to the things that brings them joy and happiness and passion and purpose. And I think that alone, their sanity for me is a priority. And if what you're doing in your life to make a living doesn't bring happiness and peace, I'd rather them not do it. And also for me, as it relates to performance, I think the same thing is true when you are navigating and living in your purpose. Performance becomes second nature. So what I want for this world and what I want for kids in the future, the type of household parenting experience that I want them to have is one where they're operating in their purpose and their purpose is making room for the type of life that they want for themselves and their families.
I don't want my son and my daughter to be driven by money and driven by performance. I want 'em to be driven by purpose and family and love, just the principles that's are very valuable in our own family. That's what I want the world to be. I want us to become more a society of principles and purpose more so than performers and money and that's what I want. Who knows if that's possible, but I know for my kids, we're setting the foundation for that to be possible.
Bio
Charles C. Daniels Jr., Ph.D., M.Div., LICSW is a therapist and the chief executive officer of Fathers’ UpLift Inc., which is the nation’s first mental health and substance abuse treatment facility for fathers and families, helping fathers become and remain emotionally stable for their children. He has spent the last decade providing therapy to black men, helping them overcome the effects of toxic masculinity, racism, and oppression. He has taught at Harvard University and Simmons University and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs. He is married with two children and lives in Massachusetts. He recently gave a Ted Talk titled "A second chance for fathers to connect with their kids''.
Links to Additional Resources
