We Don't Need to Escape Our Lives (We Just Need to Be in Them)
It's been 1 week since my family and I returned from France.
Six weeks of 24/7 togetherness, wandering through places that felt like stepping into a dream.
*That photo at the top there: Mont St Michel rising out of the mist was just surreal.
When I walked back into my office this week, something felt off. Not the usual post-holiday blues or the lingering wish to be back sipping coffee in a French café (though I do think I'll retire there someday). No, this was something deeper. Something I recognised immediately.
Slow coffee today in Annecy
The familiar tension had returned to my chest. That uneasy feeling I wake up with most mornings. My old companion: anxiety.
As a psychiatrist, I see anxiety every day.
In the children and adults who sit across from me, fidgeting with worry that feels too big for their small bodies. In the parents who bring them, carrying their own invisible loads of fear about getting it all wrong. I understand them because I am them.
I've always lived with anxiety. Sometimes it's manageable, a low hum in the background. Other times it's overwhelming, a cacophony that drowns out everything else. It's partly why I can relate so deeply to my patients. I know what it feels like when your mind becomes a threat-detection system that never switches off.
But that time away taught me: when my world narrowed down to just being present with my children, when there were no other responsibilities pulling at me, something remarkable happened.
My anxiety melted away. No it wasn't just because I wasn't at work. While on holiday, if you've travelled with your family...you know there are stresses (missed flights, trains, taxi not arriving, too many bags, too few bags, no ticket (i'm sure i had it), things expiring, where's the kids? where's the key to the house? where's the jacket I told you to bring? stop provoking your sibling, please stop singing that song!)etc etc)...strangely I felt very little anxiety inspite of such stresses.
Park overlooking Mont Blanc. Marmots playing gleefully in the foreground.
What I Learnt About Connection and Rest
We were together constantly. Some might think six weeks of 24/7 family time sounds like too much. Not me. It was wonderful. We're far from perfect, believe me. Probably a bit odd, definitely introverts. We had our mini-skirmishes followed by repair. But it all felt right.
When your teenage daughter volunteers that she'd rather hang out with you than her friends, that felt like a win.
This experience forced me to realise: my rest, my peace, my sense of purpose has to be grounded in the fact that I am a father to my children. That's the goal.
Not striving hard to earn more money (though providing matters). Not just meeting their material needs (though that's important too). Not continuously being on the lookout for every possible threat that might put them in harm's way (though protection is part of love).
It's the connection that sustains. It's being fully present in their lives, and allowing them to be fully present in mine.
As someone who spends his days helping families navigate anxiety and connection, I realised I'd been missing something fundamental in my own life. I'd been so focused on all the ways I needed to prepare for, prevent, and protect against future problems that I was missing the actual life happening right in front of me.
I like to think this is Michael slaying the demons of human ambition
For the Parents Who Work Hard
If you're reading this and you're like me, someone who works hard, who cares deeply, who lies awake at night worrying about whether you're doing enough for your children, I want you to know something.
You don't have to fix everything. You just need to be.
I know that sounds simple, especially coming from someone who makes a living helping people work through complex problems. But sometimes the most important truths are simple ones.
Our children don't need us to be perfect. They don't need us to eliminate every possible source of difficulty from their lives.
They need us to be present. To be there in the messy, imperfect, ordinary moments that make up a life together.
The Tension Returns
I won't lie. Walking back into my office, feeling that familiar tension return to my chest, was hard. The anxiety that had been absent for six weeks came flooding back with the responsibilities, the schedules, the endless demands of modern life.
But I'm trying to hold onto what I learnt. Trying to remember that my worth as a father isn't measured by how much I earn or how many problems I solve or how successfully I shield my children from every possible harm.
It's measured by how present I can be in the life we're building together. Sometimes messy. Often not perfect. But present.
Maybe you're feeling tired right now, caught in the chaos of trying to do it all. Maybe you're carrying your own form of anxiety, your own tension in your chest when you wake up in the morning.
We don't need to escape our lives. We just need to be in our lives, with them.
The connection is what sustains us all.
Davin
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