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If your child's behaviour is taking you down a road that is unfamiliar and terrifying, you are not alone. You are being invited on a 'Call to Adventure'. 

 

This call begins when ordinary parenting challenges are a thing of the past and you find yourself in a world of extra difficult trials and tribulations. These may include your child failing out of school, skirmishes with the law, running away, severe emotional dysregulation, cutting, suicide attempts, eating disorders, promiscuity and pregnancy, mental health crises, hospitalizations, homelessness, and addiction. 

 

Welcome to The Heroic Parents’ Club, where the 'Quest' is to save your struggling child. 

 

Crossing the threshold means embarking on an odyssey that follows the transformations of Joseph Campbell’s mythical Hero’s Journey, and it turns out that the magic elixir we're seeking is growth through grief. 

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For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Hero’s Journey, this is it in broad strokes: The Call to Adventure (an awareness that something serious is amiss); Refusal of The Call (denial); Crossing of the First Threshold (a triggering event that forces you out of denial); Entry into the Belly of the Whale (a willingness to seek answers); The Road of Trials (a series of tests we all must undergo to begin the transformation); Meeting with the Goddess (getting glimpses of our blind spots and the source of them); Apotheosis (self-awareness); The Crossing of the Return Threshold (reintegrating this self-awareness into your life).

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Wherever you are on this journey, you are not alone.

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I too have a child who is struggling, so I know from lived experience that we all embark on this journey believing that we are there to save our child only to discover that the only way to do so is to heal ourselves first (ugh!). There are lots of us in this club together, and by partaking in Heroic Parents' Club Workshops you may even feel a sense of gratitude for this profound Call to Adventure. I know I have.

 

Full disclosure, I am as much on this healing journey as the parents are that I hope will attend my workshops. I don’t know what they look like yet, but by stating my intention I am holding faith that the universe will answer this call.

 

The goal of The Heroic Parents’ Club Workshops is to create a safe space where we can share our stories and move towards the acceptance of an intangible grief.

 

Together we will learn how to navigate the ambiguous line between when to let go and put some healthy boundaries around ourselves, and when to hold on tight. Together we will learn how to help our child but not lose ourselves in their struggle. Together we will learn how to let go of our attachment to outcome, and find some peace in the process. 

 

So if you are a parent who would be interested in attending a Heroic Parent workshop please let me know. If you have ideas about what has helped you move through your own grief process please reach out so that we can share your hard earned wisdom. If you are a practitioner who has been wanting to run a workshop for parents on this profound journey, I want to hear from you! Please click here or email me at deerlakewildernessretreat@gmail.com. I'm looking forward to connecting with you all, Sara