There’s an old joke that a fetus isn’t considered full-term until it’s graduated from medical school. Funny? Yes. Uncomfortably true? Also yes. Because for so many of us, the dreams we couldn’t or didn’t chase don’t just fade into the background — they become baggage that our children inherit, whether we realize it or not.

So what do we do? The answer isn’t to fix our kids. The answer is to live. To take responsibility for our own fulfillment so they don’t have to spend their adulthood untangling the mess we left behind.

This isn’t just about parenting — it’s about all relationships. It’s about permission, burdens, and the weight of expectation that many of us unknowingly carry. And if we don’t face it, it doesn’t disappear — it just gets passed down like an old, worn-out heirloom.

Why We Struggle to Face Ourselves

A few years ago, Hollis was invited to give a talk on the psychodynamics of love to a group of bright-eyed college students. Naturally, they were all ears — love, after all, is a topic that gets everyone’s attention.

For the first half of the seminar, they eagerly soaked up ideas about projection, transference, and unconscious patterns in relationships. They got it — intellectually.

But then he asked them to apply these ideas to their own relationships.

Boom. Silence. Curtain down.

Because knowing about something isn’t the same as looking directly at yourself and seeing your own complicity in your patterns.

Now, fast forward twenty years. Those same students are forty, navigating divorce, heartbreak, or midlife malaise. Now they have the ego strength to reflect, to face themselves. Life has given them enough experience — and sometimes enough suffering — to force a reckoning.

Why does this happen? Because true self-awareness takes courage. It means being willing to see things about yourself that won’t always be pretty. And it’s humbling — because real growth isn’t about feeling good. It’s about being accountable for what spills into the world through you.

Unpacking the Burden: The Unlived Life of the Parent

If you want to know where you’re unconsciously stuck, look at your kids.

Children absorb the unfinished business of their parents. Not because they want to, but because it’s in the air they breathe. The expectations we place on them — spoken or unspoken — often have more to do with our unresolved desires than with their actual path.

Ever heard a parent say, I just want my child to be happy while simultaneously pressuring them to pursue a career, lifestyle, or set of beliefs that aligns more with the parent’s identity than the child’s?

Or watched someone push their kid into athletics, music, or a certain college because they never got to fulfill that dream themselves?

It’s rarely malicious. It’s often unconscious. But when a parent is living through a child, that child is no longer free to live their own life.

This is why the best gift you can give your kids (or anyone you love) isn’t success, wealth, or security. It’s permission.

Permission to feel what they feel.
Permission to desire what they desire.
Permission to live a life that actually belongs to them.

But here’s the kicker: you can’t give someone permission to live their truth if you haven’t given it to yourself first.

Giving Yourself Permission to Live

Many of us don’t feel we have permission to fully be ourselves. Why? Because life teaches us early that love and acceptance are conditional.

Be the “good” kid, and you’ll be praised.

Achieve enough, and you’ll be valued.

Make the right choices (by someone else’s standards), and you’ll be safe.

By the time we reach adulthood, we’re often tangled in a web of expectations that aren’t even ours. We learn to ignore what calls to us in favor of what keeps us in good standing with family, culture, or society.

And so we adapt. We build lives that look great from the outside but feel hollow on the inside.

Until one day, something inside us revolts.

For some, it shows up as depression. For others, restlessness, anxiety, or a creeping sense that they’re living someone else’s life.

That’s not a failure. That’s an invitation.

Because life isn’t asking you to fit in. It’s asking you to show up.

The Difference Between Success and Meaning

Modern culture is obsessed with success.

Get the right job.
Make the right money.
Buy the right house.
Check all the boxes.

And if that worked, we’d all be blissfully happy.

But look around. The most outwardly “successful” people are often the most miserable. Because success — at least the way culture defines it — doesn’t equal meaning.

Meaning is different. Meaning is what feeds your soul, even when it’s hard. It’s the thing that, even in suffering, still feels right.

That’s why therapists, social workers, artists, and teachers — people who often struggle financially — frequently report high levels of fulfillment. It’s also why wealthy CEOs sometimes feel empty inside.

Meaning isn’t about external markers. It’s about alignment with something deeper.

Take away someone’s phone, and they experience sheer panic. Because it’s not just a device — it’s their tether to the world.

But at some point, we all have an appointment with our own souls.

The central question is: Will you show up?

Hollis thought he had. He was successful, productive, doing everything right. But then his psyche pulled the emergency brake. Depression was his wake-up call. It wasn’t a sign of failure. It was his inner self saying, You need to reorient your life.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis to do this work. You can start now.

How to Start Living for Yourself (and Not Through Others)

If you’re wondering, How do I start reclaiming my own life? — here’s where to begin:

Create Space for Reflection

Take 15 minutes in the morning or evening to just sit with yourself.

Journal. Meditate. Reflect on your life.

Ask yourself: Am I living my life, or someone else’s?

Notice Where You’re Seeking Approval

Are your choices shaped by what you truly want, or by what will make others happy?

Where are you compromising your authenticity to fit into an expectation?

Give Yourself Permission

To feel what you feel.To want what you want.To pursue what actually matters to you — not just what’s “acceptable.”

Remember: Your Kids (or Loved Ones) Are Watching

If you want them to live their truth, model it.Give them permission by taking it for yourself.

Final Thought: The Only Life You’re Responsible For is Your Own

Life is short. Too short to live through anyone else. Too short to be burdened by someone else’s unlived dreams.

So here’s your permission slip: Live your damn life.

And in doing so, you just might give someone else the freedom to live theirs.

Are you showing up for your own appointment?

Take some time today — put the phone down, sit with yourself, and listen. Your soul is trying to tell you something.

And it’s worth hearing.