GRIN AND BEAR IT, or not?

My father exemplified the saying! and I most definitely replicated that fortunately, and unfortunately. I learned the hard way that, yes, we ought to grin and bear it during the hard times, but that to truly honor those before us is to do so with a heck of a lot more self-care and compassion.

With Hispanic Heritiage Month upon us, I automatically think of my dad — an orphaned child-field worker who overcame multiple challenges, including segregation, to eventually become one of the first Hispanic and Spanish speaking lawyers in the Southwest. His inspiring story is the first chapter in Home is Within You, A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption, because it is his spirit that reminded me of my truth when buried in shame.

Where did the phrase “grin and bear it” come from anyways? First used in published text in 1775 by author W. Hickey, then in a medically related book by Erasmus Darwin, it was born in the phrase “survival of the fittest.” (“https://www.writeraccess.com/blog/grin-and-bear-or-bare-it"). Erasmus was the grandfather of Charles Darwin and thus, the world was most certainly has since been led by it. We’ve had 248 years to hone these folks! As in, “grin and bear it” because it’s the “survival of the fittest” and you’ll be left behind and suffer!

My father, Wallace R. Davis, was born in the middle of those 248 years in 1935. He was only 59 when he died of a sudden heart attack in 1994 at the beginning of myt first year in law school, following in his footsteps. After “grinning and bearing it” for far too long with little, if any, self-compassion and care, he struggled with anxiety, stress, depression, and self-medicated drinking. Did I know this all then? A little, but not as much as I do so today, navigating being a parent myself now, as well as trauma and addiction recovery.

My father was my hero and inspiration, and his sudden death was devastating. And so while there are scholarships named in his honor (https://www.ochba.org/scholarships) and his legacy carries on through laws changed for the better, I have to ask myself what would TRUE PROGRESS be for Hispanic Heritage Month? What “legacy” do I want to leave for my children and the world?

Do we model the “grin and bear it” mode and expect a different outcome? I say yes, but not completely. I say grin and bear it with a heck of a lot more self-care and compassion, especially when it comes to mental health awareness, particularly trauma and addiction prevention and recovery.

I say true “progress” is measured beyond professional success. It was not achieving my license to practice law, assisting to free a wrongfully convicted youth, elected office, public service awards, writing a memoir of recovery and redemption, the honors it’s receiving, nor being recruited to host a podcast as a result. I am tremendously thankful for professional successes, and my ego obviously likes to point them out, but there is an intense level of humility in doing so, having shared with the world my falls, the darkness, despair, and shame that resulted, yet most importantly, a roadmap out of that way of living, so as to help others with similiar struggles and situations.

The “grin and bear it” mode alone did not work for me then, nor does it now. It only works if paired with self-compassion, self-care, and mental health awareness. The road to trauma and addiction recovery from a “grin and bear mode” takes hard work and introspection. It required discovering how our mind works, and all the core wounds within that it latches onto to create mental intrigues, illusions, and unhealthy thinking. Healing and transformation take time, and giving ourselves time to heal requires self-compassion, self-care, and mental health awareness.

PROGRESS for me means focusing a “grin and bear it” mode on not just measures of “success” outside me, but also intimate places within me. It means to grin and bear it when walking through outside pressures trying to convince me I don’t have time for self-care. It means to grin and bear it through uncomfortable feelings using self-awareness as to their deeper source. It means to grin and bear it through a sense of vulnerability when I reach out for help from others if struggling and in pain.

Grin and bear it for a deeper purpose within!

PROGRESS means to dive deeper than my dad did. To take time listen to what our body, mind, and spirit might be saying. To get support for life’s pains, emotional, mental, and physical. My father never got the chance to dive deep. He saved the world and sacrificed his self-care for so many, including his seven children of which I am the youngest. I choose to make up for his lack of self-care by giving it to myself today along with reminding my children to do the same.

This Hispanic Heritage Month I know he is looking down on me from heaven. He is most certainly proud I adopted his “grin and bear it” mode, but even more joyful I added a twist of self-compassion and care.

My father Wallace R. Davis’ life story is the entire first chapter of Home is Within You, A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption. Available wherever books are sold and now in Audiobook, narrated by me.