Let’s talk about one of my favorite words: metanoia. It usually gets defined as a profound change of mind or heart, but I think of it a little differently. Metanoia is what happens when new understanding rearranges the furniture in your head so completely that you cannot put the room back the way it was. Which is deeply inconvenient when you were very attached to the couch.

My late husband went through something like that. In 2016, he voted for Donald Trump. By 2020, his worldview had changed so dramatically that if you had put the 2016 version of him and the 2020 version of him in the same room, I am not entirely sure the 2016 version would have emerged unscathed.

But that change did not happen overnight. And I would love to tell you that I delivered some sort of perfect “Julia Sugarbaker” speech and because of the power of my voice, my husband shed his MAGA skin and was politically reborn. Absolutely not. What happened was so much messier than that.

At one point, we had an ugly conversation about politics and the LGBTQ community, and I finally pointed down the hallway toward our kids’ bedrooms and said something like: “Baby. One of these days, those kids are going to have to reconcile the fact that their community is under active assault by a man you support. Do you think they’re going to want to continue a relationship with you once they do that?” That gave him pause.

Being told his kids could (and possibly would) shut him out of their life honestly scared the shit out of him. So, I told him to stop listening to me and go talk to somebody in the LGBTQ community. Anybody. Go to the Sac LGBT center. Go to a gay bar. Go to the Merc, pay $3 for the strongest vodka cran you’ve ever tasted and chat up the bartender. Find people whose lives were actually being affected by the things he had opinions about and listen to them.

And, to his credit, he did. That part matters. I gave him a question he could no longer comfortably avoid. What happened next was his work. He went looking for people instead of arguments. He sought out conversations instead of trying to confirm his own bias. And when he started listening, something shifted.

He came home angry. Not angry at queer people. Angry because he realized how much of what he had believed had been built from fear, distance, and things he had been taught about people he did not actually know. That kind of realization can mess with you.

Sometimes growth is described like enlightenment is this serene little moment where you learn something new, take a deep breath, and become wiser. Sometimes you learn you were wrong and it pisses you off. You realize somebody gave you bad information. And sometimes that somebody is your own mother. You realize you defended something you would now reject. You realize people you trusted taught you to fear people who had done absolutely nothing to you. You realize your beliefs may have affected the people you love.

That can bring anger, grief, and even embarrassment. The important part is what you do next. My husband did not stop at feeling bad about what he had believed. His parenting changed. The way he talked about LGBTQ people changed. The way he responded to our kids changed. His politics changed. His tolerance for things he once would have ignored in extended family changed. By the time 2020 came around, he was not the same man politically or relationally that he had been four years earlier.

And I want to be careful here, because this is where stories about change can get too tidy. Changing your mind does not erase the years before you changed it. It gives you responsibility for what you do with the years after. That is where metanoia becomes meaningful.

Anybody can say, “I see things differently now.” But the real question is whether your behavior rearranges itself too. Do you speak differently? Do you vote differently? Do you protect differently? Do you challenge things you once let slide? Do your children experience you differently? That’s the part I watched happen in my husband. And I think that’s why this story matters so much to me.

Because parents are going to have moments when something their child tells them collides with something they believed for a long time. Maybe you believed being gay was a choice until your child came out. Maybe you thought gender was simple until your kid complicated that certainty. Maybe you thought ADHD looked one particular way until someone you love was diagnosed. Maybe you thought a relative was “just joking” until you saw your child go quiet after the joke. Maybe you have held a belief for decades because everyone around you held it too.

Then life puts a human being in front of that belief. And suddenly the furniture starts moving. You are allowed to let it move. You do not owe lifelong loyalty to something simply because you believed it for a long time. You are allowed to learn enough that an old belief becomes impossible to defend. You are allowed to say, “I understand this differently now.” And yes, there may be consequences attached to what came before. People may have been hurt. Relationships may need repair. An apology may be long overdue. Growth does not erase any of that. It DOES give you a chance to decide what happens next.

My husband did that work. I watched somebody I loved change his mind about things he once defended fiercely, and I watched that change alter the way he showed up for our kids. That matters more to me than whether he ever found the perfect words for what happened inside him. He became safer for them. He became more curious. He became willing to challenge people he once would have agreed with. And our kids got to experience the version of their father who did the work. I am very grateful for that.

So if something your child has told you is starting to rearrange your worldview, let it. You don’t have to put the room back the way it was. Maybe the room needed rearranging.

That’s all for now. For more, please visit rainbowrootsmedia.com. And don’t forget to take good care of yourself today.